Who are we?
Mark has been working in sustainability since before it was cool. His degree in Environmental Science commenced in 1988 and he had the most amazing industry placement in 1990-1991 with a wonderful man, John Roberts. John ran a consultancy called TEST and taught Mark more than both thought at the time.
After his degree he was a researcher at Leeds University before joining Bradford Council as an environmental expert working with local businesses.
It could be a printing business one day, a food producer the next, a textiles company the following day, then an IT company and he could finish-off the week helping a re-manufacturer of car parts. This was the best apprenticeship ever.
He was then asked to join Asda as Environmental lead. Much learning followed. Mark guided them into the Ethical Trading Initiative and through their first audit, introduced sustainable urban drainage, was a vocal pioneer of local suppliers, reduced unnecessary single-use plastics, landed a deal to give every colleague a cost-price bike for commuting, and setup the trial of solar on store roofs. All of these were revolutionary in 1999 and normal by 2002.
He then created and ran the eco-design consultancy eco3 for a decade before leaving to start Ape.
He is an expert in sustainability and business, sustainability strategy, eco-design, circular economy and environmental innovation. He has written three books: Do Disrupt: Change the Status Quo of Become it; Do Present: How to Give a Talk and Be Heard; You Can’t Make Money From a Dead Planet: The Sustainable Method for Driving Profits.
Nicola has been working with Mark for nearly 20 years and undertakes deep consumer and trends research, plans and organises sparkling workshops, research panels and events. Prior to working with Mark she was a social worker and home educator. Nicola also undertakes client management roles.
Max has a first class degree in Environmental Science from Sheffield and is an expert in scope 1-3 carbon footprint and environmental assessments. He helps organisation set scientific targets and advises on sequestration. He delivers detailed environmental research, manages client interactions enquiries on carbon and technical environmental queries.
Daisy has a first class degree in Fine Art from Central St Martins and writes, edits and produces the written, video and published material for our events and publishing company Reasons to be Cheerful. She also organises and produces our annual event Reasons to be Cheerful Live.
Our Why.
We believe that whilst business has created most of the world’s problems. It is the only thing that can fix them.
We believe that it is not sufficient to do things better, we need to do better things.
We believe that the challenge business faces is how to make the same (or more money) by selling less stuff.
We believe that we are all environmental businesses now.
We help organisations do what they do with less environmental impact and more commercial impact.
Clients
Hello!
Its not always possible to talk about the work that we do for our clients, its confidential. But there is some we can talk about.
Patagonia: We ran a two-day event for Patagonia at their EU HQ in Amsterdam. The event was focused on sustainability and purpose and how that can be used in design and creativity. We were beyond flattered to be asked.
Nike: We were asked to run a session that reminded the marketing team of Nike’s purpose; we ran a presentation skills masterclass; and develop a sustainability workshop for them.
Coca Cola: We’ve done lots of work for Coca Cola. Some of it purpose-driven (we aren’t allowed to talk about that stuff) and some of it was just fun. Pulling together bar-tenderers to produce a new range of mixtures where we had permission to play with their recipe, branding and packaging was wonderful. Four new mixers were released.
Ooni: We have undertaken Ooni’s annual carbon assessment for two years running, identified areas of opportunity to reduce their impact, and trained their design team in sustainable innovation.
SC Johnson: We helped build their sustainability comms strategy, spoke of internal events, and ran a couple of workshops. In other work we identified over £1 million of savings.
Sportsshoes.com: We have undertaken this family-owned business’ carbon assessment for three years, we built their sequestration strategy, and developed a suite of environmental training for them.
Unilever: We have undertaken environmental strategy assessments to help the company understand the benefits of greening their portfolio or developing a greener range.
RS Components: We built a circular economy business model for one environmental product that saw sales increase by 8000%. Yep, that’s right.
Belkin: Redesigning their packaging we halved the carbon impact of the pack, reduced waste by 60%, reduced distribution impact by 60% and doubled sales. Oh, and we saved then £3.2 million. Annually.
Papa Johns: We undertook a full carbon assessment and identified the top carbon reduction options.
Bombay Sapphire: We have ran innovation sessions, purpose sessions and environmental sessions for Bombay over the last five years. Most recently we hosted a three day Disruptors event in South Africa that launched a series of short videos about creativity. We wrote and delivered 12 of them.
John Lewis: We have developed and delivered internal training on sustainability, written for the magazine, and delivered the keynote at a sustainability day.
EE: We have developed and delivered a one-day training programme to embed sustainability across the business and bring it to life in an engaging way. We are now building a bespoke innovation process that positions sustainability at the heart of the business.
