Welcome to the For Love and Money podcast, the show where business and social purpose meet to inspire a movement for positive change. Here's your host, Carolyn Butler-Madden. Abi Thomas is a purpose-driven sustainability and digital leader with a vision to create positive environmental and social change through innovative solutions.
She has more than 20 years' experience in digital strategy, transformation, sustainability, innovation and product development, having led teams at SBS, Commonwealth Bank, Deloitte, ABC and in the UK government. She was vice chair of the Australian Design Centre and president of not-for-profit One Step Walks, which connected local communities with refugee communities. Abi is intrigued by the way digital tools and approaches can be used to solve global environmental and social challenges.
She is currently Head of Sustainability and Product Strategy at SBS, combining her passion for both sustainability and digital products. In this episode, Abi shares the story of SBS's sustainability journey, including her personal story driven by her own passion and commitment to climate action.
Sustainability is everyone's job is the theme of this episode, and Abi highlights her belief that building allies and involving people across the business has been the key to SBS's successful approach to sustainability so far. If you're interested in how to engage more people in sustainability or purpose-driven actions, then you're going to love what Abi brings to this episode. Abi, welcome to the for Love and Money podcast. Thank you so much for taking
the time to join us. Thank you for having me on. So I wonder if you could share your perspective on the question I ask every guest, which is, is there a role for love in business, do you think?
I think there is. I think people sometimes feel uncomfortable with the word love and they substitute other words, passion, commitment, commitment care but I do think there is a role for really connecting to a higher purpose in what you do and certainly at SBS it is a very purpose-driven organisation everyone who works here has a slightly different take on why they believe in the mission around building social cohesion but everyone has quite
a personal story and so I think that really does connect back to of love. We had an interesting leadership meeting just the other day, and managing director James Taylor actually told a story at the start. And he said, he talks to a lot of stakeholders of SBS, whether it's advertisers or government or production companies. And he said, he starts to hear a lot of words being said about our teams. And the words he hears are love. Empathy, humanity, care, compassion.
And then he said, and I also hear other words like professionalism and capable, but he said, I can buy that second set of words, but you can't buy the love and commitment. So that really spoke to me when I heard that. And certainly as a sustainability leader, I think you have to have all of the knowledge and skill and change management, but there is this extra piece you need because it's such a tough job and it's such a big mission and I think that extra component is love.
Oh, that just gave me goosebumps. I love that and it's so insightful in, you know, when just getting that extra out of people and what it takes that goes beyond the professionalism and commitment and everything else and that's beautiful. Thank you. So, Abi, I'd love it if you could share your backstory. So you're Sustainability Manager at SBS Now, Head of Sustainability. And I'd love if you could share some of the key moments in your life to date that have brought you to this place.
Interesting. Well, most of my career has actually been in digital. So digital strategy, transformation, research. research, and I've always been interested in what's new, what's innovative, what's coming next, and how people interact with technology.
A lot of the digital transformation work I did was around taking people and organisations and teams and bringing them on a journey of how could digital change the way you work, how could it change the way we service our customers or audiences or clients. So there's a lot of change management involved, I suppose. and.
In the background, in my personal life, I've always cared deeply about sustainability and the planet, but I suppose I thought of it as something on the side, something that I could just do in addition. And a few years ago, I started getting more and more anxious about climate change, about the planet and where things were heading. And I remember talking to a friend and saying, I'm doing everything I can as an individual.
I'm trying to get renewable energy, eat less meat travel less etc and I don't know what more I can do she said well what about your organization like what is SBS's carbon footprint and how does that compare to yours I bet SBS's is much much bigger and I didn't know had no idea but it started me thinking and initially I thought well that's an interesting question but my job is in digital it's not really relevant to me but I started asking around found some like-minded people at SBS and we started
asking questions and trying to get a bigger focus on sustainability on the agenda and it was interesting because the first exercise we did was to calculate the corporate carbon footprint and it was quite large because as a media organisation we're making content we're distributing it and all of that creates emissions. And so the idea was, I suppose, that you can do as much as you can in your personal life and your personal carbon footprint.
But if you can influence, even to a small extent, a much bigger entity's carbon footprint, you would have much more impact. And that's where I'm now starting to see that I can play a role in trying to drive sustainability and a real focus on it in the organization that I work. I'm really interested when you said that you found like-minded people at SBS, because I think there are many people who want to do something and are looking at how they can start influencing others in the organization,
but don't know how and where to start. Yeah. How did you find those like-minded people? Did you already know about them through conversations? How did you go about that? Yeah, it was interesting. I had a specific idea at the time, which was, what if we could get electric vehicle charges in the car park? And then it would help incentivise people to switch to electric vehicles, which, I mean, still now it's quite hard to find charging infrastructure, but a few years ago it was even harder.
And I started asking around, and I think other people had had similar ideas and so ended Ended up connecting with people who really were caring about sustainability. So it was a little bit haphazard. But once we found each other, it was really just a matter of then asking questions of the organization. And I do say to people that I meet who are doing other jobs not related to sustainability, that you have quite a lot of power as an employee.
And your organisation will actually be open if you just start asking questions. You know, what are we actually doing about sustainability? Do we measure our carbon footprint?
Do we disclose it? and it's most organizations are now on that journey and starting to think about it there are government regulations and so it's a big starting to be a big focus anyway yeah yeah and so asking questions but the other thing you said like you said it was a bit haphazard but but what stands out to me is you started talking about something a specific idea rather than just sustainability, generically. It was the EV charging.
And that feels like you can get more traction with something like that than a broader concept of sustainability. Yes, I think that's true. And certainly, as employees, we also have quite an active SBS Green team.
And there are lots of small things you can do within the office, you know, moving to imperfect fruit, for example, or trying to encourage people to bring key cups, making sure people are using the right bins and having all the right waste streams so there is quite a lot of small stuff that you can do that starts to change behavior on a bigger scale yeah right and so when was that when did you start this process it was probably three or four years ago,
okay and so you you actually created the role you have now am i right the role didn't exist before and I'm very lucky to now be in a position where I have the opportunity to do it. Yeah, yeah. But so how did it come about? Well, I think SBS is a very purpose-driven organisation. If you think about ESG, environmental social governance, the place we tend to play is S for social.
So social cohesion, ensuring that everybody feels represented, multilingual, multicultural, Indigenous Australians all feel part of society. And so a lot of our core strategies and focus was around that social side of things. And I think what became increasingly clear was that actually environmental and social issues were inherently interlinked. I mean, you can't have a cohesive society if you don't have a stable planet to live on. So I think that that became quite clear over the last few years.
And it's now really seen as a core part of the organization. It's one of our top 12 strategic initiatives. We've taken quite a strong leading position in sustainability.
We've now measured our carbon footprint for three years in a row just about to start our fourth we've gone out with quite an ambitious net zero target of 2045 across our own operations and our supply chain we've switched to 100 renewable energy we've started measuring the carbon footprint of all our tv productions because that's a big part of our core business and we're starting to build it into all of our systems and processes
so it's been really gratifying to see the organization put put its weight and energy behind this really important area and make quite a lot of progress in a short time. Yeah, and I'm curious to sort of dig a little deeper in, you know, you talked about starting to talk about the idea of EV charges and now you are the head of sustainability. There's a role that didn't exist previously.
The organisation is actively doing things, you know, setting that net zero target and really leading from the front. How did it go from having those first questions to getting to where you are now? Yeah, it's been a really interesting journey. I was reflecting back on, because I suppose I have the experience of change management in the digital sense, it felt quite similar in a way.
Starting small obviously makes sense. We still don't actually have EV chargers, but what we do have is our fleet is gradually switching from petrol cars to hybrid and electric vehicles.
And the very first hybrid vehicle that we got, the building services manager sent me a photo and it was this real moment of excitement that okay we've got a hybrid car so I think and that's very familiar from digital in that you start small you have a minimum viable product it just is it feels like a milestone it feels like progress I think building allies and stakeholder enthusiasm across the business was really key one of the things also I've learned from digital is
that you can use data and you can look at what's happening internationally other countries are a lot further ahead. Other broadcasters globally are a lot further ahead. That can be quite powerful as an incentive, but you can also sometimes tap into emotion. So there was one stakeholder meeting where I actually was, I came prepared with all of the data, a whole lot of facts and figures. And at the last minute, I switched the focus and decided to tap into motivation and emotion instead.
So I started the meeting playing a song that was meaningful to which was sleep australia sleep by paul kelly which really if you listen to it and watch the video you see he kind of celebrates all of the species that inhabit this planet but also mourns their potential and real loss and you know sometimes songs really just tap into that real sense of emotion and so opening the meeting with that song i invited the stakeholders to say what
was important to them about sustainability and it was really interesting it changed the tone at the conversation quite a lot and people really started to say, well. I think about my legacy, I think about my children, I think about the other species on this planet and how we need to care for them. And for me, it was really a pivotal moment because it moved from that logical, rational, data-driven approach into that emotional realm.
And I think you have to be able to inhabit both and navigate between them. But sometimes when you want decisions made or change to happen, that emotion is a real step change. That's so interesting because, you know, we are such emotional creatures and the evidence, the science is there that shows that we make big decisions based on our emotions and then we justify them rationally. And yeah, I think the way you open that can't fail to get people there, right?
To actually let them connect with their humanity. It felt a bit risky at the time i have to say like i'm not sure how this is going to go i bet i bet it did and look it it reminds me i did a workshop in january 2020 when the bushfires were raging.
And i flew to melbourne to run a workshop with a client and we had like 18 people from their leadership team there and I remember flying over and seeing the fires burning and I opened the workshop with video that I had shown hundreds of times in workshops the UN sustainable development goals we the people which is a really rousing and emotional video anyway but I'd shown it so many times it always gave me you know lump in the throat and you know a bit of goosebumps, but I played it.
And it took on a whole new meaning. And I went to speak after the video finished. And to my absolute surprise and embarrassment, I lost it. I lost it. Really? And I started, I couldn't talk. I could feel the tears coming down. And I remember panicking and thinking, oh, no. That's not how it was supposed to go. At the very beginning of this workshop. and I looked up and I suddenly saw other people crying. Wow.
And someone rushed up with tissues and it was just this emotional moment and the fear of me standing there like an idiot emotionally changed instantly because we were all there together. Wow. That's amazing. And the work, we had three days of workshops and I honestly, the way they showed up, it was unbelievable, you know, how that powered them. Wow. That's such a powerful sort of case study for your hypothesis around love, isn't it?
Love of planet, love of people, you know. And when we allow ourselves to feel it or when we're provoked, you know, something happens and we're provoked to feel it. And that song you talked about, you shared that with me the other day and I didn't know the song, I hadn't seen the video and we will include it in the show notes because it's so powerful. It is emotional and powerful. Wow, we need to be emotional about this. We can't afford to be dispassionate about this, can we?
Well, it's such a big global challenge affecting all of us. So you kind of need to bring all of the tools that you can to the table, I think. Enjoying the podcast? If you're looking for more inspiration, head to our website, thecauseeffect.com.au for more resources on how you can start using your business as a force for good. or buy the For Love and Money book. Every copy sold allows us to protect one square metre of rainforest. Help us save 10,000 square metres by 2025.
So, Abi, I'd love to understand how you get engagement from people across the business on the sustainability path. It's interesting. I think initially it was people who really were passionate about the issue and, I guess, like-minded in some way. But increasingly, there's now a network of people across the whole organisation who are building sustainability into their jobs, whether it's initiated by their individual passion or because it just makes sense pragmatically for the role they're doing.
And so that's where I'm starting to see sustainability really being part of everyone's job. So, for example, I have close colleagues who work in the television area, and they're working with production companies externally to commission programs. We're starting to measure, as I mentioned, the carbon footprint of each TV show that we make.
Colleagues in that area are working with these production companies, helping to do some of the tools that we use, the calculators, introducing the idea of being a bit more sustainable on set. How can you, for example, bring keep cups and reusable bottles? How can you choose plant-based catering on occasion, which is lower emissions? How can you reuse costumes and wardrobe and that kind of thing? And so that's a world that I know less about.
Out but my colleague in a tv area it's absolutely her bread and butter so she can really see where the opportunities are equally there'd be someone if legal who is working with me on updating our standard sbs contracts and procurement guidelines again an area that's not my speciality at all but they can really see the opportunity to start to feed in new clauses new wording encourages our suppliers to act more sustainably.
The people in finance who are thinking about the good suppliers that we use for travel, for example, and how we can measure our emissions more accurately when we organise business travel. People in audio and languages team who run community events and they're thinking, how can I use less plastic when I go out and talk to members of a community? And that's where it's been really exciting for me because I wouldn't necessarily know what all these opportunities are.
But my colleagues are bringing the expertise they have in their particular areas, starting to come up with suggestions and ideas and more sustainable ways of working. And it occurs to me that your change management experience has enabled you to engage people in this way. I think, yes, I definitely see commonalities between the digital or change management and a sustainability change management.
It's all the same principle of getting people excited, bringing them on the journey, empowering them to come up with their own ideas rather than imposing it centrally. And that's what I really love about seeing change in an organisation because it's a bit unpredictable. You don't know quite how it's going to go and people generally surprise you. So you talked about the TV shows, legal, finance, audio and Languages team, are you activating them or are they coming to you?
Like if you were talking to someone who wanted to use your experience in their organisation, how would you advise them just based on your own experience about what's worked? Yeah. I think it's almost like that building allies. So building a small group and then widening it out and then widening it out to the whole organization. So we have an environmental, social and governance working group. And it's interesting because they are quite a powerful, motivated group of people.
So they all have courage of their own particular ESG topic, whether it's media representation representation or diversity inclusion or privacy and data security. So they're very much experts in their area. But what's been really great to see is the interactions between them and the common challenges and the jumping in to try and help solve other people's problems.
And so for me, that's just a matter of what happens when you bring together a group of people who have that sense of commitment and fashion. They'll naturally jump in and try and solve each other's problems. So that's been really heartening. I'm also seeing, because sustainability is now a key strategic focus for the organisation, a lot of people making the connection and coming up with questions and ideas spontaneously and putting them forward.
And again, I love that unpredictability of what happens when people take ownership of an issue. And I guess that's a ripple effect starts to happen, doesn't it? You start seeing actions and people coming together. And I imagine there'd be, that would create energy. It does. It really does. If someone came to me the other day and said, Abby, if you put cup in the dishwasher as opposed to wash it under the running tap, which one's more sustainable?
Like, I think the dishwasher. And she's like, okay, I'm going to put a poster up by the sink and encourage other people to do that, right? I love it. And that's people power, isn't it?
It's just you're sort of handing it over to people so how is sustainability driven transformation, different to other kinds of change management i do think it's that element of purpose and personal connection to the issue i mean there are often changes in an organization which are just practical or they have to happen or their business processes people don't necessarily feel emotionally or personally connected to them.
And I think sustainability is different because everyone lives on this planet. A lot of people have children or connections to the next generation and you can't help but feel you have a personal stake in this actually being successful. I wonder, does that also give insight into other change management for organisations? That, you know, how do you make it personal? Yeah, maybe. I think if you can make people care, then obviously you get a lot more energy and commitment.
And it just, I can't help but think how much... Energy and value is being left on tables in organizations around Australia, across the world. Because when you tell me things like this and you hear stories about how people get excited, energized, come proactively with ideas or with curiosity. So much of that doesn't happen in everyday business.
A lot of it is discretionary. That's right. Yeah, it's interesting because we now, as I mentioned, have quite an active SBS Green group and one of we run events and activities one of the events we've been running quite successfully is a clove swap we've now done three of them oh fantastic it's so cool so everyone brings in five items good quality clothes they don't need anymore they donate them in the week prior and then we run this kind of clove swap event for an
hour or two and people come down they bring their colleagues they grab a new leather jacket or a new dress they're trying them on and the The impact on team morale and energy in the office as a byproduct is, I think, quite significant. People are now asking when's the next one. I've got my clothes ready to bring in next time. And that's just, you know, that's a discretionary thing, but it's completely outside everyone's day job. But it's just something that's fun.
And people who don't necessarily think of sustainability as their core issue, they quite like having new clothes for free. I love that. I love that. And I love that it's, you know, I guess people start to understand their colleagues in a different way as well, because it is personal and you bring out personal elements of your character.
That's right. And then you get this quite nice situation where two days later, you see someone walking along wearing your jacket and you're like, oh, it looks great on you. That is so cool. That is so cool. so what sort of milestones have you achieved over the last 18 months are there any key ones that you can share with us. Sure. I think setting the net zero target was a really big one because we set it for 2045, which is five years ahead of the government and most corporates.
We did all of our modelling behind that, so it wasn't just fucked out of the air. And it was very much a sense of we could see what we needed to do and we could see what we needed to do now to start to move towards that. And so that was a real kind of big goal to aim towards. switching to renewable energy and we've just signed a long-term contract for 10 years for renewable energy so we've locked that in. Wow.
We've started a process to apply for science-based targets initiative which is effectively global standard to validate our net zero target but it is accurate and science-based and I think using the it's called Albert a carbon calculator for the TV productions has been a bit of a game changer because two-thirds of our emissions roughly come from the content because it is our core business so if we can start to measure and then reduce emissions for each
of those tv shows we should really start to make progress towards our net zero target yeah fantastic so each of those moments i felt a real sense of like thrill basically that there's a big measurable step change and it really drives enthusiasm to then and keep going, keep leading, keep striving to make the organization more and more sustainable. And tell me about Albert, with the way your SVS is influencing the production companies, how's that being received generally?
Yes. So Albert is a tool that was developed in the UK by the BBC and others, and it's very widely used there now. And it was then brought out to Australia by an industry group called Sustainable Screens Australia. And we were founding members of that, along with various others. And we were the first actually to use the tool in Australia through Sustainable Screens. Others have been using it via the UK directly. And I think it's interesting because it's a new tool.
You have to do a bit of extra work. You have to measure what you're doing in terms of energy, transport, materials, catering. And so initially, we tried it on our own in-house production spurs so that we could really have experience of it. Inevitably, it was a bit more to do and everybody's already busy. So initially, people need a bit of hand-holding. How do I do this? How do I build it into my day-to-day?
And certainly, now we're starting to have those conversations with external production companies. Companies some of them have already used the tool because they're connected into the UK or others who are already using it others are a little newer and so again that process of hand-holding training.
And helping to get to just a business as usual moment is is underway but hearing from colleagues globally they all say the same thing it looks really hard and overwhelming to start with and then you just it just becomes normal again just change management really and generally those production companies, are they receptive to your suggestions? Yes, I think so. I mean, I think everyone connects to the idea of being more
sustainable as a goal. Yeah. So how do you balance the purpose-driven activities with the commercial requirements, the business priorities, and how do you make that a win-win? Yeah. Absolutely. Well, some activities to reduce emissions are also lower cost as well. So, for example, if you have plant-based catering, it's often cheaper than meat-based catering. If you use secondhand cloves or reuse the scent or repair the scent for a production, that's obviously cheaper.
If you fly less, that's cheaper. And then the other angle to it is that our advertising clients are starting to ask us about our approach to sustainability. How are you measuring your carbon footprint? Because that sits in their supply chain. And so it's actually a win-win from that point of view in that if we can become more sustainable and a lower carbon media platform, that's more appealing to our advertising clients as well.
And that's going to happen more and more across industries, isn't it? But what's fantastic is you've got a head start. Absolutely. But our aim is to be a leader in the industry, but to really bring everybody else along as quickly as possible, because for the planet, we need everyone to do it. So it's more about if we can share learnings or encourage others to follow the path. It's interesting. We're part of a few industry organizations.
So Green Ears is one that we set up, which is an audio industry sustainability group. Green Ears? Yeah. Love it. So it covers public broadcasters, public broadcasting radio, community radio, commercial radio, the training schools, the AFTRS, for example. And we all just share lessons. We meet up regularly and say where we're all at and share challenges. And it's that pre-competitive collaboration, I guess, where we're really just interested to help each other on a sustainability journey.
Wow. Collaboration over competition. That's one of my favorite themes. And I think, you know, there's so much opportunity there. But also, a lot of what you've talked about, I wonder, how much has that driven innovation, like true innovation for the organization? Yeah, that's interesting. I think we're still quite early in that journey, to be honest, because with all of the environmental emissions, it's about measuring and then reducing.
And so you need to measure so that you know where to focus on reductions. I think the potential for innovation in creating all of the great content that we make, but in a lower carbon way, that's sort of just on the horizon. It's just starting. But now that we're starting to measure in that more specific way, we can kind of see where the opportunities are for innovation. Yeah, right. So is there anything you can share with us on what's next in your industry?
Plan? Well, we are doing a piece of work around climate risk scenario analysis, which is, you know, there's regulation rolling out on this now. So bigger organizations, and we're in that first branch, have to start looking at different climate scenarios. What would happen under a 1.5 degree increased world? What would happen under a three degree increased world? What would that look like in 2030, 2050? How would that affect your operations, your infrastructure, your staff, your productivity?
Wow. It's a big piece of work and it's quite new. Some corporates have done this voluntarily, but it hasn't really been rolled out more broadly yet. So very interesting new thinking for us internally. How do you go about something like that, Abby? Are there resources and tools to do it? Yeah, there's quite a lot of resource and templates and a lot of climate scenario mapping that has been done.
But really the trick is to then apply it to your own organisation and your own operations and what's important to you in terms of your business objectives. And that's the bit that really requires the internal expertise to join the dots. So that's going to be continuing that theme of sustainability is everyone's job at SVS. That's going to continue bringing people into that tent and getting them to look at how it impacts their areas.
Yes, because you have to think about it. It's actually not just risks, it's also opportunities. So for the sales team, for finance, for building managers, really everybody needs to think, well, how would this scenario impact my day-to-day work? Yeah, wow. I imagine, I mean, you talk about risk and opportunity, absolutely. But on the risk side, I mean, that's where it gets real, doesn't it?
This concept of climate change, suddenly you're looking at the actual consequences of it playing out and what it means for your job. And yeah, to me, that seems like a really strong way of getting people to face the realities we're facing. Yes. I mean, I was reading the latest IPCC report, well, the summary anyway, in preparation. It's quite, obviously, very sobering and really brings it home what you're talking about. It's not just theoretical. reticle.
Abby, thank you. It's been so interesting seeing how you sort of walked your path. And I love how you shared, you know, this was something that was personal to you and you looked at everything that you could do personally and you got to a point where it's like, what else can I do? And then that conversation with your friend, starting to think about how you could use your influence to create change at SBS. Yes.
And then moving on to other people getting involved and building allies, starting conversations, getting people to join in and contribute their ideas. I love it. I think it's a wonderful case study that so many people and organizations can learn from. And yeah, I thank you for coming on the show and sharing it with us.
What I'd love to ask you to do is to close the show, but with With your vision, Abi's dream, you know, if you could achieve your dream goals or ambitions by 2030, what might it look like? And, you know, this can be personal to you. It can be for the organization. It can be for the industry. It's your dream. You choose. Okay. I think a lot of sustainability work is about minimising, reducing, mitigating, and sometimes we actually need a positive vision to work towards.
And I think if all of the action that needs to happen around sustainability does actually happen, we have the chance of a really beautiful future where we're living in harmony with each other, with the planet, with other the species got symbiotic approach to life. And I would love by 2030 to be in a position we have a glimpse of that. We can actually see that we have a path to reach it because I think we can get there. I think we have to get there.
Thank you, Abi. It's been a real joy to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's a great conversation. Music. Thanks for listening to this episode of the For Love and Money podcast. If you'd like to take a deeper dive into the purpose movement, visit us at thecauseeffect.com.au. And remember, doing good is good for business. So if you're not doing good, then what are you doing?