The Wise Why

Helen Neal
Ohh thank you so much, Kirsty. Well, it’s brilliant to be here on a Friday morning. My name is Helen Neil. I am a sustainability communications expert and I run a business called HN Communications. And we are a sustainability communications specialist agency. So we help businesses. Large corporates usually and large global NGO’s with their campaigns and communication around sustainability, and I think primarily what we try to do is help. Organisations build their awareness and credibility when it. Comes to sustainability. So that’s us.

Kirsty van den Bulk
That’s awesome. And there’s some, I believe and I’m a small business, so I get, you know I I try to keep the rest of things, but a lot of the time, you know, you’re as a business owner, I’m reacting rather than necessarily keeping on top of the trends. Not that I don’t want to. It’s just client demand, so there’s some changes coming within the sustainability. Or have I got that?

Helen Neal
Wrong. No, you’re. Absolutely right. I think there are. There are lots of changes coming and I think you know there are particularly if you’re a European. Business. So you’re operating within Europe, you’ve got CSRD. So CSRD is a piece of regulation that is gonna impact Europe, but also the UK as well, where there’s gonna be some demands on business businesses and size is actually going forward to do a lot more reporting and analysis in terms of the work that they. You know the work that they do and the environmental impact that that has on them. So that is coming, it’s not immediate, but it’s definitely in the next couple of years, businesses are really going to start to want to get a bit more serious. This about the reporting and I think we always say sustainability needs to be something that is fully embedded within your business strategy. It’s not an add-on, it’s not a side piece, it’s not a document that’s kind of sits alone where we see businesses being most successful is when they embed. Sustainability. All the way through their business strategy and it’s all about the impact, not just of their of their financials, but also you know there’s a kind of carbon and sustainability impact as well. That’s when you get real success and I think businesses are going to have to move much more in that direction because of these regulatory requirements as well.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And and this is something that I do on some of the projects I’m working on. You know, we launched a or joined a project in February last year and one of the things that we were really keen on was making it’s a small change but making our whole ethos, the whole download system paper. You’re looking at how we could it make an impact, small little impact in my own business, I try to avoid paper. I’ve got an electric car, there’s little changes. Though the smaller. Business owner, is there any advice you can give us that we could adopt right now to make a difference to get ourselves ready?

Helen Neal
Well, I think I think what you’ve just described is great. Kirsty and I think all of these are great starts for a business and I think sometimes it can feel very overwhelming when you’re at the start and you think, Oh my God, where where on earth do we even begin? And I think it’s, it’s about looking at what are the low hanging fruits so to speak that you can do almost immediately and look at things like you know. Car shares and transferring your vehicles to electric and hybrid. How you use your energy within your offices if you have them looking to see if you can get renewable 100% renewable electricity for you. Office. It’s all of these kind of small things that can really help. I think there are a lot more tools out there and I think we’re going to see more and more tools online that are going to be much more useful for the whole business as well. So we use a couple of tools. We’ve got no endorsement or no, no backing from any of these that I’m going to list, but they really help. Us so they may help other small businesses as well. So we use an organisation called Ecology. There are other systems out there, but what ecology does is it links. To your accounting. System and it enables you to start tracking your business activity and linking that to estimates around carbon and and it all also is able to kind of separate these things out into. Different kind of scopes, so you may have heard. When we talk in in the sustainability world scope One Scope 2 scope 3 scope one and scope two are the things that you within a business can control. So that might be your you know your electricity or the decisions that you make around future investments and that sort of thing. Scope 3 is with your supplier, so this is the big one that people tend to talk about a lot more. It’s the stuff that you cannot immediately control, but ecology is able to kind of separate these things out and it’s able to give you an overall idea in terms of that kind. Of impact around carbon, and therefore it then gives you options to look at how you can then both mitigate those and also do things in which to offset. And of course we hear about offsetting, it’s not it’s not a solution by any means. And I think bigger businesses. Absolutely have the power and ability to do more than just offset, but I think specifically for small businesses, let’s be realistic. Let’s be real. It’s very difficult when you’re a small business. So this is at least one step in the in the right direction. And I think when we think about sustainability. We need to think about it in, you know, it’s not perfection, it’s about progress. And so it’s about constantly moving forward in the right direction rather than trying to achieve progress to perfection. Sorry. Tomorrow because it’s just unrealistic. So this is about having a realistic approach to kind of. You know, managing your sustainability. So that’s one area at least.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And and that’s what we all I think we all you know it’s why we started talking. We’ve all gotta take this on board. You know my daughter is in year three and they’re now understanding about their carbon footprint. They’re now understanding about the impact they make now before she started and I remember I was about the same age where I said to my mum no more full fat milk it’s not good for you and so rather than. My daughter becoming me. I went down the road and I changed to a more eco friendly brand for everything including the cleaning products in the house. You know, she came home and she started to give me the list. 8 years old. And I went. No, this is what mummy’s already done. Mummy’s already doing these things. She’s doing the best she can. I cannot be perfect. So if you if you would just take it away from the business and just from, you know, business world just for a second, what would be the one change that we could all make if you could think of 1. Small little change we could all. Make today, is there anything that you could? Start with.

Helen Neal
I mean, I think I think in terms of small changes and I think what you’ve you’ve done is great. And I think the small changes are the things that you can directly control. There are some small changes you can directly do, so that might be things like. Obviously you know all the recycling that we now do, looking at the energy that you use as an energy suppliers and and looking at. Funding renewable tariffs over fossil fuel tariffs? That’s always a good one. But there’s also some people power here as well. I think there are some simple things that you can do if you’re not happy about things. We do have a voice. We can go to our MP’s, we can go to our local councillors and we can say we’re not happy. So I think there are some practical things that we can do, but there are also some things that we can demand as well, not just you know and not just of our of our politicians, but also of the businesses that we choose to purchase from. I think consumers now have. Have are so well informed and and I think we see definitely the younger generations sort of millennial down are doing an amazing job of demanding much higher standards from the businesses that they purchase from. I think that’s only going to increase we’ve seen that increase. Massively so again, your purchase power of where you decide to spend your money has an enormous effect in terms of the kind of ultimate changes that can be made. Cause let’s be under no illusion it’s very difficult for us as individuals to feel like we’re making a change at a micro level. But I do think that business and big business are going to be the ones that are truly going to make the impact and the change that we need and how can we influence them. It’s through our wallets and the the purchasing decisions. That we make.

Kirsty van den Bulk
That’s brilliant. That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say because it is about this, aren’t we? We might be individuals, but we’ve got the opportunity that what we pay, what we what we’re prepared to go and and shop and buy for. And I’m really good on this. And I I got LAX. I’m gonna be honest. I got really lapped for a while. You know, I was. The person who’s. Quite militant, used to refuse to go. Shops. And then I got busy. Life got in the way and I think we’re all guilty of that. My daughter came along and I stopped being, you know, on top of things. Now I’ve gone back because I’m aware that my impact on her is really important. You know, I try to avoid fast fashion. And if I do end up, which I don’t have now, but I did have that moment where I didn’t have much money and I bought the fast fashion. And now I’m still wearing fast fashion, because, for me, fashion is timeless. So, like, how long can we do it? But thank you so much. So how did? It because I want to really move. On how did you. Get to where you are because you’ve got. A really interesting journey.

Helen Neal
It getting into this. What I’m doing now is genuinely a bit of an accident. It was a. It was an unfortunate accident with an amazing outcome is what I would say. So I spent many years working in the corporate world. I work for some amazing businesses. I work for Virgin Atlantic and then lastly worked for. And my role had always been in government relations, actually. So I was always interested in sort. Of. Politics and the relationship between the political world and the business. World and so I worked there for around about 15 years on and off, but my role always seemed to kind of sway into sustainability. And I guess you can kind of see why I think policies versus what companies are doing and the environmental impact. I worked for a car company and an airline. I mean, you know, you can’t get more environmentally. Impacting than some of those types of industry. So am. But I was fortunate in working for two organisations that really had leadership that truly believed in trying to push forward on changing the game when it came to their environmental impacts and this one was one of the first. In fact, the first car manufacturer to introduce the electric car. On the mass market level into Europe and my job was for about trying to get the vehicle into Europe and get people to to kind of believe in it. And I’m not joking here. See, when I first started doing that work, people would laugh at me. As I said, we’ve got this electric. Car and they’re like it’s a milk float. It’s not going to go anywhere. No one’s going to buy an electric car, and people genuinely didn’t believe it. Back at the time. And and in fact, the legislation was such at the time that you can even legally put an electric car on the road. It wasn’t. It wasn’t legal. It was that kind of early. And. And when I was at Virgin, they also launched. One of the first ever biofuels flight, I mean, actually, it was a good kind of 15 almost 20 years ago now, which is crazy when you think about it, because the time it has taken to really kind of accelerate that change with alternative fuels has taken a really long time. So that was my kind of background. So I always just kept falling into this sustainability world and then. I had two. Children in close succession, and I’m sure that anyone listening who is a mum and possibly a dad as well, and I found it really hard to go back. I also found that when I was due to go back, I didn’t have the job that I. Was going back to anymore. And that was really tough. Yeah, because we’d all we’ve all thought hard and worked hard for a specific job, an area that we’re that we’re passionate about. And when that was kind of taken away from me, that coupled with having two young children at the same time when I felt God, if I’m going to be away from these two. Beautiful young children. My God. It’s gotta mean something. And not having that passion anymore and being pulled away from my kids, I just. I just couldn’t swear the circle I tried for six. And I I just couldn’t make it work. And so the first time in my entire life, I walked away from the job. And I don’t come from a background where you can. Walk away, because we all have bills to pay, and if you know, I would say if the rugs pulled underneath you, there is no safety net for the vast majority of us. And I was definitely in that position. But as I was leaving some people within the organisation said, would you come and consult for us? And I thought.

Helen Neal
I’ll take it. You know I need something, but I just knew I couldn’t keep going with what I was doing. So I I became a consultant overnight and was then able to work on my terms my way. And it was a light bulb moment for me. Honestly, it I I think that feeling of being able to go into an organisation, spot the challenges and help people find the solution just really spoke to my soul and I I I found myself and I think over that period of time and sort of took on more and more. I brought in some more. Freelancers to kind of collaborate with me. And then I would say as we came out of COVID, that’s really when the business started to take off and we really leaned into the kind of sustainability work just because of the background that I had had and we’ve grown really rapidly in the past two years and that I I credit that down to, I had a conversation with a client. A great client and I think this is. We forget sometimes as business owners that clients can be an amazing source of wisdom and also help propelling you in the right direction as a business and she said to me, So what, you know what your plans for next year like what are you going to do and. I thought ohh I’m gonna. You know, I was about to say, well, I’m. I may look to recruit someone I may, you know, do a bit of this but that and I stopped at pause and I said. What do you think I should do? And she said, Helen, I think you need to go all in. I really think you just. Need to go for it. And I think when she said that, in fact, when she said that it was just before Christmas and I spent about 5 weeks, it was going round in my head. Do you know those feelings where you just, you wake up and that it’s still ringing in your head? And I couldn’t get away from it? The reason why I couldn’t get away from it was because I knew she was right, that she touched on a really sore nerve and that sore nerve was belief. I think I’d realise when she’d said it just how much I’d been holding back, holding back because I was scared. Scared. Yes, in case it failed, but also scared in case it succeeded. Because I was scared about the wider impact that that would have on my family and my kids. And you know, all of that sort of stuff, but. I realised I had to do it because you know. These things in life, if you don’t go for them, you live with your breath. And I really didn’t want to live with regret on this. So that’s what we did. We went all in and the business has really grown in the past sort of two years to a size where, you know with 12 people, we’re doing some amazing work. We we we work on climate. We can do your work with some amazing brands and we are helping. You know NGOs, to really transform the debate on lots of issues, whether it’s renewable energy or food system. So it’s it’s really meaningful work that we’re we’re super passionate about. So yeah, that’s the story.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love it and I resonate with so much of it. You know, I went back to work after our little one arrived. And to make life easier, I went back to work part time and loss at the time said. Well, look, we’ll give you a lovely job. You’ll enjoy it and and then very different reasons. That job became very complicated because they left the company. And then I was doing many more hours outside the three.

Helen Neal
Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Days being pulling the ***** hours and I was getting broken because I couldn’t put my daughter to bed and even this. Week I couldn’t. Get back and I ran through the door to give her a cuddle because sometimes it does happen. Not very often and so that really resonated with me, but also the the year that you just talked about that belief that all because there is a moment of. And I had similar conversation yesterday. Do I go full in? And if I do go full in, it’s that fear that actually it could be really successful. And what is that impact? Because I’ve already had that impact on my daughter and I don’t want that impact, but I also. Want that success?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Love the fact that you shared that. I really do. So now I want to know is who’s inspired you?

Helen Neal
Ohh gosh you know I I get inspired by lots of things all the time. I don’t know about you, but I think. Honestly, I think it’s about me. For me. Anyway. It’s about meeting other women business owners. I think it’s really hard. Sometimes. You’ve got to really, you’ve got to seek us out. We can. We’re a little bit of a rare breed still. And you know, comparatively. And I do get really. Inspired by those women that have have done it, but I also get inspired by those women that are on the journey. And maybe a little bit even before where you know where I am now, I think that whole chain of that growth on a business journey is very inspiring and just watching and listening to those women in terms of what they’re doing, I get. A real. I get a lot from that empathy of that kind of common understanding of the difficulties and the challenges that we go through, but also how we approach. General business challenges, I think there is and I don’t like generalising at all, but I think there are definite trends as a female business leader that you can see and I get a real sense of reassurance and inspiration from seeing how other. Female leaders are kind of doing their thing, so that is a massive inspiration for me. Because it shows that it’s possible, and I think having those role models having. More of us share our. School reads no matter which part of the journey that we’re on, I think really does keep me going definitely so.

Kirsty van den Bulk
What’s? Next cause I’m I’m. I love your journey. I love absolutely and shouldn’t use. Journey cause it’s become such a buzzword, and such a ChatGPT word, but there are some. Well, I, I mean we we would embracing AI but there are some words that you just go. Really. Again.

Helen Neal
Yeah, yeah. It’s just, it’s too cringe, isn’t it? And I know I use it cause it feels like that, you know, process or that, you know, whatever it might be. But that does, you know, it’s it’s hard, isn’t it, to kind of choose different.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Words. Sometimes we we we now we’re having our daughter plays cricket after school on a Friday and we now have these buzzwords if any of them say them, it’s like. Ohh really? It’s not swear words. It’s the chapter 2 words, but what it’s like what’s next for you? Where? Where do you wanna go? Because I love everything about what? You’re.

Helen Neal
Yeah. Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Doing, yeah, we’re both in communications and love the fact that we’ve got completely different aspects of it and I love the fact that, you know, you and I can work together. I can learn from you so much I can bring you into some of our projects, which I’m really excited about. You know, we’ve really done a little bit. Of communication on that, what’s next?

Helen Neal
Yeah, yeah. What’s next is we’ve got actually a really busy. Like in the short term, we’ve got a really busy six months, so we’re it’s a real privilege for us, but we get to work on Climate Week, New York. Which is one of those major points in the kind of sustainability calendar pre cop where lots of organisations and business leaders come together and it’s usually it’s always at the same point. They usually always at the same point as the UN General. Assembly. So we’re all going. Out or a team of us are going out from my team. Last year it was just me. This year there’s. Gonna be four of us. So that’s growing. Last year we just helped, I say we just helped. We worked on climate week, but this year we’re also taking some of our clients with us and some of them are going to be doing some big launches there. So it feels like in the next few months, this is like a real. Like this is really growing for us and I think climate weekly York is becoming a real moment in our diary. I think also as well one of the personal things that I’m trying to do and I think it goes back to this inspiration point that you. Mentioned a minute. Ago I really want to bring more female. Leaders who are operating in sustainability together. I get so, you know, from a completely selfish point of view, I get so much energy and inspiration from bringing these women together, but it has occurred to me as well that most of these women operate very much in their spheres and they, you know, they’re they don’t come together that much. But there are lots of women working in this space. And so I think my little mission for myself is to try and bring more of those women together. I think we always pride ourselves on. Working with global corporates and working with NGOs and being that central point between the two to bring those worlds together because we believe that in doing that we can really propel much more action when these two worlds work much more closely together, not government, the NGO’s and the and the businesses that really propels. The work of sustainability forward and I feel that bringing those women from both of those worlds together to have more conversations and to make more connections. Is is not just a. A good thing for me to do because I get lots from it and it’s really exciting. But actually I feel like we have a bit of a responsibility given the organisation that we are now to really lean into that and have an obligation to bring these groups together and help facilitate more dialogue and more action. So I think. That’s definitely something over the course of the next. Yeah, I really want to grow and we’ve got our next event on that happening next month. So we’ve got around 25 wonderful female leaders, you know, CEO’s of NGO’s and sustainability leaders coming together in London to have a lovely plant based tasting course meal in London. So I think you know that’s a great start and that’s something that I. Personally wanna keep building.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Well, I love it. This is where the tables get to turn and I really am hoping we’re going like it’s all a bit weird this morning. I’m not sure I can trust that we’re just checking the software. So everyone was wondering what I’m looking at, the software. I’m not even sure that we’re actually going like I have to be honest, tells me when we’re going live, but I’m not sure we are. So this is. Where the tables. Get turned and you get to ask me a question. So fill your boots because I have no idea. What it’s going to be?

Helen Neal

OK, thank you, Kirsty. So my question to you is.

Helen Neal
How do we get more women feeling confident and willing to own their success and tell that success on formats like you use? Because I feel that we all naturally hold each other back in terms of not wanting to to speak up about this. And I’d love to know. How do we do it? And why does this occur within us? As as women where we feel? Like we can’t, or it feels too uncomfortable. I love your thoughts on those.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Two things I think we get labelled. Actually I was watching a little social media post this morning and you know, I’m a woman in my 50s and I wear colour. I wear the bright colour, you know, I pick up a a jumper that’s down there and it’s bright pink, but somehow we just. Sort of. I don’t know it. I think it. Starts at school. And if you’re allowed girl and I was allowed. Well, actually, I wasn’t. I was a really shy girl. But if you’re allowed or you’ve got a passion, it’s almost like you’re called precocious as a girl. I it happened the other day where someone said Ohh yeah. Reference to my daughter. She’s a natural gymnast. She’s really, really talented. But someone used the word precocious. She isn’t precocious, she’s confident, and I will give you that. She’s really, really confident that she’s not precocious. So if you think about that kind of thing from a really young age, I think we get like.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So and another way of looking at it, if you’re a child who doesn’t fit and conform, then you’re bad or troubled. And so I think it comes right the way back to the language we use from a really young age. One of the languages we use with with. Our our little one is we try to empower and. We look at. Those negative words like bad, you know, child. But a child’s not behaving badly. A child is acting out because they’ve got a challenge or they’re upset. There is an emotional underline. The child’s underlying thing. The so the child isn’t bad, but yet we label them back, even right down to Father Christmas. Let’s look. At the real gritty nitty. Gritty of it. You’re on the good list. The naughty list. What does it? Tell you from a really young age. Just boy, girl. It relevant agenda. At the moment you’re told you either good or you’re. That so we go through from a really young age, hearing good, bad, good, bad. And I think it’s this labelling thing and by the time I’d left college or school because I was dyslexic, I wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia. I was much older. So I was stupid or illiterate and I wasn’t illiterate. I just have word minus. But I’ve got another label. Again, we’re labouring with this neurodivergent neurodiversity. All these labels and we get to becoming a we’ve been a daughter, we’ve become a mum. As a mum, we lose our identity. We’re no longer a businesswoman. We’re out there. Empowering, doesn’t help in the workplace and I’m on a rant here. Doesn’t help in the workplace that when you come back to work, you’re no longer seen as that hard nosed, hard hitting businesswoman. You’re seen as this soft, fluffy mum. And so you’re now labelled and if you. Are the hard hitting businesswoman. You’re not possibly a soft mum and so we’ve got this labelling, I think going on. Then you hit the menopause. And let me tell you, that’s fun. So then you hit the menopause and you get this thing where you’re menopausal or you’re acting out. Ohh. Let’s go back to periods at 15. And of course you’re being needy. So I think that is what stops us. I think we are constantly being labelled and constantly putting down. So we hear this about ourselves. We hear this internal dialogue, it’s everywhere we go, even down to the marketing out there, you. You’ve got to be a size 8. You’ve gotta be this. You’ve gotta be fit. You ohh my goodness. Stop it, world. Because it is killing us. It’s trying to us. It puts pressure on us to be perfect and nothing in the world is perfect. Go out and look at the flower outside. Look at the beauty of its imperfection and you’ll start to see that actually the beauty is in our imperfection, if that makes sense. So I think it’s the way that society. And ourselves label us from a really young age, if that makes sense without wanting too much.

Helen Neal
I love it. I mean, I. Love it? No, it was no, not. A rant at all, but it was I I really agree and I think. The question is, how do we stem that tide? How do we stop it? How do we, you know? Is it that we have, we call it out more like like you’ve just done? Is it about kind of saying like? Like. You know, we’re not going to deal with this anymore. It’s not OK.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I think we’ve got to change our language and I think it’s not. It’s not going out there and saying men stop doing it, cause that’s not fair cause the guys get. The same issues and I’m gonna just level it up for a minute, but the guys get the same issues. You know, some of the, the guys that I’ve had on on here, for instance, you.

Helen Neal
Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Know if I think. That’s Steve Warwick. Poor guy. Oh, my goodness. Where has he been? Well, yeah, he’s got linear and he’s got bulimia because he’s got this awesome men’s health magazine jumping down on you.

Helen Neal
Yes.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So I think. It’s us as a. Society, I think we’ve got to start, as I said, right, the way back to boys and girls in class. Bad. Good. I think we just gotta change our language and it’s challenging. It’s really hard. And I don’t mean non gender. All the other things. I mean the actual words we use. We’ve banned the word stupid and silly in our house because a negative word. So I think it is starting right the way back and really thinking about the language we use out in the world, but also the language we say in our heads because those thoughts in our head are so limiting and they can make the difference between success and failure. So I don’t know. I don’t have the. I don’t have the the magic wand that I can make everything perfect, but I do think we’ve gotta start being and whether we like this or not, you know, and try, try and get her names at Carolyn. Yeah. Will I? Caroline Flack. The the, the the.
Helen Neal
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, let’s be kind not just to ourselves, but. To each other. Kindness is one of the the really good one. If you say to someone they’re a really kind person, it’s seen as a negative and yet. It’s the most. Powerful thing we can be being kind. I think you use that in your post kindness.

Helen Neal
Jane. Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Kindness is such a simple thing, and yet for some reason it’s seemed negative so. I would question. Try not to do all the rent. I would question why the word kind and nice have become negative rather than positive words.

Helen Neal
Yeah. I mean, as you as you know, Kirsty, like kindness, like we talk about it all the time. And we talk about things like kind capitalism. You know, I’m a business owner. I fully believe in the power of capitalism to be a force for good. But I think it’s been hijacked sometimes and it’s not been a force for good because the intent has been one of purely. Just. For profit above all other morals and moral obligation, and all we’re saying is that kind capitalism is about thinking about not just your profit, which is not a bad thing. It’s something to embrace. We shouldn’t get caught up and feeling uncomfortable with profit because profit helps your organisation. Grow to do more good. But it’s also about saying you know, how can we be kinder to the planet and ensure the impact we have. We have a we should as businesses have a moral obligation to take care of the environment in which we operate and the resources that we use in order to grow our businesses and. Then also to. Our people, to our people that work that we work with that. For our our team, but also to our customers and our suppliers, it comes back to kindness. It’s just being a kind decent human being and I think not hiding behind the. Big structures and saying, you know, let’s if you if we’re kind then I think all the good stuff flows from that essentially you know, so we we really celebrate that sentiment. I think as a business and the work that we do.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. Obviously, I don’t know if we went actually went live or not, so hopefully. We’ll find out in the conversation anyway.

Helen Neal
It doesn’t matter. We have another table and it.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Will be uploaded onto YouTube and it will be available on LinkedIn. I have no idea. I will be contacting the software knowing WTF without swearing.

Helen Neal
Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, Kirsty. It’s been great.

Kirsty van den Bulk
No problem.