final draft environment ep
===
[00:00:00] We've made a lot of progress as a society in many of the areas that we needed to in the last few hundred years. But one thing that has not changed enough is money. If we want to be able to tip the scales towards the favor of marginalized people, we need to understand the secrets to making money in small business.
The more we talk about money and the secret. That usually stay at the golf club, the more likely we are to be able to make money. My mission is to get more money into the hands of good people, specifically good business people like you. This is Money Secrets, the place to learn about the money secrets of successful small business owners.
Because I believe small business can change the world, and in order to do that, we need to be making lots of money. Let's go.
This podcast episode was recorded on the lands of the Wie people of the KO nation, and I'd like to acknowledge them as the traditional owners and [00:01:00] custodians of this land and water that I live. Work and play on. I'd like to pay respects to elders both past and present, and note that sovereignty has never been seeded.
This always was and always will be. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
This week in Good Money Club, we were talking about one of my favorite topics, which is impact making. Every four weeks we talk about impact making. It's one of our four key themes in Good Money Club, and this week we talked about the impact that our businesses have on the environment. It's something that I don't think service-based businesses are actually thinking about enough.
Our businesses have an impact on the environment, and it's one thing to look at product and manufacturing businesses and expect them to be doing all of these great things for the environment, which they, you know, absolutely should be. But as service providers, we have things that we can look at too. Now I wanna put a [00:02:00] disclaimer around this and say that I'm an accountant and a business strategist and a podcaster.
My name is Fee Johnston. In case you haven't met me before. I am not an expert in sustainability. I am not an environmental expert. I do not have any scientific, uh, credentials to back up any of. What I wanna do is just open a conversation about how our businesses are impacting the environment, because whether or not you believe in the specifics of climate change, I think one thing is definitely clear, and that is that we are using too many resources on this planet for the amount of people and animals that live on it.
And I think. It's really good just to think about these topics. So the first question that I asked my Good Money Club members this week was, what impact do your products and services have on the environment? If you are a product-based business, there are lots of things you can look at. Where am I sourcing my products from?
Are they local? How do they get to me? [00:03:00] How are they packaged? How are they shipped? What are the options for people to either recycle, reuse, or compost? The packaging and anything that kind of comes with the product. I think one of the best things that we can look at with our products is with food. It's what are the food miles?
So I absolutely prioritize buying Australian produce. I won't buy anything from the supermarket in the fresh food section that's not Australian made. The best thing to be looking at is. Food miles. Obviously organic and biodynamic are even better, especially when they are Australian grown with products.
I think what we want to be looking at is how many times can I use that product? So for example, I'm wearing a absolutely gorgeous mercenaries merino. Cardigan from Made five 90, which is one of my favorite brands. What I love about Made five 90 is that the products are made in Australia and the quality is so high that the amount of times that I can wear a garment is endless.
I've had this [00:04:00] cardigan for at least five years. It's been worn many, many, many times and it still looks brand new. The dress that I have underneath is also a made five 90 garment. It is cotton and yeah, I have worn it. Perhaps a hundred times and it still looks like it is brand new. So when we are buying products, obviously we want to be looking at how many times can I actually use this?
How many times can I wear it, rather than just looking at the price. I think another thing that really shocks me is when I hear about small business owners buying things. From Amazon or Temu or any of the equivalents. Now, I know that some things are really difficult to source from small or ethical providers or producers, but I think we can try.
So, for example, when I ship books out to my clients, because books are my favorite gift to give to my clients and food as well, but when I'm shipping out books, I'm absolutely buying them from Booktopia, even though it would probably cost. Me about half as much to buy the books on Amazon. [00:05:00] I refuse to, I've never bought anything from Amazon and I don't plan to in the future.
So product businesses, you know, there's, that's just the tip of the iceberg, what I've talked about, but I think it's really important to also think about. Our service delivery. So when we are delivering services to clients, what kind of cloud impact are we having? How much data are we saving in our Google Drive and Dropbox?
Because every large file that we save uses electricity. The cloud isn't a magical thing that lives in the sky. It's huge server farms all over the world that use huge amounts of power and water. So I've really been thinking recently about all of the videos that I have. Saved on the cloud. My client sessions get recorded often, but I've actually started asking my clients permission to not record the session because it's very rare that they ever go back and watch it.
And it uses a huge amount of power and water to have [00:06:00] that created and stored. What software are we using to deliver our products and services, and what are the kind of ethical or sustainable principles underlying that? Are we driving to our clients? So before COVID, I used to drive hours to see clients, and one of the things I love that's come out of COVID is that I am almost exclusively working on Zoom now.
Now, obviously that has its own environmental costs because I am using power and water every time I turn on my computer and use a platform like Zoom, but the amount of kilometers and petrol that I'm saving and time let's. To be frank, it is not fun driving for two or three hours a day just to see one client who's on the other side of town.
So how are you literally delivering your service? Are you driving? Are you doing it remotely? Are you thinking about the resources that you are using while you are delivering your products and services? And I think there's [00:07:00] probably a million other things that we can consider when we're thinking about the environmental impact of our products and services.
Are you a female or lgbtqia plus small business owner who wants to make more money, but you also want to do that while changing the World. Good Money Club is the place for you. It is a six month program experience and membership where you'll get everything you need. To build your bank account, grow your business, and increase your impact.
We have no more than 40 members, so you get lots of really tailored and focused attention from me, and the doors are open right now, so head to my website, peach. bm.com au to find out all about Good Money Club. And if you are a good egg, a business owner who really wants to do great things for the world and make money and pay yourself more, good money Club is for you.
Can't wait to meet you in there. The next question that we asked in Good [00:08:00] Money Club was, what impact do my investments and expenses have on the environment? All businesses have expenses, so I have expenses like rent. I'm currently in my studio right now, so I pay rent. I have subscriptions. I have a team member who I pay for.
Of course I'll pay for my team member, Kira. But you know, thinking about like what subscriptions do I have in my business and are the companies that I am receiving these subscriptions and software from, are they ethical? Are they having a positive or a negative impact on the environment? There are so many dollars being spent by Australian businesses to American software companies.
And this episode isn't about business ethics, although I think business ethics and sustainability often go hand in hand. But where are we sending our money in? Things like subscriptions, coaching, rent, accounting fees, insurance, superannuation. Where is your [00:09:00] superannuation going? Have you actually looked at.
The environmental credentials of the superannuation fund that you are sending your super to. What about your bank? It's the bank that you do your banking with as a small business owner, an ethical bank that is putting sustainability first. One of the ways that banks make money is by investing our money while it's sitting in their account.
They invested in things and made money from it. What are those things that they're investing in? Like how much digging have you done into what your bank does with your money when you are not using it? We invest money into our assets, infrastructure, equipment, computers, camera gear, all of these sorts of things.
And are we thinking about the, the amount. Times we're going to be able to use that item, what we're going to do with it when it reaches the end of its life. I'm a Mac girl and I've always bought Macs for my business, and I do try to use them until they are almost falling apart. Is that the right [00:10:00] approach?
I don't know. Are you prioritizing buying products that have a really long life or are produced and manufactured in ethical and sustainable ways? So those are the two questions we started with in Good Money Club this week. What impact are your products and services having on the environment? The second question was, what impact are your investments and expenses having on the environment?
Something that really came out of the session was a lot of us were thinking about when we buy gifts. For our clients, what are those gifts and how do we make them sustainable? We have a whole thread going in our Facebook group now about different ethical ways to buy gifts for our clients. And the third question that I asked in Good Money Club is, are there any changes that you plan to make in the delivery of your products and services or in how you invest your money through your business?
And that's the question that I wanna leave you with today from this really short podcast episode is, has anything that [00:11:00] I've said today made you think differently about how you're delivering your products and services? What you're investing your money in and whether there are things that you can make changes in.
There are so many little things that we can do as business owners to change our environmental footprint. How much travel we do, especially getting on a plane. It's a really big drain on the environment, getting on a plane and going somewhere. So how much travel are we doing? How much travel are we doing on a day-to-day basis in our commute or how we are kind of interacting with clients?
What tools are we using? For example, I use a web browser called Eco. E-C-O-S-I-A instead of Google, and I still get to search for everything that I need, just like you might be doing with Google. But instead of sending my, all of the money that they get from advertising to Google, that money goes to a kosher, which is a social enterprise that [00:12:00] invests money into.
Planting trees. That is one very simple change that I made probably about 10 years ago, and it's not something that is hard in any way. Thinking about the environmental usage of storage of my videos and documents in the cloud, another thing that everyone sees to be scared to talk about is how much power and water AI uses.
I see so many business owners who talk about themselves as being purpose led or impact driven, but they're using chat GPT and other AI platforms all day through their business. Now, I'm no expert in any of these topics, but the research that I've done tells me that every time we use ai, it uses water and power.
And this is the stuff that we don't wanna think about. That when we do things to increase our efficiency, there's often an environmental cost. If we want to be a group of humans, as small business owners who care about our community, our [00:13:00] environment, our customers, our team, our families, and the world at large, I think it's time that we really do take a look at how we are running our businesses.
And just see are there any simple or difficult ways that I can actually improve or reduce the impact that my business is having on the environment. I hope that was helpful and I will see you again next week on Money Secrets.
Thank you so much for listening right up to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Money Secrets, where we talk about the money secrets of successful small business owners. If you enjoyed the episode, I'd love it if you subscribe to the podcast, but leave us a review or share this episode with one of your friends.
I hope you learned something. I hope you got a new perspective and I really hope you enjoyed the listening [00:14:00] experience.
