Carbon Kapture is a social enterprise start-up with a big mission: to regenerate our oceans and fight climate change. We remove CO2 by growing seaweed, then create carbon-negative products and services.
Kelp-us-save-the-planet-a-thon is a virtual hackathon hosted by Carbon Kapture. It is free to join and takes place once a quarter.
Join Howard Gunstock and me as we discuss the journey to build a viable planet based business.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:03
Today, we have a previous guest, Howard Gunstock, who is back to talk to us about the journey he's been on with Carbon Kapture. Howard, welcome to the show. Once again, thank you, thank you very much for having me on the show. It's really good to be here. And Howard, I know that we kicked something off when we had this podcast back in October, but you were just beginning to launch some of your products like your Ocean Care Bonds, etc. You were just getting loud on social media really starting to pick up the followers. And since we've had that episode, it's actually been the second most downloaded episode. You are about six people away from being the top downloaded episode, but you are gaining on the leader. So tell us about your journey since the last podcast my friend.
Howard Gunstock 1:11
It's really interesting. When we started talking about this Carbon Kapture was an embryonic idea that it's something that we're thinking about doing. And as you said, when we launched the social media on our socials back in October, and that was a strategic move that was designed to build up our portfolio of potential customers and our base. And there was a reason why I wanted a strategic move: to become effective kelp farmers. We're going to need to form alliances with businesses that already do kelp farming. Yeah, because I am not your typical kelp farmer. And what we want to try to do is to have these alliances and I had a conversation with a Kelp farmer a few months ago, a European player.
And actually, the reason why we did our stuff in October and November was purely part of this conversation. And he said, and he was saying to me, how can you develop all these farms? How are you going to do all these things and say, well, we're going to have joint ventures and partnerships. He said, Well, why did you need to do this thing with Carbon Kapture? And I said, Okay, well, this was it. If I came to you, six, six months ago and said, Hey, I want to have a kelp farm, you would say to me, "No, I'm not going to give you any of my licence, why would I half my profit?". And effectively, that's where he would be doing. But then if I come to you and say, “Hey, I've got the Carbon Kapture, this is my brand, these are the things these are the products that I'm going to do.
These are the people that follow us.” I then got some leverage to have a conversation with you about being able to help build on your business, rather than remove some quality to your business. And that's really what I want to do. We want to take a collaborative approach. And to do that we've taken an approach that we're going to build our brand. First, we're going to gain variance to what we're doing, we're gonna get a groundswell of support, and then move it forward. And that was a really powerful piece for us to try to achieve. Just the fact that I had that conversation with that kelp farmer was kind of like a seminal moment. It's like I've achieved a little bit of what I wanted to do and being a disruptor in the aquaculture industry.
So that was fascinating. The other thing that we've been doing is testing out some of our hypotheses. So I think you briefly mentioned or alluded to Ocean Care Bonds. So that's really the first milestone and that came about from the original idea of Carbon Kapture, which was, "are people prepared to put a higher power on the regenerative power of nature? Are they prepared to invest in ocean-based and nature-based solutions?" So we were meant to have Ocean Care Bonds in the beginning of December, I massively underestimated how difficult it is to mobilise a part-time team.
The only full-time person in the team is me. And my business partner, who does an incredible (big shout out to Dave Walker Nix) job of managing two jobs, managing his actual job and then his Carbon Kapture job. So we tested out Ocean Care Bonds back at the end of December. So it was meant to be for Christmas, but we managed to get it out on the 27th. So we missed the Christmas bump. And what we were doing were in effect selling advanced sales on kelp. We haven't been involved in the water yet and to see if people are prepared to put a higher price on this thing. And also thanks to the wonderful team at Alpha Geeks who put together a brilliant, brilliant digital campaign for us and also Katie Nuttall from Studio Nimble, amazing content that she produced, but we sold out of our Ocean Care Bonds in 20 days. So it was an advanced sale, not in the water, really trying to capture the imagination for 20 days. I'm like okay, that's pretty cool. But then what I really wanted to find out was, what button had I pressed?
It was we had this great campaign and we thought we knew what we're doing. But actually, in real terms, we didn't know what button we pressed to our customers. So I set about to all the customers that said, they were okay with us contacting them for marketing purposes, we contacted them. And what was really interesting was the feedback that we got from the customers. And the first thing was that people have really bored of trees. I just didn't realise that was a thing. But people are really bored of investing in trees.
The second thing that was really interesting was the people really did want to buy into something that was nature-based, the regenerative power of nature, and people really care for the ocean, like super, super care for the ocean and its health. I think there is a growing consensus of understanding that actually, as a species we are derived from the ocean that we came from, we came from apes and gyms. But before that, the evolutionary processes we came from the water, and being able to sort of know that all life came from from the oceans means we really should be taking more care of the ocean. And the final marker was, people wanted practical ways to engage in the topic “climate change,” as a topic is really abstract.
But if you take away the trees, it's a really abstract topic, you can ask people what it is. And there really is a massive swing and understanding. And in part, that's our job at Carbon Kapture to help people understand and interpret the problem in practical real terms, but actually having tangible products and services, practical ways that you can engage makes people feel like they're contributing to solving the problem. And we all know why I say we all know, I think it's i think i think it's a known fact, that groundswell people power is the reason why change happens. And I can hold those markers to sit on more, and Marcus Rashford. Clearly directive leadership, a clear call to action was is all that it takes. And actually, when you do that, effectively, and you've got your marketing on point, you can have some real meaningful impact.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:42
That's amazing. I just let you talk, I didn't want to interrupt you. Because I think it's been such a fascinating journey that you've been on. I want to get into some of the challenges now because I know that you have built this groundswell of support that you talk about. There is a movement behind you. There's definitely energy behind the brand of Carbon Kapture. And it's exciting, like people are excited to hear about you. Tell me about some of the challenges that you're currently facing in the scaling journey of what you're trying to build.
Howard Gunstock 8:11
Yeah. So there are numerous challenges. One, I think this is the one that everyone has, getting, getting the investment. And so we've taken a really long time to get our stuff together. Aside from the ocean care of bonds, which was relatively clear, the challenge is, when you're talking about creating carbon negative products and services, and ecosystem services, that's even more abstract for some people than climate change. I mean, at least it's a word that's banded around.
And when you're right at the edge of all the cutting edge of climate change activities, what you tend to find is that your thinking is a little bit more nuanced to the vast majority of the population. So you've got to dial it back. So being able to describe our products and services clearly in an unambiguous way has been singly the biggest challenge that I've had to have ever had today. Because not only are you describing it, you're also then having to quantify it financially. And that is something that goes into your P&L, and that's what your investors want to know about. And you got to be able to talk to it, in a sense of what does this actually mean in practical terms. So that's been a massive challenge for the company.
One that I'm delighted to say, we are now over Touch Wood. We have our pitch deck together, we have our P&L together, we know what we're talking about with our products and services. And in the last two weeks, we've started to actually announce some of our partnerships and alliances. There's two or three more to come. I'm extremely grateful, by the way, for your support as well with our hackathon which I'm sure we'll come to in a bit. But it's been a really great opportunity for us to test out our thinking. I mean, it's not been easy. And certainly, there's a lot of money in the swear jar. There's a massive amount that's gonna go to charity. We've got that.. And it's been a pleasure to work with my team to be fair, because they've challenged me appropriately to be able to get to where we are.
So now we have, we have our sponsorship packages, which is really a great little thing. We have our consumer products that we're going to be producing when we get to the end of when we get to having biomass, we're going to have our corporate offerings as well for that. And we're mainly operating in animal feed fertiliser, so stimulants, and biochar, which are fantastic, but the idea of being able to sponsor our activities is the thing that really will be to help organisations aligned to the strategy of ocean health and the regenerative power of nature.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:09
It's interesting because I currently participate and volunteer for a steering group with the Hampshire Chamber around Netzero. And typically, the conversation doesn't come to this regenerative side. There's a lot of talk about cleaner energy, and there's a lot of talk about what we are doing to build back better to reduce the use of toxic things and plastics, etc. But there's not a lot of talk about cleaning up what we've already put into the atmosphere, which is essentially where Carbon Kapture has positioned itself.
Howard Gunstock 11:42
Yeah, we are all the Wombles of aquaculture. We'll begin to throw me clean cleaning up the everyday things that people leave behind. There's a lot of words, buzz words, and that seems to come along. So first of regenerative, all it means is it's the next stage from sustaining what we've got. So everyone has a sustainability project. And what's really become apparent when you're at this when I'm at my side of it, I'm not talking about any other perspective. But I'm just saying from my side, sustaining what we've got is only good if everyone participates in sustaining what we've got. In effect, sustainability, in its current form, is like communism. It works in theory. But unless everyone's on board and does exactly the same thing, then what you're going to get is some sustainability having more power than others sustainability and this piece that says that the bigger players will only sustain what is essential, rather than what they're trying to do.
And then there'll be other people who will try to be more sustainable and become more righteous and pious and all that sort of stuff. That's not where we're at. We're on about being able to, in effect, we climate positive, good for the environment and regenerative. The regenerative power of nature is in nature. We have perennials, everything. It will turn around, there'll be a new new season, a new summer, a new harvest, a new crop, and we can play with it. I mean, we can genuinely geoengineer that, to our advantage, it seems so mind numbingly obvious, like soul crushing the obvious that we've had this power all along, and no one's gone, "Oh, that's something we could do." or if they have, it's only been a passing thought, "Why is no one else taking this and running with it so fast?" And I do understand what we're doing, how effective we are as a company.
As we start off, we're going to be like trying to move water in a wheelbarrow. We know that some of the CO2 is going to go over the side, here, there, and everywhere. Got that 100%. But as we refine our skills and capabilities, we'll become more and more effective at removing bad elements from one location and moving it for the betterment of another and that's what it's about balance. You know, as a species, we don't value nature because we've not been trained or programmed or the story isn't about that. The story is about the value of money, wealth, and capitalism, and consumerism, yeah, consumerism.
So then what you’ve got to be able to do is then train the mind into two parts. One is how I become more of a thoughtful person and two how do I then show that thoughtfulness in terms of our planet that's led (not exclusively), and that's a sweeping statement, by those who have the most influence and those who had the most influence or those with money. So those with money need to get on board with this idea. Because otherwise , this is not my thinking, but in 10 years time, if we don't fix this really clearly, in 10 years time, the “in” gift is going to be a personal breathing apparatus.
That's the gift at Christmas. We don't get our stuff together right now, you know, Darth Vader. You won't know that you're walking into it into a carbon dioxide pocket, you won't know you're walking into a hydrogen pocket or, or a nitrogen pocket, or a methane pocket, it will just be there. There's no Batman, funny coloured smoke stuff going on, it will be the same colours you're looking at now, it's completely trashed completely invisible. And we will know that's really what we've been facing for the past 10 years, you're going to be talking about complete breakdown of all those chains and when those ecosystems break down, they don't come back. So we have to do this now. What sustainably should be is about doing the right thing.
And what it shows is we're not about doing more than the right thing. Businesses need to do more than the right thing, because they haven't. Any industry hasn't done the right thing for a really long time in a few. Half a few have put the Planet in their heart and they've been the outliers. And thanks to them, change is possible. But the vast majority need to do more than the bare minimum. The bare minimum isn't one there. It's got to be a lot.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:57
So I want to move us now to fixing some of the challenges that you have. So I know that you have just built this energy behind the hackathon that's coming up. I want you to share with my audience about the hackathon, and how they can get involved.
Howard Gunstock 17:15
Absolutely, thank you. Yes. So it's really one of the one of the really beautiful things about Carbon Kapture and the way that we've positioned ourselves and the way that we've had so many graduates, postgraduates, PhD students, just literally give us the academic research in my inbox. I have got something like 100- 150 years worth of academic insight. It's amazing. And I'm massively grateful to those people for giving me their abstracts. Please don't give me any more info in the abstract. I don't have the brain capacity to handle it. But yeah, anyway, it's been brilliant, it's really helped shape some of our thinking of our products and services.
So we're massively grateful. And we understand that part of the reason that someone was giving us that was in the hope that maybe we could give them a job. And we're a small business, we don't have a lot of money. So at the moment, we're not in that position. But that feeling of someone paying it forward to us is something that I feel is really important to our business. It feels like the right thing. If you're studying Ecology, or Biology or Sustainability or related disciplines, you're doing it because you have a passion for it. It would be like a crime that you study a STEM degree, and then you go into a completely unrelated discipline in business or something else. And all that knowledge that you've got isn't wasted, but it's not channelled into a way that will benefit us as a society. And that's something that's got me in this whole lockdown and COVID-19 thing where opportunities for graduates has become more and more sparse, has played on my mind massively, and played on the team's mind.
So the idea of the hackathon is that it actually solves a myriad of things. So we have some great ways of solving our business, our business problems. And these are ideas that have been thought of by a bunch of middle-aged people, men, women, you know exactly that have sold some things. And okay, we've got a handful. But what we don't have is we don't have all the ideas that come out from the people who are right at the cutting edge. So with our hackathon, we'll solve a couple of business-related problems that will either build on what we've already got, or give us a completely new idea, or potentially give us some stuff for the parking lot later on. Some great ideas are going to come out. But what we really want to do is use that as a platform for good.
So we're going to film it, we're going to stream it, and we're going to sandwich some adverts in it. And we've got some, we've got some amazing sponsors. So big shout out to you for offering to be a sponsor, thank you very much. Also to }getabstract, Jabra, The Applied Negative Energy Centre, and also avery + brown, who have done an amazing job on sort of helping our, our marketing. Thank you very, very, very much to all of our wonderful sponsors of our hackathon. So the idea is that we will film this and then we're gonna put people into groups of five, and we'll advertise it to potential employers.
So if you're looking to hire a graduate in a Sustainability, Ecology, Biology, Marine Engineering, field, or any other related discipline, we're going to have 25 of the best graduates that we can find. And we're gonna let them have an informal assessment centre, where we give them the problem, they showcase their soft skills, their communication skills, their presentation skills, and problem solving skills. And you can look at it for free, we're not charging anything for it. And we do an introductory service to the rights of some of those graduates, on behalf of the employer that's also non cost as in, we're not going to charge anything for that, because we want those companies that are looking at them to look at us as a company. We are also offering, you know, those people that probably can be looking at possibly looking potential sponsorship for some of our activities.
But we're also using the hackathon, to advertise to investors as well, people who may want to co-own a farm or invest in Carbon Kapture. And we're going to try and put on this show, this show of ideas and good stuff from people right at the cutting edge. You know, we're not talking about the policy and procedure business. We're talking about practical applications to help people engage with climate change because what would be more powerful than helping a load of students who have a vested interest or ex-students have a vested interest in sustainability getting themselves meaningful jobs in industries that value their skill set. That is such a powerful thing to be able to offer. And I think we'll get some stuff out of that as well. But more importantly, we get jobs to pay it forward. And that really, that fits in our ethical compass really well.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:28
Now. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Howard. So just remind everyone again, when your hackathon starts, and how they can sign up.
Howard Gunstock 22:35
The application window is still open. I found a lot of really great graduates. But I'd like some more, please. Employers, you can all register, by the way. So you can find this at carbonkapture.org/hackathon. If you're not an employer, graduate investor or sponsor, you can still watch it. There's an
Eventbrite ticket link for that. It's free. If you are, then you just register an interest at the relevant Google Doc that we've got. We've got Google Doc for graduates, we've got Google docs for employers, we've got Google docs for investors to sort of help people and we'll send you an invite and a link to the event and a hold the date and all that sort of stuff. And then we're just going to stream it on LinkedIn live. We're going to stream it on Facebook and YouTube. And we're just gonna have a lot of fun with it. So yeah. Perfect.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:35
Thank you so much for joining the show.
Howard Gunstock 23:37
Thank you so much for having me. Have a wonderful day. Cheers.