S5E8 'Surfers Against Sewage and Alliances Against Drilling', with Will Kinchin 🏄‍♂️

Will Kinchin has been a good friend of the EcoSend team for a long time, so we were delighted to welcome him for episode eight of our Fifth Season. 

Will runs a boutique creative design Agency, working with purpose-driven brands and charities. 

But this episode wasn't just a chance to learn from Will's extensive experience as an Entrepreneur for Good, but also a deep 'dive' into the world of surfing, sewage, offshore drilling, and seismic blasting. 

In this deeply human episode, Will opened our eyes to the challenge the UK's coastline and marine life face from pollution and drilling. His stories were at the same time melancholic and uplifting. 

Melancholic to learn of the extent of challenges our coastline faces, many of which have only recently started to become public knowledge. But uplifting to know there are many organisations out there, as well as heroes like Will, who are championing the good-fight to save our waters!

So join us for this special episode where Will sat down with James to talk about:

🌊 How his years at Falmouth University sparked a love for Britain's coastline. 
😔 Challenges in communicating the plight of rural ecosystems to people living in urban areas. 
🫨 How to navigate choosing climate-conscious suppliers.
✍️ Offering expertise to charities, rather than just donating. 
🔊The consequences of ongoing 'seismic blasting' on marine life.
... and much more! ✨

This was such a wonderful session, with so many memorable stories to reflect upon. We hope you enjoy Will's episode as much as we
did 💚

About Will Kinchin:
Will has been making brands work for over fifteen years, working directly with clients or collaborating with design agencies and creatives. From concepts to production, print to digital, England to Australia, his unique experiences and ideas bring something fresh to every project. With a love of surfing and the coast and particular expertise in environmental projects, Will likes working with good-natured brands who want to carve out a reputation.

Further Resources from the episode:
Will's website: https://www.willworks.co.uk/
Will on Instagram: @willworks_
Oceana: https://oceana.org/
Surfers Against Sewage: https://www.sas.org.uk/
Alliance Against Offshore Drilling: https://stopoffshoredrilling.org.uk/

Music credit: bensound.com

https://ecosend.io

Creators & Guests

Host

James Gill

CEO of GoSquared

Guest

Will Kinchin

Will creates brands and campaigns that inspire, move, educate, charm, and in short, work.

What is The EcoSend Podcast?

Our journey into the world of being a truly climate conscious business. Join us as we talk to fellow entrepreneurs, founders, marketing folks, and campaigners to help us build our new product, EcoSend: the climate conscious email marketing tool.

S5E8audio
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[00:00:00] Chris W: Welcome to the EcoSend podcast. Be inspired, educated and entertained by the world's most ambitious leaders putting climate at the top of their agenda. Welcome

[00:00:26] James Gill: to another episode of the EcoSend podcast. I'm your host James and I'm thrilled to be bringing you another show today with the wonderful Will. And Will has been making brands work for over 15 years working directly with clients. or collaborating with design agencies and creatives. From concepts to production, print to digital, England to Australia!

[00:00:49] His unique experiences and ideas bring something fresh to every project. We've known Will for quite a while, and we've worked with Will in the past, and I'm thrilled to have you here, Will, to talk about all things sustainability, all things design. It's great to see you. How are you doing today, Will?

[00:01:06] Will Kinchin: I'm good. Thanks, James. Yeah. Yeah, just excited to be on the, on the podcast and talking about design and environment and sustainability and yeah, hopefully have a good conversation.

[00:01:17] James Gill: Awesome. Awesome. Great. Great to hear. So we'll maybe in your own words yeah, tell us a little bit more about what you're up to and And, and basically how you got into what you're doing today.

[00:01:28] Will Kinchin: Well, in a nutshell I'm a sort of brand and communications graphic designer. I've been doing it for 15, 16 years, big agencies in London and Sydney and little ones and for myself and everything in between. And you know, within some of those agencies doing sustainable stuff and other, and other things as well.

[00:01:47] The more and more I. Sort of develop my own practice, the more and more I found myself doing sustainable and environmentally sort of conscious projects, which is really nice and very rewarding work. It probably started, but it started really back in Falmouth University. Even though I'm originally from around Birmingham.

[00:02:07] Falmouth is right in the typical more, it's a bit more sort of removed and remote. It's a bit like an outpost from the rest of the country and the rest of your sort of normal university experience, but, and it's, you know, it's very coastal and outdoor. And I picked up surfing in the first year and, you know, that got me all much more immersed in The ocean and the environment and you know, you start to notice stuff you notice when there's sewage in the water and you you sort of I don't know appreciate things a lot more especially when seals and things pop up next to you and you Kind of just like realize how connected everything is and So anyway, after sort of kind of catching the, the surfing bug not a sewage related one we we sort of kept doing it and got really into it, did our three years at uni and, and moved up to London And we're really missing Cornwall.

[00:02:56] At the time there was a, well, there's a, there's quite a well known environmentalist called Hugo Tachon, and he had taken over surface to grain sewage which is a really well known sort of grassroots just sort of charity, kind of activist y charity who campaigned for, to get rid of sewage in the water around Porf Tower in where they started in the 90s and, and, you know, with their goal, which they've done very well at across the whole of the UK coastline.

[00:03:20] And anyway, he took, he took over and wanted to take the charity in a new direction and started doing a range of talks all around the UK. One of them being in Carnaby Street in London, in I don't think it's there anymore, but it was they used to have an old Howie's shop just a nice sort of environmentally friendly surf brand.

[00:03:35] So we were like, oh, you know, we love surfskate sewage We love Cornwall. Let's go and see this talk and sort of reminisce And we got to hang with Hugo after the talk and just sort of said, you know We can't remember if we had jobs or not by that point But we were definitely doing placements and design agencies and we were sort of sorted So we just said look if you ever want any help, we would love to do some You bits of design for you.

[00:03:57] You know, it's just, it's just nice to sort of kind of be involved. And he's a lovely bloke and he took us up on the offer and we did some, I think we did like a campaign for changing the, it was a campaign to protect a wave anyway. The military had changed its firing range, which meant there was no access to this wave.

[00:04:15] And they wanted to do a campaign to sort of tell the military and local councils and government that That wave actually brought an awful lot of like money and visitors to the area. It wasn't just, I can't surf my wave, but actually it was like going to have to, you know, it was going to struggle.

[00:04:30] That was might've been before Airbnb, but there's definitely

[00:04:34] James Gill: yeah.

[00:04:35] Will Kinchin: You know, there was a whole lot of community based around that wave. And, and so we did, we did some quite funky t shirt designs that he quite liked them. And then a few months later came back for some stickers and then, you know, then it was this, then it was that.

[00:04:47] And gradually over the years, we've done loads for them. To the point where now they're, They're still, I'm still working, I'm working for them, literally, I was working for them before this call on a campaign. They, they, no way. Yes. Yeah. So that's how it all, that was like the biggest step for me into sustainability would probably would be, you know, offering up my skills to them for, for, for free.

[00:05:08] Back in the day.

[00:05:09] James Gill: Amazing.

[00:05:11] Will Kinchin: Yeah.

[00:05:11] James Gill: Yeah. That's I mean, Well, so many things that I find inspiring. Now, will I just to start with, I've been to Cornwall since I was a kid, and I am yet to learn how to properly surf, so congratulations on knowing how to surf. That's that's fantastic. .

[00:05:27] Will Kinchin: But I good surf.

[00:05:29] I mean, I, I can stand up on a board and go along ,

[00:05:32] James Gill: that's a heck of a lot more than I could do. But it's yeah, for anyone listening to the podcast actually that's maybe not familiar with, well, maybe even the UK, like I guess Cornwall is just a wonderful spot, isn't it? And, and there's, I guess a lot of different parts of Cornwall, but when you're on the coast in Cornwall, it's, you feel a million miles away from say London, where, where you used to live and where I live.

[00:05:55] And it, it, it definitely. It's interesting hearing how that connected you with nature and sort of gave you, you know, that's a big driver of the passion you have for caring a little bit more about the planet than maybe many others do.

[00:06:09] Will Kinchin: Yeah, I think, I think when you're sort of because, yeah, I suppose a lot of my, my work is actually more focused very much around like water and ocean conservation, which will have come from that link.

[00:06:17] But yeah, if you're, generally you sort of, there was a, I can't remember who the quote was, but it was like, people can only protect what they know. Right. Or something. Yeah. Oh, and so you know, by, once you sort of go down and you experience something, once you've sort of had that experience, you can sort of understand what you are saving and protecting quite a lot more.

[00:06:37] Whereas I think Yeah, I know, I know one of the problems that. People like Surfskate and Sewage are constantly sort of pushing with and other charities I work with that are sort of like based around saving, you know, the countryside and rivers and coasts and that sort of stuff. It's trying to like make that link to people in inner cities who maybe don't get out of the countryside, don't go to the coast.

[00:06:58] How does it affect them? Why should they bother? And that, that's quite a a tricky call. I mean, because, you know, They've got other things they want to protect or save or be interested in, but, you know, the environment, like, it will not affect everyone, wherever you are, eventually.

[00:07:13] James Gill: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:16] So, so, Will, I I'm fascinated to sort of dig in more. I guess there's, there's so many sort of avenues we could, we could talk about here from the kind of campaigns and projects you've been working on. I know you wanted. Talk about suppliers as well and, and sort of making sure you have, you're choosing suppliers in a, in a conscious way.

[00:07:37] Yeah, maybe it'd be good to hear more about that if, if you like, and, and you were, you were saying, so maybe asking. Asking the right questions to help understand who you're, who you're spending money with, I guess.

[00:07:50] Will Kinchin: Yeah, well, I think, I think when you, when you're doing design or design for anyone really, but you know, once it comes to a point where you're going to commission print or, you know, you're going to get stuff created You know, it's our job at every sort of level to be asking those sort of awkward questions and making sure we're not just going for the cheapest stuff that wasn't sustainably managed or sourced or isn't, you know, full of chemicals that are bad for the environment.

[00:08:13] And I mean, like, and like all things, the, the cheapest processes generally. Are the worst, but you know, that goes across quite a few things. So straight away, as soon as you sort of start to dig into like wanting to find sustainably and ethically managed kind of papers and stocks, or, you know, you're, you're kind of producing things where you want to not use plastic or, or, you know, or not use ink.

[00:08:37] Suddenly, you know, you, you, you're in a minor, there's less people asking those questions as even though there's a lot of options, they don't get used as much. So the price just starts to go up and sometimes it's quite a tricky sell when you're trying to find that balance between like making something affordable for your clients, but also pushing your clients to spend a little bit more to.

[00:08:56] To do the right thing, if you will, but yeah, so you've got to, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a tricky area. I mean, one of the, and also it's not always such a, I mean, like sometimes you just have to like push you that you assume things will be you know, good or ethical environmental and then you start asking questions or digging a little deeper and you realize that like, I mean, probably one of the biggest examples of this is a project we worked on.

[00:09:21] It was one of the first ones I did when I set up WillWorks and sort of started working with Surfskate Sewage like more officially, like not as like a, a friend doing freebies and, and little kind of cheap, cheap bits on the side, but as, as, as a company. And we helped them Brand promote create almost do everything really for for a big award scheme to celebrate all the people across the nation that are doing incredible Things to remove plastic from our world and find alternatives So it's called the plastic free awards.

[00:09:53] It was sort of part funded by iceland supermarkets with richard walker Okay, and yeah, and it's big like they wanted it to be You They wanted it to be quite a slick event, like, like a proper award ceremony, you know, done with their slightly activist y flair, but it's quite slick. Like they did it in like the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and, you know, there was a, there was a three or four course dinner and some speakers, you know, it was, it was, they got like a, you know, they've had quite a few artists.

[00:10:24] We've done three now and they've had like Kurt Jackson, who's quite a famous artist, did the first award, he's in the kitchen and. Tom Raphael did one.

[00:10:31] James Gill: So it was quite high, high level. So it's quite a big thing for me. Basically the, the BAFTAs of plastics. The BAFTAs of plastic free activism.

[00:10:40] Will Kinchin: Yeah. Yeah, so it's quite a great thing to work on.

[00:10:42] But when I was like actually starting to create all this stuff You know, we constantly it was like right. What do we create a stage out of and oh

[00:10:50] Chris W: wow It

[00:10:51] Will Kinchin: was like so that was made of like recycled pallets for instance And the idea was we could break apart and use it different years.

[00:10:57] James Gill: Yeah,

[00:10:58] Will Kinchin: we were always looking for like ways to reuse stuff recycle stuff and then be able to use it again in the following years and we even like the the identity was sort of designed that we could Pick it up and tweak it each year rather than just use it Changing it every year, which is, which is a good use of money, but then when I actually came to speaking with suppliers, like some of them just didn't get it

[00:11:21] James Gill: like, Oh, really?

[00:11:23] Will Kinchin: Yeah, like we wanted to get to some, we had like name tags for everyone there because obviously there's a lot of interesting people in the room and it was good to know who they were and what companies they were from. So everyone sort of needed a, you know, A name tag and we sort of wanted it to be a takeaway thing as well So we got those like etched into wood, which isn't really nice, but then the actual lanyard they went on When the guy sort of sent me this sort of mock up, had this massive plastic clip on it, which was just a conversation mentioned right I rang him up.

[00:11:55] I was like, i'm really sorry like it all looks fine, but there's this big old plastic clip Can we get rid of it? No, sorry, we can't get rid of it. I was like Well, have you read what's written on the side of the lanyard? It says like, it's just a massive, plastic free awards, it's like, oh yeah, I was like, well, and like, yeah, and it was even like a bamboo material lanyard, it's a lanyard that was like marketed as like a sustainable, Oh, wow.

[00:12:18] So rather than like acrylic, it was using like a kind of bamboo fiber. Yeah. Yeah. Stick clip on it. So I was like, do you see the, can you understand the problem here? And, and, and I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't that condescending, but yeah, that was, that was the sort of impression I gave. And anyway, he went off and I think it was actually to do with a safety thing.

[00:12:35] It was like, they need to be there for a quick release in case. I don't know, like a child got strangled? But I was just like, well, yeah, this is on the internet. I can buy them without a plastic clip I was like, i'm not i'm not trying to be like I was just like we just can't have a we can't have a lanyard but yeah, or or or if we do we definitely can't have one with plastic clips We'll have to find someone else.

[00:12:56] Anyway, yeah, they spoke with their team in the factories and eventually they said, okay We'll remove it. So but it was just you made

[00:13:03] James Gill: it you made it happen. Well,

[00:13:04] Will Kinchin: yeah, it was just funny that they they You They had their sustainable product, but it still had, you know, a big chunk of plastic on it. And that happened again.

[00:13:14] There was like something made, these little pin badges made, and they were like, it was like a nice recycled card, and it was like a little enamel metal pin badge, and then they wanted to wrap each individual one in a little plastic bag, and I was like, Again, we can't do that. I was like, you can't put them all in a plastic bag.

[00:13:34] And then they were like, okay, well, that's what we do. And I was just like, well, I mean, there must be something else we could do. And eventually they agreed to wrap them all in paper. So. Yeah, that was that. There were a number of things like that in that project that just suddenly, like, at the last minute, it's like, hang on, that's completely, like, not in keeping with what we're trying to do.

[00:13:54] Yeah,

[00:13:55] James Gill: it's, it's, that's such a, I love these, these stories and anecdotes because it, it's fascinating and, you know, it's like, if the plastic free awards can't get it right, then what hope do the rest of us have for, for making the right steps, you know, it's

[00:14:12] Will Kinchin: exactly.

[00:14:13] James Gill: Yeah.

[00:14:14] Will Kinchin: And also if you're like, I found, I found this actually when we worked with, I worked with Puma on their sustainable stuff when I was up in a big agency.

[00:14:22] And when you, when you do start to make any sort of claim you've got to be. really correct Because false advertising and greenwashing and all that stuff like they come down on you hard very hard like puma when we work with them, so we did some really nice stuff with puma when I worked at a company called gph that Sadly aren't around anymore.

[00:14:42] But

[00:14:42] James Gill: yeah,

[00:14:43] Will Kinchin: they They had this whole section of Puma called like Puma's clever little world and they like we branded a shoe made of like recycled denim offcuts and we did a periodic table of all the sustainable things that they do across Puma. They even swapped out their shoe boxes for these backs that were like lighter, smaller, easy to transport, all these, all these great things.

[00:15:05] But then there was That was cool. But literally every time they did something, they got hounded by everyone trying to see if it was greenwashing and trip them up. And it, and I think one, one time on this periodic table, they actually had like one, it was like each bit of the periodic table was like a little sustainable action that Puma are doing.

[00:15:26] And one of the things, the table was like questionable and they got properly like done for it. Like I think they had, they got fined for every Time that that had been printed and it got printed on their on these clever little bags that get printed in the like hundreds and hundreds of thousands

[00:15:44] James Gill: Oh my goodness, and

[00:15:45] Will Kinchin: and then there was a fine for like every time it appeared It was it in the end they actually I think I mean, I don't know what they're doing now because this is quite a while ago, but in the end they sort of wound down that side of their business because They were so hard to to Kind of back up the things they were trying to do and they were trying to do good So it's like you have to be really careful You have to keep going down and down and down the supply chain like really far to make sure you're squeaky clean Which is what turned a lot of big companies off

[00:16:17] James Gill: Yeah, it's I that's actually really really interesting to hear that sort of those challenges And it's something we've talked about on the podcast quite a lot actually about you know as a term that I'd, I'd heard of Greenwashing before, but I hadn't heard of the term this other term on the flip side called Green Hushing, which is, is sort of when brands are so afraid to say the wrong thing, that they don't say anything at all.

[00:16:42] And I think, you know, hearing what Puma were doing now with like the right intentions and the right motivation, it's. It's a, it's a real shame when that, that, you know, like, you sort of throw the baby out with the bath water in a way of like, all of this good work, but to get one thing wrong, whereas, it feels like, I guess, I guess it's on both sides, but like a more supportive and constructive approach.

[00:17:10] world where people doing the right thing, there's criticism often warranted, but like in a constructive way, rather than the everything you're doing is awful. And I guess a lot of that nuances and isn't there's not a lot of room for nuance in today's world of social media and quick takes but but it's Yeah, it's it's a difficult path to tread isn't it?

[00:17:34] It's especially at a scale of what Puma is doing I'm sure it's a real challenge.

[00:17:40] Will Kinchin: Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm like I said, this is a while ago So I can't speak for now, but it was I found it really eye opening that like yeah that in the end It was it was sort of a bad business decision for them to wind it, wind it down than keep going.

[00:17:54] Although I think now, like this, while this was going back a bit, I think now things have changed a bit as, because you know, everyone's now finding sustainable alternatives and it's, I think that, that, that it has, it has changed, but, but still like you, either way you still have to be squeaky clean when you start claiming anything.

[00:18:11] Yeah, the only one who's going to like pick me up for the plastic free awards for having a clip, but you know, that wasn't going to, but it's still the intention. You know, you, like you said, you gotta, you're going to claim something. You gotta, you gotta see it through. Yeah. Yeah, do it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:25] James Gill: Yeah.

[00:18:27] Will Kinchin: So

[00:18:28] James Gill: I, I, I agree.

[00:18:29] And I, I think it's, it's also an interesting one of like for any business, the priorities one has speak volumes and it's like, you can care about the. The planet you can care about not using plastics, but if that is on a priority list, but it's like the 10th In, in, out of 10 priorities, then other things take precedence, if cost beats it, or color of the lanyard, or, you know, the style of something.

[00:18:57] So I guess the, the benefit there with the Plastic Free Awards is, with something like the name being Plastic Free Awards, your priorities are, are really, really clear, which, which helps make those, those decisions, I guess, there's not really, you know, I help, I guess so many of these things, it's like. It's real, it comes down to basic stuff, like the words you choose and the name you call your company and the name you give your events ceremony and, and making sure people are aligned with that.

[00:19:28] It's so much of it's about basic human behavior things that if you get those right, the impact can stem from that, which I find fascinating. It's amazing the ripple effect of, of what can happen.

[00:19:41] Will Kinchin: Well, yeah, well, I mean, you've obviously been on that journey with I mean, to, to discover all of the. You know kind of environmental kind of issues with email marketing and then have to yeah work out how to Change those and make those positive and then and then and then to like actually make sure you're doing that At least you know, I mean and yeah like quantify and document all that.

[00:20:00] I mean that must have been quite a journey

[00:20:03] James Gill: Yeah, yeah, it's it. I yeah, thank you for Bringing that up as you boys. It's certainly an interesting one It is definitely a one that I think about in terms of priorities again. It's like You you know, we could have built an email product that like, cares about climate, but it's like, that's one of the kind of selling points of it.

[00:20:24] Whereas by calling ourselves EcoSend, it's like, we, like, that is one of our, like, basically that's our priority. So like, it forces us to think about things in a different way. It forces us to make different product decisions and design decisions. And and I think what's What I really like actually is Maybe you find this as well as a designer like when you have constraints They actually breed a lot of creativity where it's like, oh, well, we need to make sure we're building things that don't use huge imagery or don't we need to make sure file sizes are as small as possible and it's like I think out of that comes like Creative solutions to things and like things that maybe you wouldn't try if you could just do anything you want which I I I actually find incredibly rewarding in the design processes.

[00:21:09] Will Kinchin: Yeah, me too. I, I, I hate an open brief.

[00:21:13] James Gill: Yeah, yeah,

[00:21:14] Will Kinchin: yeah, yeah. Worst thing in the world.

[00:21:16] James Gill: Yeah.

[00:21:16] Will Kinchin: I had a friend once, well, he's still my friend, I have a friend, that was just like, oh, can you do some artwork for our wall? I was like, absolutely not. I was like, speak to an illustrator or an artist. I was like, cause I do do loads of visual stuff, but it's sort of to a brief.

[00:21:34] It's answering a, it's answering, solving a problem. You know, it's sort of, I was like, is there a problem with your wall? You know, it's like, I like, let's drill down to the bottom of this project. Like what's, what's, do you not like the walls? It's just, I just sort of, I, I think that's what separates sort of an artist from a sort of.

[00:21:54] More of a designer maybe. Is that brief? Is that needs to be a problem? Rather than just doing something on your own sort of pure emotion and sort of artistic flair. I don't think I have that.

[00:22:09] James Gill: Yeah, yeah, I'm terrified I'm going to do the wrong art.

[00:22:13] Will Kinchin: Yeah, yeah,

[00:22:13] James Gill: exactly.

[00:22:14] Will Kinchin: It's funny, like, only I can decide, right?

[00:22:16] Like, I can measure something against a brief. I can't measure something against my own emotions.

[00:22:24] James Gill: Yeah, that's that's fascinating, actually. I hadn't really thought about that, the distinction of designer versus artist. And yeah, I, I, I want to go, I, I feel like I want to go down more of these, these avenues, but I, I, I'm so conscious of time. Well, cause I felt like already flowing past one of the things you wanted to talk about was, was I guess, ways of giving, giving back, donating.

[00:22:48] Yeah. Tell us more about your thoughts on this.

[00:22:51] Will Kinchin: Well, I, I mean, firstly, working as a one man studio on environmental work, and I do it, I do it at a cut rate for, you know, Sort of charities and courses. I sort of believe in and want to support Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna buy the yacht. I'm not gonna retire to the yacht, but I am I am yet Nice thing about that is it's like but I am doing sort of rewarding work where I You know feel like i'm i'm actually helping for one thing and secondly, you know, I because of that I don't have like Especially with two kids and child care.

[00:23:26] I don't have loads of money to give to to just to give away however ones that I I'm working with and do like i'm i'm more than happy to sort of cut my rate. Which probably makes me a bit more affordable for them. And also like me me giving a donation of money will help to a degree, but I've got 16 plus years of, of brand and communication experience from big agencies that, that a charity definitely wouldn't be able to afford unless the agency was doing pro bono work that I can offer, you know, and so I've sort of come to realize that I can actually give a lot more by just sort of lowering my weight and lowering my weight from lower.

[00:24:07] lowering my rate and sort of giving my sort of knowledge and experience than I, than I ever would just giving, bugging them a sort of monthly donation. So I've sort of, I've always done that actually from, from the beginning really. And then recently I've just sort of just this year actually just joined up for 1 percent for the planet, which is the Patagonia, well it's sort of a joint initiative that is it Yvonne Charon, Charon?

[00:24:31] Charon? From anyway, the CEO of Patagonia set up the way, and he's got a similar view. He was like, if you can't be on the front line you know, you with all of the, with all of these sort of protesters, like, you know, trying to make change, you know, if you, then if you can't give with yourself, then you've got to give, you know, we've got to dig into our pockets and give what we can.

[00:24:50] For me, I'm like, yeah, okay, I can give by sort of lowering my rate and giving my experience. And I think sometimes it's, It's, it's interesting thing. What are you good at? What can you really give with your skills? Because sometimes, sometimes it is a free donation, but other times it could be so many other things that actually just your time and your knowledge and your energy is worth so much more than actually, you know, what excess kind of money you have at the end of the month to, to, to bank towards a cause.

[00:25:20] James Gill: I, I love that. Well, I, I couldn't agree more as, as well. I, I think, yeah, when you think about the, the impact you can have, I, I don't know, maybe some people they'll think this is highly over the top, but I, I, I believe like the skills of design, the skills of branding, the skills of communication, I mean, get you giving an hour of your time with those kinds of, that skill set, the impact that can, can have.

[00:25:46] can have for a charity or a good cause can be. can be huge if that, if that drives consumer behavior that leads to more donations, leads to more people taking action, like, I, I think that's just incredibly inspiring. It's something I certainly think about a lot with what we're doing, and you know, small changes we make in software that can be multiplied out by millions of people that see it.

[00:26:11] It's things like that where, yeah, it's like giving Yeah, they're, you know, giving money is obviously critical as well, but I think when you can bring skills and energy and inspiration and time, like, I mean, God, that, that can go a heck of a long way. And, and, and I guess there's so many charities and causes that are crying out for that.

[00:26:34] Like you see so many charities, you know, when you, I guess when you think about charities, there's like some of the big well known charities, but then you think about the long tail of small independent charities that Need all the help they can get with their communication and their, their, their design, their branding, their, their messaging.

[00:26:52] And the help you can give there I'm sure is, is hugely valuable and hugely appreciated.

[00:26:58] Will Kinchin: And it comes back to you as well, you know, then also, like, you know, with the way the world's sort of, well the scientists think the world world's going and the sort of data, you know, when my kids are like. What did you do?

[00:27:10] I'll be like, well in my own way as much as like I could I know I wasn't on the front line but I Did do you know this campaign in this campaign? I helped these guys and I did stuff with these guys Yeah, I sort of at least I feel like i'm sort of at least in my own way giving back and you know helping try and

[00:27:30] James Gill: yeah

[00:27:30] Will Kinchin: drive change, which is You know, it's important and it's it it's it's It's worth it.

[00:27:37] James Gill: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I know we're rapidly running out of time Will, but I want to make sure we cover two, well, just a couple more topics. You wanted to talk about Making designs that last i'm keen to hear about that and then And then and then and then we'll see if we've got any time for a

[00:27:56] Will Kinchin: little bit more I mean, this is just a quick one Really?

[00:27:59] I was just thinking going into like probably linking the last two of the two previous topics together actually sort of yeah Yeah, yeah things like they're talking about plastic free awards and talking about ways to give one thing I found working with the Charities i've done is so if you can kind of create something that You and you think, you know, like even if it's just like a, a one day event, it's going to happen one year and you're doing a campaign for it, but there's a chance that it might happen every year.

[00:28:23] If you can think bigger, think further and design assets that could last year on year will be tweaked and tweaked, but it means that you can kind of reuse them and even like with all the digital files, you know, you don't have to, to recreate everything, which takes time and costs money, you know, and burns power and energy and all that sort of stuff.

[00:28:42] Like if you can think in that way, then generally it's a much better use of time, money and energy for yourself and for charities. So for instance, the plastic, we tweaked it each year, but generally we were able to push it and add more things to it, but it got cheaper for the charity each year because we were able to reuse stuff and that ran for three years.

[00:29:01] I think the million mile clean, which we've been, it's just gone into its fourth year and that's all, all out and about now. You know, that Hasn't really been tweaked too much since we did it three or four years ago. We've updated dates and we've sort of added bits to it and, and kind of created different things, but you know, so the upfront cost for the charity, even on the cut rate, it's quite big, but then Yeah, if you if you if you think of that on in one year's budget, that's quite a lot of money Think of it across four years yeah, you know it comes down so it was just like a little thought really when I was just thinking about it and it's something I do sort of say sometimes too The people I work with I mean obviously you want brands to last and when you do brands you need to think like that But especially campaigns it can be quite flash in the pan.

[00:29:45] Sometimes it's it's good to to narrow down, you know How long will this be used for will it will it Financially be viable to reuse it year on year. Has it, has it got the kind of legs to do that? And it's just a good use of time, money and energy.

[00:30:02] James Gill: That's such such a good point. I, I guess it's kind of like the equivalent of buying a good quality sweater versus a fast fashion, cheapest thing you find in the, on the, on the online when you are buying clothing, it's like, buy something to last or get design something to last.

[00:30:20] And yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. I, I like that. Will, I like that a lot. And before, before we wrap up, I believe you may have some, some wise words of advice, Will, or you may have received some advice. I, I, I'd love to hear anything you have. Not that you haven't already given a lot of very good words of wisdom.

[00:30:40] What, what have you got for us?

[00:30:42] Will Kinchin: Well, something actually this, I'm almost passing on wise words from someone else, actually, but going back to, Well,

[00:30:46] James Gill: you're, yeah, you're welcome to do that. That's, that's great.

[00:30:49] Will Kinchin: Had a good chat with Hugo not long ago who's now, he's left Steps Against and is the CEO of And he you know, he was sort of saying when, when you're driving change and you want to make change, you sort of need everyone from every bit of life and you need a bunch of different tactics all working together.

[00:31:05] So, for instance, for me, it's very much like from a kind of design and communications perspective, but. You know, like it or not, you need the people on the front front line that are causing a bit of a problem, you know. I don't want to get into all of your Extinction Rebellions and you're just up oil, but that's just one tool of creating change, you know, but you need to back it up with science.

[00:31:27] You need data. You need people in Parliament talking about it and lobbying for

[00:31:31] James Gill: it.

[00:31:32] Will Kinchin: You need communities around the country that are sort of behind your cause. They've got your back. They're writing to MPs, they're signing petitions. You need you know, someone who's kind of got in with the local schools that are kind of making those issues.

[00:31:45] You know, sort of explaining them in a way that's right for, for the school, schoolchildren and the next generation and gradually with, with all of those things working together, that's how you do it. And I think we get really hung up and like, well, that was, that's a terrible thing that that group are doing or like, well, this, you know, that's the wrong sort of data or that's this and actually.

[00:32:06] You sort of, it doesn't really matter. All of it needs to work together to make change. Like the sewage, we've done loads of work with surfskate sewage on the end sewage pollution campaign. And, and that has like, they've, I mean, the sewage scandal is now like, it's pretty, you can't turn on the news or get it without that being in there.

[00:32:25] And that was a big, big push of that has come from this sort of connected approach largely spearheaded by surfskate sewage over the last like five, six years, but actually no, not five, six years. Since they've started, that's what, that's been like a hot goal thing, but it's really taken off, especially when they, you know, they, they built an app and they changed legislation to get sewage companies to say when they were discharging sewage, they then took that data and work with your user experience and app builders.

[00:32:51] And then that app then gets put on BBC news all the time when there's like heavy rain and they can see where all the sewage is. And it just all that then provided the data and they could go to politicians with to say, look here, it's physical. Data of all this

[00:33:05] James Gill: stuff, my goodness, you know,

[00:33:06] Will Kinchin: and then and the people who did that were obviously then, you know Dressed up in poo outfits waving flags and they're all up front of parliament and that got in the guardian and you just you need the lot And they just think that you know You've got to work out.

[00:33:18] What's your? What's your skill to, to help drive that? Like for me, it's actually listening to all of these people and finding a like an engaging way to sort of put those stories and messages out there. That's my bit. Yeah. And you know, other people, there's, there's lots of different ways that kind of people kind of like can, can tap into the causes that they want to, you know, support and help.

[00:33:40] And it doesn't, I guess what I'm saying is that you don't have to be that person on the front line. You know, you can. Find out what you're good at, see how it helps. And do your thing well, just do it for the right people.

[00:33:52] James Gill: Yeah. My goodness, that is, what a, what a point to finish on. I, I, I mean, yeah, it's sort of like the, that scandal in the UK is, feels like it's come, you know, something that's been overnight, like, become a big thing, but, I, I, even I didn't realise, like, quite how much had gone into that, and it really makes you appreciate it.

[00:34:14] A lot of hard work over a heck of a long time and a lot of people all running around. That's such a good point. Like, yeah, it, it takes all of us doing our bit to, to make an impact Will. I, I, I think that's such a, such a wonderful note to be sending ourselves away on. Thank you very much. And Will, just before we leave What are you working on right now?

[00:34:37] It'd be great to hear what you're up to.

[00:34:39] Will Kinchin: So recently we, we've just done a big project for they're a global charity, but for the UK arm of them Oceana they've created this alliance of big, big sort of NGOs and charities like like Patagonia, Greenpeace, Blue Marine Foundation Self Sufficient Sewage.

[00:34:54] And it's called the Alliance Against Offshore Drilling and like, there's, I think there's over 50 or 60 organizations that have joined it and over 250 individuals and all with the common goal to end drilling for oil and gas in UK waters. One of Oceana's bigger sort of goals is to just end drilling for oil and gas.

[00:35:15] You know, in the ocean, definitely globally, but but not just ending it, but with, like, a just transition to renewable alternatives. So it's, you know, they want to make sure that there's a, a kind of a way to do this rather than just drawing a line. And yeah, so we've just done the branding and the website and the sort of campaign for, for the alliance.

[00:35:37] It's been a lovely job to be involved with and we've actually, as Will works, joined up to the alliance as well. And we all met up in St Agnes on the north coast about a month back now to sort of discuss tactics moving forward and ways we can sort of get the Drilling licenses sort of like off the political agenda and force the politicians to at least hold them to account and try and get them to, you know, not grant new licenses and work out what their policy is in regards to this.

[00:36:04] Because, you know, the, the. Oil rigs, they're, they're, even though you don't, you know, you hear of the big spills, they're constantly spilling oil into the, the ships that go out to find the oil fields, do this thing called seismic blasting, which is blasting, like, louder than jet engines, um, is it louder than jet?

[00:36:25] No, louder than atomic bombs. It's something crazy. It's like, Super loud noise pretty much through the city. Yeah. To try and find these oil fields, which is like, it can actually kill submarine, like smaller marine life, kind of like planktons and things like that, but it can damage the hearing of animals that need Hearing to find their food and oh wow whales and dolphins and it completely disrupts the kind of ocean life So there's a yeah, so there's just and then you've obviously got the pipelines and some of those are like go literally Through marine protected areas and a plan that's been licensed is given to you know to develop oil fields that would, would do that.

[00:37:02] Which sort of defeats the object of a marine protected area. So anyway, that's, that's the new big thing. It's almost like for me, it's like the new sort of sewage scandal is like, right, we need to work out how to make this topic sort of accessible and engaging for the public and, and, and help sort of give people the tools to.

[00:37:22] Right politicians to explain to their kind of colleagues and in schools and to generally just get this as a get this out there You know amongst the general public to try and make some change. So yeah, that's that's what we're on at the moment And it's it's a it's a biggie

[00:37:37] James Gill: Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that.

[00:37:40] I, I didn't honestly know about that at all, and I guess a lot of people don't know about this. What happens under the sea stays under the sea, and, you know, people have no idea what's what's going on outside of their direct view. That, I mean, god, that sounds, I, I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that would like to hear more about this myself included.

[00:38:05] Where can, is there, where can people go to find out more? Because I, that, that sounds like I'm sure a lot of people want to get behind you and learn more about this and hopefully drive more awareness of this. Hugely appreciate you doing what you're doing here.

[00:38:16] Will Kinchin: Yeah, well, I mean, the, we can pop a link in the, description, I guess, but it's stopoffshoredrilling.

[00:38:20] org. uk and that will take you to the Alliance website where you can learn more and sign up if you want. Also Oceana's website has lots of information about that on it as well. But just, it's interesting because I think drilling is going to be quite a hot topic on the, as well as sewage actually in, you know, with the, with the general elections looming well, you know, the corner, I think we're going to hear a lot more about this stuff.

[00:38:42] So Yeah.

[00:38:43] James Gill: Yeah.

[00:38:43] Will Kinchin: Check it out anyway.

[00:38:45] James Gill: Depending on when this goes live, maybe we have a new, we've had an election and everything's magically better, but I don't, I don't know if that'll be the case. So yeah thank you. Thank you, Will. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for raising awareness of it too.

[00:38:59] Honestly, it's wonderful to hear people like yourself are doing something about this and trying to raise awareness of it. It's it's great to hear. I I want to make sure people can go find you if they want. You have a wonderful website, willworks. co. uk and I guess people can find you on, on Instagram.

[00:39:18] We'll put that in the show notes and go check out Will's work. It's wonderful. Will's done many, many good pieces for us as well over the years. Well, what a pleasure it's been talking to you. Thank you so much for joining me today. Cool. Thanks James. Thanks. And thank you everybody for listening and watching.

[00:39:34] So if you've enjoyed today's show, please do tell your friends, colleagues, whoever you want about it, shout it out in the street. And please do let us know what you thought and we will catch you next time.