Igniting Change Podcast Season 2: Episode 1

Anne-Charlotte began her sustainability journey with her studies at University, and later went on to found her own sustainable cosmetics start-up. After this, she joined OLIO, a community focused food sharing app who’s aim is to reduce the amount of food waste that we produce each day. Agriculture production accounts for 10% of the UK’s greenhouse gasses, so reducing the wastage and ensuring that food goes to those who need it rather than landfill is at the core of OLIO’s app.

OLIO harnesses the power of tech to allow users to share food through a quick and simple application. They have also partnered with large brands, such as; Tesco, Pret a Manger, Iceland and Planet Organic to prevent wastage on a larger scale and drive even more users to the Olio platform. The speed of Olio’s technology, along with their team of volunteers ensures that the small window of time that food has before it becomes wastage is both adhered to and maximised.

Anne-Charlotte’s role as head of impact has seen her play a large part in growing OLIO’s user base from a few hundred when she joined, to well over 6 million users to date. Part of her involvement has been through extracting value from OLIO’s impact and data while building OLIO’s reputation & network. One of her focuses is on the creation of a carbon credit methodology to register OLIO as a carbon project, using data to quantify the amount of CO2 diverted from the atmosphere thanks to OLIO operations.

Anne-Charlotte shared a concerning stat that has inspired her on her sustainability journey, the fall in the earth overshoot day over time. Earth overshoot day is the date in which we have used all of the earths replenish-able resources, which in 1969 when the measurements where first taken, was December 31st meaning that it was in equilibrium. However, as of today, that date is July 28th. This means that we are using far more than the earth can replenish, creating a huge imbalance in the way that we utilise resources.

Anne-Charlotte said that the best way to start becoming more sustainable is by being more educated on the current day issues. By being educated, we can make better decisions and have better conversations about sustainability. A few of Anne-Charlotte’s book recommendations are a great place to start!

• Less is More – Jason Hickel
• The Deficit Myth –  Stephanie Kelton
• How to Avoid a Climate Disaster –  Bill Gates
• Impact – Ronald Cohen

Anne-Charlotte shared with us some of her picks for tech innovations helping make the world a better place:

Chirrup

Chirrup uses tech to empower farmers to measure and improve the biodiversity of their farmland, by measuring the birdsong present. By using artificial intelligence, the small box that powers Chirrup is able to detect the bird song and deliver the appropriate reporting to the farmer, which can then be used for government grants for the support of biodiversity. What Chirrup does so well is take a difficult skillet, such as ecology and give farmers an accessible solution to a complex issue, that in turn promotes more sustainable farming methods.

Beam

Beam gives homeless people and refugees the ability to grow their skillsets and grow a career, by combining crowdfunding donations with crowdsourcing of  training and charitable resources.By using tech in such a way, Beam enables donors to help crowdfund towards training and career opportunities for these individuals, and then Beam pulls together the best ways to utilise these donations. Beam offers people facing difficulties in life the opportunity to build a meaningful career and receive the support they need.

As we have seen, tech plays a huge role in sustainability efforts, but it is by no means the only way! By being open to ideas, educating yourself, and starting small, we can all make changes to become more sustainable in our lives.  There are some wonderful examples of ways technology can support behaviour change for a sustainable life in our ‘Bridging the Gap’ consumer report, download that here.

Massive thanks to our amazing hosts and of course Anne-Charlotte for her wonderful insights. Catch the entire episode here: