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Episode:
48
How Is a Gin Company Going to Change the World? With Dr. Jo Davy and Dr. Helen Gower
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What do marine biology, menopause, and gin have in common? More than you might think!
In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Jo Davy and Dr. Helen Gower – two marine biologists turned gin distillers and ethical entrepreneurs. They met in a university lab studying marine ecosystems and coral diseases, spent decades working in science and public health, and then went on to start a gin company – but not your typical one. Unlike the bearded, serious craft distillers that dominate the industry with glass bottles (you know how I feel about that), Jo and Helen bring something different. A science-and-ethics-first approach to creating something delicious for an underserved, often invisible group of consumers. And they’re having fun doing it.
I'm your host, Brianne West—an environmentalist and entrepreneur trying to get you as excited about our planet as I am. I'm all about creating a scientific approach to making the world a better place—without the judgement—and making it fun. And of course, we’ll be chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we share our planet with. So if you’re looking to navigate through everything green—or not so green—you’ve come to the right place.
Find us online:
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannemwest/
Wanna know more about Incrediballs?
www.incrediballs.com
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Transcript
Welcome to the pod, ladies. Thank you so much for joining me.
Oh, thanks for having us.
Yeah, thanks very much. Very excited to be here.
So, who are you and what do you do?
Helen, after you.
Oh, thanks. Well, I’m mother of the eldest, so I should go first.
You should, yeah.
Respect your elders.
Always.
We are the founders of a gin company—Wellington-based—but more importantly, we’re friends of 30-something years who both emigrated to New Zealand and decided that we could change the world by making fabulous gin.
Yep, so we've got a history in environmental science. We’re both marine biologists. We met at university in our first lab and became very good friends quite quickly.
So, Jo is from Cornwall, I’m from Guernsey, and we met in Swansea in Wales. And we've got, like I said, a really environmental history. When we started our gin company, we realised that the alternatives for bottles were quite shocking.
Okay, tell me more—because obviously, I’ve done a big thing about glass bottles and how it's all BS. Everyone thinks it’s this wonderful, world-saving thing, but it is in fact not.
No, and we would wholeheartedly agree with you on that one.
So, what’s wrong with bottles?
Well, the production of bottles requires an enormous amount of energy and an enormous amount of water. The recycling of glass bottles requires an enormous amount of energy and water.
If it happens.
If it even happens—which, most likely, it doesn’t. And shipping heavy glass bottles—empty bottles and full bottles—around the globe doesn’t really help the environment either. So, we realised that we had an opportunity to do something different, to stir things up a bit, and to try and make people see that there are alternatives that are better for the environment.
So when we started, we were all excited with our delicious gin, and we thought: What will our bottles look like? What designs will they have? It was very exciting. And then we were absolutely shocked when we realised that if we wanted a really good quality—at that time, anyway—glass bottle, it would almost certainly have to come from France or Spain.
Wow, really?
Yeah, of course. That massive shipping carbon footprint was something that we just couldn’t get our heads around.
It’s so inefficient.
Yes, totally. We were really shocked. An awful lot of glass bottles for spirits in New Zealand do come from quite far afield. It is getting a bit better, and there are more options closer to home, but as Helen said before, glass is really one of the worst things for the planet. And as you said before, Brianne, it’s brilliant PR. And of course, it’s sparkly and clear—but it breaks, it’s super heavy.
So we decided to go for a different option.
Okay, we’re going to talk about the different option shortly—because there are a few different options burbling around.
So, full disclosure, I work with the Gin Ladies—my team, my business company. I’m not going to tell you what the name of it is because I’m going to be mysterious and also because I don’t love the name.
We will get into names.
We will get into names. That has been an exciting journey, hasn’t it?
Hell yeah.
Yeah, good times.
What I was going to ask, before we get into that actually, is: Why do you even care about the environment? What are your backgrounds? Because you’re both doctors—and I don’t mean doctors in terms of, like, they’ll stick a thermometer up your bottom.
Do we do that? Or do we do that to dogs?
Yeah, dogs sometimes do that.
Yeah? Well, look—no judgement. We all like what we like.
But what led you to this place? What have you spent the last however many years you’ve been in the professional environment doing? (I’m not going to guess how many years it is.)
So, my PhD was on viral diseases of corals. I did my fieldwork up on the Great Barrier Reef, at Heron Island Research Station.
Beautiful.
Yeah. I would very much like to go back before the reef’s completely trashed.
So, my PhD was about viral diseases, as I said. What I found was that corals get basically cold sores—a version of the herpes virus.
I know!
We knew!
How did you know that? How have we been friends this long and you didn’t know what my PhD was about?
I didn’t know it was about cold sores.
Okay, that’s the tagline for my PhD: Corals get cold sores.
Brilliant.
And warming water makes it worse. So, we have a marine biology background as well—that’s why my PhD was marine. But yeah, seeing that corals getting cold sores was being exacerbated by warming seas was one of the big things for me.
I’m also married to a marine biologist who’s looking at the effects of ocean acidification and coral bleaching. So, I sort of live and breathe the way that humans are trashing the marine environment, and I would like to see if there’s anything we can do to lessen that.
So there’s a few things—but, you know, governments.
And my background is, I moved from marine biology into health. So, I’ve been working in the public health and cancer screening space for a long time. One of the main determinants of health is the environment. It’s a keystone of having a healthy population.
I love the marine environment too. My obsession is whales. And so, just like Jo, it’s all wrapped up. It’s all the same stuff. For humans to be healthy, we need a healthy planet.
No-brainer.
So yeah, we are very much motivated by that.
And no one ever considers the environment when they talk about health, really, do they? But it is the single most impactful way to talk about saving the environment—linking it back to human health—because inherently, we’re all selfish, I guess.
Great. How is a gin company going to save the world?
Well, our gin is delicious, and that’s the most important thing to know about our gin—except it’s also trying to do something that makes the world a tiny bit better.
Now, you can argue that alcohol is a bad thing. But if people are going to drink alcohol—and it’s probably going nowhere anytime soon—why not choose one that has made the world a little bit better?
We are really determined to make ethics and sustainability a key part of our company. That means all our suppliers. It won’t be perfect—because no one can be perfect—but we’ll do our best to choose the best we can at the time. And we’ll try to make sure that their suppliers are doing the best they can, and there will be a trickle-down effect. We’ve already seen a little bit of that.
So, we think if someone swaps a gin they might currently purchase regularly—one that might actually be damaging the planet, whether by being in glass or having dubious environmental, ethical, or social impacts—for a kinder gin, on a big scale, that could move the needle quite a lot.
And getting people to think like that.
And accepting—after millennia of only using glass—that changes in packaging for lots of products are slowly coming to fruition. Spirits are no different. There’s no reason for some spirits to be in glass. Carbonated drinks—okay, that could be different—but for gin, the type that we make, there is no reason for it to be in glass. So, we’re not.
It’s prestige, isn’t it?
Yes.
Glass bottles, the fancy shapes, the beautiful colours—they look spectacular.
It’s a social signalling thing.
Yes, very much so.
I had an interesting conversation with someone who was very, very into gin. It was at a gin tasting—a special event we went to. He tried our gin, and then he said to me, “I’ve got a big problem.”
He was properly cross.
He was properly cross. He said, “This gin is the best gin I’ve had in a very long time, but I will not buy it because it’s not in a glass bottle.”
Okay, interesting.
He’s very few and far between—we don’t have a lot of those—but we do have people who still think like that. And that was so odd to me.
So, what did you say?
In my head, I said some things.
And then your inner voice managed to, like, get out of there.
God, how boring.
There they are!
I explained the carbon footprint, and I did all the science at him.
It didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter. But, you know, it made me feel better.
Yeah, look, at the end of the day, you’re not for everybody—and you shouldn’t be.
No, no.
Which brings me to a nice question. One of the reasons I was so keen to work with you—other than the fact that it’s you two—is where your brand is, where you want it to evolve to be, and who she is.
I think we can fairly say that your brand is a she.
Oh, most definitely.
And there is a reason we’re not saying the name. We’re not being deliberately irritating, but we’re—what are we calling it? The Unnamed Gin Project for now?
Yeah.
We’re in a transitional phase.
Oh, very corporate. Gross. Get out.
The gin that shall not be named.
Because we do love Harry Potter.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. All right.
So, who is your brand, in a nutshell?
She’s a bolshie woman.
She’s finally found her voice.
After years of thinking these things, but being too scared to say them, and being too afraid to challenge with facts and science—because she loves science—she’s pushing back.
She’s reclaiming her space, too.
Because—did you know that women were the original distillers?
No!
So, there’s this long history of women holding the knowledge around how to distil, what botanicals to use. That knowledge was basically taken away from them in the 1700s—when men, in Europe, started forming guilds.
So, our brand is proudly reclaiming her place.
And yeah, pushing back.
And a bit bolshie.
Yeah.
Or you could just say “has an opinion”, which, you know, historically, women were not allowed to have.
True.
And back in the day, these women distillers were often a bit older.
They had, potentially, the word crone attached to them.
Disproportionately burned at the stake as well.
Along with midwives.
Midwives?
Yes—because they held medicinal knowledge.
They understood how plants could be used in medicine, and the men didn’t hold that knowledge.
So midwives, distillers, brewers—they were the ones that…
This is also true for beer, I was reading.
Yeah, exactly.
So, men formed guilds. You couldn’t distil unless you were in a guild.
And you couldn’t be in a guild if you were a woman.
Oh yeah, a problem for the women.
So, Helen and I have recently had a significant birthday.
We’re just 1050.
And that’s really changed our mindset.
So we are in that transitional phase—along with our business—where we are older and we've had to make some changes.
We've had to think of ourselves in a different way.
We’ve realised that people our age suddenly become invisible.
And if you stand up for yourself, that can be annoying and irritating—and people don’t like that.
So we’ve had to reassess how we are in the world.
And that means standing up for ourselves, being proud to be older women, and talking about the menopause—which no one seems to want to do.
That’s not true—people are starting to now.
Much more so.
Helen, do you want to explain why gin and menopause go so well together?
I would love to.
Oh—is it science?
It is science.
It involves the word congener, and because I can pronounce it, I’ll do it my way.
So, as women age—and particularly as they become peri- or menopausal—it becomes harder for their liver to process a substance found particularly in red wine and dark spirits.
They're called congeners.
And just the inefficiency of your liver at processing them is what tends to lead to you feeling muzzy, hungover-y, not great the day after you might have had a glass or two—or three—of those drinks.
But clear spirits, like gin, are easier for the liver to process.
So, we don’t advocate drinking excessively—of course, moderation is key—which is also why our gin is so flavourful.
Because then you can just have one great gin, enjoy your evening, and be done.
But it means that women of a certain age—of which we are two—well, I’ve already been through menopause, and Helen’s on that fun journey right now…
It’s actually easier for us to process gin than it is wine.
I conducted an experiment last night—on purpose—because we were coming on the podcast.
I drank a very large glass of rosé and a glass of red wine—and I haven’t drunk red wine in about two years.
I do not feel great.
I know—you can’t tell.
I know you can’t tell—because look at me.
No, you look fabulous.
But I actually have a tight head, and I don’t… yeah.
I know I drank wine last night.
I just want to put that out there—that in the interest of being able to bring some evidence to the podcast, I subjected myself to rosé and red wine last night.
Study of one.
Yeah, and the same for me.
I used to live in Guernsey, which is very close to France, and it was very common for people to have a glass of wine every day.
And I did—for a very long time.
I would drink a glass of red wine with my…
Bloody lush.
Yeah.
When I started cooking, I would start my glass of red wine, and I would finish it with my dinner.
And I did that for a very long time.
And then, suddenly, I realised that I just couldn’t sleep properly.
And I was getting this hangover, which I would never have got from a smallish glass of wine.
And I started researching.
And I realised what was happening.
I was pretty upset.
It was a habit—probably not a habit I should have had, drinking a unit every day—but that’s what I was doing.
And Jo, at this point, was quite into gin.
Started Gin Club.
Yeah, she was quite into gin.
I thought gin was disgusting—because I’d had, well, I won’t say the name, but…
Crappy gin.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, we won’t say the name—that doesn’t quite rhyme with something else—but that’s like saying the name, and that’s rude.
But yeah—some gin that was very common many decades ago.
And Jo’s Gin Club became a thing.
I just went there because there were fun ladies to be social with.
But I suddenly started realising that actually, really good gin was really nice.
And then I didn’t like that I knew…
That I could drink a gin and not feel bad the next day.
And that—that was quite an eye-opener for me.
And that led us to our founders' story, I guess.
Yeah, yeah.
So, we didn’t go down the route of your standard distiller.
We’re both scientists, as we’ve said.
We were in a pub between lockdowns in Wellington, and there was a gin event there.
And there was a very tiny still in the corner.
And people were distilling.
And we snooped around a bit, looked at each other, and we had the same idea—which was:
"We can do that."
We both love a laboratory.
Oh, no.
We love conical beakers.
Laboratory glassware.
Yes.
Measuring cylinders are, you know, a thing of beauty.
Dear lord.
And so, we convinced my long-suffering husband to give us a section of our—stroke—his garage.
It was a section that was leaking, wasn’t it?
It was.
Yeah, quite magnificently.
Like, literally pouring down the inside.
Oh no.
Yeah.
And we spent…
Well, rainwater—good selling point.
I mean…
Apparently not, actually.
No, we know that now, don’t we?
We do, yeah.
And we’ve spent a lot of time together over the years, Joanne.
But I would say that was some of our funnest times ever—learning to distil, wasn’t it?
Yeah, before we discovered that we needed a vapour monitor, and that fairy lights were probably not regulation.
No, but we were okay—because we weren’t actually commercial at that point.
So, one of the really helpful things about New Zealand is that they allow you to distil for your own consumption at home with no licence.
We’re the only place in the world, hey?
South Africa.
Right, yeah.
So, they’re surprisingly rare.
Yeah, oh absolutely.
Certainly not in the UK.
You can’t give any of that gin to anyone else.
The understanding being—if you’ve done something wrong…
It’s just you and me that we poison.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know—full disclosure—we didn’t go away and do some fancy-schmancy courses.
We just looked at YouTube.
We read some books.
Yeah.
I bought myself cosmetic chemistry research books.
Yeah, there you go.
I need to go and do courses.
Yeah, and trial and error—and a lot of science and the scientific method.
We decided that if we were going to make gin, we were going to do it very efficiently.
Oh yes, I’ve just taken a medicine.
I should have heard that you made bread.
The first thing we did was buy our signature glasses.
Is that glasses as in the thing you drink out of?
No, no—to drink out of.
Okay.
But the second thing we did was buy a hardback laboratory book.
Yeah.
Good order of priorities.
Yeah, absolutely.
And every time—every single distillation we’ve run—is properly logged.
All our information is detailed, and it’s magnificent.
Because…
Including the one where we accidentally made pumpernickel.
What?
Yeah, that’s a whole other story.
That is a whole other story.
We’ll do a different podcast episode about how not to make bread in a still.
Oh, my God.
We were cleaning our still, listeners.
We were cleaning it.
We don’t make gin that has bread in it.
We do make gin with biscuits.
We do.
We did.
Well, we did.
Yeah.
But we ended up making some very, very delicious gin.
And some very disgusting gin.
But we did realise that we were actually quite good at it, weren’t we?
No, we were very good at it.
Owning this.
We very quickly developed some very, very good recipes—including some colour-changing gins, which are fun.
And there’s just not enough fun in gin.
There’s far too much hairy seriousness.
So, we’re bringing the non-hairy fun.
We are.
You say hairy—I’ve heard you refer to this before.
Would you like to explain to the listeners what you mean by hairy?
Oh, an awful lot of craft beer and distillery types are hairy men.
And I’m sure that the majority of them are very nice, but there is this predominance of beardy seriousness.
There is very much a demographic in it that you two don’t fit into.
And I know that you’ve found that a little… trying.
Because I want to talk about—
It can be.
Yeah, I want to talk about some of the challenges.
Because you’re bringing together this love for science, this desire to protect the environment for health reasons, and also the health aspect—and tying it together with a brand that is for women like you.
Who are vastly underserved by almost every brand.
We’re invisible.
Invisible, that’s right.
And you’re arguably one of the highest-income demographics—or certainly not far off.
So, they’re all missing a trick.
It’s very strange.
I know the challenges you’ve been through, because it’s been fun.
It has been fun.
What has it been like trying to start a business that is not money at all costs?
Every decision we make, we try and make it with a sustainable lens.
And how’s that going?
It’s tricky.
But what we’ve learned is that being black and white does not work.
No.
As long as you’re—as I call it—moving the needle.
Trying to do something even a tiny bit better than it was before.
Things build up.
And you get a cascade.
We find this just generally—people panic because they’re not being eco enough.
Or sustainable enough.
Or green enough.
You can never be.
You can’t be a company that isn’t profitable—otherwise, we’re not going to make any change in the world.
Exactly.
And so, it’s balancing those things.
And it’s convincing people that we make our own gin.
Which—up until, well, currently—we still do make our own gin.
There was an interesting incident for you at the beginning, where you went into a store to show them our bottle and get some feedback on it before we launched.
And the person admired the bottle, admired the branding, the name…
And then asked you who made your gin.
And you said, "Well, we make it in Breakaway."
And he—it was a literal Tom and Jerry comedy jaw-drop moment.
Yeah, because he couldn’t believe that we made it.
We’ve had that quite a lot.
When we go to festivals, because we have an entirely female crew—we call them gin fairies—we have people that come and…
You can see them looking to see where the man is on the stall.
And then our fairies will say, "Oh, these are the ladies that founded the company and make the gin."
And again, you get a lot of sort of—
They try to disguise it sometimes.
But there’s always some sort of twitch that gives it away—that they can’t quite believe that it’s us that makes it.
Yeah, we’ve got some lovely fellow female distillers in New Zealand.
There’s a small amount, and it’s quite funny—one of them, she is on her stall with her husband sometimes.
And there’s 100% the assumption that he is the distiller, and she is the helper.
Which is not the case.
Yeah, how many times have I walked into a meeting with my male colleague, and they’re like:
"Oh, you’re the assistant."
I’m the CEO, bitch.
(To quote Mark Zuckerberg.)
But go into that…
And so, we don’t look right.
We are women.
We are older women.
We haven’t come from a hospo background or a brewing background.
We’re a bit silly.
Yeah.
We like colour.
We like fun.
And we like just saying it like it is.
And—we’re about to start a video series of us learning to skip.
We are.
Yeah.
Lippy skippers.
Yeah.
That’s a brilliant idea.
I want to ask you about your bottle, but I also want to talk about Lippy Skippers.
But we’ll hopefully get to that in the end.
If not—you know what? I’ll have to come back for episode two.
Exactly.
So, your bottle.
You’ve talked a lot about glass bottles—but we haven’t actually talked about what it is you use currently, and what you’re thinking about moving to.
Well, I’ll talk about current, and you can do future.
Okay.
So, we use a recycled paperboard bottle that has a laminate liner.
Currently, the type we have is a mixed laminate—it’s now going to be a mono PET.
But yes, a plastic liner—basically boxed wine, but now in a wine bottle shape.
It was invented by a company in the UK called Frugalpac.
We were the first to bring it to market in Australasia.
So, it’s very new.
But to all intents and purposes, it’s a paperboard bottle with a goon bag.
Which is a phrase I had never heard before.
Very Australian.
Very Australian.
And neither do I like it.
No, it’s not right.
So, when made locally to where it’s being used, it has a carbon footprint that’s six times lower than an equivalent glass bottle.
It takes four times less water to produce it.
And it’s five times lighter than a glass bottle.
So—it’s unbreakable, it’s lighter, and you can recycle the outer.
You do have to separate the two parts.
And in New Zealand, you can put the liner into soft plastic recycling.
So, we knew when we started out that it was a better option, but we said right from the start that we would only use that bottle until such time as we were able to move to an even better one.
Progress, not perfection.
Absolutely.
Exactly what you’ve been saying.
Okay.
And now, you’ve found a better solution?
Now, we have found a better solution—and we’re working on it.
That is—drum roll?
Drum roll!
So, recently, bottles made of aluminium that are made from 100% post-consumer recycled aluminium have come onto the market.
They’re very, very new.
They’re actually quite hard to source.
And we’re all working together currently.
Talk about challenges.
That would be one.
Yeah, we’re currently trying to source these bottles.
And there are lots of additional benefits.
It looks like they’re even lighter.
There’s obviously no plastic.
Virgin aluminium is one of the worst things for the planet—because, obviously, it’s mined.
But recycled aluminium is one of the best.
It gets recycled a lot.
And there’s enough of it.
It’s got a silly frat suit around the wheel.
I don’t even know what that means.
There’s apparently enough aluminium already in the world that’s been mined.
And because it’s infinitely recyclable—why dig out more?
Use what we have.
So that’s really exciting.
You’re so restrained.
You’re literally restrained.
But we are very excited about the bottle.
Yes.
Helen is normally this well-behaved.
She’s really toning it down.
She’s got her telephone voice on.
And she’s been really well-behaved.
But when we realised that we can move to 100% PCR—albeit, we still have some challenges actually bringing it to market…
You’re a bit further forward than you were, though.
We are.
Then we will be doing happy skipping.
Look, there’s a link.
We mean happy skipping.
Yeah.
And without question, aluminium bottles are light years better than every other alternative.
Recycled aluminium.
Yes.
And even 50% recycled aluminium bottles are better.
Yeah, yeah.
For sure.
So that’s exciting.
Are there any sort of downsides with the consumer?
Not that I can see.
Other than the fact it doesn’t look as premium?
I think it might do.
I think it would—it can be shiny, there’ll be beautiful colours on there…
The only downside is what we currently have—which is, you can’t see the colour of the gin in the bottle.
Or how much is left—although it’s a lot easier to tell with an aluminium bottle than it is with ours, because the bag in the current bottle makes it hard to tell.
Yeah.
But yeah.
So, an issue we’ve had so far—and it’s been quite a big one—is people have been picking up our bottles off the shelf thinking they weren’t full.
Because they’re so much lighter.
So, our current bottles, in some cases, are about a kilo lighter than a normal gin bottle.
So, people pick it up and think, "Oh, there’s been an error here."
And we’ve had to have little signs on the shelf to say:
"Don’t be fooled, we are full."
And that will be the same with the aluminium bottle.
But people just get used to it.
It’s like corks and screw-top wine, right?
People just got used to it.
It’s fine.
Eventually.
Humans are slow to accept change, but we think they can.
And actually, the aluminium bottle’s got the reuse potential that the current one does not have.
Yes.
So that’s another upside.
And because a lot of our gins are coloured, the pigments don’t degrade as much, because they’re not being exposed to sunlight.
So, there’s another upside.
There are more upsides than there are downsides.
You can put it in the fridge.
Or in your freezer.
Yeah.
It’s just different.
And we know humans are a bit rubbish when it comes to different.
Yeah, people are slow to change behaviours.
But when you give them an alternative that’s just as good—if not better—change can be accepted remarkably quickly.
And it doesn’t sound like there’s too many downsides.
No.
No, there isn’t.
No.
It’s actually—yeah, you’re right—it’s really, really exciting.
We are hoping that people will like delicious gin in a beautiful bottle.
And the fact that it’s got a much better carbon footprint all around is a bonus.
We know that not everyone will buy because of a sustainable aspect to a product.
That’s irrelevant.
Our gin is fantastic.
You buy it because it tastes bloody brilliant.
And it has this side effect.
Side effect.
And you’re also selling it to a demographic we’ve already determined is very underserved.
Very undervalued.
And that’s a real shame.
I have two final questions for you.
One, you are currently drinking a glass of Incrediballs.
(Slightly terrifying asking proper tasters what they feel about it.)
So, what are we rating?
What have we got?
So, I’m drinking the grapefruit.
(Which is the worst flavour, I’ve got to be honest.)
It’s not.
It’s not.
It’s not too sweet.
So, I prefer not too sweet.
It’s lovely.
It is very hot today, and sometimes, warm drinks—not so great.
I think it’s lovely.
And I know that it will pair really, really well with one of our gins.
All right.
And I had pear, which is one of my absolute all-time favourites—and it did not disappoint.
So, I put five balls in here, because I like a really strong, punchy drink.
And it’s blooming lovely.
Blooming lovely.
Yep, cheers.
They had to say that.
I paid them.
Okay, final question.
This is the question I ask everybody.
So if you’ve prepared in advance, I’ll know by how quickly you answer.
If you were Supreme Overlord, you each get 30 seconds.
Because people will answer this question, and then they explain their answer—because they think I’m judging them.
I only judge people like…
"You should buy my stuff, right?"
That’s… that’s not a great answer.
But if that’s your answer, then I will—that’s good.
You go for it.
You are Supreme World Overlord.
You had the power to do anything.
And you want to make the world a better place with your first move.
What would it be?
I’m vacuuming all the plastic out of all of the bodies of water on the planet.
Yeah, okay.
I probably should have put within physical reality.
But it is, Ocean Cleanup’s doing it.
Yeah, Ocean Cleanup is doing it.
Some sort of variation that’s better.
Okay.
Well, they’re getting a bit.
They’re getting the big bits.
I feel like turning the tap off is the better option.
But I think we need to pull it out too.
Totally.
You said first.
Sorry, sorry.
Is that second?
Yes.
Okay.
And for me, I would find a really delicious substitute for fish that people can still eat.
And I would ban fishing for like 20 years—to let all the stocks come back.
And then, people might be so delighted with the substitute of fish that they might not eat fish anymore.
Are they doing that, ground fish?
I don’t know.
They must be.
But you can eat some on the summer—working on it.
But yeah, we just need to leave the sea alone for 10 years, maybe even five years, who knows?
But 10 years, 20 years—and then all that beauty would just come back.
God, can you tell we’ve got a marine biology background?
If you set aside 30% of the ocean, right, and it doesn’t even necessarily have to be 30% of the productive zones,
Models upon models upon models show you that you would still be able to pull enough fish to feed the people who depend on it for protein.
Which is, what, 2.2 billion people or something?
Yeah.
You’d still be able to feed them.
I do wish people would make better choices when it comes to seafood—but it’s a really unpopular topic.
And there you go.
I hope you learned something and realised that being green isn’t about everything in your pantry matching with those silly glass jars—or living in a commune.
If that’s your jam, fabulous.
But sustainability at its heart is just using what you need.
If you enjoyed this episode, please don’t keep it to yourself—and feel free to drop me a rating and hit the subscribe button.
Kia ora!
And I’ll see you next week.
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