Making the World a Greener Place One Sustainable Website at a Time
Tom & Vineeta Greenwood
When people think of saving the planet, they tend to start with physical products. They talk about recycling, carpooling to save gas, or conserving water. But do they think about websites?
Tom and Vineeta Greenwood, Co-founders of Wholegrain Digital, are stirring up the conversation about sustainable web design. They realized that most people don’t recognize the carbon footprint of a single website. If there’s nothing to throw away or waste, it must not be a problem. But it turns out that websites use a lot more energy than you think.
The internet lives in giant data centers around the world. Whenever you turn on your phone, stream a show on your TV, or Google something on your computer, the information has to get from the data center to you and back again. Broadband networks use electricity to transmit the data. An individual data center uses roughly the same amount of electricity as a medium-sized town. So, is there any way to conserve energy when we all need to use the internet?
In this episode, Host Ben Cash joins Tom and Vineeta Greenwood, Co-founders of Wholegrain Digital, to discuss how they are making the world a greener place, one website at a time. They talk about their passion for sustainability, why the internet has a bigger carbon footprint than most people realize, and how they find employees and clients aligned with their mission.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Tom Greenwood shares why he is passionate about sustainability and helping companies make a positive impact
What is web sustainability?
Tom explains how inefficient coding leads to larger amounts of data transferred over the internet, which takes more energy from data centers
Vineeta Greenwood describes Wholegrain Digital’s sustainable digital practices
How to become more intentional with your web design and meet your company’s goals
Why Vineeta and Ben chose WordPress as Wholegrain Digital's primary CMS
Additional sustainability practices around the office at Wholegrain Digital
How to find employees aligned with your company’s mission
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Transcript
Ben Cash 0:06
Hi, this is For the Better, a podcast for those working to effect change within their team, organization, or communities. I'm your host, Ben Cash. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast where we talk with leaders and change-minded people from purpose-driven organizations, and discuss the great things they're doing. This podcast is produced by Reason One, a full service digital agency helping those who do good, do better. And my guests today are Vineeta and Tom co-cofounders of Wholegrain Digital London's design-led WordPress agency for positive businesses and charities. A few of their clients are Oxfam, UNICEF, and Method. I use Method all the time and love of that stuff. Vineeta heads up their discovery and design services, manages design standards and processes within their team and ensures they push new boundaries of good design. And Tom is a self described, from your website, sustainability nut. And has been active in the sustainable design scene in the early 2000s. And ever since the 2000s. And he's an author of the book Sustainable Web Design, has spearheaded initiatives to put sustainability on the agenda of the digital sector, and has been featured in films for the BBC and CNN. He knows his shit. You can learn more about them, their agency, and Tom's book on web sustainability at Wholegraindigital.com. So, thanks for joining us today.
Vineeta Greenwood 1:41
Thanks for having us.
Ben Cash 1:43
Yeah. So at the beginning there, I purposely left out your last name, I just said Vineeta and Tom, because it's actually one of the same. Greenwood as also in addition to being the co-founders of Wholegrain Digital and run the business, you are also married. Is that correct? It is. Okay. So I have so many things that I'm curious about, and will discuss with you both things from like, you know, web sustainability to being a B Corp, to writing a book. I remember reading some things like the carbon footprint of remote teams, living in London, so many things I'm curious about. What about honest, the biggest thing that I'm curious about is how the hell are you partners in business and marriage? It’s hard enough to run a business and a marriage is a marriage, right? Like, how are you guys doing this? How does this work?
Vineeta Greenwood 2:40
Tom’s my best friend. Oh, it's nice to have somebody that you can share positives and difficulties with. Yeah, he knows my strengths and weaknesses. And I know his. So I think that really helps. And we started the agency because we wanted to work together and spend more time with each other. Wow.
Tom Greenwood 3:10
But overall, like it's worked really well, I think just the fact that we really get each other means that and we have very different personalities and skills, I think means that it actually balances out really nicely. In the early days, and the early days, I'm talking about probably the first 10 years plus
Vineeta Greenwood 3:31
Since 2000, we got married in 2008. Okay, and the business started in 2007. So the business came first.
Ben Cash 3:42
Oh, so what so what what happened if like the business flopped? What was the you know?
Vineeta Greenwood 3:48
Well if we can be business partners we can get married is how I look at it.
Ben Cash 3:51
Okay, so when you guys were like exchanging vows, like a year later, after sort of this business where you you know, what was what was that? Was it like, Okay, wow, that was we just started a business like, this is going to be a cakewalk. What was it like?
Vineeta Greenwood 4:06
If you go slightly further back, we were flatmates first, then we became best friends. Then we started dating. And then we started a business and then we got married. So I knew how to do any washing of clothes. And I leave stuff in the sink. And you know,
Ben Cash 4:24
Okay, so this is not an office romance.
Tom Greenwood 4:30
It goes back further than that, yeah. Right. And then we'd started the business together and and, and I mean, the first few years of running business were really hard but like we'd already done that first year of—oh, wow, this business thing is really really tough. Yeah, we got to the point of actually having a wedding so we so we knew that like okay, we could like do tough things together.
Ben Cash 4:51
Yeah. All right. Well, I'm sure that you at least had the the wedding website all set right. Yeah. Oh, Oh, well, thanks for like light opening here. I full disclosure, I've known you guys for a few years now. And it's so bizarre like to say a few years because this could feels like a could be a week could be 10 years, I have no idea at this point during the pandemic, sense of time, but I know you guys for a while. Our teams have done some knowledge sharing on sustainability and accessibility, and I've read your book. And, you know, what made me so curious to interview you both, is that if there's ever anybody with a change mindset, it's you two. And, you know, I think the what I was really, well, and the irony was, I met you guys first, and then your book came out, right? And then I was like, Whoa, these guys are legit! This is this is real, right? And so, so the, one of the main things I want to talk about with you today, just because it's something I'm curious about as a human that lives on this planet, but also as a, you know, business owner of a digital agency that's also trying to, you know, put sustainability, as you know, on on the, as part of what we do. Um, you know, how did you get into this? Like, you know, I did see the the manifesto, right, the Sustainable Web Manifesto, which is I think it's sustainablewebmanifesto.com. If anybody's curious, I'm, like, change often starts with a manifesto, right? So you've got this thing. What's the story leading up to you writing that?
Tom Greenwood 6:37
Sure. So if we, if we back up, like way back, do it.
Ben Cash 6:46
We’ve already gone into your personal lives here, right? Yeah. At some point here, so go ahead.
Tom Greenwood 6:49
Exactly. The pre-Wholegrain, pre-Vineeta. I, I was really, really passionate about sustainability and design, in the context of like industrial design. And I wanted to have a career designing like, things that would be meaningful and useful to people. But also that wouldn't end up in landfill sites and consume energy and be made of toxic materials, and so on. So that was like, kind of where I really wanted to take my career, and this is going to the 90s is going way, way back. But yeah, but and I had this idea that I wanted to run my own design agency. And by the time, I mean, a few years out of university, I, by the time I got to the point where I potentially could try and start my own company, I'd already sort of got to the point where I was a bit disillusioned with the world of designing physical things, thinking that there might be better ways of designing things that actually just kind of design out the impact. And, and so digital, and, and also other types of design and graphic design and brand work and so on, the non-physical design really appealed to me. And that's why I sort of wanted to make that shift into that world. And, and so Vineeta, and I actually decided we'd start a design agency together focused on sustainability. And that was sort of the beginning of like, okay, we want to work with clients that are decent positive in the world, that's like a part of it, we want to try and see if we can run the business in a way that is itself kind of sustainable from an operational point of view. And then, sort of basically just use design and technology for good. And that was that was really the beginning of it. And we didn't really have too much awareness of
Vineeta Greenwood 8:50
Commercial awareness.
Tom Greenwood 8:53
Commercial awareness at all, no. I said the first few years were hard. But you know, we got some momentum. And we sort of carved out a niche for ourselves as being, you know, like really good at WordPress design and development, and particularly in this kind of space of the purpose-led organizations, and um. But we didn't really have any awareness of the digital by the environmental impact of digital technology itself. That was something that was sort of, we were using digital technology, on the basis that we were that we were avoiding having any environmental impact because we weren’t designing a physical product. Sure. And I think we kind of blissfully were blissfully unaware for the first 10 years. Well, this is great. Like, ignorance is bliss. Yeah, ignorance is bliss. And, and that was great. And it was then when we were starting to approach the sort of the 10 year birthday of the business. We were looking to kind of say well, how do we keep this interesting? How do we challenge ourselves further and actually push ourselves to do even better? And, and that was when we came across B Corp certification, which is something that I guess people listening might not be familiar with. Yeah. But it's basically a rigorous assessment of the social and environmental practices of a business. It can be a business in any industry, but it's independently assessed by a nonprofit called B Lab. So that you can sort of credibly look somebody in the eye and say, we're like, really doing well on social and environmental practices, it’s not kind of self certifying. Right. So we
Ben Cash 10:42
That would work really well, wouldn't it?
Tom Greenwood 10:43
Well, there's an awful lot of that going on.
Ben Cash 10:49
Yeah, exactly. Just ask the marketing departments. Right.
Tom Greenwood 10:51
Exactly. That's what it's like sustainability, like social, social responsibility. Nobody lives in the marketing department.
Ben Cash 10:58
Yes, yes. No conflict there.
Tom Greenwood 11:01
No conflict of interest? Not at all. No. So we yeah, we basically went into this process as a way of trying to challenge ourselves to learn, like, how well are we doing that we set out to run a sustainable business? Are we, we living up to that and get somebody else to verify it. And in that process, one of the things that it asks you to look at is like, provide data about the environmental impact of your products. And of course, being a digital agency, we were like, well, we don't have any data, and I mean, we have data. But when it comes to the environmental impact of your product, you don't have it.
Ben Cash 11:40
It's weightless. It's it's out there in the cloud, you know.
Tom Greenwood 11:43
Exactly. It’s virtual, it's not real.
Ben Cash 11:46
Yeah. We don't we don't produce anything. We don't make anything.
Vineeta Greenwood 11:52
We were very naive about that weren’t we?
Tom Greenwood 11:55
We were very naive about it. And but, you know, I asked loads of people that, that I could find it industry and spent a lot of time on Google trying to find out and seemed like, that was pretty much the general opinion was like, well, yeah, like there's no environmental impact of websites and digital technology. So, and we asked about themselves in the certification process, and they said, well, yeah, like, for your type of business, you should just skip this whole section. That's pretty, pretty standard. They didn't seem to see any issue with it.
Ben Cash 12:29
B Lab themselves, it wasn't on their radar.
Tom Greenwood 12:32
Wasn't on their radar at all. Oh. Yeah, it got me curious, that kind of it didn't feel right somehow. So we went through the certification process left, that bit blank got certified. But then, one of the big things that came off the back of it was like we need to research that's we need to find some real information. And, and that's really kind of where this whole journey began of finding out what the impact is and getting. And we did find a few other people in the industry who actually were looking at this. And that's where the Sustainable Web Manifesto came from, as we got together with those people and said, okay, well, what are the core principles that we should be thinking about when we're doing web projects from an environmental point of view?
Ben Cash 13:18
If you had to define web sustainability for someone, for someone who does not know or is not familiar with it, what would it be? What's the nutshell?
Tom Greenwood 13:29
Sure. So I'd say for a pure environmental point of view, web sustainability is designing and building and operating digital services in a way that minimizes their environmental impact. And that's mostly energy and carbon emissions.
Ben Cash 13:46
Brass tacks, how does it play out?
Tom Greenwood 13:48
Sure. So essentially, any digital service doesn't matter whether it's a website, an app, some sort of streaming service, video, like online video game, whatever it is, it's, it's using energy in three main places: in the data centers, which is like the big warehouses full of computers. Where all this live, you know, the internet lives, basically, in these data centers around the world. Then the transmission networks, so like, between you in your home, or wherever you are out and about on your mobile device, like the data, the information has to get from the data center to you and back again. So there's all this like, oh, yeah, exactly. So like the broadband networks, the mobile networks are all using electricity to transmit the data. And then there's that actual like the end user device. So in your home or your office, or wherever you are, you've got, you're sitting on a laptop or you're using a smartphone or you're watching your Smart TV, and then you've got your like networking equipment in the building as well, which is all using electricity. So this sort of the data center the transmission that works and the end user devices, basically have operation basically the three main areas is when it’s just these.
Ben Cash 15:01
And for people who don't know about this, put it in context. I know that, you know, like, one of the things I'm burning manifesto was talked about, maybe you might get this more correctly than I am that if the internet were a country, it would be the sixth or seventh largest,
Tom Greenwood 15:21
Largest. Yeah, that's a quarter. Yeah. So so when you take all of it globally, all the data centers, the transmission networks, all of the devices that are billions of connected devices and add them up, then you're talking about roughly the same amount of electricity used every year as the United Kingdom. And, you know, United Kingdom is, it might be a small country, but it's the big economy that consumes a lot of energy.
Ben Cash 15:49
Oh, my God. That is, that's just it's mind blowing when you when you try to wrap your head around it, right? Because you just think, Oh, I'm just gonna pull up my phone, I'm just pulling this thing up, and you don't think about what's behind it? You know, and the things that you set in motion by, you know, you know, getting your, getting a burger delivered to your home, right?
Vineeta Greenwood 16:07
A YouTube video for a recipe or exactly a song of your favorite, you know, you're listening to your favorite song on Spotify, or whatever that might be. But
Tom Greenwood 16:17
Yeah, right. Yeah. And I mean, just the data centers, sort of something that's really out of sight, out of mind, of most people who use the internet, there's, you know, there's thousands of data centers around the world. But an individual data center users, you know, approximately, the same amount of electricity is like a medium sized town. And yet, it's an anonymous warehouse and an industrial estate somewhere that you'll never even notice. You might drive past it. But they don't have like big logos on the outside. It doesn't say like Amazon data center it they're all intention, the
Ben Cash 16:47
Energy right here, yeah, exactly.
Vineeta Greenwood 16:49
The amount of water they use to cool themselves down. And the fact that that society has used the word cloud, makes it sound virtual, and the word cloud makes it look like it's floating away. It's not floating away.
Ben Cash 17:06
Yeah, and the fact that the fact that you, both of you for 10 years, also felt like this is out there nowhere. And that B Lab was like, oh, no, no, just leave it blank. Right? Like, yes. Like, we're, we're in the middle of the B corp process. And the number of questions that we get asked, and the thing that documentation, like, it's, it's hardcore, and if they left this out, and you guys didn't know, for 10 years, and you really care about this, like, how is anyone else supposed to know? Right? Um, you know, like, do you feel like you're ever screaming into the void on this?
Vineeta Greenwood 17:41
Yeah, sometimes. Quite often.
Tom Greenwood 17:42
Yeah, definitely. I mean, especially when we first came across this topic, but it definitely felt like we were screaming into the void. And I guess that's why we've spent the last few years kind of going out of our way to…
Vineeta Greenwood 17:53
To make it our mission to educate and talk about it as loudly as we could, yeah, as many people as we could and not make it our USB, but talk to others, so that they could include it in their processes. But because climate change mitigation is not going to happen, just by Tom and me, switching to renewable energy, it's going to be the whole...
Ben Cash 18:18
You guys are charming. You're so charming. I know they just the two of you, you can make this happen. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny, I'm another, you know, middle-aged white dude on Twitter, and I see a lot of tweets and chatter and things about NFT's and web three and all these things and blockchain and crypto and all this stuff. You know, and and it's, you know, there's so many people so passionate about it, right? And this sort of new world it's getting created and DAO's and everything. And, you know, one of the one of the threads that I often see is about how blockchain and this new sort of virtual world that's been created really uses a lot more energy and that blockchain…well, it's, you know, like to document these non fungible tokens and all these various things and stuff that I have people understand a lot better than I do, and you you probably understand, can you enlighten us a little bit on this, but like, how does that how does that stuff impact this? Because we right now, we're talking about websites, right? And there's sort of three points, but this is from what I can see, you know, and what I know so far, this is going to be this is gonna dwarf the internet I mean, this is huge.
Tom Greenwood 19:58
Yeah, like, absolutely. So, I mean, I sort of started joking recently that like we websites like the internet from the olden days. I shouldn't say that because I run a website.
Ben Cash 20:14
But a couple years, it's okay.
Tom Greenwood 20:18
18 months tops. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, the actual, you know, the amount of data used by websites and kind of what you'd call, what I would call sort of traditional web services, right, was like the majority of, of data consumption probably until like, relatively recently, and now you've got, like, you know, all the video streaming services. And you've got, well, like various forms of AI. And now like the people talking about the metaverse, which is, like, you know, going into 3D, you're, all of these things are like exponentially increasing the amount of process, like computer processing required in the data centers, and on the end user devices, and therefore the amount of electricity consumed, as well as sort of exponentially multiplying the amount of data that's been transferred over the network. So, so there's like, there's this conflict between the, the improving efficiency of technology and the hardware of computing, we all know that like, computers get faster and more energy efficient, over time. You buy the latest version, always as longer battery life here. It's much faster than the old one. But there's this sort of, but we're also all familiar with the idea of feature creep, where, like, gradually, your device slows down, and it like doesn't can't run the new software properly. And especially if you're a Windows user, you know that the new version of Windows is really going to slow your computer down. Among other things, yeah. So, but this is happening on like a much bigger scale in terms of the new internet technology. So yes, like data centers are becoming much more efficient, and the computers in them are becoming much more powerful. The the telecoms networks are becoming much, much faster and more efficient. And then the devices that we're using are becoming faster and more efficient. But, but actually, the amount of data that we're using, is, is accelerating faster than those efficiency gains. So we're eroding or…
Vineeta Greenwood 22:23
We’re becoming more wasteful in our practices, because we have extra bandwidth available or we are on Wi Fi, we don't care about the size of the website, because it loads quickly anyway, which means we have more data coming through. So all of those efficiencies gained through the optimization of networks and the devices is lost. Because people aren't putting as efficiently as they could.
Ben Cash 22:49
The clown car may be bigger, but they're putting more clowns in it.
Tom Greenwood 22:53
Yeah, exactly.
Vineeta Greenwood 22:55
Yeah, it's a good analogy. Yeah.
Ben Cash 22:57
Um, so. So that's a, you know, sort of defined at a high level that pretty big problem, right? And what are what are some things, I guess in your business, if we sort of maybe bring this into more narrow, what are some things that you're doing in your business and the websites that you make, and the choices that you make that move us in the opposite direction that helped change this trend? And, you know, would you give me just a couple examples, to put it in context?
Vineeta Greenwood 23:31
Sure, thinking about how people are coming to your website, who is coming to your website, and therefore optimizing your website, to have only the users that actually are going to convert. For example, we go through a process of discovery with our clients to understand who their users are. And I think it sounds pretty standard when you say, Oh, we do a user user research and user discovery in terms of user personas, user journeys. But why that is important is because when the person comes to your website, you want to reduce the amount of time that they are wasting, because all that waste is going to convert to energy usage. And that's what we're reducing by optimizing our user journeys, optimizing how they are absorbing the knowledge along the way, how are you making that experience joyful. So that's the discovery part of the process, which helps get from A to B quickly, efficiently. But then in the design practices we are practicing less is more. So everything that we design, we're trying to do with the least amount of elements. And then that converts nicely into the coding element, which is the less amount of things you code. The best code is no code at all. But you're trying to write the least, which means you have to process the least. So it might sound like oh, this project could have been three times the price but well, we did it in third of the cost and your client I was happy to come back and spend some more. So it's, it's about thinking about the future, anything that we build is going to be impacting for years to come. Right? Is the is the thought process that goes into anything that we do rather than thinking about, Oh, you know what this would be so fancy to put these extra animations and make it look all pretty. And you can make things look pretty with low-code, with more efficient code. But it's about thinking through the whole lifecycle of the product, is that product actually going to perform? How you want it to perform? And that's where the design processes, development processes link up with that discovery. So it's not just for the users, but also for the whole world.
Ben Cash 25:49
Which is what's what's so interesting by anyone I read your book, this this, you know, really sunk in, was that it seems more about that it forces you to be intentional and ask a lot of questions, right? Is this video or this large piece of, you know, wow, factor, right? The clients? Like, is this ultimately going to accomplish the end goal? Will the end user be more engaged? Will they take that action? Will they sign up? Will they donate, etc? Because of this thing? Yeah. If you can't answer that, or the answer is no. Then who is it for? Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Tom Greenwood 26:35
And as the you know, as the internet gets faster, I think, you know, web design is the kind of the most, most guilty of basically getting in the way…
Ben Cash 26:43
No, we never wanted to, like, do some wow factor or win and award, or to make something cool. We just, we don't do cool things we do. Anyway, sorry.
Tom Greenwood 26:52
It's like, well, we can get away with it. We can, A, we can have more like gimmicks, because we can, and it's fun. And B we can also be more lazy, because you can get away with not optimizing code, not optimizing images using existing libraries that yeah, you know, just throw the whole bootstrap in there, because because it's quick and easy. And you can get away with it, because the internet is getting faster, and you think people won't notice that. Right? Yeah, so so it's about being really, really mindful about actually like caring about all these details and asking, can you justify the existence of a element of the design and every element of the content and every element of the code.
Ben Cash 27:34
You explain the thing, this this problem, and how we can change it a very, very good way. And it's a phenomenal book. So kudos on creating that, you know, I know that it's no, I struggle writing emails, for God's sakes, much, much less a book, right. So thank you for taking the time to put that together in a thoughtful way. So I really would encourage anybody, whether you are, you know, working in a nonprofit, you're, you know, a CMO at a healthcare organization, or you’re, you work at a digital agency, anybody to read that book, and to put all this in context. And I must admit I had, and probably still have, a bit of an agency crush, on Wholegrain, you guys have built something really, really cool. And I found you guys a while back when, you know, when we were, you know, in the early days of the B Corp, process application process, because it does take forever that is, it is very intense. And we were trying to find others who were doing this, and I found yours and you'd like, who these people in London like, like, you know, and I'm looking at, you're looking at your website, you know, obviously you do great work. But you also give a shit about people and planet. And when I'm looking at your website, I was really struck that it's not fluffy sort of greenwash copy, but you're taking real measurable actions. You know, real tangible things that that can show how you are, you know, using your business as a force for good, right, which is sort of that, the B corp mantra, and so, I'm curious what that you know, and I know you talked about that a little bit with with how you started that but you know, on the website it says Vineeta, it says that your the Wholegrain was your brainchild like what's the story there? What, why, why did you carve out this? You know, why sustainability? Why WordPress where those things were what what was it for you?
Vineeta Greenwood 29:40
WordPress was a CMS that we kept seeing that our clients like, and they could take full control of their site. And as a customer service agency, that we pride in giving a good customer service, we thought the less amount of effort we have to put in in entering the content or changing something, that the client could change was something important to us. And WordPress kept standing out as the best CMS. For for every site that we put out in WordPress, we won more clients back. And that was one of the reasons we went down the WordPress route. We used to do a lot of other CMS’ as well right at the beginning. And firstly, they were much more complex to understand even for us, and if they were complex for us to understand what hope does the client have who are non technical people, they can enjoy using Facebook and Word, but once you've come into a CMS that's really complex that puts people off managing their own site. So that was the WordPress element. And WordPress was at the beginning of their journey, and we just got on the right train at the right time, is how I feel. Is that fair Tom?
Tom Greenwood 30:55
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we first decided to specialize in WordPress, which was Vineeta’s idea, that what people were still like saying, oh, WordPress is just a blogging platform. You can't build serious websites with WordPress, there was a real, there was a real stigma around it back then.
Vineeta Greenwood 31:12
It was one of those things that I now regret, and I really am proud about. But I called a few agencies and convinced them to switch to WordPress and said, You need to specialize in WordPress too, a bit like we're doing with sustainability now. So it was a thing that I wanted other agencies to also put their thoughts into, because I knew we needed to make a market for people looking for WordPress websites. And although we were the first one shouting about it in the UK, there were other people using it but not specializing in it. And we needed to grow the sector, not just keep it for ourselves the same thing, the sustainability. Yeah. You can't grow the sector, you can't ask expect clients to ask for it, unless there's enough competition. They need three quotes, they need five agencies that they need to go out. Right, right. It was something that we pushed for. That's what I meant by sometimes I regretted because I increased my competitors. But at the same time, it's it's nice, because you can exchange ideas on how to make things better.
Ben Cash 32:23
Yeah. And I think that was what attracted us to collaborating with you guys on sustainability, accessibility and getting our teams together. Because, you know, when when we are in early adoption, in the early adoption for the curve, right, bringing people together to sort of to help amplify it and to help others help increase awareness, I think is important. And you guys certainly have influenced us greatly in that. And it is, it's part of our leadership meetings. It's part of our conversations, we're, you know, making investments in that direction. And, you know, like you we want to spread the word as well, right? Because it's, you know, we don't want to just shout into the void. Right. And sometimes running a business, it's, it's hard to be that early adopter and still sign clients and differentiate and provide value and those things when when they're not there yet. Right. Exactly. Yeah. To that end, I'm curious on the on the B Corp side, too, you know, one of things I was impressed with on your site was, I think it's on your maybe your about page or something like that, if you've got these specific, you're very specific about the things the actions you're taking to use your business as a force for good. And that it's more than just amplifying clients work, which is something that we struggle with as well. We're like, well, you know, our tagline is, we help those who do good, do better, right? And at a certain point, we realize, well, that's great and all but we have 50-odd something people like how do we do this? Right? How do we use our team as a force for good and the things that we invest in the time we spend, and your website that was one of things that drew me to you guys was how well you are at those things.
Vineeta Greenwood 34:19
Some ideas come naturally. And some ideas come through somebody suggesting something, and a lot of ideas come from Tom. I think he's for the ideas generator. I have to put some put a lid on some of the ideas because financially they're not always viable. Let's just say that.
Ben Cash 34:37
My colleagues’ ears are ringing right now. Tom, well, we're gonna put a support group together. Yeah.
Vineeta Greenwood 34:45
If you went to our about page, there's loads of positive actions that we're taking. A few few ideas that we have implemented include convert while asking all of our team members at home to switch to renewable energy That was a three year long project. And now everybody is on renewable energy. But it doesn't come easy. Some of these ideas are in inception years ago. And you have to sort of sort of coax people into thinking about it. But then there's some things that people vote for, for example, all of our food that we order at work or for clients is vegetarian. And it came from the team. So but I, I eat plant based personally, and I used to normally buy plant based food, and for myself, but when I was buying for clients, there was always this nervousness about how much carbon emissions is my every meal that I'm buying for the cart for the clients, right? And we put this question out to the team saying, what would you like us to do about dietary choices? And they, all of them, even the meat eaters adopted vegetarianism, didn’t they?
Tom Greenwood 35:57
Not everybody a majority. But yeah, the voting system is fair.
Ben Cash 36:02
There isn't like burger shaming when someone comes into the office with takeout or,
Vineeta Greenwood 36:09
You know, no, not, really, no, people just buy their own things, and they look quite happy about it. Nobody sort of makes anybody feel guilty, but…
Tom Greenwood 36:16
It's been surprisingly well adopted. I mean, when we, we the reason we had a vote on that we don't have a vote on everything in the company. But the reason we had a vote on that one is because we knew that food choices can be a very sensitive issue. And we thought, you know, if we're going to have a policy that says that we're going to, we're going to limit what, like, what we buy as a company for, like, catering events and meetings, and, you know, these sorts of things. This was dinners and yeah, like team meals, like if you're going to expense food, when you're out traveling, you know, going here and there visiting clients, and so on. Right. That could like really piss some people off. Right?
Ben Cash 36:56
Yeah. And so that's, that's a great point. And I am curious, because this is something that we think a lot about, right? If, if our mission and vision are, you know, charting a certain course, of course, not everyone is going to be on board with that. And, you know, obviously, fundamentally, you need to have like people who can do their job, they can, they can, you know, create the widgets and do the things right? So they're not, it's not that they're not rowing with, they're not in the boat with you, but they might not be rowing as hard in that direction. And so I'm curious how, over time, how that's how your perspective on that has changed about how hard do people need to be on board with your vision to be successful with Wholegrain?
Vineeta Greenwood 37:46
You have to separate out their personal life, and the vision for the company. The vision for the company is to create a better web for the better world. And the personal mission to grow yourself and become a better person is your personal choice. Just because they are not rowing as fast in the personal direction doesn't mean they're not aligned with the company's mission. Right? So they have to be really aligned with the mission of the company. And for us, you have to really be they shouldn't be climate change deniers.
Ben Cash 38:19
Aren't there? Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Greenwood 38:23
Yeah. I think there's a really important balance to be struck between wanting kind of cognitive diversity of people with different ideas, different opinions. There's like real inherent value. But then at the same time, you do need to be rowing in the same direction and not like, in completely different boats, like sailing different places. Right. So we're always it's really important to us that anybody who joins the team fundamentally gets what we're about. And they think that's something that they want to be a part. But then, but then beyond that, I think the finer details of then it should all be up for debate around exactly how do we get that? Like, what's our rowing technique?
Ben Cash 39:11
Yeah. How? So how does that affect your hiring process? When you're looking for new people to bring on? I know that sometimes you might set a new vision. You got some people who've been on the boat with you for a while, right. But then, like, you're getting new people on the boat, and how does it affect your hiring process?
Vineeta Greenwood 39:31
Our people manager Chiara does the cultural context interview before we do anything else. So, she would ask questions related to what sort of lifestyle they have, what sort of interests they have. And it sort of reveals a lot about the person in terms of what their life's mission is, are they actually looking to better themselves because at Wholegrain it's really important for us to be hiring people who are hungry to make themselves better, not just professionally, but personally as well. It's only when you are keen to improve yourself that you will be supportive towards somebody else's improvement. Yeah, so we really need to see that passion. It doesn't matter if they want to just go and clean the streets or pick up plastic from the ocean or want to make better websites, there should be something about them that they, it sort of is a spark. Yeah, it's very important to us.
Ben Cash 40:29
Well, I would imagine you, you know, maybe like I said earlier, I can really tell you to have a change mindset. And I would it sounds like you you seek out people who have a similar change mindset, whether it's the business or person or you know, and that that having a change mindset is important to the culture and to rowing the boat, right?
Tom Greenwood 40:52
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And in terms of the recruitment process, it basically makes it a lot harder. Because because we were looking for people who are excellent at their work, yeah, who are like, really, really skilled and right at what, in a technical sense, right. But also, like, really care about what we're doing, and a really kind of a care about, like, you know, develop, self development as well. And finding people who have both of those things is exponentially harder than I believe it to be.
Vineeta Greenwood 41:27
Oh, yeah. We also have a team coach, who does one on ones and we have team team coaching sessions, where they really improve on how to give feedback to one another, how to effectively hold better meetings and all sorts. And it it sort of feeds into somebody who's interested in personally growing not just through work, but also, personally get better at saying no, or whatever that may be. Right, right. So that's one of the reasons I think change mindset is so important, because once you're in, you will be challenged, because everybody around you is challenging themselves. And they will be wondering, what are you what's your growing edge, and then be wondering what's going on? So it's, it's nice to have that. And we might have new ideas, you would meet them. And we want something new What do you think? And then…tumbleweed.
Ben Cash 42:27
Oh, wait, I create what did that Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God.
Vineeta Greenwood 42:30
Yeah. So you want people to have a healthy debate in that role. And the more opinionated, the the better in a way, because then then you at least know what's going on in their heads. You don't want people to be quiet.
Ben Cash 42:44
Yeah, conflict is can be a good thing for change. Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, this has been so, such an amazing conversation, I realize, so this is like my first podcast interview here you guys are, you know, like, thank you for being so gentle with me. So generous, um, I can keep talking for forever, and I'm probably going too long here, people are probably gonna tune out and go, God, I can't listen to that, that length. But I just, there's such a wonderful conversation, and I really appreciate you going going along with me. Um, so I wanted two last questions to sort of, you know, bring this to end. Um, what's one thing that people could do to help create a more sustainable internet?
Tom Greenwood 43:33
I would say we, we've built a carbon calculator, which you can for websites, which you could find websitecarbon.com. So I'd say one thing is go there. Test your own website, and your competitors if you want. Websitecarbon.com. Exactly. And use it as a starting point to like, get thinking about this topic. Because once you're thinking about the topic, then you're on the journey to making improvement.
Ben Cash 44:00
I think the phrase that comes to mind is you can't improve what you can't measure. Right? I think. Yeah, yeah. And besides you two, who is someone we should follow or listen to, to learn more about this? Who do you listen to? Who's who's inspiring out there?
Tom Greenwood 44:24
Tim from Mightybytes! Definitely Tim from Mightybytes. Tim over there in the US. Okay, how do you spell his name? Tim T-I-M and F-R-I-C-K Tim Frick. Okay. Yeah. And he runs an agency called Mightybytes, which is sort of like yeah, that sort of Chicago centric. Okay. They're more like, distributed since the pandemic.
Ben Cash 44:43
Okay I will.
Vineeta Greenwood 44:44
Cool. They are very cool. Oh, I look at him as brother from another mother for Tom.
Tom Greenwood 44:52
I think I think Mightybytes is like Whoa Grains kind of OH
Ben Cash 44:59
Mighty grain?
Tom Greenwood 45:00
Yes. Yeah. The
Ben Cash 45:03
I think, yeah, people are gonna think we've been talking about cereal this whole time. Well, thank you both so much. This has been such a great conversation. And I you know, I can't wait to follow up with you both again and talk more. Oh, yes. That'd be great. Thank you. Thank you again, so much. And again, their URL is a wholegraindigital.com, Tom and Vineeta Greenwood, thank you so much. Take care. Thank you. Thanks.
This has been an episode of For the Better. For more information episodes where to be a guest on the podcast visit for the forthebetterpodcast.com Thanks all be well.