Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for Loyalty Marketing Professionals.
Paula: I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in Loyalty Marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from Loyalty Specialists around the world.
Paula: Thank you.
Paula: So today, I am speaking to a gentleman from my home city of Dublin, by the name of Ciaran Kelly.
Paula: Now, Ciaran was introduced to me recently as somebody who didn’t work in the loyalty industry, in fact, had no background at all in our sector.
Paula: And he was described very much as somebody who was very entrepreneurial and working on something that really, for me, ticked a huge amount of boxes in terms of what’s going on in the world at the moment.
Paula: So, Ciaran is basically setting up and running an organization called Earth Rewards.
Paula: And we’re going to get into a fantastic conversation about the environment and about how ordinary consumers, I guess, can start to do something about their carbon emissions in terms of finding ways to offset the damage that we’re all doing, but in a way that doesn’t, I suppose, compromise living their everyday life.
Paula: Because I think when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, we all still want to get in our planes and drive our cars.
Paula: But Earth Rewards, I think, is a really interesting concept that helps us to offset some of the damage that’s being done with all of that activity.
Paula: So as I said, I don’t know much at all about this gentleman, but he’s from Dublin, so that’s good enough for me.
Paula: He’s from the opposite side of the city to me, so we always have a bit of a laugh about that.
Paula: But I first and foremost want to really welcome Ciaran Kelly, CEO of Earth Rewards to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Ciaran: Hi, Paula.
Ciaran: Thanks for the introduction.
Ciaran: Great to be on the show.
Ciaran: Great.
Ciaran: I noticed you mentioned the different sides of the city.
Ciaran: You didn’t mention I came from the rough side of the city.
Paula: I didn’t want to put anybody off, Ciaran.
Ciaran: Yeah, great one.
Paula: That’s brilliant.
Paula: That’s brilliant.
Paula: Now, I think one of the things I also like to actually, Ciaran, when we were talking before, I think I explained to you that the show is very much around global voices of.
Ciaran: And I think, in your case, it’s a global voice of technology.
Ciaran: I grew up in Dublin, left school at 15, always had an interest in work.
Ciaran: I wasn’t great academically, it wasn’t my comfort zone.
Ciaran: So I suppose, like all 15-year-olds, I started to work at everything from a milkman to washing dishes to the usual route to get that wide breadth of knowledge that you don’t realize at the time you’re gaining, but you actually are.
Ciaran: In the late, around 1979, I emigrated to Canada, and I was very, very fortunate to end up working for a company called B4 Drilling and Exploration.
Ciaran: We developed onshore oil and gas platforms globally.
Ciaran: So we had great travel, great travel experience, and we felt at the time we were in an area that really helped to expand countries’ ability to regulate their own energy sources.
Ciaran: So I know it’s kind of people always say to me now, is it poacher turned gamekeeper?
Ciaran: They say, well, not really, because at that time, we didn’t look at the emissions of fossil fuels.
Ciaran: There wasn’t really that much knowledge about it, and we only saw the goods.
Ciaran: Fossil fuels were running the global economy.
Ciaran: They were necessary, they were important.
Ciaran: So I never really kind of looked at it that way.
Ciaran: So like I said, I was really unfortunate to have a really global view on economies, economies of scale, what the difference, you know, that the fossil fuel made at that time, if you didn’t take into account the negative facts of it.
Ciaran: So I worked on that for about 10 years.
Ciaran: Really, towards the last probably three or four years, had my own team and worked as a subcontractor, as an independent.
Ciaran: So that gave me my first taste of entrepreneurialism.
Ciaran: Although we wasn’t in a broad range, it was very much focused on what we were doing at the time.
Ciaran: So we made the decision after a lot of years doing it.
Ciaran: And it was hard work.
Ciaran: I mean, this was groundwork.
Ciaran: This was nothing to do with officer tech at the time.
Ciaran: This was a shovel at each hand to get digging.
Ciaran: Industrial stuff, yeah.
Ciaran: I mean, some of the most remote areas of the world.
Ciaran: So when we came back to Europe, I was looking for something to kind of invest in at the time, and it was right in the middle of the.com.
Ciaran: So I loved technology.
Ciaran: I’d always loved it.
Ciaran: It was always kind of, I could see at times where it was gone, not always the positives, but I could see where it was going.
Ciaran: So I invested in some.com companies through the 90s.
Ciaran: I think like everybody, mixed results, some were very successful, some not so.
Ciaran: Went through all the hype and learned a big lesson from that.
Ciaran: Hype doesn’t pay the bills.
Ciaran: And then went almost full circle and really started to get involved in the environmental side of things.
Ciaran: I mean, that was very close to it, to my natural, where I come from anyway.
Ciaran: I think as we discussed earlier, I was never a person to go on a beach holiday.
Ciaran: I was wandering off into some forest somewhere or some remote area.
Ciaran: And I looked then, as you’re getting into the early 2000s, mid 2000s, the clarity, if you like, of climate change was being absolutely, there was no question in my mind.
Ciaran: So it led me back to, we looked at the common, of course, was renewable energies, which is really important.
Ciaran: And I could see that, I could see where it was going to be a big part of the future.
Ciaran: But I suppose more of interest to me was how do we develop natural climate solutions?
Ciaran: What role do they play?
Ciaran: Where do they come into it?
Ciaran: So we supported a lot of forestry projects around the world.
Ciaran: That kind of gave us our in-depth knowledge into the actual carbon markets and what they were and what they weren’t.
Ciaran: Because again, there was a lot of confusion as to what they were, because you’ve got two markets.
Ciaran: You’ve got a mandatory market on one side that’s purely government-based and it’s on selective emitters, and you’ve got the voluntary market.
Ciaran: And the voluntary market really appealed to me in the sense that it almost was a sandbox for innovation in the environmental world.
Ciaran: And what I mean by that is, it was a financial mechanism, if you like, to support projects that were otherwise in the normal financial world were unsupportable.
Ciaran: To give you an example, if you went into a bank and said, look, we have this area of land and we want to build trees on it to help to protect the environment.
Ciaran: Your first question is, well, how are you going to pay us back?
Ciaran: And I think the voluntary carbon market gave you the ability to structure in a way that was both commercial but has a strong environmental background.
Ciaran: But I think we’re seeing a lot of that now in impact investment.
Ciaran: It allowed, it gave that ability to develop and evolve projects, whether that be reforestation, avoided deforestation, marshland protection.
Ciaran: You know, it goes on.
Ciaran: Solar energy to remote communities, you know, Internet.
Ciaran: These are all fundamentally part of the trying to negate the effects of climate change, but they were outside the norm.
Ciaran: So this is where I became really interested in this conundrum.
Ciaran: How do you convince or how do you put a price on a standing forest?
Ciaran: How do you put a price on nature?
Ciaran: And this became a real important fundamental where we were going at the time.
Paula: So you have amazing environmental credentials, and you’ve come up with the technology solution based on loyalty insights and strategies called Earth Rewards, which we’re going to talk a lot about today.
Paula: But even before we get into this very new concept that you’re launching, I know you have a favorite statistic about the environment, and I know it goes back a long way as well, Ciarán.
Paula: So would you share that with us?
Paula: Because I think the listeners will be really fascinated.
Ciaran: It was one that came from Nielsen’s in November 2018.
Ciaran: So it’s about a year ago.
Ciaran: And it was 80% of consumers globally say it’s important that companies implement programs to improve the environment.
Paula: Okay.
Paula: Amazing.
Ciaran: I found that absolutely amazing.
Ciaran: And the reason that it’s even more amazing is this figure has increased dramatically year on year.
Ciaran: When I first looked at it probably four or five years ago, it was somewhere around the 64%, early 60s, went up to late 60s, early 70s, and year on year, it’s increased dramatically.
Ciaran: And that to me was an amazing statistic.
Ciaran: It showed really, and because it was a global consumers, it really struck a chord with me.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And I know that I’ve come across one as well, in fact, Ciarán, and like you, it comes from a highly credible source.
Paula: And I will put a link to both of these statistics actually in the notes for the show.
Paula: But the one that I came across, which completely substantiates and supports your entire, I suppose, business, it came from Deloitte, and it was some research actually around what is of interest and of concern to millennials and Gen Z as they’re known.
Paula: So millennials, as most listeners would know, were kind of born between 1983 and 1994.
Paula: And this Deloitte survey actually surveyed over 13,000.
Paula: So significant number, hugely significant number.
Paula: And again, like your statistic, these people were from 42 different countries and across all demographics, so a very diverse audience.
Paula: And literally the number one concern for that particular demographic is the environment.
Paula: And I think that’s where I suddenly started to pay attention, Ciarán, because again, with the best will in the world, I tried to recycle and I tried to do my best behavior, but I think I’m nagged by guilt and clearly I’m not the only one.
Paula: So for this whole issue to become the number one area that we’re talking about, and actually as an aside as well, I’m not sure if you know, I judged the Loyalty Magazine Awards in the UK, but also next year for the first time, they’re creating a category for eco-loyalty initiatives.
Paula: So again, it proves from a marketing perspective, I think everyone listening to this show, no one needs convincing, I suppose, of the issue.
Paula: I think what we’re struggling with is, but what can I do about it?
Paula: So tell us about Earth Rewards, obviously Ciarán, you’re the CEO.
Paula: I know it literally launched, I think you told me two months ago.
Paula: So tell us, what does Earth Rewards do and how have you built it and what are you building?
Ciaran: Well, when we were just deciding, how do we get, because from them two statistics, we kind of looked and said, why are companies not engaging with the consumers on this level?
Ciaran: What’s happening here?
Ciaran: And we kind of looked and did a lot of research and saw that, yeah, I mean, companies are concerned.
Ciaran: They are doing their bit, a lot of them, but they’re not really engaging.
Ciaran: I just didn’t see the engagement.
Ciaran: I mean, a company might come up with a statement and say, you know, in 2025, we’re going to just be renewable.
Ciaran: We’ll only have renewable energies.
Ciaran: And that’s, you know, it’s great.
Ciaran: You know, I applaud them for that.
Ciaran: But it doesn’t engage with me on a regular basis.
Ciaran: It’s a statement that I’ve read and it’s kind of there.
Ciaran: And I looked and I didn’t feel the emotional engagement.
Ciaran: Where does that emotion to a company’s environmental plans, what their strategies are?
Ciaran: And I think emotion was the thing for me that was missing.
Ciaran: There was a fax being put out there.
Ciaran: I read the fax.
Ciaran: I went fine.
Ciaran: But the emotion.
Ciaran: So we looked and we said, how can we bring engagement?
Ciaran: How can we get that emotion?
Ciaran: How can we get this connection to what a company is, what they’re doing and what we as consumers are doing?
Ciaran: Because obviously we have a responsibility for our purchases and our lifestyles.
Ciaran: So it really was an enigma at the time.
Ciaran: We really studied and kicked it and beat it and reformed it.
Ciaran: And I think that’s what took us so long to go live.
Ciaran: And while we’re a start-up, we’re a start-up with a lot of gray hairs.
Paula: That’s always useful, actually.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Ciaran: Yeah, yeah.
Paula: Never make the same mistakes twice, eh?
Ciaran: Exactly, exactly.
Ciaran: So we designed Earth Rewards with, that it had to have its basis.
Ciaran: It had to integrate forced inter-rewards programs.
Ciaran: So we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel.
Ciaran: We had to have it that it would very simply integrate inter-rewards programs.
Ciaran: It would be a consumer engagement tool with a strong environmental message that both parties benefit from.
Ciaran: It had to be an emotional, so it had to have that emotional engaging element.
Ciaran: Whereas it didn’t take the place of transactional engagement, but it integrated smoothly into it.
Ciaran: It kind of gave another facet to it.
Ciaran: It was an ability to create a real impact for the environment and as a successful rewards program.
Ciaran: And it had a really holistic and realistic approach to getting that mass engagement on the topic of environmental issues.
Ciaran: So it had to inform, it had to educate.
Ciaran: And as I’ll expand on further, we did that show the academies that are built into the app, the academies, the emissions, the learn and earn.
Ciaran: There had to be an element of people could measure.
Ciaran: So measure what is my impact and be able to take positive action, which is the key to the Earth Rewards token.
Ciaran: So we developed and redeveloped and redeveloped until we came to the version that we launched probably around March, April of this year.
Ciaran: And we started with the app.
Ciaran: We said, okay, let’s first develop an app that’s well-built, well-structured.
Ciaran: It can be used by an organization to integrate into it, or we’ll have APIs where they want to do their own thing.
Ciaran: So when we developed the app, we looked at again the technology.
Ciaran: So we said, okay, if Earth Rewards and each Earth Rewards token represents a high-quality offset, you can’t reward somebody with a ton of carbon.
Ciaran: So we said, okay, first thing we do is we’ll break it down into kilograms of carbon of offsets, because obviously there’s a thousand in every ton.
Ciaran: So that makes it easier for people to get their head around.
Ciaran: And it also means that most purchases are under a ton.
Ciaran: You know, if you do your shopping or you fill your car, or you’re just going out for a meal or a drink, most of them are in kilos.
Ciaran: And that’s really where we wanted to engage with people everywhere, not just on getting a flight or, you know, the major environmental impacts.
Ciaran: If we’re going to do this, we want to engage with people everywhere.
Ciaran: We want to make it part, a simple part of their thought process.
Ciaran: So we built the app.
Ciaran: We launched it in…
Ciaran: Let me think now.
Ciaran: I think we launched it probably the first version in July.
Ciaran: So we got great feedback from it.
Ciaran: That was the beta app.
Ciaran: We went with version two in September.
Ciaran: And in version two, between version one and version two, we decided, well, if this is going to be global, then people have got to be able to calculate their carbon impact globally, wherever they are.
Ciaran: So we developed the data sets, so anybody in the forest realm, in 30 countries, can calculate their carbon impact.
Ciaran: Yeah, which was quite a challenge, to be honest.
Paula: It sounds like a logistical nightmare, to be honest with you.
Paula: So a lot of data.
Ciaran: We were very lucky.
Ciaran: We worked with a guy called Professor Mike Berners-Lee, who works in the University of Lancaster.
Paula: Okay.
Ciaran: And Mike wrote a book called Talbot or Bananas.
Ciaran: I think it must be going back about 10 years.
Ciaran: And it was life changing for me.
Ciaran: And what it was was a very simple book on what is the carbon impact of things.
Ciaran: You know, everyday things, you know.
Paula: Yeah.
Ciaran: So I went back to Mike and I said, Mike, you know, this is all great.
Ciaran: But how do we do it for Turkey countries or 60 countries?
Ciaran: So we started the batch of numbers.
Ciaran: I got, he got his base data sets.
Ciaran: I got me tech guys and we achieved it in an amazingly short period of time.
Ciaran: So on the second version of the op, it meant that in any Turkey countries, you could calculate your carbon impact.
Paula: And that’s every day.
Paula: Sorry, Ciarán, just so I understand.
Ciaran: This is the beauty of it.
Ciaran: This is the beauty of it.
Ciaran: So it’s kind of, as we were talking about earlier, it’s a kind of a never-ending story.
Ciaran: So what we started with is we said, look, everybody’s got to have a starting point, because you’ve got to be able to measure something to start.
Ciaran: So the initial version of the app, we have to make it simple.
Ciaran: So there are a lot of apps that are quite complicated.
Ciaran: And if you can imagine that you’re trying to calculate your annual emissions, that it may result in a lot of questions and possibly, in our opinion, too many.
Ciaran: So we made it simple, and we built it on averages.
Ciaran: So we kept it down to 13 questions and we built a slider system.
Ciaran: So you can go in, if you’re in any of these 30 countries, and it would give you the average answer on things like transport, energy use, shopping, tech, and just all of the main creators of CO2 emissions.
Ciaran: So we kept it quite simple for people.
Ciaran: And what that did is it gave somebody an overview.
Ciaran: I mean, mine is an example.
Ciaran: I was horrified.
Ciaran: I did mine and I thought I was doing really well.
Ciaran: And it ended up at about 15 tons of CO2 a year.
Ciaran: And that was surprising because I don’t fly a lot.
Ciaran: I really only fly unless it’s necessary.
Ciaran: I haven’t owned a car for three years, but I suppose I do.
Ciaran: I’m not a woman around anyway.
Paula: But you are the first person, Ciarán, that has that information that I’ve ever spoken to.
Paula: So I have no idea.
Paula: Do you know what I mean by 15 tons of CO2 a year is relative?
Paula: So clearly after this, I’m going to go and calculate my own.
Ciaran: Yeah, it’s a great idea.
Ciaran: I think it’s a great idea because you have to have some kind of a baseline.
Ciaran: Where am I in all of this?
Ciaran: This is my lifestyle.
Ciaran: And there’s no real good or bad, Paula.
Ciaran: And I think that’s what people have to understand.
Ciaran: There’s always room for a lot of improvement, but there’s no real good or bad because nobody gets up in the morning and says, Oh, what a lovely day to destroy the planet.
Ciaran: It’s just through our lifestyle actions that we end up in the place we are.
Ciaran: And the first point of anything, to change anything is measuring.
Ciaran: You know, as a tech guy, you’ve got to measure everything.
Ciaran: So this is what we did.
Ciaran: And I was able to turn around and we added a feature.
Ciaran: We said, just like you said, so brilliant.
Ciaran: If I’m in the UK and I’m around 15 tons, what’s the average in the UK?
Ciaran: And I realized it was about 12.6.
Ciaran: So I said, OK, there’s my first target.
Ciaran: Then we went a little bit deeper and we said, What is the average we need to reach to meet the climate targets of Paris?
Ciaran: And it was about six.
Ciaran: So I thought, OK, that’s going to be very difficult for me to do with just reduction.
Ciaran: So we’re on the right track here.
Ciaran: It’s got to be a mix of reduction and offset.
Ciaran: You’ve got to be able to create a balance between the two and treat our emissions almost like a budget.
Ciaran: It’s almost like your monthly budget for the household.
Ciaran: This is my budget for the month and this is what I need to do to reduce.
Ciaran: And it doesn’t change lifestyle, Paul, and you can really, really make huge differences without dramatic changes.
Ciaran: And people, I think, are always obsessed with this idea that you have to make dramatic changes.
Ciaran: It’s like any budget.
Ciaran: It’s give or take.
Ciaran: You might increase a little bit here, reduce a bit here, and that’s what it’s about.
Ciaran: So once we got to that then, people were able to compare themselves, users of the app were able to compare themselves to, okay, well, what’s China like?
Ciaran: What’s Germany like?
Ciaran: What’s Turkey like?
Ciaran: So you can compare yourself to other nationalities and get a great overall view and a feeling for it.
Ciaran: And what we did is to engage people further.
Ciaran: When you download the app, there’s some gaming in there.
Ciaran: So you can answer some simple questions and you earn your first Earth Rewards.
Ciaran: So it starts to process.
Ciaran: We also, as part of where we want to go in the future, we developed the app in a way that when you download the app, it generates a blockchain wallet on Ethereum.
Ciaran: So it automatically develops that and issues that just from an email address, which is quite, yeah, we were quite advanced on that.
Ciaran: So then, of course, it’s about education and about why we do the things.
Ciaran: So we had the academies, we had the e-missions, and we had the learn and earn.
Ciaran: So there are three areas of the app you can go into, and you learn something about the environment, and by learning something, again, you’re granted Earth Rewards.
Ciaran: Now, these are great opportunities for business to engage and to bring what they’re doing into the picture, because if a company, let’s say, they’re determined to get rid of single-use plastic, then explain why it’s bad and reward people for understanding why it’s bad.
Ciaran: And this was key to us.
Ciaran: It was about engagement.
Ciaran: It wasn’t about kind of saying, don’t, don’t, don’t.
Ciaran: It was, you know, think, think, think, if you like.
Ciaran: You know, and given, you know, there are great, powerful companies out there that engage with consumers.
Ciaran: And we thought, what a great opportunity for them to engage and to bring their own message into it and bring their own message into the system.
Ciaran: So we’ve had a great response to the app.
Ciaran: I mean, I think month on month, the downloads are increasing by about 100, I think they’re almost about 187%, you know.
Ciaran: Sorry, it’s week on week, actually, you know.
Ciaran: So, and really interesting people have downloaded the app as well.
Ciaran: And our kind of, our, the range we’re getting is everything from 13-year-olds to 60-year-olds.
Paula: Brilliant, yeah.
Ciaran: Yeah, so we’ve had great communication.
Ciaran: We’ve had great feedback from people.
Ciaran: So that was the app side.
Ciaran: That was the show.
Ciaran: Basically, to develop the app was the consumer-facing side.
Ciaran: And it would show how this works, you know, the technology side, how it would work, how it would engage with people.
Ciaran: And then, of course, as we developed it, we looked at, you know, loyalty rewards and how they’re actually wrong.
Ciaran: We thought, hmm, hang on a minute.
Ciaran: Maybe we can actually develop the system better.
Ciaran: The actual whole system of Earth Rewards, how they’re run.
Ciaran: And, of course, we’re all blockchain fanatics.
Ciaran: I don’t know if you realize that, but we’re all really into blockchain and the understanding of blockchain and the benefits it can bring.
Ciaran: If you get away from the crypto currencies and stuff like that, that causes a lot of confusion.
Ciaran: But blockchain as a technology has great advantages, and I think rewards programs are one of them.
Paula: So you’ve built your platform on blockchain, yeah?
Ciaran: Yes, we built it on IBM Hyperledger on the blockchain framework.
Ciaran: So we built on that, which has massive advantages for issuing and storing transactions, tokens securely and immutably, because obviously they’ve got to be immutable.
Ciaran: Smart contracts can control the ownership, the distribution, allocation, and again, the transactional parameters.
Ciaran: And it’s a massive cost saving because you don’t need a big team to run your thing.
Ciaran: You just run the whole thing through smart contracts, and you adjust and enable in whatever way you want your awards program to work.
Paula: And I love that because I know as a start-up, Ciarán, a lot of the time you really do have to establish a huge amount of trust.
Paula: So certainly when it comes to building consumer trust, blockchain is something I think a lot of people are still very confused about.
Paula: But I think once you drop it, it’s an IBM product in there, then there’s much more comfort, I think, say from my side, if I was sitting, running a loyalty program and considering integrating with Earth Rewards, to know that you’ve taken on a platform of that, I suppose scalability and security is very reassuring to hear, I have to say.
Ciaran: Yeah, it was important for our side as well, because it had to meet certain parameters.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Ciaran: And it wasn’t kind of, you know, we realized at the time that a public type blockchain wouldn’t work on this.
Ciaran: It had to be a private type blockchain.
Ciaran: Industry standard.
Ciaran: Yes, absolutely.
Ciaran: Brilliant.
Ciaran: There was a lot went into that.
Ciaran: And I think for us, you know, we’ve spoken to some leaders in the field of rewards programs.
Ciaran: And I think the great thing is, because it’s new, it’s a great conversation.
Ciaran: It’s a great discussion where you don’t kind of drop something on someone’s desk and say, here it is.
Ciaran: You almost start from the start, and you look at where it is, and you look and say, okay, this is the advantages of converting into this kind of system.
Ciaran: And there are use advantages.
Ciaran: And I think you know, Paula and I do, and we’re all realistic that when you’ve got a system and it’s okay, you’re kind of averse to changing, especially in something big.
Ciaran: But I think with blockchain, because of its ease of integration, because of its ease of implementation, I think it can play a fantastic role in the future in the large programs.
Ciaran: I really do.
Ciaran: I think when people start to really understand this and the simplicity of it and the control that it brings, I mean, right down through audit, because everything is immutably on your blockchain.
Ciaran: You control it from your own dashboard.
Ciaran: You have your own node that nobody else has.
Ciaran: And you can audit at any time in the simplest ways.
Ciaran: It almost speaks to you, if that makes sense, in where you’re going and what you’re trying to do.
Ciaran: And I absolutely love it.
Ciaran: I’m completely immersed in it.
Ciaran: And we really are.
Paula: So I’ve got two parts of it really clear, Ciarán, but I want to really understand the third part.
Paula: So you’ve talked about the measurement piece.
Paula: So again, I think that’s amazing.
Paula: As I said, you’re the first person I’ve ever met who can tell me what their impact is, even in general terms on the environment.
Paula: You’ve talked about the academies so people can go on to the Earth Rewards app and go, okay, I want to learn about the environment, and there’s a reward currency in there.
Paula: So that’s a fantastic education piece.
Paula: But the third part you talked about, Ciarán, was the offset.
Paula: So how does that work from both sides?
Paula: And I think I’d love to talk about it maybe from the loyalty program manager’s perspective, first of all.
Paula: If I’m a loyalty program manager, what would I do with Earth Rewards?
Paula: And then let’s say you’re the consumer on the other end, what would you do?
Paula: What’s the benefit to the consumer of the offset part of the program?
Ciaran: So, great question.
Ciaran: And it’s actually quite simple.
Ciaran: On the Earth Rewards manager, or sorry, the loyalty program manager’s point of view, they would integrate Earth Rewards into their system.
Ciaran: So in whatever way they want to do it, they can integrate it into the app, or we can develop an API for them, or they can have it on their own specific platform.
Ciaran: It’s totally, completely agnostic in that sense, and it’s very, very easy at those points.
Ciaran: So if you imagine you’re the manager and you implement the Earth Rewards program, so depending on spend, every consumer or all of your customers will receive Earth Rewards.
Ciaran: Each Earth Rewards has a carbon value, and that’s been immutably connected on the blockchain.
Ciaran: So every token that you receive is issued on the blockchain and is connected to a carbon offset to the value of one kilo.
Ciaran: As your consumers shop, they collect Earth Rewards.
Ciaran: The beauty of this is, whereas the common factor is to kind of say to someone, well, purchase an offset, an offset this, you’re actually rewarding your customers and you’re empowering your customers because they may not want to offset what they’re purchasing.
Ciaran: They may want to save their offsets, build them up, an offset, we’ll say a flight that they have to take, a holiday, a wedding.
Ciaran: There could be any number of things.
Ciaran: And I think that’s the beauty of it.
Ciaran: So you’re rewarding your customers with the offset.
Ciaran: They build them up in their offset bank.
Ciaran: They’re able to measure, they’re able to calculate.
Ciaran: So if they’re going to take a flight, they can calculate that and say, okay, I have enough, I’m going to offset that flight.
Ciaran: And that’s fundamentally it.
Ciaran: They can also, what’s great for the rewards program manager is he sets it at whatever level he likes.
Ciaran: He determines how many Earth Rewards that would be issued per pound.
Ciaran: And it gives them the opportunity, of course, then to add in their own.
Ciaran: They can start to add in their own carbon impact of what they do, their own implications of what they’re doing and bring it into the conversation.
Ciaran: So that’s fundamentally it.
Ciaran: That’s the simplest way to describe it.
Ciaran: If I have the Earth Rewards app as one example, I could go in, do a shop, purchase something, use a QR code to scan the tail, that issues from the blockchain by Earth Rewards.
Ciaran: Now I’ve got them.
Ciaran: So if I’ve got 50 Earth Rewards from that shop, that’s what I’ve got.
Ciaran: That sits in my bank, and every time I shop and every time I engage with a company that issues Earth Rewards, I’m building them up.
Ciaran: I can then use them through the year to create a balance in the environmental impact.
Paula: Lovely, lovely.
Paula: So let’s say I’m sitting here now, as you know, I live in Dubai, and let’s say one of the airlines here partners up with Earth Rewards, they would continue to offer their own currency, if required or obviously as required, but they’d also add in an option to say, actually, if anybody wants to get Earth Rewards instead, we’re happy to give them those.
Paula: So it’s very simple for them.
Paula: And then I think it almost sounds also a bit like a coalition program.
Paula: So I’d also hope that a local supermarket might sign up.
Paula: So I go and I build up my Earth Rewards when I shop there as well.
Paula: And again, my fuel station and everything that I do on an everyday basis.
Ciaran: Exactly.
Ciaran: And it gives this great opportunity to engage from the company side of things.
Ciaran: And it’s great engagement from a consumer.
Ciaran: It’s not taken away from, we all know that times are often tough for people, and they need them financial discounts.
Ciaran: They need that penny off or that 20 pence off or a 10% discount.
Ciaran: They still need that.
Ciaran: This kind of integrates smoothly into that, and it just sits along the side of it.
Ciaran: And it’s like that extra reward that brings about engagement.
Ciaran: And it enhances what you’ve got, and it brings that emotional, if you like, because as you go through and it evolves, and you’re looking at the benefits that are brought to the different projects that are benefiting from Earth Rewards, it brings that great emotion to the whole process.
Ciaran: And that’s really, really important.
Paula: Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Ciarán.
Paula: And again, as a loyalty consultant, like all of us around the world, we are talking about the explosion of emotional connection and the need for emotional connection.
Paula: So every loyalty program in the world is fundamentally successful at transactional engagement.
Paula: And that’s the whole underlying principle.
Paula: But what you’re doing is adding in that lovely flavor of, yeah, now how does it feel better?
Paula: And you’re right.
Paula: Yeah, at the end of the day, it really has to do that.
Paula: So I love what you’re doing.
Ciaran: And it has real time benefits.
Ciaran: It has actual real benefits because as it walks back down into a project, whatever that project can be, wherever it is, it has real genuine benefits that people can look at and say, actually, we did well there.
Ciaran: That was really good.
Ciaran: I’m really proud of what I did on that.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And then just on the Bern side, Ciarán, just talk me through.
Paula: So let me say then I have, you know, whatever number, let’s say I have 100,000 Earth Rewards.
Paula: What happens with that wallet?
Paula: You talked about offsetting it against a flight, but I know you also do work, actually, obviously on the environment and in the environment with the Amazon, for example.
Paula: You have a project down there.
Paula: So what happens to rewards on the Bern side?
Ciaran: Well, when you’re born a reward, the idea of an offset is, an offset is like, if you imagine, I always use this as an example.
Ciaran: It’s like a bottle of wine.
Ciaran: It has a vintage.
Ciaran: And it’s only gone when you drink it.
Ciaran: And an offset is very similar.
Ciaran: An offset comes from a validation and verification process that happens in the past.
Ciaran: So that’s it.
Ciaran: It’s vintage.
Ciaran: So you collect your offsets through Earth Rewards.
Ciaran: When you born them, it means you retire them, and they can never be used again.
Ciaran: So that creates your offset.
Ciaran: So when you’ve been given the offset, straight away, the benefits are to the environment, because the finances trickle down into the environment and help protect that area of the Amazon, helps protect biodiversity, socio-economic benefits, and these are all posted on the app.
Ciaran: So there’s an annual implementation report that shows all of the benefits that’s happened in that year.
Ciaran: But when you born it, it means no one else can ever use it anywhere else.
Ciaran: It was one time.
Ciaran: That was your contribution.
Ciaran: And it was only ever used once.
Ciaran: And that’s a real important part of this.
Ciaran: And it was very important that we put that on the blockchain, that people realize that it could never be sold a second time, but you have an Earth Reward that is specific to you.
Ciaran: No one else can ever have that.
Ciaran: You could give it to your, like as an example, you could give it to a family member who’s getting married or is going on a journey or something like that and say, look guys, let’s put all our Earth Rewards together and offset the flight, the trip, the holiday, the party, the wedding, whatever it is.
Ciaran: But once it’s born, it’s gone forever.
Ciaran: It could never ever be reissued.
Paula: And what I’m hearing there, Ciarán, it reminds me, I saw a post recently on LinkedIn and I know you don’t use a lot of social media yourself, you told me.
Ciaran: No, I’ll have to after our conversation this morning.
Paula: Well, something I learned on LinkedIn, your new-to-be favorite, I saw somebody, and it’s an Irish celebrity who shall remain nameless, a female celebrity, and a businesswoman.
Paula: But she put up a post which I was a little uncomfortable with because as you know, I consult a lot with the whole industry around convenience retail, which is an extraordinary industry because we all love it.
Paula: We all want fuel for our car, we all, whatever.
Paula: But this particular person posted up about the big bad oil companies.
Paula: And I just really wanted to post, well, maybe you should stop driving your car.
Paula: So I don’t like this idea that there are big bad companies responsible for the environment.
Paula: They’re providing something that we’re demanding as a product.
Paula: So I love what you’re doing in that.
Paula: My conscience is definitely guilty, and I want to take responsibility, but I don’t currently know how.
Paula: So I think what you’re doing is you’re giving me that opportunity to say, okay, here’s something tangible, as well as minimizing as best I can.
Paula: I like that you’re also being very practical about the fact that there has to be a second way to take action.
Paula: And it sounds like a very clever solution.
Ciaran: I think so, and we hope so.
Ciaran: So we did put a lot of thought into this.
Ciaran: And look, like yourself, Paul, it wouldn’t necessarily be on LinkedIn, but I listened to the different stories, and we get asked about them a lot.
Ciaran: And we are where we are, and whether we like it or not, the airlines are a perfect example.
Ciaran: Some people like to point their finger at the airlines and say, oh, the airlines do this, the airlines do that.
Ciaran: Well, airlines purchase the airplanes that are available.
Paula: Yeah, because people want to fly.
Ciaran: To provide us with a service.
Ciaran: Exactly.
Ciaran: And what I’d like to do is, I mean, there was the example, there was a little bit of EasyJet, I think, announced that they were offsetting all the flights, I think it’s next year.
Ciaran: For me, it wasn’t a good thing or a bad thing, if that makes sense.
Ciaran: It depended to me on what the offsets were being used for.
Ciaran: They were being used to help develop renewable energies for the airline industry.
Ciaran: Then I’m 100% for it, you know.
Ciaran: And I think that’s where we’ve got to be careful, is understanding the reasoning, because I think people got really a little bit fed up with the concept of greenwash.
Ciaran: And they wanted to know that companies actually care, they understand that they can’t do anything immediately.
Ciaran: And one of the great exponents of that, and I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he’s the CEO of Gucci.
Ciaran: And he did a, I’ll send you the link to it, he did a complete review of his company, and he looked at it, and you could tell he understood, he got it just by the way he speaks, by the way he writes.
Ciaran: And he realized that, look, we can’t go carbon neutral.
Ciaran: We have, I don’t know what it is, 14,000 employees, we have stores, we have manufacturing, but we can start the process.
Ciaran: We can reduce where we can, and we can offset where we feel that we’re looking at a transition period where a solution will come at some point of time.
Ciaran: And I think it was brilliant the way he did it, and that’s where most companies sit.
Ciaran: Because realistically, the CEO of a company, if you look at the articles and memorandums, and because I talk from the business side, I get it.
Ciaran: It doesn’t say anywhere there that you have to save the planet.
Paula: Yeah, exactly.
Paula: As much as you might want to.
Ciaran: Exactly.
Ciaran: And it’s difficult.
Ciaran: What I think is people understand that fundamentally.
Ciaran: And I think if companies are honest and they make an effort, nobody expects a large corporation to turn around tomorrow and say, brilliant, we’re carbon neutral.
Ciaran: But at the same time, they don’t expect them to try and pull the wool over their eyes by saying we’ve just offset everything, that’s it, brilliant.
Ciaran: Great, let’s go forward.
Ciaran: They genuinely want engagement.
Ciaran: They want to know about what a company’s thoughts are, what their processes are.
Ciaran: And how they intend to make themselves better.
Ciaran: How they intend to do that.
Ciaran: It’s such a fascinating place to be.
Ciaran: It’s an absolute nightmare.
Ciaran: I can imagine, I’ve never run a big corporation, but I can imagine how it feels when you know people want you to do it, but you’ve got pressures coming from all sides.
Ciaran: So what I always say is, please make the environment a part of your decision making process.
Ciaran: It doesn’t have to be the first thing.
Ciaran: But make it a part of that decision making process in whatever you do.
Ciaran: And then you’ll find the right path, because it will be a genuine path.
Ciaran: It won’t be just from marketing.
Ciaran: It won’t be just from a financial aspect.
Ciaran: And we try to get the same thing with individuals, with consumers.
Ciaran: Just make it a part of your process, a part of your lifestyle.
Ciaran: It doesn’t again have to be the very first thing, because if it was, none of us would get out of bed.
Ciaran: So just engage with it.
Ciaran: Understand it, measure it, and just make it that part.
Ciaran: And then walk along together.
Ciaran: If we’re in a climate emergency, which we are, then we’ve got to throw the kitchen sink at it.
Ciaran: And every little bit that everybody does, and every corporation does, and every company does, is going to make a difference.
Ciaran: They don’t have to find a solution, because there is no singular solution.
Ciaran: And that’s the message that we’d like to put out.
Paula: It’s a great message, Ciarán, and clearly, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid.
Paula: But what I’m hearing is very much, you are part of the solution.
Paula: You’re providing something where people can actually go, there’s something practical I can do.
Paula: And I love that you’re bringing together the loyalty program managers, you’re bringing together the consumers.
Paula: I know you’re still at the very early stages.
Paula: You have a small enough team at the moment, Ciarán, is it?
Paula: How many people is running Earth Rewards?
Ciaran: Our tech, we have about five in the tech team.
Ciaran: On what we call the business side, the management side, we’ve got three and we’ve got Pete, who introduced us on our rewards program side.
Paula: Yeah, great guy.
Ciaran: Yeah, educating us about how they work, how they don’t work, what to do, what not to do.
Ciaran: And so I suppose we’ve got a team of about eight or nine.
Ciaran: And it feels at this moment just about right for us, because we just, like I said, before we expand for the sake of it, we want to expand with the companies that we’re engaging with.
Ciaran: We want to sit down and say, how can this be better?
Ciaran: How can we make this better?
Ciaran: Tell us what you want.
Ciaran: And technically, how can we make it better?
Ciaran: And how can we improve your messaging?
Ciaran: How can we get you to improve your message to your consumers?
Ciaran: And that’s it.
Ciaran: And we’ll grow exponentially with the customers that we take on.
Paula: Brilliant.
Paula: Well, I think we’ll probably start to wrap up now, Ciarán.
Paula: And I suppose I wanted to maybe summarize a couple of things that I’ve heard very clearly from you.
Paula: And then I know we have a pretty unique opportunity, actually, if there are loyalty program managers out there that want to explore doing a trial with you.
Paula: So we’ll talk about that now as well.
Paula: So I suppose, yeah, my kind of insight is you’ve definitely got some great professor there, Professor Mike Berners-Lee, I think you mentioned.
Paula: So there’s a lot of thought leadership, I think, as well as your own kind of environmental credentials.
Paula: Certainly sounds like you’ve got the right technology partners in terms of building it on the best possible platform.
Paula: And it just sounds like a super simple opportunity for a dynamic addition to any loyalty program.
Paula: So I think what, yeah, I just wanted to wrap up with this invitation for companies that are listening and are interested in exploring working with Earth Rewards.
Paula: I think you’ve said to me you’re prepared to do one, and you can talk through exactly what this idea is, but invite one company to try your platform, to partner with you.
Paula: And I think that’s almost going to be something that there can be no cost for them, for the technology at all.
Paula: So do you want to talk through what a potential partner would be that you’re looking for?
Ciaran: I think a partner that’s looking to maybe rejuvenate in some way their existing rewards program.
Ciaran: That they feel it’s maybe possibly not working or they could improve it a lot.
Ciaran: Who want a little bit more control over the technology side, but simply.
Ciaran: And we could look at every aspect of it, and integrate Net Rewards into our system, how that would work for them, whether they would integrate into the app, or we build an API for them, and how the blockchain would work, make that simpler, more cost effective.
Ciaran: And we’re happy to sit down and have a chat.
Ciaran: As you say, we’re more than happy to do a free as a pilot program and say, okay, and just listen and engage.
Ciaran: And even with our companies that just want to engage with us or talk to us and say, well, what about this and what about that?
Ciaran: Can you explain this a little bit better?
Ciaran: We’re happy to engage with them.
Paula: Amazing, amazing.
Paula: So I think the best way to do that then is if there is anyone listening and you run a loyalty program and you have an objective around improving your environmental credentials with all of the mindset and support internally, I suppose that that would need.
Paula: If you want to work with Earth Rewards, then drop me an email.
Paula: My email is super simple.
Paula: It’s paula at letstalkloyalty.com.
Paula: And what I’m going to do is pull all of those together and connect, I suppose, the best possible partners with Ciaran to see who can really get these projects up and running.
Paula: Because again, as I said, I just see so much need for this type of technology.
Paula: And I know that you, Ciaran, are doing a great job.
Paula: So I’m really keen for you to find a pilot client out of this particular podcast.
Paula: So that invitation is open.
Paula: There’s a lot of detail I’m going to put into the show notes as we’ve talked about, including, I will acknowledge, Pete Heroid, as you mentioned, from The Loyalty People, who does great work consulting on loyalty programs around the world.
Paula: So thanks to Pete for putting us in touch, because I know he was talking to me about ideas and whatever, and I was like, the environment just won, and he said, I have the man.
Paula: So that was great to get the introduction.
Paula: So just as we wrap up, then, Ciaran, is there anything else that you wanted to say from your side?
Ciaran: No, just thanks again, Paula, and again, thanks to Pete for putting us together.
Ciaran: You know, it’s a great journey we’re on.
Ciaran: We’re absolutely loving it, and we genuinely think this will make a big difference for companies.
Ciaran: And we really, really believe this will make a big difference.
Ciaran: So I’d love them to get in touch, get engaged.
Ciaran: Let’s get this open, running, and we can all play our part.
Paula: That’s fantastic, Ciaran.
Paula: Well, well done, and I have to say, I’m delighted to be able to play my part.
Paula: So certainly from my side, I want to say thanks a million for joining us on Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Ciaran: Thanks, Paul.
Paula: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com, and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday.
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Paula: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
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