In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Tom Ferrier, the Founder of Greener.
In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Tom Ferrier, Founder of Greener – a service and an app to help retailers and consumers measure and reduce their environmental impact – and power the green economy. Tom will explain it in this episode but he is helping retailers reduce and offset their emissions – while attracting like-minded customers who are interested in sustainability – almost an informal loyalty program. And for customers, he is helping them know what the heck an actual carbon tonne is – and whether that is good is bad. Hint: the average Australian is responsible for 15 tonnes – the goal, according to Tom, should be two. Tom and the Greener team already have brands on board including Koala, T2, Afends, Microsoft, Brewdog, Modobodi, and Bared, they have raised over $4m from investors such as NAB and recently partnered with the Australian Retailers Association – it’s a great start. Today Tom shares the Greener mission and exactly how it works for both retailers and consumers. He shares the steps that retailers can take to have the biggest impact of reducing their environmental impact, and he shares how it took one person to interrupt him over a glass of red to totally change the course of his life.
“It’s not about a handful of people doing zero emissions, it’s about everyone doing it imperfectly”
Tom Ferrier
Two tons everyone
“The moment that shifted all of that for me, I was out for drinks one night and I had this beautiful glass of red in my hand. I was having it and someone that I didn’t even know, was it a function, someone I didn’t know came up to me, interrupted my discussion and said, did you know consumerism is the cause of the climate crisis?
Yeah. Cool. What do I do with that? Thanks. This is just too heavy. I’m out for a drink.
And they instantly started on their next part of the rant, and that was, it’s because everything we buy has a hidden price tag on the planet, that price tag’s carbon, the key contributor to climate change. But the way they said that actually connected with me, because these emissions things are invisible.
What are they? I hear politicians talking about it. I hear people fighting about it. But I then sort of stood there with my glass of red and in my mind started seeing this smokey cloud coming out of the top of it, these emissions. I said, okay, that’s pretty interesting. And they said, well, did you know we can actually stop this crisis if we all get our carbon footprints down to two tons per annum? And that was the moment that I realized, hang on, this isn’t too far gone.”
Switching to carbon neutral energy has the biggest impact
“It might be businesses that maybe have a part-time sustainability person or a really passionate founder in the space. This tool helps them understand what their roadmap is and then join the app. and so it is targeted more towards the small to medium end, but really simple. It all starts with the low hanging fruit, the easiest and the most impactful for them. Because we’ve seen, once people start making progress, they feel like they want to do more.
So the most impactful thing a retailer can do for the planet is really switch to a hundred percent green power that is carbon neutral energy. That’s actually. for all intents and purposes come from solar and wind. It takes less than 10 minutes to do it. The caveat is you need to have control over your energy provider. But switching to certified green power is so simple, easy, and it can help you shave 20 to 30% of your carbon emissions or your footprint as a business in no time.”
Targeting mainstream consumer
“We expected that the deep greens, those who would have a lower footprint, would be more attracted to the solution. The thing is, with our messaging, we’re not targeting the 4 to 6% of deep greens who want to make a difference and they’ll actually pay more for an inferior product as long as it’s green.
We are targeting that middle green, mainstream consumer. The 45 to 65% of consumers who wanna make a difference, don’t know how. Don’t want to pay, just need simplicity. So really we are seeing footprints around the 15 to 20 ton initial mark on average. But the great thing is we’ve managed to, in the first month or two of a user using our solution, they’re reducing their footprint on average of a little bit more than 20%.”
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