The Great Transition

Matt Perez (00:09):

Hi, my name is Matt Perez. I'm here in rHatchery Live and Jose is in Portugal. So he's, he will not be joining us today. And we have Leo, which is other, is, ah, there he is.

Leo Rayman (00:22):

How you doing?

Matt Perez (00:23):

He's our guest today and we did a little bit of chatting in the background, and seems like we're, we're aligned on a lot of things. And that's it. So ask your questions on, in the, in the chat, and I'll try translate him here. And by all means, read the book. Yeah. Press the right hand The Correct Hand, and the book is called Radical Companies Without Bosses or Employees. And I'll let you find out what that is. So, Leo, welcome to the show and, and tell us about your, what you do in for the Earth and, and stuff like that.

Leo Rayman (01:06):

Hi Matt, and thanks for thanks for having me on. It's a real treat to be here from the other side of the Atlantic and, and, and the States. I started this company, EdenLab last year, but I've been harboring it for a long time. You know, when you have an idea in your mind or in your heart and you know you need to do it. And I just, I just could see that there was an opportunity to think differently about how we, how we handle a challenge of climate change. And some people call it climate breakdown and, and how we might speed up the process of, of reacting to it. Adapting to it, preventing it, reducing it. And I could just see a gap. I could just see a gap. And I can tell you the story, if you like, of where I came from.

Matt Perez (01:49):

Please.

Leo Rayman (01:50):

Like, I'd been in marketing and advertising for a long time. I know young, it looked cool and it was fun and we made videos and music and it seemed like a, it seemed like a fun thing to do, but slowly over guess over that period of time, and it was a long time, like decades, I began to become, particularly more recently now, much more aware of what was happening in our, our world around us. And I would look in my kids' eyes and kind of question whether what I was doing with my talent or whatever such as they are, was really, you know, doing enough good and valuable enough and helpful enough to the world. And my kids. I was working, go on. You want to jump in? And I was working in this particular moment, I was working on project for a big food company, big American-owned food company. Like it's in everyone's kitchens. And you were helping them tell their sustainability story. And this wasn't greenwashed, this wasn't saying things that weren't true and we'd done, it'd been really careful and we'd done a really careful audit and we got specialist help, and we were really clear that we weren't lying about what they were doing. As I finished that project, I realized that here we might have helped them tell the story, their sustainability story, but nothing had changed in the company. And I had this phrase in my mind that was like, we're just painting deck chairs green on the Titanic. And I just knew there had to be another way. And that was the genesis of, of a change in lifestyle, a change in life, and it, and the birth of a new company called EdenLab.

Matt Perez (03:28):

Good for you. So that was your, your transformation moment. So what do you do? What is EdenLab do?

Leo Rayman (03:40):

Yeah, so we work with big companies to make them more sustainable and sustainable companies to make them bigger, right? So I'm really, really keen, I've set myself and we've set ourselves a goal to remove and reduce 5 million tons of greenhouse gas over the next five years. Which is, you know, it's not an insubstantial number, it's something like, let's say 5 million flights from New York to London, say but how do you achieve that? And it's really like, it's a bit, for me, that's a big I was one guy. We were, I mean, it's bigger now. There's more of us now, but it was one person to start with, how do you do that? And two ways. One is you work with big organizations that are polluters and you help them stop doing it and find better ways to do it, or, and this I think is harder, but possibly where we end up helping really small enterprises that have people that have a, an exponentially powerful idea for how they might remove calm from the atmosphere to grow quick, quicker, to get the scale far. So, but look, at the end of the day, we're all going to face, I believe we're all going to face into this challenge one way or another, whether we like it or not, in the coming 5, 10, 20 years. Like, and it'll be, to me it's going to be bigger than digital, which I know sounds crazy, but maybe we can talk about that later.

Matt Perez (05:05):

I, I agree. I agree.

Leo Rayman (05:07):

And then you have to say, what skills have you got that you can use and Manhattan to be, I'm quite good at thinking strategically and planning, and I'm quite good at being good at changing behavior and shaping aspiration and helping companies innovate over 20 years. So can I repurpose that stuff in a way that might be useful. And that's, that's kind of where we're, so we work with some big companies in some difficult sectors like household care detergent, like travel. I mean, travel is a real problem. Like the plane is the plane is the elephant in the room when it comes to decarbonizing travel. And but we're also working with food companies and we work with smaller firms and just trying to find ways to help them not go out of business, but sort of switch the way they make their money from, I call it create a clean share of market clean share. How could you move from Yeah. Cause at the moment you've got a dirty share of market and so of your competition, how would you have a clean share? How would you find a way? So I'm trying to draw people through to the future through seeing that they can have a viable business in the future. And that, my, my guess, I might be wrong, but my guess is we will work in organizations of people and we can discuss with you like how they're organized. That's a thing. But that people will probably need jobs and people will probably want to get paid somehow, somehow in, in 10, 20 years time. So how do we use that for good rather than for evil? And that's, you know, that's part of that philosophy for me.

Matt Perez (06:38):

So, but how do you avoid the greenwashing that happened before in the big food bad American company? Yeah, because I still, I start somebody in private, not here in the, in the podcast who is a ESG expert, whatever that's for. And this is a problem with ESG is that there's a thousand ways of working around that in cheating. Yeah. Right. Greenwashing and, and Paul Allard, who I think was the first or the second person we talked to, said, oh, what I do is simple. I show 'em a list of companies that are bullshit and, and, and I show 'em a list of companies that are good that I've realized that, you know, I've, I've identified as, yes, they, when they say they planted tree, they planted tree. And when they sell, they get rid of a cow. They get rid of a cow. So how do you avoid that, particularly in big company, which I tend to say big bad company, but.

Leo Rayman (07:46):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really hard. Like, it's really hard. And not, not least because they're, they're the pro, I mean, they're the product of a certain system that we operate in or we live in today. You know, I think we're both interested in changing. And that system is stacked up to operate in a certain way and they were successful in the system and the system doesn't necessarily favor doing things the way it's good for the planet or people really deep down. Right. So it's the context, the water in which they swim is kind of, kind of challenging for me personally. Like, and this is going to sound like maybe it's going to sound like too human in, I don't know if that's the right word, but for me, like a lot of it comes down to do you feel that you have trust in the integrity and intention of the person you're dealing with? Because in any group of humans, there are some people on a, you know, like a spectrum from probably evil to angelic. And how do you align yourself with the progressive change agents who have the ability to make influence, that have the ability to drive change, that maybe have a track record of making change happen before that have energy, that have vision or prepared to be curious about how the world could be different and a vested interest in the future helps. I mean, not everyone has that. So often what we're doing, I think is identifying those sorts of people. And I, I used to think when I was starting this business, like, would we, with enterprise, would we work with a certain category or a certain role in a company? And the answer is not necessarily. I think it's with a certain kind of psycho psychological attitude. And then you have to have your wits about you. Like I, some people say we should help fossil fuel companies, you know, the big oil companies transition. But my personal view is, I I'm not going to do that for, for a bunch of reason, not least of which is I think in lab is too small at the moment to make significant difference in what they're doing. Do I think that there are businesses that might be in dirty sectors that one would want to work with and try and help then, then? Yeah. And I'll tell you why. Because it's also my belief that in 20 years time, climate breakdown or otherwise, and I'm expecting it to come I think I'm going to need to probably wash my clothes somehow. So how am I going to get that done? And maybe we'll come up with an amazing technology that solves the problem of carbon in clothes washing, but it's not there yet. Or I'm probably going to need to buy a pair of I don't know if you, what you guys call 'em in the states, do you call 'em underpants? Like your undergarments, your short, your trunks, your shorts? Like I'm being silly, but kind of not because like, where is that coming from in, we have to get it from somewhere and maybe we'll knit them ourselves, or you might grow it in the garden, I don't know. But what the future holds. But my view is that we're going to still need some of these basic commodities. So I would rather switch all of us to buying them from people who are doing it in a safe, kind, generous, inclusive way, rather than buying them from some exploitative supply chain that doesn't care about environment that's destroying the buyer. The, the biodiversity in the production of the product.

Matt Perez (10:47):

That's true. And eventually that, that will be a distinction, a differentiator for companies to say, Hey, we, we do things the right way to, and here's all the data, you know, we're transparent to solve here, solve the data. Yeah. That will, that will buy them competitiveness, I guess. And, and God, I hate that word. And, and yeah.

Leo Rayman (11:19):

Well, it gives them a right to survive, a right to play probably in the future as opposed to getting, I think there's lots of people working in the businesses right now that are, there's, I call 'em zombie companies and there may be a financial definition, but my definition is they're already dead. You just don't know it yet. But they're working in a dead enterprise. Like it won't be around in 10 years time because things will have changed so much that if you're not playing in the game the right way and you're not ahead of the curve and thinking what's coming next, you're kind of out, you're going to be out of business. Right. This ESG thing that you mentioned, I mean, we should touch on it like in case anyone doesn't know, you know, it's that environmental, social and governance kind of way of thinking, and it's really an investment mindset, and it's thinking about handling risk and thinking about risk. I'm sure you know this. And the problem with it is it's scored in a thousand different ways at the moment. And therefore it's not really clear. How can Exxon have at some point had a better score on ESG than Tesla? I mean, I mean, you guys will know more about those companies. They, they're from your part of the world than mine, but that doesn't make sense. And so for me, it's been a useful pressure point in the world, but I think there are other more interesting ones coming that will force much more radical transparency, much more inclusive models of, of doing business because we'll be, we'll be forced to get there. You know, I'm kind of a visionary and profit of doom in equal, like a utopian and a Deist at the same time, which is a strange place to inhabit, but I think that's a healthy place to be.

Matt Perez (12:45):

No, it's a healthy kind of thing because we either end up in one or the other. And right now we are heading for the Doom side because we're focused on money so much. And the, the sole accounts, so the, your, your gas companies and, and those kinds of companies, no matter what you say, they're going to go, but we're going to make less money in the next quarter, and we have to, I have to report to the board that we're going to make more money next quarter. And that stops all the arguments and then comes the brainwashing is can we do something to make it look like, you know, they don't say it that way, but that's the problem. And, and now, now my part, what I told you that we're trying to frame it from a, a radical perspective where our approach is really simple, is you start with people and then you experiment and, and then you have co ownership and co ownership and commencement on top of that, and you need tools and stuff like that. So a lot of what you were, a lot of what you were hoping for, a lot of, a lot of what you're trying to do strikes me as being in line with that in the sense that yeah, want to see companies get better. I have no problem with bigger, I have no problem with money. But businesses and I make a distinction, businesses have to become companies. And the reason I make the distinction is companies come from the word, from the Latin compound and is breaking bread together. Yeah,

Leo Rayman (14:47):

I like that. I like that a lot.

Matt Perez (14:49):

So, so people that break bread together won't do anything stupid, like put in their sandwich and hand it to the other guy because the guy's seeing, which is scraping open, it's bigger, it's bigger. Don't you want the bigger sandwich? And so that's the point that we want to get it to without going back to, you know, indigenous values or working the land with, with accent and stuff like that, because that was, that was part of the problem. So, but there are ways to do it. We're, we live in the 21st, 21st century, but we're treating things as we were in the r and h and we're not in the r and age anymore. We're in the 21st century. We have computers that fit in our packets, super computers. When I started this was, this is probably like a more than a thousand times what I started with. And it was a big thing. It was a big crack. So we carry those things in our pockets. You're connected to, I mean, we're talking to you in the UK and you would not. And so let's take advantage of all that to create communities around the world and, and, and then create companies that are transparent, completely transparent. And transparency will lead to decentralization is my belief.

Leo Rayman (16:32):

I'm with you on that. I really think that if I can build on your thought, like it's really, it's particularly critical in respect to the challenges we face here because the challenges are systemic. No one company or one person can resolve it. No one component in the value chain has enough influence to really do it. And yes, but, and that's why your point about competition being perhaps an interesting, challenging word in this world is, is because in a way we have to find ways to, has that phrase pre-competition, have you heard of that? So it's where organizations or types of people get together way before they go to market to try and work out how they're going to fix the overall supply chain. Like, but the principle is, unless we collectively try and solve, whether it's where your underpants or your shorts come from or whether it's how we decide to fuel our villages and cities and our vehicles. Unless we do it in a companion like way, I suspect, yeah. I think we're probably not going to achieve it. It's interesting to me. And I'm, you know, I could be, I could be more on this than I am, I need to learn more about it than we all. But the really more radical end of the climate activist movement over here in, in the UK and Crown went through quite a big phase of shutting London down and moved on to different tactics now. But one of their main things they're advocating for is a citizens assembly. I don't know, do people talk about the Citizen's Assembly in, in the States? That phrase that's being used. And, and so what it is, is this idea, if you've got everyone together in the room in a very representative way, then you would you would have a conversation, an honest conversation about what needs to happen, and you would get to a place where broader systems change could be enabled. But whilst you don't allow that dialogue and discussion and then coming together to occur, then you are just constantly doomed to repeating kind of the power systems that currently exist. And there's a lot to be said for it, although I've also seen, and I've seen it very personally, big groups of people coming together in a democratic way of making some pretty bad decisions in my point of view, like Brexit. So it's not as easy as it sounds.

Matt Perez (18:34):

Yeah. The what was it, occupy Wall Street or whatever that. The big criticism was that they didn't have a boss. And I was thinking that's the feature, not, not a bug, but they didn't have, they said they didn't have a bug and they didn't have any alternatives to it. And one of the, one of the tools that we make a big deal out of is, is the RA's mobile app again, carrying this thing. And if I see you making a contribution, <inaudible>, then I recognize the contribution right away. And at the end of the month, those contributions get translated to RA's, which it might be a bad name, but it's all I can think of. And, and then those RA's become the, the percentage factor that things get to serious. So as you get revenue, you, you are a co-owner, so you are the owner of the revenue, but you don't get older. It, you get only as much as many as those contributions represent the rest and, and gets sugared one way, and then next month it gets sugared in a different way. It's dynamic, it's not static like shares and crap like that. So, and in, in it, well, this is a guess, it will motivate people to contribute more, to contribute things that people recognize and contribute more. And you know, I'm sure bad things can come out of it because we we're very creative. Human beings are very creative that way. But I can't think of any, I cannot think of any.

Leo Rayman (20:26):

I think here's one, here's one. It's not a, it's not it's something to work with rather than a, a pushback. Not, it's not that, but it's like you know how the Chinese, in the Chinese state system there is, it's about who does the scoring or who works out what I'm sure you've done this work, but what, what a unit, what is a behavior worth rewarding And what isn't is crucial, isn't it? So actually at the moment in our world, acquisition, making money, driving a big car get reward is part of a reward system. Status is a, an unhealthy reward system perhaps. I'm just thinking about the Chinese sort of social controls around behaviors and monitoring the citizens and how that can earn you points or delete you points based on, you know, your behavior and Yeah. How do you prevent that being.

Matt Perez (21:14):

Yeah, we're talking about control, we're talking about recognition of contributions. Yeah. So if, okay, here's the one. So back up to 1944, but we have phones, okay, we have these things and what was the word, Hitler, I don't know, whenever Hitler said, sorry. And everybody started contribute to, to recognize contributions for Hitler because they were really in pain and, and you guys said some of the fault in the French chef, some of the fault and all that stuff, and we had some of the fault too, but they were really poor, really up and, and Hitler was saying wonderful things, you know, like, we're going to not make it poor. What Hill wasn't saying is just by taking the wealth and giving it to you. And it would be getting contributions for that. So it's one way to gain the system to, and it's a way to motivate people to do more like Hitler because that was well preserved in, in the localized economy, in the localized, in a country where the boundaries are well defined, all that stuff. But this thing is doing a work with one boundaries. Yeah. I I'm talking to you in the UK I get friends that I talk to in, I don't know where he's at, atrial all over the place. I talked to a guy Abed in Dubai, and I know people from all over the world, so we would, I wouldn't do anything with that committee that would damage people from their community over there and stuff like that. So it's more of, of motivating people to giving people a reason, to be motivated to do more of the good things. Or every time I, I talk to somebody or I mentor somebody, or I correct with somebody there, or I get, I get points, I get contributions, and if I don't and I'm doing those things, I get to ask, well, didn't get, I didn't get recognition from anybody. It's, we didn't notice, you know, so you learn to communicate more, you know, and stuff like that. So I think overall it is, in any case, it's the alternative to fiat, which is because I say so, There's no more, I say, so is we decide to go that way and maybe, maybe not so bad or not so good, or we go to go this way and this may be good, but as a group with transparency, people, people will not, people will not pee in their stream that they drink from. And, and when everybody's peeing their stream because, oh look, it makes it yellow. Somebody at corner will, will come up and say that's not such a good idea because I lift down the stream and I drink that, that yellow, and I don't want to drink that yellow. It's a piece of drink thing. And again, because it's one of the communities saying that is more believable, it's not people scaring, it's not Fox News. It's not you guys have a similar one in the UK, but I don't know what it else. And it's not an anonymous source of. It is somebody that you work with every, that you bring bread with every day, and you tend to ate source the better. My guess.

Leo Rayman (25:14):

Help me, help me think something through then. Cause I'm, that's something I like that I'm really interested in how we can make it work harder and further and stuff. So one, one of the challenges that I think we collectively need to get our heads around and live with is at the moment people don't pay the real price of the things they buy. So, so no, the company isn't paying for the water trip draws out the ground. It doesn't pass it on to you in price. It doesn't pay for the carbon. It's emitting, it passes it on, doesn't pass on the price of that to you. You don't have account how much you're using or not using. It's, we would like you to sort of spend less carbon and ruin the world less, but hey, there's no control. So mean well, there's no kind of restriction and we need to move to a space where collectively we all agree that actually, I mean, it's going to happen sooner or later, right, by the way. But it's a question of how we get there, I think. Yes. Yes. we have to pay the pry we at sooner or later we are going to have to pay somehow the real price of things. And that may mean that yeah, you're not taking that long haul flight because it's just, you've done your thing this year and collectively we've agreed that's enough. It's kind of how do you, how does one get to that level of transition in it as I'm fascinated by how you get to that place in a way that feels like we all agree to do it together rather than say governments turn their people right. We're now going to tax you for your carbon. We're now going to price carbon into the product in the supermarket in the market.

Matt Perez (26:43):

I should say at this point that I'm, I'm Cuban and I was, I grew up in Cuba and government is not the solution. Governance, is the solution, but government is not because if Trump had his way, we would offend up like Cuba in this place. Yeah. So, and then I wouldn't know where to go. And so I don't think we're all going to sit down around a table and agree that we're going to have five flights a year and six flights a year. A committee may say, you know, we should cut on our flights and somebody will say, no, why should I cut on our flights? Okay. But 90% of that committee says, yeah, we should cut on flights and it'll be more of you pledging six flights a year or three flights a year, or 10 flights a you pledging that much, not the community agree on six. Because six is between five and seven's a magical number and all stuff. So I don't think it'll be in mandate. It'll be more of a pledge for the community to let's try to stick to three. And if we do more than three, then I agree to give some of my breaths to, to a banner. It is another part of six. So there, there'll be things like that and then com and then this community will have overlap with this committee and this community will say, oh, in the other previous committee, we limit the number of flights and, and we say, oh no, we get a plane that flies with sunlight, but we can only do two flights a year. Yeah. And then these people will say, oh, we'll, do I pledge three over here? I'll do two with you, which come for nothing. So I, I can do three and two, five. And so there'll be that kind of an organic thing. Yeah. And, and that stuff controlled pretty quickly again, because of this puppy and the overlap that we have over, over all over the world. I, I mean, I talk to people from all over the world every day. And, and I don't flight anymore. Right. I, I'm down to one flight a year or two, and that's, yeah. And so and we're planning to go to Europe and do a, a round thing on trains. Yeah. It's cool. It's, it's a slightly smaller carbon footprint, but it's, it is better in getting a plane and all this stuff. So, yeah. But, but I think if you mandate it, no, you can't do a flight a me I would say, oh yeah, screw you up.

Leo Rayman (29:53):

That's exactly right. And I think that's going to, that's the, the interesting tension will be like if you say to someone, I don't know, like a plumber with a vat with a, a truck, right? And you say you're going to, you're sorry. You can't say to them that you say to the plumber on the truck, you can't fill up your truck with gas this week. You know, you can just see the pushback will be kind of significant. There is this interesting number, which I've come across a few times, which is, and I haven't read the actual study, but it says that once 25% of the population is behaving in a certain way, then it's the tipping point. It's the point at which the remainder will come across and you just need to get 25%. And, and I think what's, I think what's happening in some parts of society now, in both in the states, in Europe elsewhere, and not everywhere, and not distributed evenly, but is the beginning of subtle shifts like that, probably more like 15%.

Matt Perez (30:48):

I think I've read the same, the same thing and, and 25 is tipping point, but whatever it is is commercial, you know? So it a start year. Yeah. It's cool. Grow. And, and some people go to extremes. One flight per year, no flights per year. We get a walk everywhere. And some people will go, oh, we'll do 10 a year and you can trade and stuff like that and we'll find the middle. So it's not, I don't believe in man mandates. I don't believe in mandates at the point of gun. I don't believe in mandates at the point of a lawsuit or a point of throwing me in jail or anything like that. Appeal to my appeal to me. You know, and, and, and that'll get you a lot further than telling me what to do because I'm stirring. I'm going to go, well screw you up. I'm not going to do that. Why? I don't know. But he said, X and I like, I like white now. So so yeah, I don't believe in mandates. So I'm, I'm glad, I'm glad that we're, we have the same intentions like you. I believe this will happen way or the other. It's just we're tr we're trying to accelerate, you know, little cause the problem is right now, we, we, we feel the pain. I just read an article that this explosion in pain in anxiety and depression. Now my children, but again, my older child which is now 40, has been suffering from depression for a long time. And it turns out that it was anxiety. And now that they, they've figured out there was anxiety, they give him medication for anxiety. He's, he's totally functional, totally functional. And, and to me it's that younger people, people post 1972 have been closer to the pain. They, they, they, the economy has been going that ways, of course wealth, of the fuel selected ones that are going that way, but they've had less opportunities and stuff like that. And they don't, they can detect, they can sense the fear system, even though they don't, they don't, they don't have the name for it. They can sense that it is painful. It is not me. I, I I was full of fiat. I was like, and I am full of fiat in, in a lot of ways in that you know, if something hurt, that's good. Let's, let's make it hurt more and stuff like that. And, but not my kids and my kids are, are 82, 85 but they feel that pain more readily than I did. Mm-Hmm. And they sense, well, I don't, I don't like that pain, but I don't like the pain. I'm not eating. So how do I coordinate, how do I make it to work? And the explosion of, of anxiety and depression, what we call and depression really comes from being closer to the pain, being more compressed into the pain. And, and when you get really compressed to the pain, what happens is revolution, a bloody revolution. It happened in England, many, I mean, centuries ago. And he happened in France at about the time that we had ours, and then we broke away from king George or whatever. And but journey, Germany was compressing, compressing, compress, and they had a revolution. And the revolution had a name Hitler. But it could've, it would've been anything else. It would've been taken over its generals. It would've been, it would've been bloody and it would've been bad for the rest of the world. So these guys are sensing the compression sooner. So it gives me hope that they're not going to end up in bloody revolution, but they're resisting it without knowing what they're resisting. So interesting. I I got lots of hopes. So I'm, I'm being told here to, oh, next week's guest is Preston Ging without Dr. R. Zach Greeting is Gidding co-founder of Pack four. And I saw on his LinkedIn that is he's in the packing industry, packaging industry without brick and mortar, meaning without a a warehouse and without top-down management. So I'm really curious to see what this guy is doing and stuff like that. So anyways thank you Leo Raymond for, for your time and, and.

Leo Rayman (36:31):

My pleasure.

Matt Perez (36:33):

To this and a session. Yes. and I, I'll send you an email inviting you to a group of people that have been guests on this podcast and really is for meeting each other. Yeah. It's not, it's not for me to sell anything, it's is for meeting each other and see what we can do because you guys are addressing pieces of the puzzle and come, bring together and, and make a bigger thing. And for a long time I thought that we need examples of radical companies and stuff like that. And the answer is no. We don't need examples of that. We need examples of, oh, this is happening over there, that is happening over there, that, you know, and, and build, build a an organic

Leo Rayman (37:25):

Yeah, a whole.

Matt Perez (37:26):

Movement that way. Yeah.

Leo Rayman (37:28):

Holistic. Yeah. That's cool. I like it.

Matt Perez (37:31):

So thank you very much and I think we're going to have our, Carlos, we're going to have our away film thing.

Leo Rayman (37:43):

Thanks a lot. Thanks Matt.