In this episode of On The Same Landing Page, we speak to Louise Cordery from Rainforest Foundation UK about the impacts of worldwide deforestation, not just on the planet, but on the inhabitants of the forests who are being displaced.

Louise goes into detail about some of the solutions Rainforest Foundation UK is putting into place to protect the people living in the communities most affected by deforestation and infrastructure development.

Astra
Welcome to on the same landing page Episode 14. As always, I am your host Astra Newton with Jason Morton marketing manager aswell, say hello Jason.

We are joined by Louise Cordery who works for Rainforest Foundation, UK. She’s an animal biologist and experienced fundraising specialist with a background in research and conservation, and she spent the last eight years supporting charities working in the fields of forest and species conservation, animal welfare and women’s rights. Hi Louise, welcome the podcast. Thanks for coming.

Louise
Hello. Thank you for having me. Good to be here.

Astra
No problem. Obviously I’ve just covered off a little bit about Rainforest UK, but I know you guys do loads of stuff and that’s just a couple of the key areas that you focus on. So you just want to talk about in your own words, what is Rainforest Foundation UK Mission?

Louise
Yes. So in the briefest of nutshells and in a sentence, we’re all about human rights first and foremost, which then leads to environmental protection. So not a lot of people know or realise or are fully aware of how many millions of people live in the planet’s rainforests and depend on them to live they’re their home. They use them for food, for, you know, building for their income, for medicines, for, you know, culturally important sites and within their religions and things like that.

Like a plethora of different uses for indigenous and local communities that live within the rainforest and have done for thousands of years. And the sad thing about the, you know, state of affairs at the moment is that obviously their homes are rapidly being deforested through no fault of their own. And yet a lot of these conservation methods and methods to conserve biodiversity that are employed by the global north more often than not, unfortunately, either displace these people who have lived in the forests for many, many years or just disregard their rights and kind of trample a little bit on them.

So yeah, we’re all about upholding their rights, making sure we secure those rights and their rights to their own land. So getting their own land tenure. And, you know, the science is the evidence is growing more and more that it’s local communities and indigenous people that are the best at conserving rainforests because they have they have that knowledge.

They know how to live sustainably within these ecosystems. So we have a lot to learn from them. And yeah, a lot of the power needs to be put back in our hands if we’re still going to have rainforests in a few years time.

Astra
Well, I guess so often the conversation around like Save the Rainforest, if you like, is about the trees and the animals, thanks to David Attenborough and such, which is obviously really important. But I think often people do forget the people still live there and they’re not just like vast biodiverse landscapes. There are people there too.

Louise
Exactly. It’s not a wilderness.

Astra
No. In terms of, I don’t know about you are in fundraising it, but you probably do you know how did the charity form? Why? What was kind of the thinking behind that?

Louise
So interestingly, we were formed in 1989 by the musician Sting, so he had a very close relationship with a Brazilian indigenous leader and Chief Raoni, who I believe now is about 95 years old, still still going strong. But but yeah, he’s into his into his later years. Yeah, they had a really strong relationship and he and Sting sort’ve noticed that, you know, a lot of things going on in the world were disregarding people like Chief Raoni’s people.

So yeah, he set up the Rainforest Foundation to to combat these, these threats to the people in the forest. And yet to this day, still still runs the Rainforest Fund, which is sort of like a little little pot of money that goes towards ourselves. And then we have a sister organisation, Rainforest Foundation, US and another one, Rainforest Foundation, Norway.

And yes, a little, little bit of funding from him will go into, into each of us. And so between the three organisations we, we more or less cover all of the remaining rainforest in the world. So rainforest Foundation UK is Congo Basin focussed and we also have a project in the Peruvian Amazon which we’re looking to branch out into the rest of Latin America.

And then Rainforest Foundation. U.S. obviously has more of a focus in South America, and then Rainforest Foundation in Norway is more sort of Indonesia and New Guinea and that side of the world.

Astra
Yeah, I was going to say one of my later questions is going to be about how you move into different areas and what the thinking is on that. But I guess it’s places where there are rainforests, big rainforests that you kind of need to consider. That’s the first and foremost KPI of what you decides by operating in the country.

Louise
Yeah, that’s, that’s the main thing. And yeah, and then seeing what other actors are in the area, who has the expertise that, you know, we can perhaps partner with and we can bring added value to them. Well local grassroots organisations are already having a huge impact on the ground that perhaps we can help in terms of technical expertise or channelling funding down to them.

Yeah, a whole big process. But yeah, the first point would be where’s the forest?

Astra
It very like rock and roll origin story founded by Sting in the late 80’s the less said about the 80’s, the better, I’m sure. In terms of like having a celebrity as a figurehead. Obviously he’s a founder, as you said, that contributes. And in some ways he isn’t like hands on, like you guys are working every day to sort of reach these goals for the non-profit.

But do you find that that kind of helps charity when they have like a famous figurehead or a trustee or whatever it might be?

Louise
Yeah, I think to a certain differing degrees, Yeah. Yeah. How how big the involvement is. I suppose it really helped us through COVID. There was an online concert that he that Sting put together, S.O.S. Rainforest Live, and he was able to pull in a lot of a lot of good artists, a lot of indigenous artists as well for this big concert that was held online and raised a lot of money for us and the other two rainforest foundations, which yeah, over over 2020 was really helpful as a tough year. So yeah, it definitely, definitely has some perks.

Astra
Oh, so that sounds like a great way to raise funds. Which brings me nicely onto my next question, which is what are your key methods of fundraising for Rainforest Foundation UK?

Louise
Gosh, everything and anywhere we can get money.

Astra
That is often the case isn’t it.

Louise
Yeah. So everything from down to individual givers, we have a really wonderful loyal support base who will give us donations either once a month or if they can’t commit to that, then they’re still quite loyal in the fact that they’ll give, you know, a couple of times a year, usually on Christmas or to some of our appeals that we put out throughout the year.

And then working through that. So different levels of giving. We have a small trust and foundations that support us. We have some corporate partnerships which those two things are lovely and individual giving for giving us unrestricted funding so money that we can do what we want with to put where it’s most needed in the organisation and then sort of working up to those bigger pots of money from much larger private trusts and foundations and government institutions.

So, you know, whether that be from the UK government, the US government, the Norwegian government, Yeah, the French government, we’ve recently secured some, some funding from, but those larger pots of money tend to come with more restrictions and sort of yeah. Exact places with where that money has to go. So yeah, a whole variety of sources of funding comes from.

We’re more weighted towards the restricted side in our income at the moment. So yeah, mostly those funds coming from the government, those of millions of pounds, dollars, whatever contracts, which is awesome because that’s obviously transformational amounts of money that we, we need. Yeah, but yet we’d like to sort of grow our unrestricted side of things as well just for that, that flexibility.

Jason
What kind of restrictions are they? Are they like locality, geography-based ones or are they in the type of services and who they help or is it a mixture of both?

Louise
Is a mixture of both. Yeah. So it depends the department that the money is coming from and is it depends of what their objectives are that they want to achieve with the money that they’re giving away. So the, you know, the process of applying for these funds, securing these funds, adhering to the contract that’s attached to these funds and reporting on these funds are very, very long processes.

And there’s lots of hoops to jump through. There’s lots of red tape to to get past. So yeah, for example, if there was a fund from the US government and it specifically had to go to Peru, then we’d only be able to use it in that country. We couldn’t use it to branch out with projects. And if you know, we’d have a line by line breakdown of how that money would have to be spent.

So if we said we’d spend £5,000 on training forest monitors in our forest monitoring technology, then that’s exactly where that would have to go. And we’d have to report on that very transparently. So yeah, I mean, it’s great that governments are putting money towards projects like ours and we’re securing more and more funding as the years go on.

And as you know, environmental protection is more and further up the agenda than it ever has been before. But yeah, obviously running a charity and life isn’t always that restricted. Things don’t always go that way or according to plan. And so and also with with government funds as well. We’re an organisation who we like to we like to shout about the things that are unjust or things that are being done wrong.

And yeah, so we want to campaign for policy change. We want to, you know, make sure that the very highest levels of governments in all different sorts of countries are listening to what us and other NGO’s have to say. And oftentimes when you have restricted funds from from particularly governments, but also from large trust foundations, you can’t use the money to do that.

So that campaigning money has to come from a different pot. So yeah, it makes things a bit complex and obviously, yeah, we want to maintain our integrity and be true to our mission, but also have to be careful that there’s no overlap and there couldn’t possibly, you know, be the wrong funds used for the wrong purpose. So yeah.

Jason
That must be difficult to remember. Obviously document how everyone has said every pound has to be spent and what you’ve agreed to is there like some kind of negotiation process in the form of when your’e allocated those funds in terms of “okay so what do you want?” And then you kind of talk about what we can do this with, is that okay?

Is it that kind of thing, or is it just here’s the money, but it will be spent in this way? Is that how does that conversation go?

Louise
So it depends again of where you’re getting it from and what the process is. If you have people who you know within the department, where the money’s coming from, then you can have those conversations and sort of passing out a little bit and have some discussions. If it’s sort of more of a more of a cold application approach, then the application process itself, it will be incredibly rigorous.

And yeah, you’ll have to, you know, explain how you fit into the idea of what they want their money to go on and then yeah describe it in a budget. And if they don’t, there could be a bit of back and forth. Like if they don’t agree with where the money’s going, they could ask you to move things around a little bit.

But they like the project, so they still want to fund it. And then those conversations come after you’ve submitted all the documentation for your idea in your project. So it’s, it’s sort of like we yeah, we’d never we never approach a fund with a project that was sort of like tailor made just fit the fund just to get the money, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it always be the other way round. Like, you know, this is our idea. This is what we know works in terms of forest protection. Here is what we want to spend the money on. This is our idea, we’re proposing it to you, and then it’s either accepted, it’s not, or there’s sort of some further conversations and some back and forth.

Yeah, I’m not sure if that answered your question. Yeah.

Jason
Yeah. It’s really interesting how it works and that I’ve never known really.

Astra
Jason You probably remember the source of this better than I can but there was some, and.

Jason
Is this an age joke?

Astra
No, the guidelines and charities that came out either early 23 or late 2022. And one of the I think it was from the UK Government, one of their advising, which was for charities not to be political in order to sort of like get more funds this year because of the climate and such. Obviously that was like insanely difficult for you guys to do.

You’re an NGO, so you’re accept that, you know you’re going against. Governments are often like funneling cash into practices that do contribute to deforestation or greenhouse gases, whatever it might be. How obviously you guys can’t avoid politics, but do you find that you get mixed up and you can never please everyone with your messaging, but you get mixed up in trying to toe the line of, okay, we’re getting money from government, so we kind of have to do what they want us to do with the money.

But also we can’t necessarily like shine a spotlight on some of their activities that say, I guess it’s not really a question, just like the challenges that they’re against. And it’s a little bit.

Louise
Yeah, yeah, the challenges definitely exist. And I think for us it’s easy is perhaps the wrong word, but easier in a way because the countries that we work in, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, you know, all those countries in the Congo Basin and some in West Africa and Peru. So when we’re sort of employing our campaigning efforts, it’s towards those governments.

And yeah, the the money that we I mean, not to say that we never would get money from from those governments, we do we do work with them. But in terms of sort of yeah, being a little bit too political.

In terms of the UK government or the US government, that’s sort of like not really too much of a challenge for us because that’s sort of not where we put our campaigning effort. So first and foremost, where someone like Greenpeace obviously definitely would not afraid to. But yes, it’s it’s a difficult line. So and I think as well, like for me it’s frustrating enough that the, you know, the climate crisis and environmental protection is a political issue in my opinion.

So extreme come into it. It’s just something that needs something done about it and the change needs to come from the very top levels. Governments need to funnel resources into the right places. If it’s a human issue, it’s a human survival issue, a planetary survival issue. For me, it’s not political. So that’s kind of annoying, you know, in the first instance.

But yeah, there is there is there is a line to toe. But for us, because we work overseas, I think that that makes us a little bit easier. Yeah, a little bit further away from.

Astra
Like you said, because now that it’s climbing up the agenda, sort of this kind of survival, if you like, this pressing survival issue that we have and the global consciousness for it has like grown. Have you found there’s been like a natural growth of interest among your charity and donors around your charity of people like actively seeking you out a bit more now?

Louise
I think so. In particular, maybe, yeah, perhaps not the general public as much as we would like, and it’s something that we really want to or grow this year. And I think there’s sort of like it’s brand awareness isn’t it? I mean, we’ve always historically been quite a small charity. Our income is growing, but it’s nothing compared to the likes of, you know, to Greenpeace or to Cancer Research UK, who have millions, millions, millions of pounds.

Yeah. Every year to put into that brand awareness and in the commons and all sorts like that. So that’s definitely an area that we want to plug resource into. You need to plug resources into it and will. But as a result of the climate going further up the global agenda, we’re definitely getting more attention from those private donors.

So those private pots of money that people want to put towards climate action. So the big trust and foundations that exist that have, you know, like Jeff Bezos, who’s brought together a bunch of trust and foundations to try and plug some money into the climate crisis. Like, yeah, organisations like that, we’re getting sort of more attention from those kind of bodies, having more conversations about the work that we do and how they can help us and the impact that they can have by, you know, funding our work.

And I think it’s also really wonderful to see at the COP26 and then this cop as well, there was more conversation around indigenous people and local communities who are on the front line of deforestation and the need to funnel funds and support directly to them. And obviously we are sort of the channel that can get those things to those people and we have those partners on the ground and we have those networks and that historical connection.

And I think one of our strengths definitely and one of our USPs is our partners on the ground. So for that reason as well, we’re gaining traction and we’re getting more attention. And I think a big piece of work for us as well is just sort of really solidifying what it is that we do in the public consciousness.

So if you hear Rainforest Foundation and you think you think the trees, you think the rainforest conjures up that image in your head, yeah, I think we need to really embed ourselves as a human rights organisation first and foremost, and then as part and parcel of that comes environmental protection. Yeah, social justice is environmental justice. You can’t have one without the other sort of.

Yeah. Really driving that message home that it’s all intrinsically interlinked. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason
What does that look like in terms of the work you do on the ground for the indigenous people. What, what kind of activities does that involve that people are kind of investing in?

Louise
So our projects, yeah, so we’ve got a bunch they could sort of fit into I guess fourth thematic areas that we work on. So one is the land and livelihoods. So looking at how these local communities use their land and involving the communities in making those plans on how they use the land so you know, sustainable agro forestry so that they can create their own income and improve their own livelihoods and yeah, keeping the forest standing around them.

That’s sort of like a big area. Monitoring and mapping is another one. So, you know, you can’t you can’t secure someone’s a community’s rights to lands without mapping it first and knowing what’s there. So that’s part of that. And then monitoring the forest that is there, which is through a technology called Forest Link, which is a really clever little app.

So you just have it on a smartphone and we are in the process of developing it so it can be used on a like a non smartphone as well. So just a regular old like Nokia wasn’t. But the way that works is communities can be out in the forest going about their everyday business. They see an illegal activity happening, whether that be logging or mining or wildlife poaching, even drug trafficking.

And they can log that in the smartphone app and it’s all done by satellite. So they don’t need to have an Internet connection. They don’t need to have a mobile phone signal, and then that goes into a database and will verify the alerts that we get sent to make sure, you know, it was a mistake and like to look into what was behind that alert.

And then, yeah, that information will get to to the authorities who using that data are able to take action. So that sort of part, the monitoring and mapping and forest link is really sort of going back to your previous question is what Forest think is really attractive for for governments and particularly the UK government is sort of like picked up on it in recent times about wanting to hear more about forests and what it can do.

So that’s sort of, yeah, a really big area of our work mapping, monitoring the lands and livelihoods within that land and livelihoods. Sort of area would be our community forests. So that’s primarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo and that’s about getting a community, a to be recognised as an official community forest, So abbreviated it’s the CFCL, so that’s a community forest concession.

And then that forest is legally theirs and under their complete control. And then other two themes of work are sort of more on the I suppose on the negative side of things. So we’ve got the drivers of deforestation. So undertaking research into what is actually causing deforestation because a lot of times, you know, you get you get smaller communities and local people getting unjustly blamed for deforestation, like, oh, you know, if they’re doing agriculture in the forest, it’s them dropping all down the down of the trees.

And that’s that’s not strictly true. Yeah. We’ve, we published a report sort of late last year which was talking about an infrastructure development being a huge driver of deforestation. So things like roads cutting through swathes of forest. And then on the other pillar we have the, the false solutions to these threats. And folk solutions would be things like carbon offsetting and what’s called nature based solutions, which is sort of like this big buzz phrase that everybody wants to use.

And it sounds great, but it’s yeah, similar in in the way to carbon offsetting in that it doesn’t really do what it says on the tin. Yeah. So there are sort of four strands, four main strands of work. So yeah, monitoring and mapping plants and livelihoods drivers of deforestation and for solutions.

Astra
Yeah. I can say you kind of like touched on before that as the sort of public consciousness grows around sustainability, deforestation, stuff that you attract more of private donors if you like. And I’m sure you get slides of people who work for businesses which are drivers of deforestation, who say, Hey, let’s give you a couple of million pounds and then we’re all gravy sort of thing.

And have you seen that increase in the last couple of years?

Louise
Definitely, Definitely. Yeah. They just want to take that box, right? Like I’m not supporting Rainforest Foundation.

Astra
Yeah, they can use it in their marketing and be like, Oh, look, fine.

Louise
Yeah, use our logos splashed across the front of everything. Yeah.

Astra
I spoke to another deforestation charity recently and they were saying that actually in order to do that, that they’re not on board with it by the way. But in order to do that you have to be like sort of kind of a certified carbon offsetting charity. And if you’re not that, then you can’t do it. So so the middlemen think about what so many businesses try to surpass that and just sort of pay you off and keep you quiet.

Have you had much experience in that? Obviously you don’t have to mention any specific examples.

Louise
Yeah. Mentioning no names. Haha. No, Yeah we have yeah we get a bunch of emails of Yeah. Inappropriate businesses but to partner with those who are inquiring about like oh yeah, we really want to like, you know, make sure that we’re carbon neutral by X date by 2025 or whatever. Will you help us on that journey? Like you know, but we have quite a strict and rigorous ethical policy that we adhere to with every corporate that we entertain going into partnership with, I suppose, because yeah, we don’t want that to happen essentially.

Yeah, we don’t want to be someone’s get out of jail free card. Yeah, but yeah, we’ve definitely seen an increase and yeah, people are try it, they’ll try it on.

Astra
The what’s the like process. I guess you just vet them and sort of, I guess I guess a lot of your time to research deep down into the history of all the activities they’ve ever undertaken to see if they’ve destilled oil or chopped a tree down or worked for someone who does that kind of thing.

Louise
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It is time consuming. Time consuming. So, yeah, you know, we have various subscriptions and memberships to various sites where they sort of do a lot of the investigative work for you, which is very helpful. But then yeah, it’s about also just using your own initiative and like having a conversation with people in the company and like doing a deep dive into their policies.

And if certain policies exist, what do they actually say? Do you have evidence that policies are being implemented? And so yeah, it’s a lot of trawling through, yeah, a lot of databases, a lot of paperwork and yeah, talking a lot to to the people on the other end of that potential partnership. But you always get a sense as well.

Yeah. Yeah. If there’s a little bit of cageyness or if there’s a little bit of “ooo we don’t want to give you that information”, then that’s you know that’s usually a red flag that tells you, yeah.

Jason
Do you get all this in your own, in your own life as well Because you know, obviously a lot about this stuff, having spent a long part of your career with it and you must see so many of these messages being given out like can my mum wash the yoghurt pots and stuff like that and do, do her bit that way.

And I think even I’ve even suggested, hey, when we get a new client that’s plant a tree for that client and it can represent them and there’s, there’s things like that that feel good but don’t do anything. Yeah. Does that affects you when you’ve got people around you and how you kind of communicate that and how do you put people right so they don’t feel like ‘oh, I was only trying to help” but and, but actually keep the momentum of their interest going as they actually fix things rather than paint something green?

Louise
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think I yeah, I’ve got better at doing that over the years. Yes, that’s the best Before the Christmas discussions.

Jason
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Louise
But yeah, I think it’s just the softly softly approach isn’t it. Just like oh that’s, that’s really good. Did you know. Actually it might be better to do it this way. This is how I do it. Or, or just, you know, creating an enemy of the actual like more of an enemy of this is the actual enemy. Like, you know, this is a distraction technique from Shell or BP or whatever.

They want you to do this so you don’t look at them like the carbon footprint calculator that BP, the people who came up with it, just to be like, no, this is your problem. This is your individual problem. Actually, we’re fine. We haven’t done anything yet.

Astra
I think before we stray too deep, Jason do you want to wrap up this section with our normal questions?

Jason
Yeah, yeah.

Astra
Next, we have a name to this section, but we always ask these questions to every podcast.

Jason
So next the next segment is sponsored by Shell, and it’s a no. So just these are questions we ask everyone and it’s just to get an idea of what the different industries feel about these standardised questions and we just use it a bit market research and so in your experience, what do you see as the most effective marketing channel?

And it’s kind of four to choose from each towards them in terms of what you’ve seen been most effective. So there’s pay per click, Google ads, search advertising, social media. So that’s organic and paid advertising, email marketing and then search engine search engine optimisation, SEO. What’s what’s the most effective you?

Louise
I would say for us social media and SEO at the top. And then next up in that would be the Google Google ads and then at the bottom, email not the you know, I don’t think it’s useful and we definitely still do use it. It’s just yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s more and more difficult to get people to open that email.

So yeah. Whereas social media is so effective because it’s just there in front of your face, like if you’re on the app, then it’s going to come up. Yeah, if you’re targeted as well with sponsored ads, then it’s, it’s going to come up in your face. Yeah, yeah. You know, sort of a bit harder to get people to, to, to open and to, to, to click through and take action from that.

Yes. That’s how I’d rank them.

Jason
Yeah. I so, yeah. So hard to get people’s attention for email nowadays, especially with them in work mode or I don’t know, check in their council tax mode. It’s not like it’s really hard to get them out of it. And then on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you in your current approach for marketing and kind of getting your message out there and how would you improve it as well?

Louise
Yeah, that’s a good question. And I’m going to say I’m going to go in the middle and I’m going to say five, not because I think that we are bad at it but because there’s so much more room for growth. So yeah we’re growing as a charity, so there’s more resource that we’re going to be able to put behind our marketing and our communications as we grow.

And I think obviously it’s is an investment, isn’t it? And people’s time and and money, yeah, you’ve got to speculate to accumulate, as they say. So yeah, I think what we’ve got so far is a really dedicated, loyal bunch of supporters who love what we do and who are always 100% backing us and spreading our message as well.

But there’s a huge swathe of people and organisations that we can still yet to reach and we’re working towards that. So I think, yeah, we’re in the middle, we’re in the middle. There’s a lot to be done.

Jason
It’s a good attitude to have as well that there’s, there’s more coming and there’s always more budget as well as is always helpful is yeah.

Astra
I suppose in your industry is about as long as the deforestation happening then it’s not good enough kind of thing, you kind of need to be not make sure its not happening. And then you can be like “my work here is done”

Louise
The aim is to put ourselves out of business. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great.

 

Astra
So we’re ready for the second segment. Jason will be playing along with you Louise, he doesn’t know the answers. We have called this bit Washing Out The Green. Which obviously touches on green washing. I will give you a slogan from a company’s sustainability or green campaign. And then I will give you a selection of answers and you’re going to guess which, which company came up with that.

And then, as you guessed them, I will also tell you why it’s a load of rubbish. So first up, we’ve got the campaign slogan was Nature or Nothing. And so it’s a car company. Was it Tesla, Hyundai or Mercedes-Benz?

Louise
I’m going to go with Tesla.

Astra
What do you think Jason?

Jason
Yeah, Hyundai are more self-absorbed. It’s always like, how do you say the word Hyundai and I have seen that ad recently. So I think Tesla.

Astra
Yeah, well get that grandiose statement may have linked you with Elon Musk, but it was actually Mercedes Benz. And the reason that that campaign was kind of called out for green washing was because at the time when they were promoting their TV advert that said nature or nothing all over the world, they were actually involved in a fake emissions scandle.

So they swiftly pulled that one look at it. Yeah. So, nil-nil on that one. Second up which company used the phrase fortune favours the frugal to promote its range of reusable products. Was it Marks and Spencers IKEA or Sainsbury’s.

Louise
It sounds like an IKEA phrase.

Jason
Yeah. I don’t see Marks and Spencers using alliteration like that. I just. They’re more like feelgood. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Louise
And there is an audience where I don’t think they’d encourage them to be frugal. Yeah.

Astra
Right.

Jason
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I’m going to go of IKEA as well.

Astra
You are both correct. It was IKEA, but the campaign was closed down because at the time they were almost the biggest consumer of commercial wood in the world, which has doubled in the last decade. And they have been supposedly illegally logging for a lot of it too.

Jason
So supposedly.

Astra
Allegedly, Allegedly, Yeah. No, no.

Louise
No accusations being.

Astra
Allegedly, they have been illegally logging from unsustainable forests. There you go.

Jason
Okay.

Astra
Quite depressing. This is supposed to be fun. You just have a laugh. But essentially things are going well. They are the only three more to go guys will get there. This one might be quite like this. Britain’s lowest emission airline to use that tagline was it British Airways EasyJet or Ryanair?

Jason
I can see their campaign. I’m pretty sure it’s it’s it might be Ryanair. I think it might. No, it’s no, it’s not. It’s British Airways. I think it’s British Airways.

Astra
What do you think Louise?

Louise
I was I was going to I was going to say British Airways as well.

Astra
It was actually Ryanair. And apparently the Advertising Standards Authority said that this is entirely made up.

Louise
I’m not surprised

Astra
Done their research into any kind of they just made this one was listed. But let’s just say that put it on the telly, isn’t it?

Jason
Because they they do the most short haul flights. They would probably say now based on like a percentage, I don’t know. Thats annoying I almost got that point.

Louise
And maybe because, you know, the planes will always weigh less because they charge you for baggage. So inside.

Astra
Yeah I just think whenever anything controversial said that’s an airline is always Ryanair I think that’s my logic yeah.

Louise
Yeah but they still get away with it because you know 20 quid to Berlin you can’t argue with that.

Jason
Well yeah their TikTok is literally them laughing at people having bad customer service experiences aren’t they. They have, they have posts where they’re like well you got it cheap. They’re like their baggage hasn’t arrived at the same destination and the literally laughing at the customers and they still just get away with it. I mean, like I’ve booked them to go away next week, so it still happens.

Astra
Yeah. And you’ll stand in that queue and you’ll you’ll be like, it’s just awful isn’t it. But you’ll Yeah, you’ll go back so yeah, it’s not a very keeping with the tone of this podcast guys.

Louise
Train don’t fly

Astra
Yeah. So which drinks company is the slogan Break free from plastic. Was it Coca-Cola, Innocent Smoothies or Schweppes?

Louise
I think I know this. I think it was Coca-Cola.

Astra
What do you think, Jason?

Jason
I mean, that makes sense because the can get go for Schweppes to be. So I’ve got a different answer. And because they’re the only ones that they can sneak innocent don’t do cans as far as I’m aware. Maybe they did, but.

Astra
I like your logic. It’s actually a trick question because they’re all owned by Coca-Cola, who’s the biggest consumer of plastic in the world.

Jason
But it was. Was it under the Coca-Cola brand?

Astra
Yeah, they’re all under the of just the Coca-Cola brands, technically. So it’s example.

Jason
Louise is one up then.

Astra
I want to and then last but not least, which clothing company used the slogan created from carbon emissions to promote their recycled material clothing line.

Jason
Was the line created from carbon emissions.

Astra
Created from carbon emissions? Yeah. Was it Zara, Tu clothing, which is Sainsbury’s or River Island.

Louise
Created from carbon. That doesn’t even make sense. Now.

Astra
I don’t get.

Louise
Oh I don’t know Zara are pretty awful. Let’s go with them.

Jason
I don’t even know what it means. It’s so recycled.

Louise
They’re just trying to confuse consumers at this point.

Astra
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jason
Because I don’t know who Tu Clothing and the other two you might have thrown in because we know who they are. I’m going to go for Tu Clothing.

Astra
It was Zara, and so well done Louise, you win the segment. And the reason that that advertising campaign was because all of their recycled material, clothing line was made from polyester, which is a plastic polymer. So again.

Louise
Oh, wow. I’m not sure if i wanted to win that.

Astra
Yeah, well, I didn’t think I would expect you to know more about this statistic.

Louise
So that’s good, actually. Yeah.

Astra
Yeah, it’s good for the brand.

Louise
Yes. Protected my reputation.

Astra
So yeah, that concludes our washing out the green segment. Jason I’ll hand over to you for the third and final segment.

Jason
Okay, so we’re going to freestyle a analogy and this can be to do with marketing or it can be to do kind of what we discussed in terms of getting the message out about, you know, the whole, the whole thing, I guess even just greenwashing and how we’re trying to get a message out that is actually doing what it’s supposed to say.

So we’re going to do a random word generator, and we’ve just got to create an analogy that uses that word. And the word is it’s brilliant. So I’m going to go for that. There needs to be like a noun. I think sweet is still a descriptive can I change it to noun?

Astra
Yeah, change it to noun only. That’s what we normally do.

Jason
Okay. Word type, noun. There we go. It’s still very difficult, cousin.

Louise
The cousin.

Astra
I suppose greenwashing is the cousin of all companies these days and if they try and have a relationship with sustainability but often the best in it’s early years before people find out all of family drama between the two and then inevitably end up not talking to eachother.

Jason
Sees the.

Louise
UK making that.

Astra
Right. Maybe I’m just projecting my family drama there.

Louise
So yeah, big, big petroleum and oil companies, greenwashing is they go together like, you know, like first cousins they should. Yeah.

Astra
Yeah, I like that. Well, that is unfortunately true.

Jason
Yeah, Maybe. Maybe charities and nonprofits are like the cousins of of businesses which create so many problems in just always striving for profit that there needs to be someone something related to them that fuels those gaps that governments can’t quite fill. So occasionally they meet at Christmas and festive times and discuss things and get somewhere. But it never is.

There is a complex relationship whereby if businesses want to get involved and be seen to like the cousins, maybe they send them a text every now and then send them a birthday card. But really, do they want to sit in the same room and talk about things for that long, are theri interests aligned? I don’t know.

Astra
That’s my we don’t have great relationships with our cousins.

Jason
Yeah. Oh, I think if my cousin never hears this, I don’t think that I do see things. I was not in love.

Astra
Louise yours was definitely short, sweet and effective. I think if there were a winner for this round that you definitely would win that one aswell. So that makes you the double champion. Yeah. This podcast.

Louise
So excellent. I will go away. Yeah. Feeling triumphant. Thanks.

Astra
Well, that concludes our podcast. Thank you very much for joining us Louise, before we go, is that anything you want to say? Anything you want to plug a message that you want to get out. This is your time to add anything you think we might have missed that you want to touch on.

Louise
Yes. So, yeah, this year is going to be a big year for Rainforest Foundation, UK. Yet we’re in a lot of very exciting conversations, various funders over the world. We are launching new projects, particularly one in Kenya, well around women’s land rights and using the forest Link that I spoke earlier to monitor women’s land rights, which is now a sort of gender based project that we’ve wanted to do for for quite some time.

Yeah, So keep keep your eyes open. Our website is RainforestFoundationUK. org, where you can keep up to date with everything that’s going on with us and our social media pages. We’re on Twitter at RFUK, we’re on Instagram, Rainforest UK and we are on Facebook under the Rainforest Foundation UK. And also within the next month or two, our annual review for last year will be coming out.

So we’ll be showing that across all media channels and that’ll give you a nice, fun, colourful, lovely photo filled round up of how we did last year and what’s to come this year.

Astra
Awesome. Yeah, well, that will link to all of those things in the show notes as well so you’ve got them really easily, but thanks so much for sharing them. I feel like I’ve learnt a lot anyway and we’ve had a good old vent about greenwashing, which is really so.

Louise
Good to get it off the chest.

Astra

Thank you for joining us.

Louise
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Jason
Thank you.

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