Creaticity founders Richelle Schuster and Martyn Long explain what green skills are, why they are vital to a sustainable future and how systemic change is needed to harness them
Many governments, policies and projects refer to the future need for "green skills"... but do we really understand what they are, do we have the structures and education system to provide them and are policies and industries ready to take a leading role in harnessing them?
A green industrial revolution has begun. Doing it properly could deliver the sustainable future the planet needs, but a lot will need to change. Education, careers, funding and a totally new approach to innovation.
In this episode Richelle Schuster and Martyn Long - founders of new company Creaticity which aims to shape sustainable cities by improving skills, innovation and collaboration - share their expertise and a vision of the future where young people are given the platform and opportunity to solve the world's problems.
To find out more about Creaticity, visit wearecreaticity.co.uk
Hello and welcome to The17. This is a podcast dedicated to sustainability. It's inspired by the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. Together they represent a plan to protect the future of our planet. I'm Kate Hutchinson, I'm the founder of Yorkshire Sustainability Festival and my goal is to help the UK's regions and business communities to play their part in delivering a sustainable future.
Each episode of this podcast focuses on a different aspect of sustainability, whether it's a deep dive into one of the UN SDGs, talking to environmental pioneers, or exploring a current theme or issue vital to people and the planet. In this episode, we're talking about green skills, what they are, why they matter, and the part they're going to play in a sustainable future.
Our guests are the co founders of a new company called Creaticity. It aims to craft sustainable cities by taking a new approach to innovation, skills and talent. Martin Long and Rochelle Schuster, welcome to The Seventeen.
Thank you, thanks for having us.
Hi Kate, great to be here. Lovely to have you. So Martin, let's kick right off.
What are green skills?
Do you think it would be a simple answer actually, but it, but the, it just isn't. So, I mean, technically, if you listen to World Economic Forum or more education establishment, it's the, the, the technical knowledge and values and experiences needed to create a sustainable net zero economy.
But I would argue that actually all skills need to be green for want of, for want of a better word. You know, what we need is the young people coming through our future leaders thinking more innovatively and more gre more around how we have a sustainable economy, how. We make those, solve those complex problems that we know are already here and will continue to happen over, over the next, over the next 10 years and how we utilize and, and use technology to our advantage to help solve some of those problems.
So I think all jobs and all skills need to be green, greenified, whatever you want to call it. And it's more around that mindset of how you think more innovatively, more creatively around solving some of those problems and creating a better world than we're in now.
I think it's about a fundamental shift in the way that we do business and the way that we are sort of growing the economy rather than just, you know, a particular skill which we need to work towards achieving, as it were.
So,
yeah, I mean, and we know, you know, World Economic Forum predicted. 200, 000 job gaps in the UK and over the next few years in kind of green energy transition and net zero technologies. But we're not doing enough in schools to, because the curriculum just isn't fit for purpose. It's, you know, it's built around the old fashioned English maths and that's it.
Kids don't learn enough about the world they live in and how they can solve those problems and, and, you know, Plan International, loads of other organizations have done lots of research with, with primary and secondary school kids who are saying that, A, they don't understand what a green economy net zero actually means and more importantly how they can play a part in that and what those jobs will look like in the future and an education has to somehow prepare for the fact that they're they're creating an environment and building skill sets for jobs that don't exist yet and putting kids through programs for jobs that will look completely different by the time they get through to that stage.
Which
is like almost like the first time in history that we've ever been dealing with something like that isn't it?
And it is you know it is like every people call it the green industrial revolution it's true isn't it we're facing that. micro shift of, of, of skills and knowledge and jobs and aptitudes.
And, and we expect young people to just be able to go with it when we don't equip them with the right skills and knowledge and mindset to be able to, but there's a willingness to, and they understand that more than, more, more than my generation and the ones after that.
So we need to make sure
that we do.
Yeah, definitely. I was working with an organization called Constructive Futures recently and they were talking about how one in four school leavers need to go into construction jobs in order to meet the demand that we have. And I thought that was absolutely, like, amazing, but also quite daunting because people are not talking about this at a school level, you know.
And it's more than that. So, you know, you think young people have a genuine ambition and want to make the world a better place, but there's no link between that and construction, and construction is one of the biggest ways we can do that. You know, making homes more sustainable, making sure people can afford to live and heat them, and all of the technologies that are coming are being pioneered in construction, and you can make a massive difference to the world that you live in through construction related jobs.
But it's not seen in that way, and we don't, Korea's advice and guidance, it's still old fashioned towards old traditional technologies and traditional jobs, and it doesn't do enough to make them believe that you can go into construction, have a good, well paid career, and make a difference.
Michelle, I want to bring you in here.
Tell me why you and Martin have founded Creaticity. What's the gap that you feel that you've seen, and what do you want to address?
I think coming back to your point about sort of bridging that gap between the now and the future and understanding that, you know, it is about skills, but it is about being able to have a vision for what that future needs and what actually the leaders we need and to operate in that environment.
Really, Creaticity is about sort of bringing that capacity, that capability to public sector and private sector leaders to help them do that. So when we see the future, it's hugely exciting. And yet we're sort of held back by systems and processes and people that don't see far enough ahead. So short term funding, short term mindset, transition is really important in terms of the green economy, but we also need to think in parallel about.
those pioneering new technologies and innovations that are going to rewrite the rules, redesign the supply chains and, and really being able to manage the, the here and now with the future is hard. Being innovators is difficult, but we need to sort of do both at the same time. Creaticity brings our skill sets and experience together, both working across the public and private sector and bringing those together to be that power for change.
But really understanding that, that is about innovating, but understanding the skills and the talent we're going to need to do that.
I think this is really interesting because there's been a hell of a lot of talk recently, especially now we're in that pre election period of, you know, one of the challenges that you have in a democracy where the government can change ultimately every five years is that how do you build with a long term sort of view and how do you get to a point of having a plan that is not involved in politics.
I was at a big construction event recently and, um, I know one of the things that he was talking about was sort of how housing needs to be removed from the political agenda. But then it was followed up with, but, you know, frankly, so does healthcare and then so does, you know, and you could say about all elements ultimately of government, couldn't you?
One of the things that we want to dig into is there's a really neat phrase that's on your website about what you guys believe and it says collaboration drives innovation, innovation drives insight, and insight drives impact. So what have you seen and experienced in your careers so far that make you believe that?
I think, you know, this sort of forms the cornerstones of what we do and how we operate and want to collaborate with others and the people we want to work with. So innovation is about risk taking, as you talked about before, but that's hard. So how do you do that? How do you learn by trying new things, but doing that in a safe and supportive environment?
So that innovation piece is really important to be able to get to the insights that will lead to, you know, the action, the impact that you really want to make. If any of those links are missing, then you don't have a change. If you don't innovate enough to get the right insights, to talk to the right people, to understand the right lived experience, then you won't get to the right change because you won't have the right why.
So it really is bringing those, all those things together. Innovation for innovation's sake is useless. Innovation with a purpose that's driven by insight is really about meaningful change.
Yeah. I mean, so I think that example is in my previous role at Lead City Council around developing the future talent plan.
And it's amazing that people don't use collaboration as a key driver when you, when you're developing strategies that, that have an impact in the way that did so. If you don't have education, industry, and the people who are benefiting from it being led by the public sector to collaborate, understand those insights, and plan for 5, 10, 15 years time, you're only ever going to get the kind of short term actions that don't really make any massive difference because you're stuck in a political cycle, like you said.
I was talking on a panel at Climb yesterday about businesses in the digital sector collaborating together to grow a diverse talent pipeline that is representative of the city. But because they're all competitive and you don't want to risk giving your secrets away or you don't want talent going to another organization, it's always closed off.
But in Leeds, there's been a brilliant movement around that collaboration and actually everyone benefits because you grow a more interesting, creative, diverse, young leaders, great talent pipeline. And if you increase the Everyone gets what they need and you get a fantastic result out of it. Whereas if you don't collaborate and everyone just stays in their, in their zone, no one benefits from it.
I was having this conversation with somebody recently about billionaires and talking about how, you know, ultimately the equivalent of the billionaires in the 1800s built schools and libraries and, um, created infrastructure for communities to be a part of. And the billionaires are not stepping up at the moment, guys.
So if you could just, you know, Elon, if you're listening, step it up a bit, you know, it's not good enough right now. You've both worked in local government and you've always had to think commercially in terms of working with business. There is still this perception out there that economic success and being environmentally responsible aren't really compatible.
What do you say to that? In
my own personal experience, my career has been, you know, partly. in the private sector working hands on at ground level with businesses on these innovation strategies on the growth strategies. I don't think there's a dichotomy between the two. It is an essential part of their growth strategy and they will not grow without it.
They will not be successful without it. I think we've moved on. It's just the how there's still difficult, you know, businesses are faced with a lot of challenges and have to do a lot of things. And I think seeing the environmental issues and challenges move out of the nice to do feels good CSR box into the core business strategy as a way of moving this business forward, making it relevant and sustainable for the future is really where we want to be.
And this isn't about tinkering or responding to compliance. This is about, you know, leading your organization forward for the future. So I think we've come forward with that, you know, how do we support businesses to do that? And I think that's what we, you know, part of our role at creaticity was to really help cities and regions.
build better ecosystems to do that and really think about what the needs of those businesses are and join up the support that is, does exist. There are still gaps. There's so much more, you know, if you're looking to access for funding, even that's difficult, working out where to go and who to ask and what you need.
So we need much more concerted effort to join up the support system that's out there. We need to address the gaps because, you know, businesses can't do it by themselves and we need to deliver that support in a way that's timely, that's commercial, that sees it as an advantage, not as a to do.
I think helping them to understand what it actually means.
because, you know, we've, we've worked with loads of businesses and they want to do it. They want to make a difference. They know that, and they know they have to, and they know that there is a commercial responsibility of it because their customers demand that they, they think more green and more net zero, more and more sustainable, but they just don't know what it means and what it looks like.
And for the big corporates and big organizations of the world, they've got teams of people who can help them do it, but the economy is built on SMEs and they don't, you know, they're trying to, you know, To work out how they pay the staff and keep the lights on. So the easier we can make it through, as Rochelle was saying, through the business support mechanisms, or just, just a general understanding, general sustainability, carbon literacy training, whatever, whatever we're calling it, understanding what the issues are, how they can make a difference and what they need to do to get.
to that point and so the college of building i know at the moment are doing kind of carbon literacy programs and upskilling training to help them understand that in terms of that transition from where we are now to where we need to be there's going to be a lot of change and a lot of people who don't know what's happening a lot of jobs displaced so government and the public sector generally needs to step up and help them get there because we need to and we will.
It's just how easy and how painless we can make it.
It goes back to what you were talking about at the very beginning, about how innovation is risk taking in its sort of primary form. And I think one of the challenges that we've got in the UK economy at the moment is, there's no real appetite for risk because the economy's been crashed three times actually in six years, which I go on about every single episode.
But as a small business owner, The thing for me is that we have constantly had to innovate, which I really enjoy actually, and I love the process of coming up with new ideas. I just wish that every time I was coming up with them, I didn't have my back against the wall, and it was in a position of strength, rather than from a position of, oh Christ, the government will crash the economy again.
I think that's one of the things that is a real challenge in this sort of market, is that for small business owners, and you're absolutely right, the economy is literally built on small business. 61 percent of people who are employed in the UK are employed by small. businesses. And that is a challenge to create this environment for innovation.
So given we are in an election period, I'll throw an unscripted question into the mix here. If we were to see a new government, what would you hope that they would do to drive innovation in the economy?
For me, it comes down to skills. And I'll always say that if you don't have young people that are equipped.
to think creatively, think innovatively, think outside the box and break the barriers, then we're never going to get to solve the problems that we know are coming and are already here. And the education system at the moment is based around teaching to facts and teaching to figures and they don't understand why they need to learn some of this stuff and why they're not learning about net zero or innovation or creative thinking or any of that kind of thing that gets us out of the mess we're in now and out of that kind of short term boom and bust economy.
It doesn't work at the moment. I would encourage. all political parties to completely rethink education and the curriculum and build it around what we need in the future, not what we needed 30, 40, 50 years ago.
I think there's a real disconnect from what's being taught in school to what's actually happening out in the real world.
Yeah. And young people aren't taught to take risks. So you wonder why we have business leaders that are risk averse and don't take risks. And we've talked many times when we're about innovation. It is a risk, but I think it's a bigger risk not to innovate because then you never move on and you just stand still.
And the biggest learning is failing or learning. How do we frame things? And actually, we know being entrepreneurial is about trying things, learning things, working with others to do things, yet we don't see that being taught as a way of working in school in the way that we could do. Yeah. So we think that's the biggest opportunity is to go.
It's complicated now, but we know that innovation is going to be business as usual. That's what you're facing. But actually, if we help these future leaders be different, be equipped, think differently, being able to be much more flexible and open and collaborative and creative. Then we can really shift the dial.
It's really tough for businesses today and government doesn't create that space for them to innovate. And we're going through that immense changes in terms of technology and digital transformation and expectations on, on, you know, compliance. And it's tough. It's tough. So how do we really give them that space to reform those business plans and, and have that time to revision the future of their companies?
And I, I think there's much more that could be done at a sector or supply chain level to look at that visioning piece, for instance, in construction, which is huge. The opportunity is exciting and you know, you, we really need to sort of come around that and solve that together. So much more collaboration, much more focus in some respects in terms of sectors, but it's exciting.
Yeah. Also thinking about the mindset, you know, not just green skills, but the leadership skills that we're going to need to lead change and make the most of it.
So we are currently working with some private and public sector organizations to develop a talent accelerator program that we want to run across the north of England that is around innovation as a mindset.
How do you get young people to think more innovatively, more creatively? It's okay getting them to encourage them to come up with ideas. How do you help them make tangible differences with them? How do you turn them into businesses? How do you turn them into products and services? And we're kind of quite well advanced in terms of pulling that together.
And we've got some really exciting partners on board and we're hoping to get some public sector back in as well. But if there are any billionaires who want to throw some money into it more than the first
guys. And we're working with young people to define what that is. because they want to rewrite the rules too.
They know the systems that they're going into to get jobs and to choose where they want to be and what they want to do in life. They're demanding more of businesses. So we think it's hugely exciting to be part of that next generation and helping them find that confidence to be creative and collaborative.
Yeah, really excited about what we can do because in terms of environmental impacts, those decisions are made very early on in defining requirements for products and services and businesses. So if we really think about that upfront in the design process, then, then we're minimizing all the types of consequences and problems and issues at the other end that caused us costs and take them out.
Right from the beginning. Do it differently.
Yeah, absolutely. I know, I absolutely love the Gen Z generation. I think they got a really bad rap, but I think they're absolutely amazing because they do, you're absolutely right. They hold this, our generation and the generations above to account and say like, no, I'm not doing this.
But, uh, you know, and I think it's great. I really do. I think change will come because of their, for want of a better word, their disillusionment with the way in which the world works right now.
Yeah. And that's great. The challenge for us is kind of, you know, in the middle of all that is to get out their way.
This is why we really want to sort of use this as a question for employers and for government to sort of say, what are we really looking at when we're talking about skills and success and, and how we succeed in life and how do we want to measure that, recognize that? Is it through an exam? No, it's not.
It's through life. It's through learning by doing. It's through trying new things. It's through teams and, and. We're working with a really interesting company called Navigator who are working with us on digital badging. It's something that's quite prevalent in education, really exciting. But it's only exciting if you're actually using it to recognize skills that we don't see normally.
And that's, that's kind of what we're working on, bringing visibility to those thinking skills, critical thinking, mindset skills, collaboration skills, the things that we know make the difference.
One of the things we've not talked about is how you create wider opportunities along all of this. So. We know that the kind of traditional industry heavy energy transition type roles are heavily men, heavily whites, very underrepresented from ethnic groups and from women in particular.
And if we don't kind of address that in the transition, then that's going to be perpetuated even more and they're going to get even less opportunity. So how do we make sure that it is a just transition? We protect people in jobs already, but we create opportunities for people who don't see themselves in construction jobs or offshore wind or Any other jobs that we know are coming?
I always talk about this. One of the things that really winds me up about where we're at sort of in the sustainability agenda at the moment is the most anti net zero people in the UK are white working class men. And nobody is talking to white working class men about the fact that in the green industrial revolution, there are going to be great practical, well paid jobs like the mining jobs.
but are going to be in green energy and green construction and so on and so forth, you know, and I come from Barnsley and I'm very proud of that fact. But when we lost the mines, we got that replaced by factory work that was paying 10 an hour and that does something to a place when that happens. And that isn't talked about enough.
You're absolutely right. That just transition is so important. so important, also really challenging to achieve. So we have to keep our eye on that at all times because I don't know if you know this, but the gap between rich and poor has returned to Victorian levels in the last 14 years. Got employers
saying we want more diversity in the workforce, but yet we're not bridging that gap and providing that aspiration for, you know, in those communities that don't see these jobs as ways out of, of succeeding, of being themselves, of showing their talents is really important to us.
And
it's, it's not even just giving them the opportunity, it's letting them understand what the jobs are in the first place. If you don't, if you're not exposed to it, careers information around green careers is patchy at best. And, and, and to be fair to West Yorkshire, we're doing, there's quite a lot happening.
So just commissioned a piece around working on green skills in primary schools, which is brilliant because I don't, I never understand why careers information starts in secondary schools because you've already started to shape the minds of young people by the time they get to 14, 15. The work that I had to do in on growing green.
programs is fantastic, but it's not replicated around the country. It's not equal and it's not a government led agenda. It's different in different regions and it's inconsistent and we need to make sure that's better.
We need a different strategy for green jobs now, the transition jobs that that, you know, in the re skilling agenda and how we do that.
And then another policy and a strategy for the future and somewhere meet in the middle, concentrating on one while not the other is problematic and those things need to be a continuum.
Okay, so let's go a bit deeper into green skills. Let's think about somebody who is in their 20s or their late teens now and they're just about to start their career.
According to you two, if we can get the green skills agenda to work, what should their career look like going forward and how would that be different from, say, 20 years ago?
Well, I think the biggest difference between now and 20 years ago is that, Jobs, marketing skills is more, a lot more fluid. So 30 years ago, you'd go into a career and you'd stay in that career until you retired.
And then, and that'd be it. Whereas now young people don't want to stay working in the same career or the same industry. So reskilling is going to be massive. understanding that it's, it's an employee market at the moment that we need skills. And if you've got the right skills, employers will want you. So it is a lot more fluid and young people will have a lot more power to move around and work for organizations that care about the things that matter to them and are environmentally responsible and are sustainable.
The biggest difference will be the fact that there's no such thing as a career anymore. It's going to be changing, changing, changing, which is brilliant because we know that the jobs of the future, some of them aren't even in existence yet and young people will need to be, which is why the education system needs to be creative and innovative and adaptable so that young people are built with resilience and change so that just happens naturally.
You're going to see very deep expertise that's needed, so that will be sector specific, technology specific, so you're going to see You've got those opportunities where people be specialists and that's exciting wherever you choose to be. And then you've got people that will go across the top, which is more about how, you know, you get individuals that look at sustainability across supply chains, across technologies, innovating for the future.
And that's the bit that we were talking about before. How do we create more of those people that can go across because that's what innovation is about and climate change is one of our biggest challenges and opportunities for innovation to have an impact.
As the founder of Yorkshire Sustainability Festival, I'm always keen to highlight positive things that are happening at a regional level.
Now you've talked a little bit about some of the things that you've seen at a regional level or that you're involved in that are really great. So let's dig into that a little bit more. What signs of progress are you seeing here in Yorkshire?
So, so obviously the mayor declared the climate emergency in 2019, particularly our unskilled agenda has done quite a lot to, to kind of push that, that understanding and what is needed and, and, and recognise that actually, you know, we, we don't have the answers yet, so why don't we go out and ask the people who will benefit from them what those answers are.
They launched a green jobs task force, not everyone liked that because it's, you know, on a kind of macular level, brilliant, you're going to create a thousand green jobs, well paid jobs for young people, difficulty in determining what is a green job and what does that actually mean? And does it mean existing jobs that you're going to make greener or is it new jobs in new industries?
But they've made a lot of progress on it in terms of at least having that conversation and, and recognizing that we don't have all the answers yet. And particularly then in around skills. The adult learning agenda, the lifelong learning agenda is massively starting to look at green skills and carbon literacy, sustainability skills, upskilling into everything from EV mechanics right the way through to retrofitting skills.
But it's starting to become a, it's, it's not a just in schools and colleges now, it's a, it's a lifelong learning thing. You know, people in the 30s, 40s, 50s retraining to some of those careers because we need them now. And they've got transferable skills, whether it's from retail or, or whatever they are currently.
And then right the way down to, like I said previously, commissioning programs to get green skills and careers and information and understanding what it is into primary schools, into secondary schools, into, into education. So that young people are informed, are equipped. And I think West Yorkshire's doing a really, really good job of that.
And I know they're starting to do it in the West of England and the West Midlands as well. But there is, The devolution agenda is brilliant in terms of creating regional strategies for skills, but it creates an inconsistency across where people are doing things differently and on something like green industrial revolution and sustainability, we need a bit more government intervention, I think, to make sure that it is fit for purpose nationally.
Yeah, that's one of the things I'm kind of hoping is going to come out the next government. We will see because, you know, a lot of the mayors are obviously part of the Labour Party and we're sort of as a country expecting that we're going to have a Labour government in the next six weeks or so that there will be more consistency across the board because I think devolution is brilliant.
I think that whole model, the combined authority model is absolutely genius because it does allow you to get into the route of, you know, challenges that are more regionally focused and every region needs to be recognised as different, but I think you're right. the challenge then becomes that we can dig into those individual regional challenges, but then how do you make sure that there's consistency across the board in terms of standards, in terms of outcomes, etc.
And Labour are talking, you know, a great job around Green New Deal and the Just Transition and all, you know, all the jobs and skills that are going to be put in place. What, what I'm not getting is how that's going to be funded, because at the moment there's not enough money to do what we're already doing.
Yeah, all the things we need to do on top of that. I think there's going to have to be a big push on some, you know, on the big cities in terms of growing those city economies because that's where you will drive the benefit of growth across the whole country and We talk about growth but without that underpinning of skills and funding it properly and having young future leaders equipped to make those decisions.
And like we've talked about earlier, to be able to fail, fail quickly and move on because you might need four or five ideas or businesses before you get the one that actually makes the difference. And at the moment, the way that public sector programs are funded don't allow you to fail. You get one chance at it and so we need to completely redress the balance around things like UK SPF and all the other kind of programs that fund it to make a difference.
Let's do some future gazing with that in mind then. What we do at the end of each episode, we dig into where if we could be in charge of the world, what would it look like essentially? So I want to get one action point from how we can best harness green skills to the benefit of the planet. At every level.
So we start globally. So I'll hand over to you. What could you do globally?
I think we want to see education. It's the most long term strategy and the most important one in terms of defining the future. And that's not just local, that has to be tackled globally.
Yeah, and we know that the kind of jobs that are coming through the Green Industrial Revolution are what is going to potentially set the UK apart competitively in the world.
And we either lead it or we follow, and if we follow we've already lost. So I think globally it's positioning the UK. To be a hub of green skills and a world class education system that creates future leaders that will change the world for the better.
Okay, nationally.
We could start with a new government, I think.
Yeah,
okay.
And if it's my personal soapbox, I'd scrap the whole education curriculum and start again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rebuild
it from the ground up and involve the people that are benefiting from it and how that's designed.
It's our biggest opportunity, isn't it? And biggest way of influencing, you know, the next generation of businesses.
We've been in the startup space for, for a long time personally, and so many exciting new ideas and solutions, and yet we're not helping them to scale. And that is, is about talent. That is about, you know, government, regulatory constraints, and that's about funding. So how about, you know, imagine a world where we've got some of these solutions already here and we just find them and we scale them, you know, nationally.
And again, that, that will drive the economy and change the game.
Yeah, it definitely will. And it'll redistribute wealth. Talk about just transition. It'll do all of those things. And then regionally.
Again, it comes down to the way that regional programs are funded. So there's a massive opportunity with did evolution and gain share funding to do things completely differently and and the west yorkshire combined authority are starting to do that but i think there's a a long way to go and a lot more progress that can be made.
And, and to look outside the region to see what are they doing well in Manchester, what are they doing well in the West Midlands, and why wouldn't we copy it if it's working and tweak it and make it better.
Yeah, more collaboration across the regions where we're not islands where, you know, we're connected and being able to know what we're good at and where we should collaborate is really important to help us all move forward.
I would like to see more innovation in procurement because it is holding good ideas back and, and holding forward. regional capacity back because we need a long term view about the support we need to drive this region forward and look on your doorstep and harness that and move that forward. Coming back to building ecosystems, we talk a lot about it, but that, that is key.
You know, this collaboration across different players doing different things, but those systems and organizations connecting to provide that seamless journey for the company, whether you're a startup scale up or someone looking for a job. How do you navigate through that?
I think there's real opportunity within that Combined Authority piece as well for like more collaboration between South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, York and North Yorkshire now that they've been created and obviously Hull and the Humber are going to be launched later this year.
And I agree with you completely. I'd like to see more collaboration because ultimately businesses cut across all of Yorkshire and beyond the borders of Yorkshire. So how can we see that collaboration from all of those councils and combined authorities together would be something I'd definitely like to see too.
And I think we are starting to see that and the shift politically, with particularly some of the new mayors coming in, we will see more of that, but you're right, when you drive up the A64, you come out of the Leeds boundary into York, you don't suddenly change your business focus or the way you want to be as a consumer or a business do you?
Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, ultimately I live in South Yorkshire, my business is based in North Yorkshire, and I do 90 percent of my work in West Yorkshire, you know, so it isn't about me. Your postcard, your eligibility
to tap into support and who you work with and this needs to be seen across the piece, doesn't it?
And
that is a problem with the way some of the funding regimes are because if there's a West Yorkshire programme, despite the fact that you've got a lot of traction in West Yorkshire and you work in West Yorkshire. You might not be able to do it because your post goes in North Yorkshire. A thousand percent, yeah.
And it's crazy.
It is crazy. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you. Okay, final question then. We always end on an individual level and it's a stop and a start. So if you could ask everybody listening to stop doing one thing and start doing one thing right now, today, that will help, what would that be?
Stop talking about it.
Stop talking about it. I know we're talking about it today, but make sure every conversation has an action. You know, so what we're going to do about it, that would be, come on, let's, let's move the, move on.
And I think ironically, talking about an individual level, what I would say is stop thinking about yourself as an individual and start thinking about your role in a collective society.
That's the only way we're going to make a positive difference.
Absolutely. Move away from neoliberalism. Yeah, me too. I agree with that. Okay, fine.
The start bit for me is, um, thinking about our next generation of future leaders coming back to what we talked about today. We really got to invest now. Now is the time to make the difference, you know, and seeing what these, how leadership needs to change and how we can sort of be part of that journey to, you know, help this work for the longterm and have a different mindset.
Well, that's been absolutely amazing guys. Thank you so much for your time. So thank you to my guests, Martin Long and Rochelle Schuster. And thank you for listening to The Seventeen. Please help us to grow the podcast by hitting the subscribe button on your podcast provider. And remember to leave us a review and tell your friends about us.
Remember, if you want to find out more about Yorkshire Sustainability Festival, which will actually be in the middle of when you get this episode. then head to our website, which is ysf. thessustainabilitycommunity. com and tomorrow, after you've listened to this episode on the 17th of June, tomorrow we will be in Leeds with our first day of our conference, the Circular Economy Day, where we will be having Mary Portis come and join us.
And then on the 19th, the Wednesday, the 19th of June, we'll have Kevin MacLeod coming to talk to us too. So plenty to see, loads of workshops, loads of talks, lots to come and get involved in. So hopefully we'll see you there. That's all for now. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back on the 17th of next month, and we look forward to seeing you then.