
Katherine Ann Byam brings people to think about sustainability, the after-effects connected to small choices, and reimagining capitalism. Katherine is the founder and CEO of Dieple, a data-driven consultancy firm that helps companies with their triple bottom line to thrive with purposeful, sustainable work. The initiative values creating the capacity for people to transition and come up with ideas. She is also the host of the podcast Where Ideas Launch, a podcast for sustainable innovators. As an innovator herself, Katherine uses her work to actively participate in shifting the culture of entrepreneurial sustainability.
Companies benefit from Dieple’s ability to smoothly transition from stage to stage in their process. Katherine shares how they work with a company to structure the approach to making changes, how to reposition teams to look to the future, and how to start positioning the company to be more competitive later on. Important changes should be handled with care as society is shifting toward more sustainability. While speaking, Katherine mentions that there is definitely a pivot from consumers to looking at the values behind their brands before they purchase. Granted, it’s not every consumer, but she definitely sees it trending that way.
Katherine goes over the main aspects businesses should ask themselves about to align with better sustainability. She also calls for businesses and social entrepreneurs to rethink how the solutions and concerns are viewed. Solutions, such as renewable energy, are a hybrid of a solution and a concern as Katherine explains. Despite the energy being renewable, she points out that the materials or processes for the solutions are still usually based on fossil fuels. Katherine gives examples of work done for consents such as carbon and explains the benefits of a blended approach to implementing solutions that create a positive impact in more than one area.
Social entrepreneurs, and the public, are presented with the challenge to reimagine what capitalism could look like, but doing so can be difficult when many aren’t prepared to reimagine it. Katherine describes what being a little bit better could mean for businesses and consumers. Instead of changing everything at once, she focuses on the idea of smaller changes in the actions people are already doing. Building better actions require more mindfulness, and Katherine believes part of the process includes being mindful of the different layers of actions; almost the same as tracking a ripple or web of effects.
People, in general, are the ones who decide who’s going to represent our interests, which works best when we take responsibility for our future by making better choices. However, this often leads to decision fatigue. Thoughts of tracking all the layers of sustainability can be draining. Katherine talks through suggestions for addressing decision fatigue, measuring impact, and following current innovations for inspiration. Not everyone realizes the value of the change that’s needed in order for the planet to survive and thrive. Starting with individual curiosity, then sharing, allows for a natural influence to flow through society to those that resonate with the impact.
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[00:00:00] Adam: Welcome to People Helping People, the podcast to inspire greater social change and give you ideas on how to take action. I'm your host, Adam Morris. I'm excited today to be speaking with Katherine Ann Byam, founder and CEO of Dieple, Digitally Enabling People. They provide sustainable solutions, helping companies with their triple bottom line to thrive with purposeful sustainable work.
She is also the host of the podcast Where Ideas Launch a podcast for the sustainable innovator, exploring innovation in sustainability.
So, Katherine, welcome on the podcast.
[00:00:50] Katherine: It's such a pleasure to be here and thank you for having me.
[00:00:53] Adam: Yeah. I'm excited. Can we start off, can you tell us a little bit about Dieple and how that started?
[00:00:59] Katherine: Dieple was a bit of a brain child of mine that in 2016 in terms of the idea germinating. I was doing my MBA in France, in Grenoble, and we had a career day and someone came in to share with us how he was managing his career in the innovation space. And he told us that he would spend three weeks of his time with startups, basically helping them with all the support, things that they need.
Advice. Being sort of like an angel. And then he would spend one week of his time with big companies whose starting intrepreneurship ventures. So internal innovation in their firms to help them guide that process for them. And he thought, what a clever, solution like what a great way to spend your time.
And I thought to myself, I wanted to do something like this. I wanted to create a business that can help small businesses to grow, but also sustainable businesses to grow. So in 2019, I think it was, I left my big corporate job and decided to start this startup with my partner who is a data scientist and a former CIO. And we started to shape what this organization would be. Uh, A bit of data science working on the sort of information and info, analytic side of things. And me working on the human side of things. And it's just blown up from there.
[00:02:25] Adam: Neat. Can you share a little bit about what your ideal clients are like?
[00:02:29] Katherine: So we work with SMEs and these are companies just a little bit smaller than the ones that will go on the FTSE stock exchange. For example, who are in the manufacturing space typically. But also some are service type organization. So they may be providing, let's say accounting services or supply chain services.
And the idea that we have is first starting with the optimization. We look at how we can optimize their process. So my partner has developed a process mining solution that we use to help us with the information. But once we've mapped all of that and we understand where the opportunities are. Then we work with the organization to structure how they go about making changes, how they reposition their teams to look to the future and how they start positioning themselves to be more competitive later on.
But thinking about it, The wider concerns rather than just the one bottom line. So this whole idea of the triple bottom line is really important to that work. One of the reasons that I was passionate about doing this as well is that I kind of realized that a lot of big organizations where I used to work, for example, we're continuously on the sort of reorganization pattern. And I started to think, there's a huge social issue. That's just brewing under the surface everywhere. And as AI comes on stream, as we get more digital in the world, this is going to become a real problem. So we need to find solutions for the social problem while which still trying to find solutions for the climate and often, everyone talks about what's going wrong with the climate. Very few of us talk about the real social side of the story, which is why I'm really pleased to be on your podcast because it's about people.
[00:04:22] Adam: That's awesome. So what sort of work are you seeing people do around social issues.
[00:04:28] Katherine: So at the moment I've had such a wide array of experiences. Now, both with the podcast and with the work that we do, one of the things that I'm doing at the moment is I'm volunteering thing with local chamber of commerce. To help SMEs with shaping the let's, call them the signpost to point them in the right direction of where they need to look for resources, et cetera.
But what really being pushed in the UK at the moment is this net zero and energy efficiency. So there have been solutions that I've seen, that has come up with an idea to um, The sunlight, how it hits certain roofs. To see to the city, which one of these roofs should be the ones that host the solar panels.
That's really a clever solution. The other startup that I've been talking to, she's working on a solution to be able to test your website. As an entire website to not just one page, but to be able to assess your whole website quality terms of its carbon contribution and give you immediate feedback, things like this.
So these have been exciting sort of startup ideas that have come out of the work that I'm doing with the chamber. They're great. They're great things that, we can implement, um, with the sort of traditional companies there aren't ideas like that, it's really at the moment getting in place a team.
To start looking to the future. So it's about creating the capacity for people to start moving into that space, because right now, the typical excuse that you get is that We're busy with getting the day to day job done. So creating that space for people to actually go away and think about these solutions, to create the environment for employees to, to come up with ideas.
I read a book by one of the guests on my podcast, and he was saying in that book that actually it's employees who come up with the great ideas, all of the great innovations in the world. Come from employees and not necessarily the founders. So as much as we look at Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and think how amazing and incredible they are as entrepreneurs the food behind that, isn't always them and creating and fostering an environment for that to thrive is so essential to the future we want to create.
[00:06:43] Adam: Got it. Now I'm curious, you mentioned for SMEs quite often, they, use the excuse of I'm. I'm just too busy, doing my daily job. Have you found anything that resonates with them to focus on efforts outside of just profits.
[00:06:58] Katherine: The things that tend to resonate. Is the impact on their own bottom lines, actually. even when you want to get people to look at the triple bottom line, you have to start with their bottom line, extrapolating the future. If we don't address the social bit, they're not going to have the customers that buy their products.
It's almost that simple. So the real fire behind everything at the moment is looking. The wider context of how they're going to continue to survive because SMEs, they're at risk of being eaten up by bigger players, Amazon so much expansion in the last year, for example. I remember last, I think it was September.
There was a notification on LinkedIn about Amazon creating 7,000 new jobs in the UK. And there was such an uproar from people. How can we celebrate Amazon creating 7,000 new jobs when it's taken away the entire high street, et cetera. And this is the kind of thing that people are starting to realize.
One, if they don't get digital savvy, they're not going to survive, but two, if they don't get innovative, they also won't survive.
[00:08:07] Adam: So they almost feel that pressure to change and adapt to, just ways people are naturally changing on how they want to interact with products and other things that they purchase.
[00:08:19] Katherine: Yeah, it's also a very clear trend. If you look at all the research and as some of them do, I won't say all, but some of them do look at the research. There is definitely a pivot from consumers to looking at the values behind their brands before they purchase.
It's not every consumer, but it's definitely trending that way.
And one of the great stories that I like to tell about the experience I've had in the last year, one of my friends, he has a Facebook group called. Sustainable living. And when he started that group, it was 2014. It was very modest. It grew to 3000 people by let's say March, 2020 after the pandemic hit, that group massively grew to 75,000 people by September, 2020, it's currently 85,000 people. It just shows the shared interest and how the pandemic allowed people to reflect and think about how they wanted to live their lives. I live in a flat and one of the worst parts about living in a flat in this pandemic is no outdoor space, right? You have no balcony to go out on, you have no grass to stand in.
It was fine before. But now I hate it. And I think that's happened to a lot of people, a certain reflection on the quality of the life that you live and whether it's actually making the difference that you wanted to make.
[00:09:47] Adam: That's very interesting. Just the effect of the pandemic and people's chance to step back and reflect on what they want in that life and start to make changes.
[00:09:56] Katherine: Yeah, exactly. So What brands are doing now and have you seen the messaging is starting to shift and change. And I saw just this week, Tiffany got into trouble because they had an ad that said, you know, this is not your mother's Tiffany And people were really upset about that because, the messages about recycled clothes and, vintage and that whole side of. Of this sustainable picture's growing, right? This whole circulate economy piece. And when the brand puts out a message like that, it's counter to everything that we're trying to build now.
So they had a huge backlash about that.
[00:10:33] Adam: Oh, that's fascinating. How, companies are starting to see that effect.
[00:10:37] Katherine: That's the ones that you can target very easily, but you know, the small brands are starting to realize that their messaging can be tailored as well. So especially now that you look at how supply chains have been impacted by the pandemic as well, and localization has become a new topic, right?
So the whole redundancy and supply chains means. We could potentially have a space where local players take up a bit more space. So if they're prepared for, for the mass, that that will come their way, you know, they can find ways to continue to survive, but we need to be more strategic in our approach.
We need to be more interconnected in our decision-making. So it's no longer, one department versus the other department. We really need to move the silos and start thinking about the bigger picture of what we're designing.
[00:11:29] Adam: So if we dive in a little bit to an SME and just look at improvements they can make in sustainability, what areas do people typically look at?
[00:11:39] Katherine: B Corp probably gives you the best roadmap to start looking at ways to start changing. So B Corp, looks at your contracts with your employees, with your contractors, et cetera. It looks at, terms and conditions, environmental health, and safety. it looks also at How you're planning, how far you're planning in advance, et cetera.
And all of these things are key ingredients to helping SMEs understand or have a kind of place in the sand of where we are today and what we need to do to improve. So the B-Corp assessment is actually free. So you can do your own self assessment for free. They don't certify you unless you pay, but it's a good starting point.
And it's what I recommend that all my customers start with to get a feel for the direction of travel, because it captures all the big, the key essence of the 17 sustainable development goals. And that really helps too to contextualize. So the ones that I've seen really making steps they've started with B Corp.
They've started with looking at this assessment
[00:12:47] Adam: So when it comes down to sustainability are those issues that are mostly in energy efficiency or supply chain or are there certain areas that are, have a more significant impact on sustainability than others?
[00:13:00] Katherine: Difficult question to answer. definitely energy. Is the biggest topic because it has the biggest carbon footprint and impact even the sustainable, what let's call them, the renewable sources of energy that we use do still have the carbon footprint because, the materials coming from oil as well.
The blades of the wind farms, et cetera, coming from the attraction of fossil fuels. There's a lot still to be done in terms of the tech behind these renewable solutions, because we need to stop taking carbon out of the ground. We really need to stop completely getting to net zero actually implies something that I don't know that everybody understands and it implies being able to take it from the atmosphere as well.
Whereas all solutions today or the way we articulate solutions today tends to be okay. Let's still produce cars, but let's just make them electric. But no, that's not enough because cause is still usually fossil based. you know, the, the production process still requires fossils and, yes, we have the batteries, but then the batteries creates an issue as well on the environment.
There are a number of things that we need to do, but we tend to take. The simple approach of, we can just do everything we're doing today, but we just do it smarter and better. But now we need to also take out of the atmosphere. And this is where one of my clients actually, he is account farmer and he is building kelp farms in the oceans around the UK. To help with this problem of extracting carbon, because kelp grows so much faster than trees and the, you can also have another use case for the kelp once you've harvested it, which is that you can feed it to cattle and sheep, et cetera. And then it changes the chemistry of their farts. just a great positive benefit. So types of solutions, we need a blended approach. And I guess that's a summary. We need a blended approach to addressing and getting to net zero because net zero implies that some things will be positive still and some negative. And in reality, we need to be more negative because we need to reverse what's already happening.
[00:15:20] Adam: You read my mind with that, because I was very curious when you said we have to take it out of the atmosphere.
Exactly what that meant. And that's interesting that there are people working on that. Is there any sense of like how much attention needs to be put on reducing the carbon that's already in the atmosphere.
Kelp farming is really neat. That's something that can be done.
[00:15:40] Katherine: Actually kelp, isn't the only thing, right? I think bamboo also grows quicker than trees. And so replacing the paper that we produce with bamboo instead is a more friendly approach. Although you have to be careful about how you're producing that bamboo in and converting it into paper, because that can also cause an issue with affluent and the water systems, et cetera.
So I guess the, the real big picture of all of this is that we really need to connect to our thinking across everything. So you have to challenge yourself on every single layer of your supply chain, every single layer of your business process, to make sure that you're thinking about the most sustainable way to do it while still accomplishing the goals for the business, because let's face it, businesses exist to make some sort of return for its owners.
And we still need to factor that in. For now until we get to a point where we can produce things or we create such a regenerative system that we don't need profit. I don't know if it will ever happen. Maybe that's a pipe dream, but you know, if, if, if the activists have their way, that would be the direction of travel that we go on.
But I don't know that the activists will have their way.
[00:17:03] Adam: The way society is we're very consumption, driven, and the whole. The essence behind capitalism is that businesses are measured on their profit and they make more profit by selling more services, more stuff more things which typically means environmental impact and slowing down that need and changing that dynamic so that it's Know the way we live and consume and interact with business and stuff is just much better for the planet.
[00:17:34] Katherine: Yeah. It's definitely a challenge to reimagine what capitalism could look like, especially when many aren't prepared to reimagine it. The other thing is this whole idea of nations, right? This also creates a challenge because we know we're now faced with a problem that is global by nature. We also faced with digital solutions that are global in nature.
So part of the challenge is that we have global problems that affect every nation equally. Well, to be fair, some nations are impacted worse than others, but we need solutions that are global. We have a digital infrastructure now that is global. We have technology that's game changing that is being deployed globally.
And then we have space travel and all of these things that are happening.
[00:18:27] Adam: Okay.
[00:18:28] Katherine: We need to be able to make decisions at a global level. And this is why the UN it exists, but at the same time, we continue to act locally and not necessarily joint up in cohesion with each other. So for example, what's happening in Brazil is a problem, right? The Amazon rainforest, as I understand it, like I read an article in the last couple of weeks, it said that it actually has tipped into a net carbon creator. Because of how much Savannah fication has happened with the farming that's happening in all the clearing of the land, et cetera, or at least in some parts of it, so there's a lot that's happening, but we need to find ways to correct. And maybe it's not correct as in the Amazon, maybe we can rebalance what's happening in the Amazon somewhere else, but who's going to take those coals. And who's going to support those decisions. And, now where we're struggling with that decision-making power, because in 2015, that was cop 21.
When we made these huge commitments to the planet, when the UN 17 sustainable development goals was basically written after 2015 CRP 21, and we still haven't done a lot to move ourselves forward. We haven't done enough. So to me, COVID in a way has helped us because it's accelerated the rate of digital transformation.
It's accelerated the awareness of people, but it's still not enough. So we need to really figure out how to get nations working together in unison for one common objective and, we are the ones who have that power, right? We are the ones who choose our leaders. We are the ones who decide who's going to represent our interests, and we need to take that sort of responsibility.
[00:20:17] Adam: I really like this approach that you're taking of saying, Hey, wait a minute.
The companies that, we, we purchase from, if we can use our spending dollars as influenced to say, this is the values that we want to come through in the companies that we purchase from that can impact companies to make decisions in a much more positive
[00:20:36] Katherine: Certainly companies have a big role to play in all of this, companies have a big role to play nations, have a big role to play, and we consumers have a big role to play. Getting all of that joint up and working together. It's definitely a challenge. But we need to keep trying, and this is why podcasts like yours podcasts like mine and the movement that's happening on Instagram, everywhere with influences as well.
It's important. These conversations are really important.
[00:21:06] Adam: What are some of the cool stories that you've explored on your podcast, Where Ideas launch.
[00:21:12] Katherine: So I've had a few people come in that really exciting ideas from small ones to really big ones. Just recently I had a chat with a lady in India who wants to bring back some old or teasing, teasing, old type things. And she was explaining to me how planning to use blockchain to help validate the supply chain for artisanal products. So there are only two families that can do this particular craft that she's working on and she wanted to use blockchain to help them be able to sell their products and trace their products so that consumers know that this is really coming from these families.
And it is really authentic. This one local area. So that was a really original story. Another one was, uh, surplus. So this is a brand in she designed her product to be like a milkman for your beauty products. So she will drive around when bottles were bottles. Beauty product and leave it on your doorstep and then collect your empties and take it back and recycle it.
And actually her original plan was to this with hotels. So her original business case was to do that replacement of items with hotels, but because of COVID, she couldn't do that. So she decided to drive around London, inside in her little van. And another story who. Organized to collect, um, in cartridges from homes.
Typically in an office space, you recycle your in cartridges, but for home use, you just dump them in the bin. And what she did was she set up deals with a few supermarkets, et cetera, so that people drop their ink cartridges and in these boxes. And then she would come and collect them and recycle them. And it's able to pay for. Does the cost of doing the supply chain part of it, because you can reuse those cartridges and also it's not damaging the environment anymore. So it's, there are lots of people doing small to big things to make a difference and an impact. And it's always great to, to hear their stories.
[00:23:13] Adam: And that's awesome to be able to share those as well. One, because quite often with people who are starting an initiative that's making an impact getting the word out and spreading that. Critical. So just being able to share that and encourage others to share the things that are working really well is really important to you to creating change.
[00:23:32] Katherine: Absolutely. I also have a group called women in sustainable business and we are now 3000 women, men, and gender non-specified people. And it's a great community because we share ideas. We share what's happening in our businesses. We ask each other questions and we support each other through some of the bigger decisions that we need to make. Uh, so it's a really great space as well. And it's been growing pretty nicely last year as well. So this is also giving a feeling of hope
[00:24:03] Adam: What sort of conversations do you have in that space?
[00:24:05] Katherine: usually around, around marketing and how we're messaging. So it's quite a challenge to find the right tone to. Convert a consumer who is aware, but not willing to give up their way of life. So finding the right messages, finding the ways to make it easier for consumers to is always something.
The group is interested in. We do have some people who are building software as a solution. So building the next Amazon, everybody wants to build for green businesses. But also there is another clever idea from one of my clients who is building a subscription box.
Yeah. you don't have to worry about where you're your soaps and shampoos. Like one of the problems is that I have African hair and I can't use just any shampoo. So I don't want to take the risk of using a shampoo, the horror SOPA, that I don't know how it works. and finding someone who can give you the solutions and then you're able to implement it to not create plastic waste.
For example is brilliant.
[00:25:08] Adam: Fascinating. It's one thing I like about this supportive communities is that quite often there's so much that we can do and it can get very overwhelming quickly. What I've seen with a lot of people is that they will start small. Something will pull them in and they'll get excited about it and that will lead them to something else or conversation that takes them a little bit further.
[00:25:29] Katherine: Yeah, I think one of the, one of the biggest risks that sustainable entrepreneurs face is that we have this huge weight of decision fatigue because you don't trust. The brand you want to check and validate everything to make sure that what you're seeing stands up, because you're, you're standing on your own platform and saying, I'm against plastic or I'm against meat or whatever is you're against.
And then you don't want to end up sanctioning something that doesn't represent your values. So I think there's a lot of decision fatigue that goes through the process of starting a sustainable business. You have the guilt. Of. Trying to make money as well off of this business, because you need, you still need money to operate in the society that we have.
And until you go to the point of real minimalism, and I've seen people do this, but until he goes to the point of real minimalism Yeah.
To raise revenue from your efforts, otherwise you won't pay for your house. You wouldn't pay for the things that putting out in the world. So all of these things weigh on the conscious entrepreneur and having a support system is what my group does as well.
[00:26:44] Adam: I liked what you said about having decision fatigue, because I think as you get further into it, you start questioning everything and, I think that's really critical of just understanding that there's communities people can connect with to support on this journey that you don't have to figure it out all on you.
[00:27:00] Katherine: Yeah, I think mental health has become such a big topic as well in the last year. This is what I've seen as well in the community. And it's, there's, there's a need to protect your mental health as you develop your business and, and definitely through COVID when, you know, kind of some types of commerce really slowed, right? So, you know, waiting, waiting out that period and having the courage to continue because you believe in your path, how do you believe you can find a way. You know, being reminded of that and having a group of people who are doing the same thing really helps instead of just being there on your own.
[00:27:35] Adam: If you're changing a lifestyle completely or starting as a sustainable business, that is brand new for society. That's hard work. And it's hard for any entrepreneur or any freelancer. But I think when you've got this extra weight on your shoulder of making things that have a better social impact It's a little bit more difficult to compete with a regular entrepreneur in the sense that you have additional costs.
If you have a triple bottom line and you're really implementing that, then that means at some point you're going to sacrifice some of your profits in order to have an even bottom line with the impact that you're making or the environmental effect of whatever you're doing.
[00:28:18] Katherine: Yeah, no, it's really important. And I think one of, the challenges, I always go back to data. One of the challenges is that when never really clear on how to measure that impact, for example, many people don't even know that, you know, their website should be lighter or, you know, white backgrounds burn more energy than dark backgrounds or things like this, yeah.
It takes a bit of research and everything to even know what your impact is. We described this triple bottom line, but it's so difficult to measure still. And it's one of the challenges I think we also face, but the good news is that there are more and more of us every day.
[00:28:58] Adam: So for an SME company that does want to make change, what sort of data do they need in order to really get some effective results?
[00:29:08] Katherine: So the first thing would be assess your energy consumption, whether you're using a provider that is 100% renewable or not just understand the facts really, as one of the things, look at your websites and your sort of site copy. Look at your supply chain to do an assessment of your supply chain.
Look at your suppliers, have criteria for your suppliers. There's another thing that's included in the B Corp assessment.
Also looking at your written supply chain. We talk about the circular economy, but looking at what's happening to your product and its afterlife and making the changes in the production process that you need to give the product and extended afterlife.
If that's something that you need to do. Or looking at the business models that you have to give the products and extended afterlife. So for example, maybe doing a sort of rent and refurb washing machines and dishwashers and stuff like this Also looking at connecting with suppliers who are doing the afterlife care. Let's call it that too. For example, in the UK, there's a company called Terra cycle that takes plastic and produces benches. You know, so things like this are important for companies to understand what's actually happening. What responsibility, am I taking, for the things that I'm producing.
How am I communicating that responsibility with my consumers? How am I helping my consumers to make better end of life decisions about the things that I'm selling to them.
[00:30:41] Adam: I like that example of Terra cycle too, because there's just a really. Great company. That is one communicating how they're doing it, but an example for what other companies can do as well. And I found this, that in Definitely in the world that B Corp's companies that are really paying attention to their impact and reporting on it, tend to be great champions for the change that they're making.
So they will be more transparent about what they're working on and where they're struggling, but they'll also share their ideas and the that they've come up with to me,
[00:31:16] Katherine: Oh, my God. You brought me to another topic at a, I can go off on a tangent about this, but one of the big topics for me in the innovation space is open innovation. Right? And you saw it with Elon Musk. I like him as an example because the guy is not all bad, you know, but what's, what's good about what he did with the batteries was when he opened up that technology.
It allowed other players to get into the space. And actually that's really helped to scale the charging points and get the conversation moving. It's still not the best solution, because like I say, we don't need any new cars. We don't need to be taking things out of the ground, but it's still better than just continuing as we were.
So there's definitely something about the open innovation very recently there was another company. I don't think I can name them because, I don't know all the facts, but I read that they had produced with another company in the collaboration. So it performs like plastic, but it's cardboard and can deteriorate easily in nature.
And they've protected that. So they've put the IP protection on that and I'm like, but this is the solution that's so important to the planet. Why don't we open solutions like that? Opry? But again, the profit motive is still, they go. Then the sustainability motive or the balance motive. So these things are important conversations to have.
I think when it comes to sustainability, we really need to think about how we open up those It's the same thing as what the vaccines, a lot more countries would have a higher rates of vaccination. If we. The vaccine to be produced in these countries and their local clubs, but there's too much IP protection to allow that to happen.
So this is where the nation gets in the way of the global objective.
[00:33:13] Adam: Company don't understand, Hey, this is the social impact that we can make with the innovation that we're doing. And. Not realizing the value of, the change that's needed in order for the planet to survive and thrive. I think that's one thing to objectively understand, but you know, if you're in that position and you're in a company and you're like you know, if I make a decision that we lose these profits, then I'm going to get fired.
And that's my livelihood. That's a difficult decision to make. And so one aspect of this is having another way, which people can do business and work in, which is more connected. As you get B corporate where they say, yeah, actually I care about these multiple things. This is my transparency.
This is what I'm doing. As people have an opportunity to go into jobs or careers where, They can be different, right? And they're not part of these other corporations. At some point, you'll have a tipping point where, society just says this old way doesn't work anymore. And those companies will die and they'll built this up here, but you need a better way that's more efficient.
[00:34:19] Katherine: Yeah, the challenges that we don't have a lot of time. I think this is one of the things that we taken for granted for way too long. I was doing the research on this stuff and the club of Rome created a report in 1974. I think it was that said, if we continued as we are today, we're going to hit peak oil, peak resource consumption, et cetera, and start declining so that there would be some limit to growth. That was the name of the report, the limits to growth report.
And very recently, one of the consultancy firms took that report and analyzed it. And actually it was quite accurate. So even back in the 1970s, they came up with this extrapolation of what was going to happen. It was accurate, but no one listened. And here we are today with so many tipping points that are close to the brink.
And once we crossed those tipping points, There's no coming back, there's very little we can do to bring it back. So we've, we do need to act within, let's say the next 10 to 15 years, we need to have completely turned things around, but what you're hearing is 2050, you know, we're going to be net zero by 2050.
It's not enough.
[00:35:32] Adam: So I think that's a great message for people to realize that at some level you have to take this initiative on your own and figure out the impact that you can make. And by doing that, you're going to communicate it to other people and share that. But as you find solutions that work in your life, then share to people in your circle and that will ripple out.
So it's something that we can all do taking steps in the right direction,
[00:35:58] Katherine: Absolutely. But it's not, it's not all doom and gloom. There is hope.
[00:36:02] Adam: If you're listening, one of the key takeaways should be, find these cool things that are happening and share them and make them part of your life. Because I think that's one great way to create that change.
[00:36:14] Katherine: support, local communities, support local shops, but also look for slow fashion brands, do things the old way. I work with so many exciting creative brands who. For example, one lady, she takes men's shapes and she adapts them and puts and makes them a woman shoot and tucks it in.
There's so many things that people are doing now to be creative with how they solve the climate problem and the waste problem. And you can do, it's creativity is our greatest human asset, so why not use it?
[00:36:48] Adam: I love that. Thank you. I love what we've covered here today. Just one talking about what you're doing with Dieple what you're doing on Where Ideas Launch and different ways people can get involved and create change.
How did people find out about you?
[00:37:01] Katherine: You? can definitely check out my podcast where I just launched a podcast for the sustainable innovator and I'm on Katherine, by him on LinkedIn and on Twitter as well as on Instagram. So you can connect with me there.
[00:37:15] Adam: Got it. And the website is dieple, D I E P L E.com
[00:37:21] Katherine: Exactly.
[00:37:22] Adam: Fantastic. All right thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a real pleasure.
[00:37:27] Katherine: Thank you so much for having me, Adam it's been great to talk and to discuss all the great things that we can possibly do.
[00:37:33] Adam: Great. And if you're listening visit dieple.com or check out the show notes on people, helping people for more resources and thanks so much for listening. Cheers.

