Making Design Circular Podcast – Season 4 – Exploring Shake off the “Should”s – Grow

Welcome to season four of Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden, in which we’re exploring what it takes to cultivate a creative practice in which you, your business and the planet ALL get to thrive. We’ll be diving deep into the nuances, complexities and mindset shifts that we need to embrace to bring about a just transition to a more circular economy.

In this episode, Katie explores “Grow” – the third and final pillar of the Making Design Circular framework which is all about:

• Learning so that you can make informed decisions, and curating trusted sources of information so that you can avoid greenwashing
• Walking (not running) so that you can break down your sustainability journey into manageable steps and take them one by one
• Nurturing yourself as you go, because to look after the environment, you need to look after the environmentalist

Kaite also shares her super-juicy 5-stage Path to Sustainability in which you will find out whether you are an Acorn, Seed, Sapling, Tree or Forest and take away 3 x actionable steps to get you moving towards the next stage.

Workbook link: Shake off the Shoulds Workbook.pdf (dropbox.com)

Making Design Circular membership: An international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople – join us!

The membership is open from 22^nd November – 3^rd December 2023 so if you are listening before 03 December, you can find all the details here: https://makingdesigncircular.org/membership/

If you’re listening after 03 December, you can join the membership waitlist here https://makingdesigncircular.org/membership/ to be the first to hear the next time we open doors to the membership.

Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world: Katie’s sixth book celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.

Cultivating Hope, 3 part mini course: Are you ready to cultivate hope in the face of the climate crisis? Sign up to Katie’s three-part free mini course that will help you move through feelings of helplessness, reconnect with nature and take aligned action.

The Seed, Self-paced 4 part course: Sign up to Katie’s self-paced course to help you find your unique contribution to environmentalism – have fun, play to your strengths, work in alignment with your values and make a big impact in the process.

Spread the Word:

Please share Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden with wild abandon — with your friends, family, and fellow designer-makers or wherever interesting conversations about creativity happen in your world!

If you love what you’re listening to, show us some love by following Circular with Katie Treggiden in this app and leaving a review. All that good stuff tells the ‘algorithm Gods’ to show the podcast to more people, and that can only be a good thing, right?

Sign up for our my e-newsletter ‘Weekly(ish) Musings for Curious, Imperfect and Stubbornly Optimistic Environmentalists’ – just click here.

And find me on the Interwebs:  @katietreggiden (Twitter, TikTok), & @katietreggiden3908 (YouTube) & @katietreggiden.1 (Instagram) – and if you’re a designer, maker, artist or craftsperson, join me on IG @making_design_circular_

About Katie:
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular – an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism. With more than 20 years’ experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine and Dezeen. She is currently exploring the question ‘Can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), this very podcast.

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Below is a transcript of our conversation. Find the full episode available to listen on Spotify here.

This transcript is generated in Otter.ai – please excuse any spelling and grammatical errors. 

INTRO

Welcome to season four of Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden, in which we’re exploring what it takes to cultivate a creative practice in which you, your business and the planet ALL get to thrive. We’ll be diving deep into the nuances, complexities and mindset shifts that we need to embrace to bring about a just transition to a more circular economy.

EPISODE INTRO

Hey, it is the week commencing the 20th of November 2023 as I record this, and all of this week, I’m running a series of free lunchtime workshops called Shake off the “Should”s. So the idea is that we let go of all the ways we’ve been told we’re supposed to show up and find a way to do environmentalism that works for us that aligns with our values that lights us up that makes us excited, that reconnects us with the reasons we got interested in Craft and Design and making in the first place. So I thought it might be quite an interesting thing to do is just to share the audio replays of those as part of the podcast. So if you’re signed up to those already, you will be getting the visual replays into your inbox. If you are more of a podcast listener, you’re just gonna get the audio versions over the next three days.

There is a link to the worksheets in the shownotes, so if you want to kind of sit down and follow along and do all the exercises along with us, then feel free to do so. You might have to hit pause because I think we probably will have edited some of the silent gaps where everybody was working hard out of the podcast, but please feel free to do that. Equally, if you just want to listen while you’re walking the dog, folding laundry or in the bath and let it all wash over you then do that too.

If you’re listening before midnight on Sunday, the 3rd of December, the doors to the making design circular membership are currently open. And if you love this podcast, you’re gonna love the membership. So check out the link to that in the show notes. I would absolutely love to have you as part of the membership. If you’re listening after that date. We will also pop a link to the waitlist in the show notes so that you’ll be the first to hear next time we open the doors. Alright, enjoy the replay and give me a shout out via Insta DM if you’ve got any questions.

MAIN PODCAST

So I’m gonna ask everyone just to kind of sit back in your chair or seat if you’re on a stool, just kind of sit down and just take a moment to look around the room you are in and no judgment or labeling. Just notice the quality of the light, perhaps the colors or textures that surround you. Maybe the quality of the air temperature, the humidity. And just kind of let your body know that your are here in this space. And whatever the morning has been stressing you with Sam, I need to tidy my office too. I said, no judgment. Whatever the morning has been stressing you with can be put aside for the next hour. You can come back to it and pick it up in an hour. But for now, we’re here together doing this. Jackie says, I’m just gonna boost my heating. Yep. Fair. I’ve got slippers on, right? Amazing. As I said, thank you so much to have you all back.

So today we’re gonna talk about the grow pod section. Need a good metaphor and this is where we kind of really get into it. So we’ve released the stuff that’s not serving us, we’ve planted those seeds and this is about now starting to bring about change. So we’ve talked a little bit about, or we’ve talked a lot about how to be in this space and we now move into the the kind of more traditional what to do type stuff. But I think it’s really important that we move through the how to be stuff first so that we can dive into this in the right way.

Lar. Yeah. ’cause you’ll pop the cultivating pot link in the chat for you. Oh nice. Cool. Thanks Louise. Awesome. So that’s what we’re gonna do today. We’re gonna look at learn, walk, and and nurture, which are the three sections within this section. I’ve talked about the book, that was my little reminder. But yes, the first thing I wanna do is just tell you a little bit about the membership because I was about to say the door’s open now I scheduled an email to my newsletter list, which was supposed to go out three o’clock this afternoon and I accidentally scheduled it at three o’clock yesterday. So technically the doors opened at three o’clock yesterday, but they are only open currently to you people who’ve signed up for this program and people on my e-newsletter list on Friday they opened to the rest of the world.

So I just wanna tell you a little bit about the membership because a lot of this stuff within Grow is what the membership is kind of doing and supporting. So doors are open now and the membership is a gorgeous community of purpose-driven creatives who are shaking off the shoulds to make the world a better place. And I love this quote from Diana who said the best part has been finding similarities between other people’s journeys on my own.

I feel like I’ve finally found my people. And I think that’s probably the most common feedback I get for all the stuff and resources and kind of amazing goodness that’s in that. It’s that sense of community and being amongst like-minded folks on this same journey. So that sense of, I found my people comes up a lot. Fiona said it’s so nice to be in a group that’s at the same stage and feeling similar struggles with the opportunity to chat them through and support each other.

I think this work can be quite lonely, right? What we’re doing is slightly counter-cultural and many of us have kind of solo studios where we’re making on our own all day and then perhaps come home to sort of carrying responsibilities and people with muggle jobs and people who don’t necessarily understand the ins and outs of a, you know, being someone who’s making for a living.

But B, trying to do that sustainably, both of which I think are still quite counter-cultural. So that sense of having a space where you can share those struggles can be really powerful. Steph said, making design circular membership has given me the confidence and knowledge to evolve my making and business practice to become more aligned with my values. I’ve been able to do this at my own pace without feeling overwhelmed and Steph has a new baby at home.

So the without feeling overwhelmed is very impressive. But also with a good level of accountability. I enjoy being part of a community of other makers and really look forward to our regular meetups. Katie has a generous, energetic and knowledgeable and has created something really special. And then Sarah, and this was one of the first testimonials I ever got and I loved it so much because Sarah said I’ve often felt this disconnect between my work as a furniture maker and my personal values.

So I decided to bring them closer together. And she said that being part of making design circular has given me the knowledge to get started and a community to share ideas with. I now have a job that I love and care about and I’m excited about my future as a maker again. And it’s really interesting ’cause Sarah talks a lot about how she used to stand on a trade show stand or at craft fairs and kind of feel this kind of of disconnect from the work that she was presenting, which meant she wasn’t able to sell it, right? ’cause she had that kind of slight hesitation and now that she’s reinvented her practice to be much more in alignment with her values, it doesn’t feel like selling anymore. She’s so kind of excited about the things that she’s making and they feel so aligned for her that she’s just able to show up and talk about that stuff with excitement that’s contagious,

right? Rather than it feeling like quote unquote selling. So what’s it all about? The question I always get asked is the time and money investment, which is fair. So I recommend that folks commit one to two hours a week to work on this stuff. So we have a call every Thursday lunchtime and then we also have a co-working call on a Tuesday lunchtime.

So to get the absolute most out of it, if you can commit at least to the calls, that’s fantastic. And then either show up to those co-working calls or carve out another hour at some point to make progress on some of the stuff that’s in there. It’s 97 pounds a month, which works out at about 122 US dollars or 113 euros. And 10% of that goes towards funding bursary places.

So for every 10 paid members we have one fully funded bursary ’cause it’s really important to me that this stuff is accessible. And in terms of what’s in there, we have the path to sustainability, which I’m gonna take you through shortly as part of the grow. So this is the walk part of the, the kind of making design circular framework. And that is the, I’ve essentially taken all the stuff you might do to become more sustainable and put it in a logical order so you can walk through step by step rather than sort of feeling overwhelmed. As I mentioned, we have these coworking sessions. So the thing I hear most from creatives is I really struggle to carve out time for this work. Like I want to do it, I believe in it, but I’m struggling to make the time. And so these co-working sessions are about saying, okay, well let’s all commit to showing up for this one hour and it’s weirdly effective. You know, all we do is each say, I’m gonna do this in the next hour. I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna try not to look at my phone so I’m gonna put it there so you can all see it.

And it’s staggering. I mean if you are someone who’s neurodivergent, it’s called body doubling and we know it works, but it also works really well for, for neurotypical focus as well. I’ll come back to the sense of community, which I’ve touched on. We have a co-curated library of read watch list and recommendations. So I always try to make sure that anything I’m teaching is as accessible as possible for different learning styles.

So unlike those impenetrable reading lists that we all got handed at university or art school, I try to make sure there’s documentaries, there’s podcasts, there’s kind of short form blogs, so there’s different ways of engaging with the information and that is co-curated. So everybody is contributing to that library. There are self-paced courses in there. So the seed I’ve already mentioned, you get access to as a member, there is a waste master class, which is a 12 week program kind of helping to support you working with waste as a raw material. And that covers textiles, plastic food waste, all sorts of different things. And then as I’m developing more self-paced courses, members will get access to all of those. We have a monthly group coaching session which is hosted by me and a brilliant coach called Joe Casey.

And that is where you can bring the more, I guess the more emotional struggles. So where you’ve hit a block and you just can’t quite get past something where you are worried about something, where perfectionism is getting in the way. And Joe and I can help you unpick that and help you to start making progress. ’cause I think often we know what we need to do.

It’s just a question of you know, getting ourselves into the, the space where we can do it. So Joe and I work with a lot of that sort of, I I tend to talk about the, the membership having head knowledge, hand knowledge and heart knowledge. And this is where we get into the heart knowledge. We have guest speakers once a month.

And so those might be make us who are a little further along in their sustainability journey or it might be folks from other disciplines. So we had AB leader come in and talk to us about B Corp accreditation. We’ve had somebody talk to us about kind of how to sell and the kind of the emotional thing of that, you know, how do I sell this stuff with confidence and talk about it with confidence.

And then we have a little green book which again is co-curated and that’s a list of people we might want to work with as part of our practice. So if you need a photographer, if you need a website host, if you need an accountant, who are the sustainable ones so you can build your network sustainably. And then I said I’d come back to community and I think community is, is so hard to articulate but we just have the most gorgeous group of humans. I dunno how I’ve done it, but I’ve just managed to attract the most beautiful people and we share in a vulnerable kind of supportive, imperfect way that just makes everybody feel really connected and really supported. So I think, I think the most valuable thing is the, the people who are in there.

Somebody just sent a question about bursary applications. If you would like to apply for a bursary, I have to get 10 more paying members before I can offer another bursary. So I can’t promise that’s gonna happen but just send me an email and it’s very much the kind of criteria is that if you wouldn’t be able to meet the costs of running your business, if you had to pay for this, then I can offer you a fully funded bursary if one becomes available and it’s on a kind of no questions asked basis, I don’t need you to prove that to me. I just, I hope folks will be honest. So if anybody’s interested in that, just shoot me an email. Awesome. Right? So that is what’s in there.

As I said, doors are open for you now and to focus on my email newsletter list ’cause that email went out yesterday instead of this afternoon. But they are open for everybody else doors open on Friday. So for the sort of wider community and doors close at midnight on Sunday the 3rd of December, that’s, so that’s a week on Sunday. So it’s really important to me that you’ve got the time and space to make a values aligned decision and that there’s not that kind of sense of urgency.

So you’ve got until a week on Sunday and I’m around if you’ve got any questions, just shoot me a DM on Instagram, shoot me an email if you wanna hop on a call and talk through whether it feels right for you. I’m more than happy to do that as well. Cool. So yeah, the doors are open until Sunday, a week on Sunday, but there’s some cool stuff coming up between now and then. So every Thur, every once a month we have a path to sustainability, check-in call. So the thing I’m about to talk you through this big part to sustainability, every month we all get together and say, okay, I’m here by next month I wanna be here, these are the things I’m gonna do to get there.

I kind of offer any support or advice I can to help folks get there. And then a month later we come back and very gently and lovingly we say, now these are the things you said you’d do by last month, how’s that going? So that happens tomorrow immediately for before our call. We have coworking every Tuesday and then we have a new member welcome call on Thursday the 30th of November.

And I know it’s weird that’s happening before the doors close, but because we have a little schedule of what happens on what Thursday of the month, I do new member calls on the Thursdays where there are five Thursdays in a month. So they happen a little bit sporadically and it just so happens that there’s one on Thursday the 30th of November. So if anybody is thinking of joining it would be lovely to join before that so you can come to that new member welcome call rather than having to wait until there’s another month with five Thursdays in it.

So if anybody’s got any questions on any of that stuff, chuck it in the chat and of course we can talk it through tomorrow as well. And then we will dive into the content for today. So we have got in this section learn, walk and nurture and as I said walk is about the five stage path to sustainability. So I’m gonna take you through that in a bit of detail.

But I wanted to talk about this idea of learn because environmentalism is a lifelong learning journey. It’s a ever changing field. And the problem that we’re facing at the moment is that as it’s getting more and more popular, there’s more and more misinformation coming into the world. So that poses a twofold problem, right? One, it’s hard to educate yourselves and understand what’s good information and what’s not.

Two, it means there’s increasing scrutiny on the way you are communicating your sustainability efforts. So how do you communicate in a way that doesn’t feel like greenwashing? So there was a, a study commissioned by the European Union in 2021 that said that 42% of green claims are exaggerated, false or deceptive, which is horrifying. And there are also kind of quite sneaky things people do where they might not claim something as eco-friendly but they might change the packaging.

So it’s green and it’s got leaves on it. And so without really thinking on a supermarket shelf, you are picking that one up assuming it’s sustainable but they haven’t actually said anything. So I would say anytime somebody has made a a claim like 42% of green claims or exaggerated false or deceptive like I’ve done there, have they credited it? Have they put a source? So that’s why I’ve written underneath European Commission study 2021. So you know, I haven’t just made that up, right? So if somebody’s making a claim, where is their source? Where are they getting that information from? I think also be really specific about really careful about specific versus vague language. So when someone says something like most of our products are recyclable or we use recycled material, where possible, what does that mean? Whereas if somebody says 92% of our, you know, materials we use come from waste materials, awesome, I know exactly what you’re talking about now. Or if somebody says something like, you know, all of our materials are sourced in the UK apart from this because we can’t get it in the uk so this comes from France.

Cool, now I know what you mean. As I said, the implications of the imagery. So just because something has green packaging and pictures of leaves on it doesn’t mean it’s good for the environment. External validation. So this is where things like B corp and environmental product declarations come in because it means someone else is marking that person’s homework. So we can make claims about what we are doing but I think particularly as companies get bigger, you want to start looking for those external validations. And then the green claims code which has come into the UK I think is really important. So this came in a few years ago and this is part of the sort of advertising standards rules about what you can talk about. So if you’re making green claims, they need to be truthful and accurate, they need to be clear and unambiguous.

So that thing I said about vague language, it’s one of the things they’re starting to look into is whether people are omitting or hiding information. So are you sharing the full picture? And something that’s quite interesting is when something that looks like a small eco-friendly company and then you find out it’s actually owned by Nestle. And so people are kind of hiding some of those things.

And I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, big companies have to test out more eco ways of doing things, but it’s about that transparency whether people are making fair and meaningful comparisons. So if you are saying this has got 50% less virgin materials than x, is that a like for like comparison where the claims are substantiated? So as I said, if somebody’s saying X percent, where has that come from? And also whether people are thinking about the full life cycle of the product. So there was a a kind of idea that we only had to worry about the point at which we sold the product and then it became the consumer’s problem. Whereas there’s now much more of an emphasis on looking at the whole lifecycle of that product. So what happens if it gets broken? Can it be repaired at the end of its life? Can it be disassembled for recycling? And Sarah, I mentioned the problem she had with her stuff was she was gluing plastic to wood, which meant neither of those things could be recycled and her products now are completely biodegradable and compostable. So thinking about that end of life and those are just some of the things that are coming in to the legislation, I can see questions in the chat and I’m gonna come to them. In fact, let me just take some of them now. I need to make Kirsty co-host, I will do that Kirsty at some point when I can get back into that bit. Hannah says, don’t think the time is right for me now, but I’m interested in the future. How often do you take new cohorts? I’m not organized enough to have a plan for that Hannah. I kind of, I kind of open them when I feel like it’s time to open them for reference. The last time I opened them was June. The last time before that was about two years before that. I don’t know when the next time will be. Sorry, I wish I was a more organized human.

Toby said thoughts on EPR Extended producer responsibility. Yes, yes Toby, I think it’s really important that people are making things have responsibility for them. And I think some of the biggest polluters, you know are the likes of kind of the big FMCG brands. And I think if they were given legal responsibility for the whole lifetime of their products and packaging, we would, we would be in a much better place. And that’s starting to shift I think Sonya, if you just Google Green Claims code UK Green Green Claims code, you will find more info. Cool. Oh and in fact I think Lara’s very kindly just put the, the link to that and the chat for you Sonya. Love you guys, right? I am gonna dive into this.

So this is the five stage path to sustainability and as I said, there are many routes to becoming more sustainable, right? So I’m absolutely not saying this is the only way to do it, but what I was hearing from designers and makers and craftspeople was it was just overwhelming because there was so much stuff they felt they ought to be doing. Where do you start? So what I’ve done is I’ve interviewed hundreds of sustainable designers and makers found out what they’re doing and the order they did it in and I’ve taken all the stuff and I’ve put it in a logical order. So you can do this in any order you want, but what I’ve found is that when folks are working through this in an order, it’s less overwhelming.

It allows you to walk, don’t run, which is hence the fact this section is called walk. And also when you are walking through it in community with other people, it gives you a shared language so you can sort of talk about where you are and, and there’s that sense of community. So the five stages are acorn, seedling, sapling, tree, and forest. And for context, I think there’s one forest in the world. There are no trees in my membership. So we are very much looking at the acorn, seedling, sapling end and it’s absolutely up to you how far you ever want to get. So once we’ve talked this through, I’m hoping you’ll have a sense of A, where you are and B, where you are aiming for. And so I’ll talk through each of those stages and how you know you are at a particular stage. What you might find is that because you haven’t been on this journey with me yet, you fall between a couple of the stages. So you might sort of say, well I think I’m a seedling but I never did that acorn thing.

And so often there’s a, there’s a sense of right, I’m, I’m gonna put, put myself here, ground myself in this stage, but just scoop up some of those actions before I move forward. And that’s really normal. So if you’re feeling a bit like, oh I’m not sure if I’m this one or this one, that’s a normal response.

But I always like to start with this quote, which is usually quoted as the journey of a thousand miles Starts with a single step. But I wanted to know who’d said it. And so I looked it up and the correct translation is a journey of a thousand lee, which is a Chinese mile starts beneath one’s feet. And I think there’s a slight nuance there, right? It starts where you are, it’s that thing of do what you can use what you have, right? So it’s not necessarily about beginning the journey, it’s the quote is intended more to say you can start right where you are with what’s underneath your feet. And so I love that just as a a kind of thought to open all of this with, so as I talk through, let me know if you think you’re an acorn, seedling, sapling tree or forest just in the chat as we go through. ’cause it’d be really lovely just to get a sense of where you all are. So acorns are full of good intentions, kind of excited about sustainability, wanting to do something about it, but haven’t necessarily done a lot yet.

And that might be because they’re really new business and they just haven’t got to that bit yet. Or it might be ’cause they’re a legacy business. So it might be you’ve been doing this stuff for 20 years and this stuff just wasn’t on, you know, the front of your mind when you set up your business. And so now there’s this sense of oh gosh, I’m gonna have to go back and kind of rethink how I do things. Acorns won’t have any formal environmental policies or accreditations yet. It’s very much that place of good intentions. But I always say nobody picks up an acorn off the forest forum criticizes it for not being an oak tree, right? And acorn is a perfectly valid place to be full of potential.

Acorns tend to care deeply, but they’re often not sure where to start. There’s this sense of overwhelm. I talked about, gosh, there’s all these different things I could be doing. Which one should I do first? They often feel guilty for not doing enough. There’s a sense of feeling behind or feeling overwhelmed and they’re already firefighting. So often what I hear is, I haven’t got enough time, I haven’t got enough money, I haven’t got enough head space but you know, you all know what this is like, right? You are wearing multiple hats already. And then I come along and go, oh here’s the extra sustainability hat. And it’s just like, oh my God. And that’s where the kind of watering cans idea comes in.

So let me know in the chat if you feel like you’re an acorn. Jackie says, I am very new. So definitely an acorn. And Toby says I really love Acorns. Yeah, me too. Jen says, sounds familiar. Sonya says, absolutely awesome, cool. Says a hundred percent acorn. I’m an interior designer but currently not working in design at all.

Due to the tremendous guilt I feel about working in something that encourages consumerism. I hear that a lot grya and it kind of makes me sad because I think if only Jeff Besos was feeling that level of guilt, right? I think the things that we make and put out into the world are important and and valid and needed. Last says I’m Acorn like.

Cool. When we go onto the next one, you can kind of assess, Jade says very much an acorn. Amazing. It’s a really beautiful place to be. The start of the journey. So seedlings are just getting started on this journey. They’re a little bit further ahead. They might have signed up for something like 1% for the planet, which is where you donate 1% of your turnover to environmental causes Every year they might have done their carbon literacy training and I have a training course for carbon literacy, which is in the membership. They might be using a carbon neutral delivery service. I keep meaning to take Shopify out of here ’cause we’ve had a big debate in the membership about which one actually offers a general genuine carbon neutral delivery service and which ones are just offsetting. So I think currently it’s between DHL and the post office. They might have done something like declared a climate emergency and that might have been something you’ve seen or done.

This idea of kind of putting on your website, I declare, and again we can debate the rights and wrongs of that, whether that feels performative or whether that’s something that’s useful to hold you to account. And one thing I should say is each of these steps within the five stage path to sustainability, I’m not asking you to do them, I’m asking you to consider them.

So it might be that you look at something like a CLI declaring a climate emergency and say, do you know what? I think that’s a load of nonsense. I’m not gonna do it perfectly valid. But the moving through the path is about looking at each thing and making a values aligned decision about it. Seedlings will be consciously sourcing materials and or packaging.

So thinking about where they’re coming from, what is the supply chain, what are they made of? They’ll probably have some sort of environmental internal manifesto that might be something that’s formally published on their website or it might be something that’s very personal. Just the sense of this is the bit that matters to me, that stuff we did yesterday in terms of which of what the planet needs that you care about.

And they might be starting to track their waste and track their carbon emissions. And I have a carbon footprint calculator that I’ve developed specifically for designer makers, which also lives inside the membership. They won’t necessarily be reducing those things yet, but they’ll have an awareness of where they are. Seedlings tend to feel a mixture of daunted and excited. So there’s this sense of, you know, I’m on the journey, I’ve made a start, but holy shit, there’s a long way to go. It’s that kind of, that nerve cited feeling. They’ve got the knowledge, you know, they’re starting to kind of understand what needs to be done, but they’ve now got to implement it. Often they’ll have lots of ideas about the stuff they want to do, but sometimes it can be hard to implement as a small business or creative practice. So, and often those things will get put on the back burner. So if you think you’re a seedling, just pop seedling into the chat. Louise says Acorn, it’s interesting thinking about the appropriate use of wording as a craft person. I guess fear makes me vague and I say I’ve continually developed a planet conscious practice.

Yeah. And I see that a lot Louise. And I think often, I mean I think for a start people will give you a lot more credit than they’ll give a big company. So kind of when I say this stuff about being vague or specific, people are gonna be a lot more, you know, reading the fine print in a big company.

But I think often being vague creates room for doubt in your customer’s minds, right? Whereas if you can be specific and say exactly what you are doing and the nice thing about the five stage path of sustainability is you’ve got this path. So you can say, well I’m not doing yet that yet because I’m gonna do that when I’m a seedling next year.

You know, however you want to frame it. You’ve got this sense of this is the journey and this is where I am on it. And I think that gives that sense of imperfect progress and transparency that people find quite reassuring. Last is, I’m a very, I’m very sustainable in my working practices, but I do not have opportunity working part-time and living in the far north of Scotland.

Yeah, it’s always this juggle, isn’t it? Karen says, I’m a seedling and support two charities. Amazing. Lar says, I’ve definitely germinated awesome. And Sam says I’m a seedling. Scott says, I feel like I’ve been a seedling for a very long time. Yeah and Lars, there’s lots of resilience there then. Yes. And this is a really important point.

One of the things we’ve been talking about a lot in the membership at the moment is this is not linear. And you’ll see in your workbook, I haven’t drawn a straight line, I’ve intentionally drawn a wiggly line to represent this path. And that’s because sometimes you stay still, sometimes you have to go backwards a little bit. I’ve recently had to let go of my 1% for the planet contributions because I can’t afford them at the moment.

And I’m, I’m gonna do a whole podcast about that because I think it’s really important to be honest about the fact that sometimes we have to take a couple of steps back in order to regroup and move forward again. So it’s not, it’s not linear it, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of space in there for kind of just honestly being where we are and and doing what we can.

Brian says, I’m an acorn, MP says acorn for me on the path seedling, it’s time that’s against me. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s why we have those coworking sessions, right? ’cause it helps to just carve out that little bit of time. Karen says seedling but just started amazing. Hannah says I’m a seedling. Not sure how it’s possible to pull to become a mature tree.

You’re about to find out hun, as external factors are constantly evolving. They are but we can try. Lar says that’s where the tree rings come in. Yeah, absolutely. And the mycelium network under the forest. But we’ll come onto that. Jen says appropriate use of wording reminded me of a rabbit hole I went down a few weeks ago. It started with a podcast where the Liz Apostle threat on permaculture and the focus on regenerative versus linear versus re.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think some of the language is really difficult and there’s been a bit of a backlash against the word sustainable and even the word circular towards regenerative. But I think it’s also about how familiar people are with those words. So I did a poll recently and asked people like you and probably some of you ’cause it was on my Instagram stories, which of these words we’re familiar with? And I think if people dunno what a word means, it’s not necessarily very helpful. So we can, we can debate the right words but sometimes you’ve gotta take your customers on that journey with you. So saplings are bang in the middle of this five stage path. They’re making good progress but there’s still a long road ahead.

They will have signed up for living wage, which means they’re paying their employees technically. But I extend that to supply chain. So anybody who’s doing any sort of work for you a wage which the living wage organization have calculated it’s possible to live on in the uk. I suspect they’re a little bit behind the curve and it’s probably not quite enough currently. And that also includes yourself, right? You need to be paying yourself a living wage as well. And I know that can be really, really difficult. There’s a book called Profit First, which if folks haven’t yet come across that, that’s a really good way to get yourself to a point where you can pay yourself a living wage. And we are gonna talk a little bit about taking care of yourself in the next section.

Material specific accreditations are something that saplings are starting to look into. So that might be using FSE wood or GOTS textiles or fair Mind or fair Trade metals or stones. And again, in the membership, we’ve had a big debate recently about FSC wood because for one of my furniture makers, the wood he was sourcing is made in Britain, it’s local, he knows it’s good but it’s not technically FSC certified.

And to get FSC certified wood, it was gonna have to be imported from Europe, it was gonna be of a lower quality, it was gonna cost more. And so ultimately he decided not to. And that’s something I absolutely encourage, right? This is not about following these rules blindly, it’s about picking things up, having a look at them and seeing how they align with your values.

By sapling stage, you’re tracking and reducing slash offsetting. And we can get into the controversy around offsetting your carbon. You have an ethical and transparent supply chain, so anything that’s going into your products, you know where it’s coming from and you’ve thought about that. So you might be choosing to support local suppliers. Yes Scott, that was the conclusion we came to that grown in Britain was better for him for for him than FSCI think it’s probably different for different people but that was the decision he came to.

And that you are also thinking about that end of life thing. So you’re designing for repair, you’re designing for dissembling, you’re kind of thinking about what happens to this product when it breaks or this artwork when it starts to, you know, kind of have damage to it. What happens then? Can people bring it back to me to repair? Can people repair it themselves? Can it be disassembled at the end of its life so those materials can go back into the earth? Saplings are bang in the middle. So they tend to be flipping between pride at the steps taken so far and guilt around the ones not yet taken. This is often where frustration at systemic issues starts to set in. So there’s only so much we can do as tiny businesses within the system we’re working in.

And the example I always give is probably a silly one, but a while ago I decided to switch from plastic cellar tape to brown paper cellar tape. And the mini minimum order I could find at the time was a hundred trolls of tape. So if you open a drawer in my house at the moment, it’s got brown paper tape in it. And it’s often those things where for a small business I only wanted one roll of tape and it’s not always possible to kind of get over some of those issues.

Also a lack of time and budget for some of those bigger certifications. So I’m gonna talk in a moment about B Corp and environmental product declarations and burnout. Concern at this point. You know, you’ve been kind of working through this journey and and it can get, it can get tough and that’s why I talk a lot about looking after yourself and why nurture is one of the points on that framework.

Cool. So before I move on to tree, who thinks they’re a sapling? Let me know in the chat. Louise says I may be a new seedling still in realization mode of understanding where I actually am, what I already do and nervous excitement to future progression. That’s absolutely fair. Louise. This is kind of all relatively new and I think it’s nice to have these moments to just assess and say, actually I’ve, I’ve done all of that go me. I think it’s really important to celebrate. Last is disassembly is the trickiest part of my process. I will think on this one. Yeah, it’s a tricky one and it’s kind of, it’s a relatively new side to environmentalism. It’s thinking about that kind of full lifecycle analysis. NATO says classic, we can all come around to your house to wrap our Christmas presents.

Ainslee says, I think I’m a seedling. Scott says, I’ve done some of the sapling things. Yeah and that’s often the case Scott, you’re probably just between the two. And it’s a question of consolidating to get there. Tanza says, I think I’m a sapling. Last says parts of my process has sapling leanings. I love it. Sapling leanings.

I like that Abigail says sapling in some ways by accident, by acorn in principle. Yeah and that’s often the way, right? You haven’t been working through this path so far. So you will have done things in the order that they made sense to you. And even when you are moving through this path, I’ve got acorns who are doing B Corp accreditation because they’ve decided that’s important.

So they’ve jumped all the way there ’cause that’s something they want to do and that’s completely valid. Issa says, I think I’m halfway between sapling and seedling agree with the trickiness of sole trader issues. Accrediting ever changing recycled materials. So hard accrediting for recycled materials and waste materials is really, really hard Marissa. And if you are using those, it might be one of those things that you say, do you know what? I am not even gonna engage with this because I’m confident that you know, I’m doing a good thing by using second life materials. Okay, so trees are close to achieving all their eco goals and now seeking external validation. So that idea of I’ve got this far by marking my own homework now I want that external validation and for someone else to come in and kind of prove to the outside world that I’m doing this trees will be B Corp pending.

So they will have submitted their B Corp application. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with B Corp, but it’s one of the most rigorous, externally validated kind of labels, accreditations that looks at how you treat people as well as how you treat planet. There is something called the B Corp impact assessment, which is on their website, which is free to complete.

It’s worth doing a lot of research on the first few questions because depending on how you answer those, it opens up completely different tracks of questions. But you have to get 80 out of 200 points to get B Corp accredited and then you recertify every three years. So the idea is you are moving from 80, slowly up to 200. But it’s worth, if it’s something you’re interested in, it’s worth just doing that B Corp impact assessment to see where you are. ’cause if you get 20 points, you know you’ve probably got a little while to go. If you get 75, it might be worth looking at and seeing if you can get that up to 80 EPDs are environmental product declarations and these are a full lifecycle analysis product by product and again are externally validated.

So they’re kind of another powerful way of having somebody else say, yes, this person is sustainable. And trees will tend to have EPDs maybe on their biggest selling product or their most sustainable products. They’ve kind of made a start into that EPD process. Trees are carbon neutral. And again carbon neutral is a a term that is increasingly controversial because it usually involves some offsetting, I think the EU are about to ban it. So, but that sense of their taking as much carbon out into the atmosphere as they’re putting in their zero waste, they’re offering a repair or take back scheme. So they’re taking responsibility for that kind of post-consumer part of their product cycle. They’ve got a formal structure in place for measuring progress. So they’re kind of keeping an eye on this and they have a business or creative practice which feels completely aligned with their personal values.

But what happens when you go into B Corp and EPD is sometimes it highlights some blind spots. So it might throw up a thing that you’ve never even thought of so often at this stage you kind of get here and then there’s a little bit of a step back where you’re just like, oh my god. So I did my B Corp impact assessment and my business is really international, right? I have people from all over the world as part of the membership. It had never, this is gonna sound really stupid, but it never really occurred to me that my business is based in Cornwall. I live in Cornwall, but I work wherever I happen to be. And so I’d never thought about how much of my supply chain was in Cornwall.

You know, am I buying things locally? Am I creating local jobs? And so that was a bit of a blind spot that I then had to kind of go back and think about how can I make sure, because Cornwall is an incredibly poor part of the world. Contrary to popular belief, particularly if you’ve only have a holiday in rock, it’s one of the poorest parts of Europe.

So that’s something that was a bit of a blind spot for me at three stage. It’s often about how to communicate with credibility and that next level of investment. So it might be investing in a sustainability manager or electric vehicles or kind of what have you, any trees in the group. I’m just gonna a little look at the chat. Louise says, disassembly and future repair is really interesting as I’ve often thought about quality and longevity, but honestly not how it could be repaired or reused in the future and what I could offer. Yeah, and it’s really interesting. I think most makers commend what they make, right? It’s kind of, it’s not a difficult thing for us to offer. So just kind of adding something to your communication saying if anything ever happens to this, just bring it back to me.

I’ve recently had my wedding ring resized and they didn’t charge me for it and they said, well it’s a wedding ring, it’s gotta last you for life. And I just thought that was so beautiful. They were like, no, no, that’s part of our service. Which I thought was really nice. Sonia says, as an upholster, I’m constantly repairing and providing new life to furniture.

My biggest problem is what to do with the old fabric as it’s subject to incineration. ’cause I can’t prove it doesn’t contain pss. Yeah. And I think the legislation around some of this stuff has to kind of catch up a little bit. Scott says, I’m slightly concerned about EPD declaring carbon negative. Explain to me a little bit more what you mean by that.

Scott and I will come back to that one. Karen says, I only use UK suppliers that pay a living wage to factory workers. That’s brilliant. Toby is the brown Patagonia forest. They’re not a craft or designer or maker. So yes, they probably are a forest, but they’re not the one that I’m thinking of. Jen’s aspiring to be a tree in some ways it looks further off than I’d realized.

And Lar says, I’m not a tree yet. Yeah, and I think that’s the thing, right? That’s, that’s the, the moment of having clarity of the path is you have this moment where a little bit of relief that everything is finally in an order, but also it’s quite a big path and it’s intentionally the whole journey, right? A lot of my members are like, I just wanna go as far as sapping and then I’m good. And that’s absolutely fine. But I think it’s really important to kind of show what’s possible and who there is out there. Jane says, I’m largely an independent education around fashion design, garment making, so I’m wondering how certification can apply. I’m also creating a label for a new business as manufacturing.

Sorry, it’s jumping around retailer. I’m advising ’em on branding as using UK manufacturers, et cetera. Yeah. And I would say this path has very much been put together for designers, makers, artists and craftspeople. So if you fall slightly outside of that, that’s fine. We have a couple of architects and interior designers in the membership. And I try to follow this myself and obviously I’m not a maker, it just needs a little bit of tweaking sometimes we just have to kind of work out how it applies to us. ’cause I have tried to be super specific to designers, makers, artists and craftspeople. Tamson says I’m doing the tree thing of helping others, but not from a position of being tree more building a supportive network to help each other. I love that tamson, that’s so important. And community is such an important part of all of this. Okay, so let’s have a quick look at Forests. Forest, as I say, are the North star. There’s only one that I know of in our industry, which is a Norwegian company called Vera who make outdoor furniture. They are as environmentally responsible as they come and now ready to help others.

They have, they’re B Corp certified and have EPDs published on every single product. And that’s, I believe Vestra is the only one. I think there’s a furniture company that office furniture company that’s almost there. They are carbon negative and investing in regenerative projects. So as you move towards tree and forest, it’s moving away from this idea of doing less harm and moving towards the idea of actively doing good.

So the planet is better off because you existed. And they’re offering mentoring for other businesses. They’re always looking for ways to improve and stay up to date with the latest developments. Because as somebody said, this stuff is always changing, right? It’s not a one and done. And they’re finding ways to give back, take on community leadership roles and tackling systemic issues.

They might have NED roles in smaller organizations. They might have set up a foundation, they might be angel investing in startups. They’re really thinking about how they can change the culture, change the whole industry, not just their own business. So they are absolutely the north star. These are the sort of people I get in as guest speakers. So our kind of trees and forests to kind of show us the path ahead.

And particularly when you are at that tricky sapling point, it can be really lovely just to have a glimpse of what’s the other side of that, that hump as it were. Scott says, furniture made from timber grown abroad and shipped to the uk carbon negative of natural regeneration is, yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think the problem is that most people who are declaring themselves carbon negative or carbon neutral are just offsetting.

And a lot of those offsetting schemes are really problematic. So yeah, I think it, there’s so much nuance in this stuff and this is why I don’t kind of set rules and say this is what we have to do. It’s all about making decisions that align with your values. Karen, do I know any potters who are trees? I’d have to think about that, Karen, and let you know. So you’ve let me know whether you’re an acorn seedling, sapling tree, or forest if you haven’t popped that in the chat. And I’m now going to give you, in reality, there are five or eight steps between each of those stages that you take. I’m gonna share three with you today just to give you some, one thing you can take home from this and say, right, I’m gonna do this thing this week to move to that next step. So I’m gonna share three. The intention is that you choose one of them, not that you do all of them. And as I say, within the membership there are, there are five or eight. And also just have a think about what level you aspire to.

So it’s not necessarily about going, oh God, I’m never gonna make it to forest. It’s about saying, well actually, maybe I only wanna be a tree, or maybe I only wanna be a a sapling or even a seedling. And that’s absolutely fine. So we’re gonna try and answer the last question, which is, what’s one action you could take today to get you one step closer? So we, I’m gonna have to go fast ’cause we’ve only got nine minutes left. Okay, let’s go. Acorns need clarity about the path ahead. They need information and resources, they need help making time for this stuff. And they need a community of fellow travelers. And so that’s all stuff that is in the membership. If you are an acorn, if you are an acorn and you want to move to seedling, I would suggest one of these three things. One, carry out a waste order. So just notice what leaves your studio in the form of either rubbish or recycling. Because recycling should be a last resort. And when I say notice, if you love a spreadsheet, by all means track it, weigh it, make a spreadsheet. But we’re, I can see one thumbs up. Amazing. I love that la personally, I can’t my, they make my eyes bleed. Hate spreadsheets. So if you wanna track it in a different way, I, I’ve had people doing flat lays organized by color and photographing them. I’ve seen people who’ve made notes of the color or the texture or the materials that come up.

So whatever way engages you, whatever way will make this fun for you. Karen says, I’m aiming to be a forest high five, Karen, I love that. And last is Excel Spreadsheets warm my heart. I love good mind map too. See I love a mind map, a spreadsheet, not so much. Yeah, so the point is just a notice.

No judgment, no action at this point. Just notice what waste is leaving your studio. The other thing you could do is sign up for 1% for the planet, which as I say involves donating 1% of your turnover, not profit, which is an important distinction to an environmental charity every year. And that can be made up of half a percent in cash, a quarter of a percent in promotion and a quarter of a percent in volunteering. So if you can find a charity that you can work with in those ways, it doesn’t have to all be financial. And finally, if you’re not already doing this, look into carbon neutral deliver. Look into a carbon neutral delivery service. I’m gonna remove the word Shopify.

I think DHL and the post office are using electric vehicles and kind of doing this in a way that’s actually reducing carbon. I, I’m not saying Shopify aren’t doing that, but I just haven’t seen the evidence for it at the moment. If you are a seedling, you’re likely to be looking for accountability and community support somewhere to share your challenges and your wins.

So that sense of being able to come in on a really good day and come in on a really bad day and have folks kind of have your back and trusted information and resources that are free from greenwashing, which is kind of what our co-curated library is all about. If you’d like to move from seedling to sapling, a couple of things you might want to do and again try to pick one of these.

One would be to draft your own environmental manifesto. So outta the exercise we did yesterday, get really clear on what matters to you about environmentalism, what’s the change you want to bring about in the world personally? And then create that into something you can stick on your wall if you Google examples of manifestos to give yourself some inspiration. The Halsy one is quite cool.

There are some cool repair ones. Just to give you a sense of what a manifesto might look like if you haven’t already signed up to living wage. And please include yourself in that. You need to be paying yourself a living wage as well as everybody else. And this is a real common seedling thing. And look into some of those material specific certifications.

So as I say, that’s not necessarily, not necessarily saying you have to sign up for them but make a values for based decision. Saplings really need that sense of community to share the progress that they’re making. They need boundaries and self-care in place to prevent burnout, inspiration from those treason forests that they can get past this sticky middle point and support in developing systems and processes.

And so if you want to move from sapling to tree, which I think one person said they did, the first thing I would ask you to do is recognize and celebrate how far you’ve come. And I mean that make a list, have a dance party, have champagne in the bath. However you celebrate. Remember that your body needs to know you’re celebrating as well as your mind.

That kind of reptile brain that we talked about that doesn’t process language. So a little dance party can be a way of getting that celebration into your body. But really kind of give yourself credit for how far you’ve come. It’s an incredible achievement to be halfway on this path. Take the initial B Corp impact assessment, which is free and on their website and just look into environmental product declarations.

Have a sense of what they are. Karen says, I’ve done my net zero course at my local council. That’s amazing Karen. I’ve developed one which is specifically for designer makers, which is accredited by the Carbon Literacy Project. So that is an option if anybody else would like to do that. Last is I’m a sculptor with my materials being rescued from scrapyard, skip and local tree surgeons. Amazing. I find it difficult straddling the lines between fine art and craft and participatory practices. Defining stats in terms of sustainability and sourcing is impossible at times. I’m on the edge, I live on the edge of the, for I am on the edge of my forest, but happy with my edges. Love that Marissa says me too.

The issue of where I got it or where it originally come from. And lot said the challenges that we don’t think of day-to-day can prove to be barriers. Yeah, absolutely. I think all this stuff is really valid but I think it’s less of a concern if you, you know, if you are sourcing materials in that way, the factual sourcing them in that way gets you off the hook for a lot of the other stuff, right? This stuff would be waste if you weren’t using it and it’s not as well kind of defined, but I think in some ways more valid. Cool. I’m gonna skip through tree because I don’t think we had any trees currently and we don’t have a huge amount of time left and I want to make sure we have some time for nurture. So this is the last part of the framework or the methodology that underpins everything I do and possibly the most important bit because this is a quote I came across recently, which I just found so helpful, which is to take care of the environment, take care of the environmentalist. And I think we’ve all heard that phrase, you can’t pour from an empty cup, right? It is so important that if you are trying to do good in the world, you are looking after yourself. You need to be well to do well, to do good. And that’s not to when I say you need to be. Well I just want a little note for anybody who suffers from chronic illness. ’cause so do I. That’s not to say if you are feeling unwell, you can’t do good, but that’s to say extra double. You need to take care of yourself, right? And there are some ways in which you can do that that I wanna share with you.

And the first one is gonna sound a bit patronizing, but I’m gonna say it. You need to take care of your basic needs. If you’re thirsty, you need to drink. If you’re hungry, you need to eat. If you’re tired, you need to sleep. If you need to pee, you need to go and have a pee. It sounds so patronizing, but how many times have you sat in a situation where you’re just like, I really need a cup of tea but I haven’t got time. Or you know, I, I really need a wee but I’m running late so I’ll have one when I get there. Right? As particularly as people socialize, as women, we deny our basic needs all the time in favor of looking after everybody else, right? And it is so important if you’re doing this important work in the world, that at the very least you’re looking after your basic needs. Last is the joy of peeing as underrated. I completely not common as I expecting to see in the comments today, but you’re so right and it is so important that we just treat ourselves with that level of respect, right? Paying yourself properly. The same. I know so many people who are paying all their suppliers living wage, but not paying themselves a living wage. And again, I recommend a book called Profit First. If you’re struggling with that, it’s just a different way of thinking about how you apportion the money that’s coming into your business. I think a lot of us think about rest as the reward we get when we’ve done all our work.

And I wanna flip that on its head and say rest first. And you can do your work when you’re well rested. It’s that way round and there are seven types of rest. So I think many of us think of rest as sleeping, maybe binging Netflix or scrolling Facebook on the sofa. But you need to think all the different parts of you that need different types of rest.

So thinking about sensory rest, particularly if you’re neurodivergent, that kind of break from all the inputs, social, rest, creative, rest, kind of all the different parts and facets of your humanity that need a break. And if you Google seven types of rest and Ted talk, there’s a fantastic Ted talk and article about that interest outside of making. I think for many of us,

we had this passion, this hobby and it’s now become our whole life and you need something outside of that. So that might be something where you get to be in nature or move your body. You know, I, I’m very lucky that I get to do yoga on the beach, which is one of my favorite things, which kind of takes me right outside of, you know, what I do for a living. It might be making in a different discipline. So if you’re a potter, it might be playing with textiles. If you are a carpenter or woodworker, it might be taking up painting, you know, kind of still exploring your creativity. But outside of a framework in which it needs to make money, connection is so important.

It’s so important to find people like-minded people who get you, you know, who you can just be a hundred percent yourself with and free with and spend time with those people. And I think often, you know, as, as makers and also as a writer, we’re in a little room on our own all the time and kind of making or with kind of having responsibility for people rather than just having fun with people.

So that connection is super important. Time in nature we talked about yesterday, but I will, I will keep saying it until the cows come home and, and if you live in a big city, you know, I know I’m incredibly privileged, look at that picture of me on the right. But it can be as simple as hanging out with a pet.

You know, growing plants on a, on a balcony or window box, going to a local park at, you know, looking at the sky, looking at the birds. It doesn’t have to be some dramatic beautiful wind swept beach, although that is lovely thinking about your personality type and the lifestyle that suits you and building your business or creative practice around that rather than vice versa.

So if you’re an introvert and you can afford a studio on your own, make that happen. If you’re an extrovert, a shared studio is probably gonna suit you better. If you are a morning person, you don’t need to work late into the evenings. If you’re an evening person then you know, and you’re not a morning person having a later start in the morning.

It’s taken me 12 years of working for myself to realize I don’t have to start my working day at 9:00 AM Absolutely gamechanging, I am not a morning person at 10:00 AM starts suits me much better. And you know what? That’s okay. Nobody’s, here’s judging me for that. You know, and just a, I heard a lovely expression which was building a business you feel you can belong to.

And that idea of like we’re cr we have the privilege of creating these businesses and these creative practices for ourselves. Why wouldn’t we create them in a way that allows us to thrive and you know, really allows us to be our best self. And yeah, Lars just said boundaries. That word makes me shiver. The only way all of the above happens if is if you build boundaries around it is if you make sure it’s protected and it happens.

And if anybody is struggling with that, this book, which I recommended y yesterday values first by Laura IGEL and I interviewed Laura on my podcast. This is for kind of people working in corporate and when I interviewed her I kind of drew the parallels across to our world. And what I love is she talks about the connection between your values, which we defined yesterday, the habits you need to make those values, you know, to, to live up to those values and then the boundaries you need to put around those habits to make sure they happen. And I thought that was a really lovely way of thinking about boundaries. It’s not a hard wall, it’s a way of protecting the way you want to show up in your values.

So all that’s left to say is, thank you Kirsty. Could you pop that link to the membership in the chat for me just in case folks wanna have a look? I’ll just have a little look at the chat. Larissa said someone said she was surprised to see me at dance ’cause she knew I had both an exhibition and a craft fair that weekend.

I explained there was always busy so there was no excuse and that dance was as necessary as admin. I love that Issa, it’s so important and I’m a bit the same. Like I’ve had a really busy week this week so I made sure I went to a jazz gig with my husband last night. I’ve made sure I’ve got out for you know, walks and yoga.

It’s extra important when you’re busy, right? Jane says I have the book by the way. It’s a brilliant categorization of the new and different approaches to evolving environmentalism. Amazing. Louis says I’d like a studio dog. So same here. I lost my dog just before Christmas and I miss him. Karen says, I’m talky based so I have the sea around me for breaks.

Amazing. Jackie says I had to translate textures of rest as doing nothing was not an option, but what kept being described what I needed to do. Yeah, absolutely. It’s, it’s not all about just sitting still sometimes it’s like a bracing walk And Jen says this reminds me of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I often mention this to students and forget to do it myself.

Yeah, absolutely right. I’m gonna stop sharing. Toby says that was fab Katie a huge thank you. You are very welcome Toby. Jen says, I’ve been drawn to articles on care and not doing harm across this fictionalized diaries rather than academic. Oh nice. Thanks for that link. That sounds lovely. How to do no harm. And I thought it was really interesting yesterday when we were talking about paying attention, the idea of care came up right? That when we paid attention to our plants, we realized they needed watering. When we pay attention to ourselves, we realized we also need watering or whatever it is we need. Awesome. My apologies that I’m five minutes over. If anybody needs to go go, please feel free to run if anyone, we have the whole of tomorrow just for questions.

So please bring any questions about the membership, any questions about the things we’ve talked about today, any questions about your practice and your sustainability that have kind of come up as you’ve been thinking through the stuff today. And if anyone has any quick questions now, pop them in the chat or any quick reflections on today, I would love to hear those as well.

And otherwise tomorrow is all questions and if you don’t have a question, it’s sometimes nice to come and listen to other people’s questions because you might think, oh actually yeah that kind of plays into something I was thinking about. But someone needs to bring some questions if nobody brings any questions it really doesn’t work as a format. But as I say, we will have some folks who’ve done other short courses of mine also in that session.

’cause it’s a session I run once a quarter and now you folks have done this. You will also be invited to that quarterly q and a session. So once a quarter it’s just a a session on Zoom where anybody can bring any question they like about anything to do with craft design and sustainability and you will automatically all get put into that after today. Cool, cool, cool. Karen says thank you all and miss tomorrows I have another meeting. You’ll get the replay Karen, so Thea not. And if you have a, if you wanna send me a question before tomorrow so I can answer it in your absence and then you can watch the answer on the replay, please feel free to do that. Abigail says thank you until tomorrow last says, I thank you for your insurance and the group comments, it gives me hope. Good hope is what we need. Tamson said that was brilliant. Thank you. Lots to do and think about, Brian says thank you. Jen says thank you. I’m jam-packed with lots of food for thought again amazing. Look forward to tomorrow. I can recommend a big walk in nature right now if your brain is kind of buzzing, if that’s possible. Awesome. Jane says thank you for today. I have a much better insight into what membership is all about and and this whole three days has kind of hopefully been a taster of what the membership is all about and what I’m like as a person. ’cause I think that’s really important with this stuff as well. So hopefully just the general vibe has given you a a sense as well as some of the more nitty gritty stuff.

Scott says thank you and says, thanks for the session. Jackie says thanks again and looking forward to listening tomorrow, but have someone coming to put in fiber broadband. Amazing. So apologies if I get interrupted. That’s one of those like short-term pain, long-term gain things though, isn’t it? Or sniff a plant. Yeah, absolutely. If you can’t go for a big walk, just have a sniff slash nibble of a edible plant or doggy cuddles. Absolutely love it. All sorts of ways of bringing nature into the rest of your day. Amazing. Thank you so much folks.

OUTRO

Thank you for listening to this slightly different episode of the podcast which was a replay of one of the free lunchtime sessions I’m doing every day we commencing 20th of November 2023. If you enjoyed it, I would love to connect with you on Instagram. The making design circular Instagram is linked to in the show notes. And you might also want to follow my newsletter, the link to that is also in the show notes. If you’re listening before midnight on Sunday, the third of December the doors to the making design circular membership are open. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode, you are going to love the membership. So go and check that out, I would very much love to see you in there. If you’re listening after midnight on Sunday, the third of December then the link to the waiting list is in the show notes. And you can sign up to be the first to hear next time those doors open. I want to say a huge thank you to everybody who joined the workshops live, to everybody who’s listened on the podcast and also to the brilliant Kirsty Spain who edits these podcasts so that they make it into your ears. Thank you.