There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere
There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere is a podcast hosted by Jamie Serino and Carlos Arcila that features exceptional people that have compelling stories to tell. Whether it’s a unique perspective, an act of kindness, an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome, or bearing witness to a captivating event, these are stories that must be heard, and from which we can draw important lessons.
There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere
A Dose of Hope and Optimism as We Answer the Call to Address Our Toughest Social Impact Challenges
"You can only scare people so much, and if you scare them too much, they move to inaction." On this episode of There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere, Geof Rochester, founder of GRC Advising, discusses the importance of thoughtful sustainability and social impact goals. From renewable energy to healthcare, explore how individuals and corporations are taking matters into their own hands to create positive change. While acknowledging that there is still so much work to be done, Geof shares examples of people and organizations that are solving problems, and he highlights the importance of hope and optimism as we face the challenges that lie ahead. Join us for an inspiring discussion!
Learn more about GRC Advising here: https://www.grcadvising.com/.
You're listening to. There's a Lesson in here, Somewhere, a podcast featuring compelling conversations with exceptional people. Whether it's an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome or simply a unique perspective, these are stories we can all learn from. Here are your hosts, Jamie Serino and Carlos Arcila.
Jamie Serino:Hello and welcome to. There's a Lesson in here Somewhere. I'm here today with Geof Rochester, who is the founder and leader of GRC Advising, which is an advising firm that helps organizations with sustainability goals and social purpose goals. So thank you all for joining us and, Geof, thank you so much for joining us today.
Geof Rochester:Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to this.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, I think it's going to be a great conversation. So, Geof, if you could do a more robust introduction? I know you have a long and rich history in sustainability, in social purpose and impact, and you started GRC in 2019. So I wonder if you can maybe provide a bigger introduction for yourself.
Geof Rochester:Sure, the origin story is really. I was born in Barbados. I moved to the United States when I was three years old, work on like every West Indian. My dad was a diplomat to the UN. So our kitchen table conversation since I was a kid what was about a better world? I remember when the US invaded Grenada and my dad's head just flew off his neck back in the days of the Cold War.
Geof Rochester:So I've always had a kind of a global sensibility as to what's happening in the world, not just the environment but poverty. Or or you know, back in the days when Latin America was riddled with cocaine traffic my dad would talk to me about that was about providing other crops for farmers in Colombia to make money from right. They had to make their families, they had to grow something and the cocaine dealers were very adept at reaching out to these poor farming communities and transitioning them from whatever crop they were growing to cocaine right to feed their family. So anyway, I did Georgetown Ward and I came out of grad school and I was very focused on brand management and marketing. So I worked with Procter Gamble first and then I followed the arc of industries, hiring people from packaged goods marketing, from Pepsi and Coca-Cola and Clorox, into other sectors. I went into travel when Marriott and Hyatt were duking it out right and they were looking for packaged goods marketers. So I went to Marriott, then I ran marketing at Radisson. Then I moved to the cable industry when cable was moving from, you know, analog cable to broadband, to all these other services. I was recruited in the Comcast when we were selling paging, long-distance phone, home security, broadband and digital cable. Yeah, I remember that time, yeah. And then I went from what's called the pipe so DirecTV, echostar, comcast, time Warner, they're the pipe into the home, the content side. I was over at Showtime and Marketing. Then I went to World Wrestling those crazy guys, wonderful business always on the cutting edge of marketing WWE.
Geof Rochester:And then what's relevant to this conversation is I went and ran marketing for the Nature Conservancy and I did that for about 10 years.
Geof Rochester:I went and ran marketing for the Nature Conservancy and I did that for about 10 years and that was really my education in nonprofits and my education on climate and sustainability in the environment. And what's great about the Nature Conservancy I'll refer to them as TNC is they're very corporate friendly. They believe that you can't save the planet without the biggest companies in the world Walmart, google, rio Tinto, big mining company, dow Chemical, bp, Chevron. These are companies that a lot of environmentalists feel are no-fly zones, are non-starters, but the reality is and this will be one of my themes for our chat today is these companies wield enormous resources financial and they have enormous muscle. Look at Walmart's ability to influence all of their suppliers. So that's in my DNA. And then I started this consulting practice and we focus on three things we do marketing and branding, we do strategy and we do impact investing with for-profits and not-for-profits around a host of social issues, from voting the climate to sex abuse to a range of issues, but we do lean in on environmental issues.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, so with GRC, I did notice that there is this sort of full big picture approach that you have, which is great. So you were mentioning the Nature Conservancy, wanting to lean on corporations or understanding that that needed to happen, and it makes you think about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, where they have a similar approach, and so I don't know if the timing of what the Nature Conservancy was doing coincides with the timing of the launch of those goals. I know they renewed, you know renewed them, so they were kind of there with that idea. The UN was there with that idea, you know, and so could you talk a little bit more about, I feel like maybe that something that was recognized and changed a little bit, and then how corporations have or at least some have picked that up and said you know, we do need to do something here.
Geof Rochester:Yeah. So, to be clear, the Nature Conservancy is an embrace of corporations, and I wasn't there. They're over 60 years old. It's just part of their DNA. It has nothing to do with it. Ok, they were there already. I suspect part of why they were there already is, quite frankly, they started focusing on land, land management, protecting land, and because of that I think they got to know big landowners in the US who were probably fairly wealthy, and so they've always had a symbiotic relationship with big business, holding them accountable but not disqualifying them, right, I think part of what's driving the corporate interests and it's kind of obvious.
Geof Rochester:Like I'm a student of business, like I said, I went to work and I went to Georgia and I studied business there's this notion of stakeholder theory. In the press we talk a lot about shareholder theory and clearly shareholders get 90% of the attention. But if you're a student of business, the fundamental premise of business is any CEO, private or public, should be thinking about their stakeholders, and there are three they're your community, they're your employees and then they're your shareholders. And so, for example, if you look at the employee side of it, young people, if you're a CEO of a Fortune 500 nowadays with thousands of employees. You are hearing loudly from your employee stakeholder group about their desire to see the company that they work for they spend so much time with reflect their values, so that pressure is undeniable. When I came up in business I kept my mouth shut. I did as I was told. Today people feel they almost have a seat at the table and not quite demand but to insist that if they're going to spend all that time with a company, they want to see the company living their values and of course they select companies where there's no alignment. But that pressure has never been greater, is my point. It was lip service years ago but today, in today's world, the past 10 years, that's a real thing. If you want to attract these Gen Z employees, these new employees, you have to demonstrate your corporate social responsibility initiatives which climate would be a part of that climate and the environment.
Geof Rochester:The other pressure is financial institutions, right, sec investors. Paul Pullman is legendary for being the chairman of Unilever many years ago and he was out ahead of many people on this topic. And he said, probably 15 years ago I'm paraphrasing, I don't exactly know the story, but his thesis was if you're an investor at Unilever and you're just looking for monthly and quarter to quarter. We are no longer the stock for you because we are going to mount an initiative around ESG and around environmental sustainability, and this is not going to transform the company overnight. And we may not going to transform the company overnight and we may not achieve the kind of returns that you may be used to, but we are going to make sure that we're being right by our stakeholders, our community being one of them.
Geof Rochester:Yeah, so you know, I think the evolution of business and digging in on these issues is multilayered. It's coming from their investors, is coming from community pressure. Trust me, if you live in California and some would argue California is too far in one direction but there's enormous pressure coming from the state and, by the way, california is one of the largest economies in the world, I know. So when California says we're going to ban gas powered cars or we're going to put pressure on the, on the percentage of gas powered cars that are on the streets and highways of California, corporations have to listen or move.
Jamie Serino:Huge impact. Yeah, so companies that embrace this. I mean, would you say it's like a luxury to be able to do this, like for Unilever to be able to declare that and even say, like we may not hit the returns that you want and people aren't running away from that company?
Geof Rochester:Well, some did. I mean Indra Nooyi. So Indra Nooyi was at Pepsi and she's legendary for trying to, and I met with Pepsi back in. The one of their mantras was we're going to get the sugar, the fat and the salt sugar, fat and salt out of a lot of our products. We're going to cut that. And she almost didn't survive that. They got punished by Wall Street. So it's not all wine and roses when you get on the path. So it's not all wine and roses. You know when you have and and you know if you really follow this space. There's been pushback in the United States. I spoke at a conference in Texas recently and I think an attorney general or politician in one part of Texas was pushing back on banks that were Texas-based with their ESG policies right, and you've also probably seen the backlash against DEI right in the US.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:So we've gone from where these concepts were very nascent, very rare Paul Pullman was the only one doing it to where there's been a lot bigger embrace of these initiatives, where now there's backlash on some of these.
Geof Rochester:You know we've advised clients who they'll say to us Geof, we're nervous, we don't even want to use the word ESG. Yeah, we don't want to use the word climate. And look, when I was at TNC, we did research many years ago. So you know people may not remember this either in in 0809, 2010 in the us, the divide over climate was very sharp. Yeah, we did focus groups and and you know, there's an art to the language you use. You know you talk about weather events, right? Uh, I think the environmental movement in this country did itself a disservice by talking about panda bears and ice melt versus green jobs. So you know, when you talk about, when you're talking to folks in coal country about climate change, yeah, maybe they embrace that, maybe not, but you get their intention when you talk about green jobs after they've lost 50,000 coal jobs.
Jamie Serino:Right. So I think that's an interesting way to put that. And if we want to sort of talk about climate change as an issue, where do you see that now? Because what I've been reading, psychologists will say people are not responding anymore to the data. Everybody knows there's a problem, we're not going in the right direction, we're not doing enough to stop it, but yet it doesn't seem to be enough to get people to change right, or maybe there is some change, but not enough. And, of course, how is the media portraying the situation versus what may actually be happening out there? But what are your thoughts on just climate change as one of the issues? And you know if you have any clients that you're advising on that particular issue.
Geof Rochester:Yeah. So you know I'm very much a pragmatic optimist and, again, a lot of that I get from the major conservancy. So do you want to sit around and argue with someone about climate change all day long, or do you want to get to the other side of the conversation, to the action that's required, the sensibility that you're trying to instill? And just for your audience, there are two groups that know this debate better than anybody. Yale has a school of climate communications If you want to geek out on this Yale School of Climate Communication and then I'm the vice chair of a nonprofit called Eco America, and Eco America and Yale study Americans' thoughts, attitudes, opinions on climate change. They understand the linguistics of climate. My advice to people is you know, you can only scare people so much, and if you scare them too much, they move to inaction because they think nothing.
Jamie Serino:They'll just shut down Right, and they'll think they can't help, right, right.
Geof Rochester:So most of the groups I work with, most of the clients we work with, we try to get people to pragmatic optimism. And look, if you know your investors, if you know your employees, if you know your consumers are scared of the word climate or climate will not get it done, fine, right, but in other ways, you know, the environmental movement for years has felt that the biggest advertising campaign for climate is weather reports. And I have friends in Miami. Miami is flooding, miami was terrible, yeah. And whether people connect that directly or not, they know something is happening. Right, their insurance rates are going up, right. Then they know they're seeing weather patterns that they did not see as a kid and it's having an economic impact to them, a negative consequence to them.
Geof Rochester:So then, once you establish that you've got to, what can you do? And then, by the way, if neighborhoods are being redesigned, if buildings are redesigned to be more climate friendly, whatever that phraseology is, you push people in that direction. We're not stupid. They're going to have to move in that direction, right, right.
Jamie Serino:Right, yeah, so when people's personal lives get affected, then they may come to that conclusion, and even as someone who is anti-movement, they may come to that conclusion. And even if someone who is anti-movement, they may come to that conclusion. What does sometimes happen, though, is that the quote unquote. Other side gives them talking points for why it can't be that, and you talk a lot about getting to a bipartisan solution, because it'll happen all day. Where one side has an argument, the other side comes up with talking points against it, and people just walk around parroting the talking points. So how do you get past that to like you're saying, action, and how do you help a company who has decided to declare this is going to be our issue? How do you help them get out there and and sort of cut through all of that? Yeah, so I mean, some of this is going to be our issue. How do you help them get out there and sort of cut through all of that?
Geof Rochester:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:So I mean, some of this is not rocket science. We all have to be better listeners. I was invited by EarthX, so I'll give a shout out to Vikram, who's a very good friend of mine. He works with Trammell Crow and Trammell founded a group called EarthX out of Dallas. It's one of the largest climate summits in the US and it's targeting consumers to educate them on climate change. It targets investors. So they had a capital summit I spoke at and I spoke on this topic.
Geof Rochester:I had the pleasure of moderating two congressmen One was Chuck Fletchman, who's a Republican, and the other was Mark Vesey, who's a Democrat. They're both from Texas and they both have powerful positions on Capitol Hill and they've found common ground around energy and renewables right. And we had a lovely conversation where we talked about transitioning the US economy to more renewable energy. Well, that's jobs, that's national security, right. You know, we'll talk now or a little later. I'm excited that the US seems to finally be moving on nuclear. Gates was all over the news last weekend about a company called TerraPower that he's backing and I have line of sight to some other nuclear initiatives. And nuclear was kind of a non-starter in the US for years because of safety issues and other things. But I think the world is coming to a rapid conclusion that solar and wind are good, but they won't get us there, certainly not as fast as nuclear could. And, quite frankly, the US is behind India, not India, china and Russia and Europe on nuclear. The US is behind India, not India, china and Russia and Europe on nuclear. So you know. Back to your question and your thesis we all have to be better listeners and we have to find common ground. And if the word climate is a no-fly zone or the phrase ESG is a no-fly zone, I wouldn't get so flustered about it. I would figure out how you get to the other side of the conversation and what. I'm happy, and really beyond happy.
Geof Rochester:I'm excited that the Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed about $700 billion of tax credit and other incentives for behaviors and initiatives addressing climate change. Well, that's real. I mean, that's not partisan money, right? That's green money and people take advantage of it. And one of our clients, a group called ACAP which is accelerating Appalachia. They're a group that educates farmers on climate-friendly practices.
Geof Rochester:It could be called Regener-A-Bag, but the USDA is funding it. They call it Climate Smart Agriculture. In essence, all that means is better farming practices. It reduces the use of water, reduces the use of pesticides. And, by the way, there's been a realization in the US and around the world that land open field land agriculture can sequester carbon. So the USDA has allocated $3 billion Jamie to that initiative. That's real money, yeah. And, by the way, a lot of that money is going to go to red states and blue states, and I think at least Gates was talking about this eloquently yesterday that a lot of the momentum in the US around nuclear is in red states. So I think when you talk jobs, when you talk money in people's pockets, when you talk how do you mitigate or avoid climate disasters, climate weather related disasters, people listen.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, climate weather related disasters, people listen. Yeah. So do you see, like now you know someone like bill gates gets behind. Uh, nuclear, that's fantastic, because for a while we were stuck I mean we're still kind of stuck because of the the danger, right the danger.
Geof Rochester:And then perceived perceived danger, right, based on some incidents actually safer than a lot of other technologies and when people think of bad things that have happened, those were platforms and technologies that are very different. Today's movement, second and third generation nuclear versus first generation. So quite frankly, I think the industry needs a PR campaign Right. A lot of people still have these lagged perceptions of what nuclear is and also these big facilities. They're not thinking what I call small modular reactors, smes, facilities. They're not thinking what what I call small modular reactors, sms. So you know, fingers cross.
Jamie Serino:But I think 22, 23, 24, 25 are the years where the us kind of crosses the chasm on nuclear and the public will start to see enough initiatives that are coming in on time on budget and having a real impact yeah, because it it suffers from the situation of like a plane crash, right, so everyone will say flying in a plane is safer than driving, but plane crash is massively catastrophic and it's difficult to forget that. And then the other thing is, you have not my backyard right with nuclear reactors. So trying to overcome that part of it too is going to be, I think, a bit of a hurdle, but it's good. Now, when something like that happens, then it's kind of an obvious question but is this like the dominoes that start to fall? Is it the tipping point? You feel like Bill Gates comes out. So then what do you see happening next?
Geof Rochester:Well. So I haven't thought much about it, but I think two things will happen. Obviously, it gives people confidence and hope and momentum, right for other initiatives that have been sitting on the sidelines. Maybe they were stuck, so it will free up more capital. The other thing and you know I'm dating myself, but there was something in business called the AOL effect.
Geof Rochester:I grew up in DC and when AOL opened I forget what town, but they opened in northern Virginia or further out in Virginia in an area that had nothing, and five years later there are all these satellite businesses that grew up around AOL pay it well. So you know, the layering of jobs and opportunities and for other startups associated with building these complex nuclear facilities is going to be tremendous and it's going to be. You know this came up. I had not thought about it, but in the session I did in April with the two folks from Capitol Hill, we talked about small business, and so when the US embarks on a renewable energy policy, you think about Tesla and the big companies, but you forget that these huge initiatives breed and foster a whole ecosystem of startups, right?
Jamie Serino:So that is momentum that ends up, you know, having a more lasting effect. So hopefully that'll, that'll happen here, um. So it's interesting like when, when you talk about some of these issues, um, there are sort of negative ways to talk about them, but you, you said you like to be optimistic and you keep bringing up, you know, points of progress, of progress with a lot of these issues, like any of the issues that we talked about. You brought up significant points of progress. So you know, I know that's a sort of philosophy you like to espouse, but maybe you could talk a little bit more about that.
Geof Rochester:So I'll talk about two things. Here's another thing that, if your audience wants to geek out, edelman E-D-L-L-M-A-N. Edelman is a marketing firm well-known global. They do something called a trust barometer. Every year they go out to about 20 countries, they query thousands of people and they get their opinions on the relative trust of four sectors the government, nonprofits, the media and corporations. And what that research has shown, trended over at least the past seven years, is that increasingly, consumers in these 20 countries major countries around the world, including the US In these 20 countries, major countries around the world, including the US increasingly the public trusts the government and media less and they put more faith in corporations and in nonprofits. Yeah, so back to our earlier conversation about why are companies leaning in and is this a fad or is it a real trend? Part of the real trend is the public is looking for the private sector to solve these problems. Right.
Geof Rochester:And they've lost faith in the ability of government to get it done and they don't trust the media. And CEOs, quite frankly, are part of that. Ceos are being looked at for leadership.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:Right. So let me give you a quick, bright story, though. What a lot of people. I ought to be careful how I frame this. On the one hand, this is the age of innovation around climate solutions no question about innovation, capital, startups, all of it. On the other hand, as I said, you don't want the public to lay back and just assume things will magically get better. Yeah, but this notion of accelerators, this notion of you and I building a pool of funds and creating fifty hundred, two hundred thousand dollar grants just for innovation.
Geof Rochester:There's someone who's in our network. She's a very good friend of mine. I've known her for years, daniela Fernandez, and she started something called the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. So I my shorthand is she's like Greta for the oceans. She's in her 20s. I've known her since she was a sophomore at Georgetown. She created a nonprofit, jamie, to represent the voice of millennials globally on marine protection issues, and so she's a pundit. She flies around the world, she's well-respected. She has an ambassador network of hundreds of young people in countries around the world. They're in Spain, they're in Nigeria, they're in Jamaica, they're in Texas, they're in New York, and you know, one thing they do is they'll solicit their politicians on legislative activities related to marine protection.
Geof Rochester:They'll do beach cleanups lasting legacy that she created an accelerator to fund initiatives founded by millennials to address climate threats to the world's oceans, and she's probably funded 50 companies now wow I think she's, you know she's in her mid 30s, mid 20s, that's impressive but but one person with you know, with mobilizing resources and you know, know, mark Benioff and I think the Turner Foundation and other people are big supporters, ray Dalio's group, right. But but it started with a big ambition. Yeah, it started with a hell of a business plan and years later, she's. She's creating real change, yeah, through capitalism, right, yeah.
Geof Rochester:And years later, she's creating real change through capitalism, right? So when you hear of enough stories like that, you know I live in Williamsburg, brooklyn. I'm at home today. I'm surrounded by idealistic 28-year-olds that have more balls and energy than I ever did when I was their age and, to be clear, they need wisdom and guidance, but from a sheer energy, standpoint and a sheer creativity they're unparalleled. They're unparalleled. And so then when you say you take that, you take a favorable, supportive government policy atmosphere as we did with the Inflation Reduction Act, for example and you add capital to that, then you feel better about all these things.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, that's a great example. Those are great points. And so when you bring up capitalism and GRC does help and impact investing, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and maybe any advice you have for companies or for investors or even just for individuals that say, hey, I do want to put my money in different stocks or funds, but I want to make sure that I'm not funding something that's going to be bad for us. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.
Geof Rochester:So the broad lens is there's all kinds of money available. There's state public money, there's state public money. There's federal public money, there is VC and private equity money. The toughest money is the small money, quite frankly, right. So the young, seed stage, early stage entrepreneur with an idea that needs $250,000 to get going, that's really tough. But you know, in terms of and look, any money is tough to get. But there's never been a time and I've been doing this for 15 years there's never been a time where I've seen more money moving Now.
Geof Rochester:Quite frankly, five, seven years ago there was a lot of lip service. A lot of people were talking a good game, but they really weren't writing checks. But people are writing checks now and you know, let's talk a sector that we've started to look at really closely. You know, there's this notion of the utopian solution. Like nuclear is, a utopian solution will cost billions, will take many, many years, but guess what? There are short-term solutions available to us today. If you and I could wave a magic wand, probably 40% of the world's engines run on diesel, right? Wouldn't it be great if we could wave a magic wand and those engines would burn cleaner tomorrow? No capital If you're Amtrak, you don't have to buy new electric trains. If you're Carnival Cruises, you don't have to buy new battery-powered or renewable, energy-driven engines for your ships. You could what's called dose them with whatever fuel you're using and they would burn cleaner right Tomorrow. There's a group we've worked with called Purify Fuels. They have a solution like that, but at a very macro level. One of the solutions to that is what's called renewable diesel Diesel made from soy, diesel made from sunflower, diesel made from used cooking oil. That sector is blowing up right now. There's a company that we're aware of called Brea, which is in Canada. Brea is now operating one of the largest renewable diesel factories in all of North America, and it started as a petroleum diesel factory. Right, that's.
Geof Rochester:The other trend is, you take old infrastructure coal power plant, uh, diesel oil refinery and you transform it into something doing that's going to be clean, renewable energy. Well, that's the best story in the world, because you've protected some of the jobs in the community. Yeah, you didn't. You didn't shutter a thing and turn it into a hole, right, uh, you figured out a way to transform it and and and create hope for these communities, hope for people in halifax in canada, because that that factory that they knew was there, that was producing jobs, is now producing renewable diesel. Yeah, and those kind of projects are being funded is, yeah, going back to your financing issue, those kinds of projects are being funded. Going back to your financing issue, those kinds of projects are being funded For small investors.
Geof Rochester:People just need to do their homework. There's an initiative called Divest Invest. It's probably I don't know 20 years old now. It started on college campuses, where the young students would put pressure on the administrators to divest the endowments from fossil fuel stocks and, and you know that that's a wonderful initiative and it has to do with, you know, moving away from something and moving to something Right, right, and you know, or you take a company like Wal-Mart and Project Gigaton, and Wal-Mart says to all their vendors you know, by this date we need you to demonstrate your scope three emissions and we're going to prefer suppliers that have a lower carbon footprint than these other suppliers. Right, and so you know, small investors just have to do their homework. There are tons of opportunities out there.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad you brought up Walmart, because they're an example of a company that kind of like turned it around from a sustainability standpoint. And I think it's through education and through acknowledging, like I think someone showed them and then they were like, hey, you're right, let's change, and a lot of people now hold them up as an example, which is a pretty cool turnaround story. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and any advice you have for a company that feels like, oh my God, everyone hates us because we're doing all this stuff. How can we turn it around? How can we do what Walmart did?
Geof Rochester:Yeah, and I would be careful when you say someone showed them. Look, I always tell people these companies are filled with our neighbors and our friends and our relatives, our cousins. These aren't like Martians from some other planet, these are us. The issue is the incentives. So I use this example a lot with people For all the people that are super critical of capitalism. If you're a young person and you went to a school like Georgetown, a school like UPenn, look in your parents 401k portfolio, right? All those companies you hate are probably in their portfolio which drove your success into college, right? So I think we all have to, like, take the temperature down a little bit. And this is really like 3D chess and I'm not trying to obfuscate or give companies a pass. I'm just saying that there are certain behaviors that are predictable. If you're a publicly traded company, you respond to Wall Street, you have to report quarterly earnings.
Geof Rochester:I suspect, as with any big company, walmart had a lot of smart people, both internally and on the board, and there was probably some rising pressure, and then it hit a tipping point.
Geof Rochester:The tipping point was catalyzed by smart thinking that said, here's how we can still hit some of our profit goals while doing this on the other side and, by the way, the cost of renewables and the cost of some of these solutions has come down dramatically in the past 10 years. So where they were more achievable, right. But for all of the critics, I think we have to up our game collectively to help these companies figure out how to meet these sometimes conflicting yeah, right, yeah, the force of your investor, the force of your employees wanting something, the force of your community wanting something, and we all have to be smart about proffering objective, practical solutions that get us there. Maybe part of getting there is, you know, you want to see. Third, I'll make it a 30% order of magnitude improvement in a year. Maybe you have to satisfy yourself with 10% improvement a year, and so it takes 10 years versus five, but you get there and you get on.
Jamie Serino:Yeah and I. There were two things in there that I liked that you said. So there's like there are times there's. There are times there's there's conflict, right and there, and there can be competing initiatives or there can be conflicting priorities, or, yeah, um, and so you know it. It sounds like it's not insurmountable, though, and if you can acknowledge that and work through it, then there there could be a solution. You just get through to the other side, as you're saying. The other thing you said there I think that's worth noting is turn the temperature down a little, and it's tough. Now. I think we are in a little bit of a kind of black and white or one or zero kind of world, and if a company is not doing something great, they're evil, they're bad, but, like you're saying, some of our friends might be working in there, our neighbors, or you're buying their products and we're buying their products, right?
Geof Rochester:using their services. People don't like Amazon's carbon footprint. I live in a building. The lobby is packed with Amazon packages Exactly boxes, yep, yep, yeah, and you know.
Jamie Serino:The thing is, though, everything is on a spectrum and I think, if we can turn the temperature down and instead of you know, I mean there are times when you do need to wave your fists and you said, like you're surrounded by some people you know in your community that maybe are doing that, but other times it's more about like, maybe we can make them an ally and we can help them. Change doesn't always have to be, you know so, black or white, you know so. Is there anything else you could add there? You know about that particular concept?
Geof Rochester:No, not really I. I again, the insight to me is these are your neighbors, these are your family and, by the way, capitalism has probably been pretty good to you, right? So so I don't think it. I love capitalism. I don't think it's about doing away with it. And, and to be clear, there are bad actors, right, there are bad actors in in business, but I think for the most part, businesses want to do what's right for those three stakeholder groups yeah they have disproportionate pressure from shareholders.
Geof Rochester:But you know they're they. You know. Take the fashion industry. Right, you're operating a factory in India or China or Africa and you're polluting the river down the way, right, that's unacceptable. Or you're not paying your female factory workers a fair living wage that's unacceptable. So the good news is, you know, I've been doing this for a while. I've been doing this since my early 20s. I've seen a market evolution in the way businesses think about this stuff. Some of it is through external pressures, some of it is through internal pressures.
Jamie Serino:Yeah yeah, you can create a lot of change change from within and I guess on that topic, I've seen situations where you maybe have a mid-tier or upper-tier management that wants to bring these changes to the organization and they have a hard time convincing the C-suite or the board, the board. Any advice there for someone who's in that position, who's fighting for change internally, but they're just having a hard time convincing the C-suite and the board?
Geof Rochester:Yeah. So a couple of things. If you're more senior, you look for allies Board members can be great allies and well-structured boards, boards where there's someone on the board that knows technology. There's somebody on the board that knows technology, somebody on the board that knows marketing. Increasingly, boards are adding people that know ESG and sustainability and they become huge levers with your CEO because they're on the board.
Geof Rochester:So you know, if you're a senior level, I was advising someone a couple of weeks together we were having this conversation and I said do you know your board? So they were senior enough that they have limited access, but some access to the board. Like, who's your ally on the board? Right, create an ally at the board level If you're more. If you're not at that level in the organization where you don't have visibility to the board. One of the most important things that I saw created at the Nature Conservancy were employee resource groups, drgs, and so this could be a resource group. These are affinity groups veterans, women, people of color, whatever you pick it. Those I think are highly effective at change management, right.
Geof Rochester:Because, they get the respect and the attention of the CEO. A lot of times those groups have a direct line of communication into the CEO and their way of the CEO listening and understanding right. So, depending on your organization, if they don't have a philosophy around ERGs, employee research groups, this is something that if you're a mid-level manager and you went to your head of HR and you say, hey, I think we have an issue with women, we have an issue with young people you know, I'm a manager, I have a lot of young people. I know peer managers that have a lot of young people. They feel they don't have a voice. Maybe we should create a young people's whatever right In our research group. So I just think that, again, if you're the one complaining, if you're the one that wants to see transformation, we just have to up our game.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:Right, and there's so many interesting case stories of companies willing to listen and being forced to listen. Yeah, you know, take turnover Like if you don't address the needs of these young people, you'll be non-competitive in terms of your ability to attract talent, right, right, so, in a way, there's never been a better time to be an employee also.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, and I think the attention given to a lot of these issues and we talked a lot about climate and it's interesting. I'll share a quick story. My, my son, he's, he just finished third grade and he's in this group and they were supposed to do like a presentation and they paired off and then the parents, you know, went in and watched the presentation and and they and the the remit was just solve a problem, find a problem and present a hypothetical solution to the problem. Every single pair did something environmental In a way. It was encouraging to see that it had to do with all different aspects of the environment. Maybe you could say some of the kids influenced others or they saw what kids were doing. For every pair to do that. It's really, really interesting that it's on their minds. Right, they're coming, you know they're coming into contact with environmental issues. A lot Is there. You know another issue that you're seeing gain a lot of attention or that your clients are telling you we really want to get involved with this particular issue.
Geof Rochester:Is there anything? I'll give you two. I'll give you two. We really want to get involved with this particular issue. Is there anything? I'll give you two. I'll give you two. One is we have a health care epidemic in the United States, if not the world.
Geof Rochester:And the epidemic our disease is preventable through diet. So diabetes, obesity, sometimes heart disease, high blood pressure, these are all things that intuitively we know and scientifically we know there's causation between diet and lifestyle and your propensity to have these conditions right. And yet we work with a guy called Carter over at iSelect and he used to run a conference called Cresonia and the major thesis for what he espouses is that we need to be thinking more about the intersection of the ag economy right and healthcare. And you know we spend 1.7 trillion, I think, on diseases preventable through diet and we spend 1.9 trillion on all health care. We don't look at that as a 3.6, 3.5 trillion dollar war check.
Geof Rochester:Yeah, yeah, so, uh, I, we we're. We're lucky to be working with a group called appalachian regional health care. They're one of the largest health care providers in appalachia, one of the poorest parts of america, and this hospital system of 14 hospitals uh it, you know, one of the largest again service service providers in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia some parts of West Virginia. They're really leaning in on prevention and I'm proud of the work they're doing. And when you go down that road you end up realizing you better care about K through 12 education.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:You better care about food deserts and food banks and access, right. You better care about the grocery stores like you end up. Look, you're a healthcare provider, so you can't do it all, but if you want to see fewer patients landing in your emergency rooms, you better have a point of view. Yeah, each of these elements of the ecosystem that can address these issues right, and some of it is again for for the folks complaining on this side of the equation, we just have to be more innovative and smarter in our thinking. Right, and you want to go back downstream. So guess what? If you care about people being obese in their 30s or having high blood pressure in their 30s, you better start to talk to kids.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:So preventative health food is, medicine is is one topic that is really blowing up, and the other one is food waste, and again, you know. So, going back to climate, food waste as a climate issue is like number four in the top ten Wow, and it's preventable. Again, you don't have to hire a bunch of nuclear scientists to figure out how to address food waste. I was at a conference sponsored by a group called REFED. They're one of the largest nonprofits in the US focused on tackling food waste. They had a conference, jamie, they had 750 people in Baltimore. It was huge interest, huge interest.
Geof Rochester:And these aren't people off the street, these are community organizations and other nonprofits and for-profits. Chick-fil-a was there. Many corporations were represented. Toast, the company that does all the back office for the rest of America. They're a major partner with them. So food waste is coming to the fore. The reason I thought about it was one of the panels I sat in on a. A professional in the space talked about going. Uh, one of their kids schools had done a project around food waste, unsolicited, although although daddy and mommy worked in the space, the kids on their own right. It is a topic to tap right, yeah, it's great.
Jamie Serino:Well, I mean, in my house I try to take care of food waste. Uh, I used to. I used to make fun of my grandfather. My grandparents used to live with us when I was a kid. He basically ate everything that no one else wanted, and I feel like I'm becoming that well because you're paying for it.
Jamie Serino:But buddy, yeah, exactly so, I'm doing my part, right, so, but that's, and you talked about a few things there and you also talked about connecting the dots, like I saw a documentary, and I've been talking about this documentary for a little while and it was actually about it was studying twins and the effect of a vegan diet, you know, or you know, a sort of hybrid type diet, but then the documentary also explored the fact that you know, having a cattle farm puts pressure on the environment, having a pig farm puts pressure on the environment.
Jamie Serino:So there's like some dots that get connected there. Then how about the money, you know, and how about, like, a chef of a restaurant? And there's all these different dots that get connected there with the issue of can we eat healthier? Right was the, you know, the purpose of the documentary. So what do you and you talked about this a little bit, but just to maybe focus again on it is, when there are these, all these dots to connect and sometimes it might be conflict again, you know what, what kind of advice do you give to your clients when, when that kind of situation exists?
Geof Rochester:So, look, you don't want to boil the ocean, but you better realize whatever issue you're trying to address, it could be teen dating abuse. Right, there's a group called Day One Out of New York that we worked with years ago, and the problem they're trying to solve is, I think, order of magnitude. In the United States, about one out of three people, predominantly women between 12 and 24, are subject to some kind of teen dating abuse. And, by the way, dating abuse doesn't have to be physical. We know it can be cyber, and so you know.
Geof Rochester:So, whatever problem you're trying to solve, I think we all have to be smarter and thinking of solutions as being layered, and maybe you want to get to a solution down here, but there's some layers you've got to go through. I'll give you, you know, not to be overly expensive voting. So voting is a great enabler If you don't like whatever, whatever it is in your municipality, if it's at the federal or the state level. Now, corporations are nonpartisan, but they can certainly enable voting as a way to help their employees feel empowered. So, the point being, only four out of 10 American companies give their employees a day off to vote.
Geof Rochester:Yeah, so now imagine you're 23. You're working, perhaps in retail or fast food. You get an hour for lunch. It's voting day. You go to the line and the line is two hours long. You're not going to vote. So I think the broad thesis here is that and we've heard, it's systemic systems theory, peter Senge map all the nodes. You don't have to solve all the nodes, but if you're trying to solve this problem, you better be expansive enough in your thinking, your mapping, and you also have to solve this problem. You better be expansive enough in your thinking, your mapping, and you also have to do people need to do better competitive analysis. Trust me, someone else has tried to solve this problem.
Geof Rochester:Yeah, the first thing, we any client to walk through our door and everyone thinks they invented the cure for cancer and they're the only one that invented that cure. Back, when I look at this, I used to look at this there were one point two million nonprofits in the US in 2010. There were 1.2 million nonprofits in 2010. There were 20,000 in the environment. Those numbers have probably doubled by then. So what happens is you and I see this movie, this documentary we say we're going to create a nonprofit to solve that problem. Right and away we go and we don't do two things we don't look at the surrounding enabling conditions, we don't map it, and we don't look to competitors and say you know what? United Way has a pretty damn good program. We volunteer or offer to partner with United Way to solve this problem Because, to be clear, the nonprofit space, charity, is so gratifying. A lot of times not all the time, but a lot of times it's an ego play.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:Your name is on a nonprofit or you get to tell your social circles you founded this nonprofit. I think people need to think more about what does it take to solve the problem and what are the tools available.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, and even like just going back to the UN sustainable development goals. But I think one of the things that they were trying to address was to can we create these like sort of channels for aggregation? Correct, talking to them, they were saying, like just what you're saying, yeah, we love that. These people are ambitious and they want to get out there and they want to help and do something, but they might be just replicating the efforts of another and then siphoning money off and it's just not efficient. Right, but it's not in, it's not a field that will naturally kind of like the way capitalism kind of naturally kind of weeds out. You might not get that. You might get that a little bit, but you might not get that as much in the nonprofit world.
Geof Rochester:So Eco America did something really smart. I happened to be at their board meeting in New York last week and, by the way, we were hosted by the Clinton Foundation, so it was extraordinary. They have a program where they create grants to get other nonprofits to move in a direction. Wow, wow, right. That's amazing and that's something the bigger organizations have the luxury to do because they have the budgets. But what is the USDA doing with their $3 billion grant? They're reaching hundreds of farmers and herding them in a certain direction through financial incentives, right. Same thing with the Inflation Reduction Act. So I think some of the larger nonprofits have an ability to herd the cats through small grants.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, that's really cool. So in coming to a conclusion here, you've already talked a lot about optimism and you know hope it'd be good to you know maybe, if you have any other comments there about that, you know one. One kind of thing I'll just throw in there is that you sometimes hear people saying we're in late stage, capitalism right, which kind of has this connotation? That what? It's coming to an end.
Geof Rochester:Yeah right what are your thoughts on that? I don't even know what that means. Yeah, and and and and what. Without knowing the context for that statement, I would say that, by definition, capitalism should keep reinventing itself. Let's take a very broad look at capitalism. There was pre-internet and post-internet. Your game had to change dramatically, right? There's pre-ESG and pre-sustainability and post. Your game has you know? You and I are old enough to remember when there were no recycling baskets in a company, right? Yeah, I can certainly remember when smoking was everywhere planes, amtrak, et cetera. So I just think there are these moments in history where capitalism has evolved.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:And so when someone talks about late stage, what I think about is what is that birthing on the other side? What's the next evolution? Right, so things go like this, maybe they go like this, and then they go up, and then right. So I think we're we're at that point now where I um, social issues, corporate social responsibility, ESG, environmental sustainability are now in the bloodstream, yeah, and we're moving from playing defense to offense.
Geof Rochester:That's the transition I would argue that we're going through right now is the better companies Look, one of the biggest benefits of the ESG work and the emphasis on scope emissions and there's good data behind this. Data behind this when a company is decides that they need to know, uh, if you're walmart, you need to understand. If you're selling toothpaste, what's the carbon footprint of that toothpaste? Yeah, and you accordingly put pressure on procter and unilever to understand the carbon footprint of their product. They become better. Right, it sharp. It sharpens the P&L. You get to really understand these transactions and these parts of your supply chain that you didn't pay much attention to.
Jamie Serino:Yeah.
Geof Rochester:And they're great stories of profit optimization coming out of the ESG scope. Three exercises so, I think this is good for everybody. It's good for the planet. It's good. Good for everybody. It's good for the planet, it's good for the company, it's good for the employees, it's going to be good for the company's P&Ls.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, and with more education then their products become more desirable. You know, people might actually buy that tube of toothpaste if they know they can recycle it versus buying a competitor brand.
Geof Rochester:And, by the way, some companies will fail, some won't turn the corner, and that's okay, also right. There's a natural cleaning out of these systems, and the better companies will rise to the top.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you mentioned a couple of times us working to solve a problem like recycling, like smoking, know there has been progress. Of course you know more problems pop up, but we have the ability to solve problems, you know, or at least work toward them yeah, that that's the overarching message and I know we're coming to close.
Geof Rochester:I, I'm excited, I, I I get to see some of the most interesting things in the world weekly. Yeah, right, and, and it gives me a sense of hope. I wish, I wish more people could hear these stories, right, uh, because you know they don't all make it to the news. But, like I said, daniela, you know, mid 20 year old woman making a real difference, uh, appalachian regional healthcare, really digging in on addressing you know, they were born of the coal industry. They were a hospital system that was created by the coal industry for their employees. 60 years later, they're still reinventing, they're still doing really good work. So I see good news from food waste to healthcare, to nuclear, to EV battery innovation. Right, it's all there for us.
Jamie Serino:Great. All right, I think we'll. We'll end there on that positive note. Um, Geof, thank you very much. Uh, it's been great speaking with you and everybody. Thanks for joining us and we will see you next time.
Geof Rochester:Jamie, thanks a million. This was fun. Take care, my pleasure. Bye.
