Meet Leo Rayman, Founder & CEO of Eden Lab, a consultancy and venture studio helping make big companies more sustainable and sustainable companies much bigger.

Leo was also former CEO and CSO of ad agency Grey London, Founder of WPP start-up Grey Consulting and Domain Expert Adviser to Carbon13, the Cambridge and Berlin based venture builder for the climate emergency.

Things Leo talks about:

• How to make sustainability something that sparks imagination
• How 'green growth' can spark the positive power of business
• Why 'clean share of market' is essential to understand for customer risk
• EcoCapitalism

As you can see, Leo's got some fresh perspectives to offer the sustainability climate literacy conversation. So sit up, listen up and press play.

BWB is powered by Oury Clark.

Oh, thank you for having a pronounceable surname.

It's extremely kind of you.

It really is.

Now you're gonna pronounce it wrong, aren't you?

It's Rayman.

I mean, I can't Rayman Rayman.

Alright, uh, we ready?

We're doing it.

Hello and welcome to Business Without Bullshit.

I am Andy Orian, alongside me is the fabulous.

Pip.

Hi Andy.

And today we are joined by Leo Raymond.

Hello, Leon.

Thanks for having me.

Don't me to be here.

Very good.

My pleasure.

Welcome to the podcast.

Um, so Leon, uh, we Leo, sorry.

We can cut out.

Can Sweet.

Sorry, did I say it both times as well?

No, you we're okay the first time.

Oh, okay.

Thanks.

Leon's different, it's a different feel to it.

Sohow, Leon, I dunno.

Yeah.

Sounds a bit murdery.

Yeah, it's true In the film, the The Leon film.

Yeah.

Maybe the weird Exactly.

I think we're in the wrong emotional genre for my next question, but my next question is a serious one, which is what is keeping you up at night?

You know, when you have, so you've realized something and you kind of wish everyone else had realized it as well.

And so I look every day at thinking about, spend my entire day thinking about how do I help?

Use what skills I have and what skills you guys have to help us make this great transition to life after carbon happen.

And I'm kind of worried about the fact that there are too many people who just rather not look at it, not think about it.

Well, I think there are both of us that just have our hands over our eyes because it's easier really.

And I mean, maybe that's normal and human, but it's also kind of.

Terrifying and dangerous as well.

And I'm not, I'm really not, I'm not a sandal wearing sustainability person.

You'll see that as we go, but um, sure.

Yeah.

No sandals sand, they, these shoes that I've got outta the cupboard.

Okay.

Um, but I, and I, you know, I'm trying not to be worried about it, but I, and I'm not worried, but I do sort of see an amazing opportunity to do something a bit differently and think differently about it.

And there's like of us get into it.

Don't you think there's moments in the history of like the world where people suddenly started seeing things differently?

I keep thinking about, someone once told me about, this is gonna sound pretty crazy, but like, you know, someone once discovered perspective in art.

Yeah, suddenly these Italians started TAing in 3d.

It's called the Renaissances.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

But someone before that was all 2d, weren't they?

Yeah.

I know you love your history.

The early Renaissances.

Very good.

Why, well, how'd you get from like God makes that apple fall to maybe it might be gravity or how'd you go from like.

The way we've been living our lives and most of the way we grew up, uh, you know, our age to one after that, which is different.

I like your 2D to 3D example because 2D to 3d, the reason they moved from 2D to 3d, just as much as we moved from beat backs to, uh, you know, DVDs or whatever is, it's better.

Like, you know, coming along with your 2D pictures at the local market, when someone's cracked the 3d, you know, you'd be like, ah, look at Roger Forche.

You can't work it out.

No, no tech, no tech's got no debt with your cartoon Simpson cutout, you know, two-dimensional world.

It's not cutting it next to a sort of, you know, Spiral of death.

So, but here's our problem with climate change.

We don't know what that looks like.

And it are, we are scared.

Well, we sort of think it might be better eventually.

No, there's no one making that story.

No one's telling that story.

And I'm not a, like, I'm not a sort of utopian tech solve everything.

The world's bright and shiny other side.

I really don't think that, but I think that's the sort of psychological shift required.

And I can see that you spend your whole day.

In like one of those reporting jobs, measuring carbon footprint.

It's important, but we need to sort of know that that's where we start from.

Otherwise how can you change it?

But if it's on your whole day saying what you shouldn't do and getting upset about being frustrated, cuz no one is listening to you in the organization or your business you work in or, or you dunno how to do it yourself and you sort of feel a bit guilty about really, you sort of know what you should be doing, but you don't really know quite how, what all adds are.

I don't think anyone really knows what they should.

No, no.

They're not clear and, and nor am I necessarily, but.

I think there's that, it sort of leads you to a place of kind of quite a sort of broken dead end, and that's where we all are about it, but we could shift to thinking about it differently.

Do you not think part of the problem is that kind of fundamental and it's something to do with human nature, frankly, the inertia thing of somebody else.

I'm just one person.

I'm a little person.

Yeah.

Somebody else somewhere is gonna sort this out.

Somebody's gonna.

Solve it, and it's not gonna be me.

It's gonna be the governments of the world or whatever else.

I will just sit here and wait for the apple to fall from the tree and that, you know, that might happen, but it might be quite a while, and it'll get a lot more unpleasant before that starts to really kick in.

A very smart friend of mine says to me, actually, it's less about what you use yourself do in terms of your plastic recycling, which by the way, doesn't really make much difference at all relative to what's going on out there, but hey, we do it anyway.

Because it's good prac, good practice, but where, what's the lever you can pull most effectively?

So for you guys, for example, is using your podcast as a space to kind of have this conversation, the the most powerful thing you could do to affect the most number of people, most radically Dunno, that was one way of thinking about like systems change or whatever.

Well do you do, I mean, for us, we're advisors, you know, and I, this is.

Thought leadership apparently.

How dare you?

I mean, we're all vomiting into cups because it's a, it's a stereotype word, but effectively it's a shorthand for the fact that we, our thoughts need leadership.

I mean, you know, let's be real about it, like, It's a really complicated problem.

Yes.

We all have to work together.

That's true.

You know, we gotta, you, I, I didn't think you quite get to what you wanted to say, so I think we need to hear that because that, you know, you're leaning towards a more sort of optimistic mindset towards it.

But we know we gotta work together.

So my basic view on it is we will work together.

And it may be, it's just a question of how many of us are gonna die because you could plot a graph of human death versus humanity spending money and sorting out climate change.

And at some point it will hit.

Now I don't know if that's in the next 30 years or that's the next 200 years.

It could be and we could wipe ourselves out in the process.

Well, we might have wars, it might get worse.

No, I think it's more likely to be that my and who knows, none of us knows really.

And I'm not buying a, you know, myself, a villa in New Zealand to kind of cope with it, unfortunately.

But, And why would I?

But I think the most likely thing is kind of really intense versions of the things that are bad now happen more.

And there's a, there is a version of what happens next, which is much more inequality than now.

Not necessarily than what the journey of our experience was.

Like what?

Fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, whatever.

That things were getting sort of better.

Yeah.

But it's not necessarily true.

You think about immigration is a real challenge and people get very upset about it in the uk.

Imagine immigration when there's no water or nothing to eat.

Well, once the resource, we've been going in a direction of more and more resources.

No one wants to learn their standard of living.

You start shutting off resources.

People are gonna go mentally.

But you know, there was a period there, right?

Looking at the micro level, looking at the uk, there was, and you are gonna really hate me for this cause I do bang on about the same thing.

But there was a point.

About 13 years ago and 10 years before that when things really did seem to be getting better in the uk where we seemed to be dealing with poverty, dealing with immigration, dealing with all those things, not perfectly, but in a way that seemed to be moving in the right direction of frankly, well, the nineties and the naughties were really globally, two have the most successful, peaceful periods of history Now.

There was loads of war in the nineties particularly, although weirdly, we are probably sort of.

Blithely kind of enjoying it whilst sowing seeds of great challenge thereafter us, you know, have you heard that Nigel Farage apparently might be going out on a kind of net anti net zero position?

Have you heard, heard that stuff?

Oh, I dunno if that's true or not.

I think that's just because he, he's a narcissistic bastard.

But it's also indicative of like, there's a, there's someone's gotta pay.

Why should it be us?

And there's this sort of clash of.

There's always people from, and it is often like liberal, middle class type saying, we all gotta consume less la la, la.

And then someone else saying, well, who's gonna pay for that with climate change, if it requires mass change amongst people, both societies, Japan and, and probably Germany, these very compliance societies, yeah, they're miles ahead of us.

The Brits were a rebellious load of inventors.

And maybe that's maybe what we are leading there is that when you've gotta use invention, but please, what?

What, so this thing's bothering you.

It could be really bad.

Where, where now, and that's not, yeah, and that's not what dwells in my mind the whole time.

I'm not like sort of, but I've been thinking there's just not enough attempt to kind of reimagine a better future and start to make tracks towards that and help particularly help companies, businesses small and large see that there's a commercial upside in it.

How could you make good profit?

Create a great business that is dominant in the future because you've figured out how to have a clean share of market.

No one talks about a clean share of market, but they should.

What does it mean to have a share of market where you're using less carbon than the the next people?

That's what clean share of market means.

I made it up, but that's kind of the point.

Yeah, yeah.

But it, that's not a piece of language that's currently in circulation, but it should be because the clean share market companies should be the ones that win.

The expense of the dirty ones aren't changing their habits.

See, there's a lot, I mean, when I say there's a lot of greenwashing, I worked in cosmetics for 15 years and I, I, I mean, the whole thing is a lie.

You know?

It's selling gunk to the, you're not worth, worth it.

I mean, yeah, it's just, I mean, if you, okay, I'll tell you, if you don't believe me, you know, it says if people who got sensitive skiing, they all say to you, oh, well I only have anything.

Thing that's dermatologically tested and dermatology tested means you failed the dermatological tests Dermatologically approved, which is really hard to do by the way.

There's like three products on the market.

You do it, it means, yeah, you can apply it to all sorts of skins and you don't have a reaction.

So you learn these things early in the cosmetic industry and you're just like, oh, what I like are the adverts that say up to a hundred percent success rate, which presumably is anywhere between zero zero and, but there's a lot of green washing.

But underneath it, There's also a fucking army of people out there researching, controlling this shit.

And there is a movement of like what is, what is Caus calling bullshit literally, which is fitting for this show on the claims.

And there's a big thing going at the moment about ad claims or you know, product claims being being lies and stuff.

And that's really helpful to have that view, but it's also not a sort of, I don't think it can be a black or white kind of scenario cuz there's a sort of space in between now and next where it's gonna be quite gray for a while.

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Now back to the chat.

But let me understand you a little bit.

What's your background in it?

25 years in sales and marketing.

I mean, I was part of the problem, I suppose.

And then in terms of what are you doing exactly now?

You advised larger companies, two things.

I help big companies get more sustainable and small, sustainable companies get big.

So I'm working on both sides of the equation.

The reason I've done that is I've figured out right, I'm gonna take 5 million tons of carbon dioxide or covered out of the atmosphere in the next five years.

How am I gonna do it?

Oh, that's great.

So you set your, set yourself a target.

And partly because no one was doing that, they're all the people working in the space right now.

Either agencies, ad agencies making communications, but not knowing enough about it.

And so they greenwash usually by accident, to be honest.

Mm-hmm.

Or it's kind of people working and reporting and pledging and kind of doing carbon footprinting, which is important, but it doesn't tell you so what to do next.

As led of PR firms, you know these guys, they're doing narrative design, but I'm not sure narrative designs are gonna save us.

What we need is a more fundamental rethink about how are you gonna make money tomorrow?

In a way, it's not gonna kill everyone or your own kids or your own family, your own communities.

So as a marketing person or a consultant by background, I guess I know how to.

Drive aspiration and shape behavior and think about how you take an organization on that journey.

Yeah.

To be sort of brutal about you is a discipline.

He's a very intelligent man.

So, you know, I'm, I'm I, I, I, you know, I you are advice, but as in on a basic disciplines, marketing on a border sense, you know, would that be marketing, marketing innovation?

Because everyone misunderstands that word.

I know.

I'm head of marketing and the firm, which is great job.

Everyone thinks I'm head of sales, but you know, uh, I forget, I'm, you don't call it, I end up doing PR half the time, but really I'm a market, you know?

But marketing is this big word because it is really, as you say, it's, it's the fundamental link between.

Who is your market?

Why do they want to buy it, and what is it?

And so you are saying take a more optimistic, positive approach to say your duty and your market is to make this thing like without pissing off anyone you know?

And a hundred percent.

And there's a thing, have you heard of this thing called the.

Say do gap.

If you ever get into this space, you read about it a lot, right?

People say they want that.

That's, I'm gonna teach my kids say do very much, but let's just not say do gap.

You do, as I say, I do as I please say, do gap.

That's a much better version.

You know, there's a real tone in how you're approaching this conversation where I think it's really important.

It's that it's not to dramatize things.

It's like, you know, I, I've been in business, I don't judge people for the fact that.

They want to build a t-shirt company that makes super ethical t-shirts, but in order to promote the company, they brought some t-shirts from China, you know, made by, in a, in a sweat factory cheap, because that's what they have to do when they're starting

the, you know, basically green washing is mostly because you have to cut corners when you're a small business and no, nobody really knows so, And then you are taking the big company example, which is like, I'm not this fucking enormous supplier of services.

That's, you know, there are replacements of plastics.

Sure.

But they're not that well tested.

There aren't that many of them.

They are more expensive.

It's complicated to enter your supply chain.

I mean, you've got Unilever producing a billion bottles a day.

They can't just switch to hemp bottles that, you know, no one's tested properly or, but one thing, one thing we can't have though is, is big companies not.

Taking it on as a real challenge and not thinking creatively or lashing number one.

A number one on list and it's the whole, um, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't go.

Yeah, yeah.

We haven't tested any of these things.

We dunno how to do any of these things so we'll just carry on doing well.

And also cuz it's a lot easier just to kind of, not make too much change in your regular life cuz it's too painful.

But that's why I want to work with, and I do work with very small startups that might, if they're lucky, have an exponential impact on the, on the thing.

Yeah.

Because.

We can't necessarily wait for some big people to get their heads together.

We also need to kind of tie back both sides of the equation, hoping that I'll work out one way or the other, which is the right one to go for, to get to my 5 million target.

Talking about you and sustainability and how much you care about people, actually, not just measuring it, but doing something about it.

We haven't actually mentioned Eden Labs and what they do, so I built this company.

It's about, I'll say about five months old.

Um, it's rocking.

It's really going.

And what we're doing is helping big and small companies work out how to make money green.

Basically, how you're gonna grow your business and, and succeed in a world of, you know, where net zero is normal, where as there is a post carbon world somewhere down the line.

So let's start on it now and what does it look like?

For example, how'd you help a giant tour operator or a tour operator holiday company build a sustainable travel marketplace?

There are small companies in some amazing stuff.

By the way, one called byways, let's call it byway, is quite interesting and like slow travel by how you spell that.

B Y W A Y.

So, so gimme an example in more detail.

Like you go into a business, you sit with them, you listen to what they're saying, and then what you write.

Write them a report.

You bring in other people.

Yeah, we work together.

I sort of use, I usually inspire them with, look, here's some examples of people that are getting it right.

Big and small, what would that mean for you?

So here's a small one.

There's a brilliant, brilliant, um, electric toothbrush company called Siri, S u r I try siri.com as a website.

I recommend it.

In fact, I went to my hygienist today, said it was doing a brilliant job.

Right here isn't, I think I might have one of those.

How can an nuri not have a sury?

I mean, hey.

Yeah, you need it.

I mean, so what they've done is they've said they used to work in like p and g and stuff.

They know all that well, but what they've done is they've said, right, we're gonna redesign the toothbrush head to be compostable.

It's made out of castor royal bristles.

It feels great, by the way, in your mouth.

It's much nicer than the nasty big company ones.

Then they have designed it so that you can take the battery out when it dies, cuz the other ones, most ones, you can't take the battery out.

So you sort of literally, it's in every toothbrush you ever had is in landfill.

Yeah, nice thought.

These guys, they can take it out and refurb it, put it back in so you can have the same toothbrush effectively forever.

And, but this is the critical thing.

It's, imagine if Johnny, ive.

Swallow the sustainability Bible and then decided to go after circular electric toothbrushes.

That's what it looks like and feels like to you.

So it's also way better than the sort of aggressive thing you normally use.

Amen.

Even, you know, there's, um, another client we're working with is those guys that mate those amazing mattresses that you get delivered off the internet, you know, oh, I'm just about to buy one of those.

From?

Can I?

Not now?

Well, there are some ones around.

I was thinking, so did you know it's made out of oil?

Which one?

Which one?

Which one are you getting?

Emma.

But those guys are trying timber particular, trying to move away from an oil-based formulation, reducing it.

Getting into Biola.

You're basically telling me I can't buy mattress.

No, but do you think that idea that like if I was really mean, I'd say.

How's it feel sleeping on fossil fuel?

Like I'm not into it.

I think this is a lot like the digital transformation of the last 20 years is a much bigger and much more important, which is there were some people who kind of got on it, learned about it.

Got confident and moved forward in their lives and there were some that kind of were scared, didn't want to engage, and 20 years later they couldn't find work.

This is gonna be exactly the same.

Is it mostly an age thing though, do you think?

No.

It's an attitude thing.

It's like, what's your psychology?

Are you kind of able to embrace and deal with change?

Are you terrified of it?

Probably.

Is it not a financial thing?

Everyone says I, well, I often look at, it annoys me.

I go to the supermarket and looking like the.

Kitchen roll you can buy.

Right.

And the, the eco one is more expensive than the regular one.

Yeah.

And I guess it's to do with scale and the factory or something.

It's so like, that won't be like that in the future, but for now it's a massive pain in the ass.

That's a great firm.

Do you know, um, homewares retailer, dun Elm?

I think it's a really good example of how you get this, right?

Right.

So their view is we are gonna encourage our customers who are doing sort of home makeover to bring the stuff they can't get rid of.

Back to the store.

Now you might say that's Norian, meaning Home Makeover in the first place.

If you're a pure sustainability person, you wouldn't do that.

But nonetheless, people are gonna do it.

And as a hassle, the convenient thing is to take it to Dun Elm and you're playing on the sheer convenience of getting rid of your rubbish.

Two things then happen.

One is if it's good enough, they then give it to local communities.

And if it isn't good enough, they kind of then put into remanufacturing and turn it back into pillars, which they're all cushions or whatever, and then they sell it in their stores.

But at a.

Reduce price so that people can afford to buy it.

It's the same price as the new.

That's good.

It's, it's, well, it's interesting cuz it's circular, you know, keeping stuff in the economy and it's also good for the good for social impact.

That's just sort of double win.

My issue with that, oh, not my issue.

Like the problem with that is that creative steps like that are quite hard.

You know, there's not many people who can do it, and you also need to be in the right place to do it.

I they're gonna listen to you, you know?

Uh, we are not too bad.

The Americans are quite good, but some cultures it's like, well, you ain't the boss.

Yeah.

You know, no one's listening.

You know, and actually that, yeah, that's the, there's definitely something there, which is the, a lot of people working in sustainability roles and companies the last 20 years have really been like banging their heads on a door.

People don't wanna listen.

Yeah.

Cuz they're too junior.

Too junior.

Often there's a thing, which I definitely is curious, that there's women trying to persuade old white men to listen to 'em at board level.

Ah, don't tell me.

Here we go.

Do you know what I mean though?

No, it's a bit, I do know what you mean.

Yes.

Of that going.

I think there probably is, and there's, but also it's that there's a bunch of skills about how you persuade people to get excited about doing something, which is about setting vision, showing what's possible, getting excited, talking about money and commerce.

And it's really high when you're also worrying about changing the lights out for LEDs and who's the power supplier and the, so I feel very sad.

I feel sorry and sad for, cause I've been working relentlessly for a long time and getting, finding it really hard to persuade.

The rest of the firms take it on, but it's time to build the bridge between those, those sort of two camps.

You know, if I, if I've got anything from this conversation, it's, it's that you're kind of saying to people, you know, if I was to say to a smaller, medium business, what, what should I be doing?

It's like, well, Take a day, take your senior management, get in a freaking room and get a piece of paper and come up with something.

You know, this is some serious fucking shit going on.

If you are a manufacturer, work it out.

If you're not a manufacturer, it's all a bit, oh, we work for home and whatever.

It's like still take a room, you know, and sort, you know, do something about, just spend the first part of that day, whatever you're doing, looking at examples of people who are trying and getting it right.

So Leo, uh, what do you think is bullshit in business?

What is the thing that winds you up most or where you would like change about the way things work right now?

I think like thinking about sustainability solely as reporting and pledging and making out excuses for not doing anything practical and optimistic about it.

Yes, look, it's important.

We have to ha we have to understand that and not denying that work, but it ain't gonna.

Pledging us, pledging ourselves into oblivion.

You know what I'm saying?

Do you know where this is?

Do something the equivalent of as an entrepreneur, don't go to professional advisors when you're coming up with the idea that's insane.

And ask them, you know what I mean?

It's like professional vi.

We're very useful people, but don't necessarily a, you know, if you come to us, we're gonna tell you.

Problems and we're gonna tell you complications.

You know what I mean?

Let's got thinking.

Yeah.

Right.

But I'm not, I'm not saying do stuff wildly because you might be making things worse.

You've gotta have a bit of science behind you.

But it's just, if you all, you spend your whole time thinking about like the numbers I've gotta report to the city.

And that's sort of made up that that's a bit not company thing.

That's a big company thing.

And it's like there's too much lies.

Okay, so this, we're gonna ask you a list of questions.

This is our quickfire questions and we're gonna get to know you a little better.

You only have five seconds to answer each.

We are not gonna interrupt you.

We probably will interrupt you, but we are gonna stop each other.

We're gonna interrupt each other, interrupting each other, mutually assured interruption, and then we're gonna get to the end.

We may ask you a question or two.

Thank you.

The music.

Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Let's go.

What was your first job?

Uh, I worked in ad sales for the European now defunct newspaper.

I sort of vaguely remember that.

What was your worst job?

Working as a porter and a medical publisher carrying magazines around.

I've seen some dark stuff.

It was Nazi favorite subjects at school.

Uh, history.

What's your special skill?

Um, infusing people.

Oh.

What did you wanna be when you grew up?

Astronaut.

Oh, that's my dad wanted.

What did your parents want you to?

A lawyer.

Same shit.

Best job ever.

They're both, they're both fucking up.

Upper tree.

What's your go-to karaoke song?

Um, toxic though.

Britney.

It's good.

We might get into that later.

She put on the pinny tails and everything.

If you the Mark Robs version.

I love that version.

That's what inspired me.

Oh, that's great.

I find it.

Faux irony.

Um, office dogs.

Why's he got a hundred percent business?

Thank you, man.

Have you ever been fired?

No, I haven't Actually not knowing.

So far yourself?

Yeah.

What's your vice?

Uh, I, I love television.

Ooh.

I had three or four series in parallel during Christmas.

One's to sleep two and a couple to watch.

Uh, so you got 30 seconds.

What's your pitch for your company?

Or, well, anything you want, you can sell your dog if you want.

I don't have one.

Uh, Eden lab.

We are the Green Growth Accelerator.

We're gonna help make companies more sustainable and make money doing it, and that's how we're gonna move the transition forward.

Be part of that with us.

Www eden lab singular.co boom.

And where can people find you?

In person?

Well, no, I've probably LinkedIn.

LinkedIn.

I'm a big LinkedIn player.

Pub.

Yeah.

Only, uh, LinkedIn is like my, uh, platform of choice at the moment.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

So there you have it.

That was this week's episode of Business Without Bullshit.

And we'll be back with Bwb Extra on Thursday.