Gordonian entrepreneurs

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO SINCE LEAVING SCHOOL?

Once I left Gordon’s in Year 13 (2015) I immediately left to do the classic travelling route through South-East Asia for 3 months just before going to University. I went to the University of Birmingham to study Biological Sciences and studied there for 4 years with 1 year studying abroad in Australia at the UNSW. In my final year at University I did my research project on the effect of marine debris on intertidal ecosystems around the UK. This was really where my plastics journey started and I became completely obsessed. I’ve always surfed and loved the ocean but could never find a way to help apart from research. After graduating I went to Singapore on an internship. I spent about two months at the internship before quitting to join Tom Peacock-Nazil (my business partner) in building out Seven Clean Seas into the ocean clean-up organisation it is today.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS?

Seven Clean Seas (SCS) is an ocean clean up organisation with the goal of removing plastic from the marine environment and working with rural / island communities to prevent plastic from entering the natural environment in the first place. Using a multi-pronged approach, SCS’s goal is building an ecosystem containing environmental plastic recovery, community level interception, river clean-up and sorting infrastructure. To this end, SCS has developed a River Plastic Recovery System, employs rural waste management teams in Indonesia, is setting up a MRF and is developing an innovative recycling technology to decentralise the current system and complete the ecosystem. All activity is funded by the world’s first Ocean Plastic Offsetting solution and our supporting corporate partners, helping responsible companies first reduce, then offset their necessary plastic footprint against ocean plastic. The strength of this solution is that it provides a mandate to clean the ocean, funding to develop waste management infrastructure whilst providing value to the client.

HOW AND WHEN DID YOU GET THE IDEA?

Tom began SCS as a small beach clean-up community operating in Singapore with an idea to scale. I joined as co-founder in 2019 as we began to build this out. We quickly noticed a place in the market for our plastic offsetting solution. With Extended Producer Responsibility schemes, recycling infrastructure and waste management solutions failing at most levels globally it was apparent we had found a solution to fund waste management in regions where it doesn’t usually make sense.

WHAT ARE YOUR AIMS/GOALS FOR YOUR COMPANY?

Tom and I have set the business some ambitious goals! Our first is to be operating in the seven worst plastic polluting countries in the world, we are already operating in Indonesia, Malaysia and currently entering Vietnam whilst being HQ’d in Singapore! The second is to remove 10,000,000 kilos of plastic from the marine environment by 2025. I believe with our solutions and collective effort from our partners this is more than possible.

TO WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE YOUR SUCCESS?

I would always say a network is key to helping you advance in this area as well as speaking to everyone you can. The more you speak to people in the industry you want to be in the more experience you gather. Although, to be honest, a huge amount of STRESS and hard work goes along with these two......

FINALLY, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUR 16 YEAR-OLD SELF?

I will keep this simple as I could waffle on about this forever! 1. If you want to start something but don’t think you’re ready. You’ll never be ready so just do it anyway. 2. Experience as much as you can and say yes to everything, the more you try the more you can say ‘I don’t actually like this’. 3. Have as much fun as possible, take the pressure off yourself, you do not need to know what you want to do, just try everything. You’ve got time.