Transcript of podcast episode, with Ben Moody
Podcast episode length: 38:15
Cate: Welcome everybody to Career Talk. My name is Cate Linforth. I'm the International Employer Liaison Officer here at Careers Network. And we are so excited because this is a special episode. We're really excited because we have a guest and a co-host today. So today we're very lucky to be joined by Ben Moody from Seven Clean Seas. And then we're also very excited because we have a co-host in Bob Lee from B-Enterprising here at Careers Network. So thanks both for joining us. And I think just quickly, Ben, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, what, what, where you're from, what you studied at uni and kind of what you're up to now?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. So, Cate, thanks so much for having me today. And Bob, it's great to be co-hosting. That's a very brief summary of me.
Cate: Fantastic. Thank you. And then, Bob, do you just want to tell us a little bit about.
Bob: Yeah, so I'm Bob and I work for the B-Enterprising team, which is part of the Careers Network family. So it's like it's part of lot of that. It's a really exciting role. We in its simplest form, we help students and graduates of the University of Birmingham develop entrepreneurial skills and also enterprise skills too. So we have lots of tools to help people actually go ahead and do that. But it's not all about just starting something. We also help people to develop the entrepreneurial mindset, to help with their CV in the future, to get that graduate job. So it's helping everyone because everyone has that same entrepreneurial mindset within and it's just about unlocking and unleashing that to help you in the future. So yeah, it's a really fun. I'm really excited to hear from Ben. I feel like it so much has happened in the last two years with Seven Clean Seas, so I'm really looking forward to this one.
Cate: So I guess without further ado, I kind of I really want to get to the Seven Clean Seas aspect, but I want to strip it back a little and and kind of figure out how you got there. So I want to talk a little bit about your time at Birmingham, if that's okay. And then when you were at the University of Birmingham, first of all, what did you study and did you know what you wanted to do after your studies or what did you think you wanted to do after your studies?
Ben: I will answer that in the reverse way that you asked me. Okay. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Absolutely. Actually. So I know that's probably very relatable to people listening to the podcast or just generally people at uni and then answer the question what I studied. I studied biological sciences throughout kind of studying. I loved research, I loved reading scientific papers. I loved what research did to kind of, I guess, progress society on the broader scale and the literature that that is produced from from doing research. But I knew that throughout my studies I could provide more by understanding different topics and then going into different sectors and being like, okay, well how can I apply the research that I've done and really solve this problem? So that's that kind of connects from, from the science into then what I now know is called the private sector. So I think that's definitely one takeaway from studying and then the applicability of that into the real world scenario. Now my first two years I was at Birmingham, then I did a year abroad over in Australia, had a fantastic experience and that was really where I started to focus a little bit more on marine studies. When I came back to Birmingham in my final year, I made sure that I focussed, I focussed my kind of dissertation on marine life. So I studied the effects of marine debris, so plastic pollution on the abundance and abundance and distribution of organisms across the intertidal range. So how does plastic pollution directly affects organisms on the seashore? And little did I know then that that would really, I guess, create the career path that I'm in now. And by no means I'm saying that if you do your dissertation in something, you end up in that specific job sector. It just happens to be something that I was interested in. Always love the ocean and then ended up just getting into this kind of plastic pollution world. And after studying it I realised that there was more and more literature coming out, but nothing being done in the private sector to tackle this. And then that again, that's that connection from what I studied and to being like, actually, I can solve this problem from what I'm learning in university. So I hope that kind of answers that question and studying and not really knowing what I wanted to do at university.
Cate: I think it's a really good point that so many of our students don't necessarily know what they want to do, and that's really okay. Just because you study something doesn't mean that you have to go into it. But similarly, it doesn't mean that you can't go into it as well as well. There are so many different options and I. I think what we try and focus on within Careers Network is it's about the skills that you're learning. So, so many kind of projects or research areas or so much of your studies is about skills development. And so what we're trying to do is unleash those skills so you're aware of what skills you have, but also what you can do to make them transferable, to go into certain sectors that you're interested in.
Ben: And I think just part of that - sorry to jump in - I think one important point is as you're doing that and as you're applying your skills that you're learning throughout university, your understanding what you like, if you don't like it, then you're not going to want to do it more. And when you settle on a career sector, you have to wake up at 9 a.m. every single day and do this thing right. So, you know, you need to understand what you like and what you're good at, but what you're good at tends to be what you like. So I think that's super important as well as use university as a time to figure out what you like and what you don't like so that you can be like, I'm not too keen on this sector, you know, don't go into accounting if you hate numbers.
Cate: And I think, you know, that's a really good point is that students have it's not a risk free time, but you do have a few years whilst you're at university where you can try as much as you want and there's little risk to it. So you can have internships so you can get you know, we do virtual internships now or you can do kind of some of our consultancy projects or the boot camps to try out what it would be like working in a certain sector, working with certain employers. There are lots of different things that students can do now to kind of get a little flavour for different areas and think, Oh well, I really enjoyed my time, you know, during the bootcamp working with this employer, maybe I'll continue that or maybe I'll explore that and go for an internship with them. Or you know what? Actually, I thought I wanted to go into this insert sector here, but actually I don't I don't really enjoy that. So maybe I want to focus my energy on a different area. So I think that's a really important thing for students to kind of keep in mind. And would you say that obviously there's a wide range of stuff that kind of B-Enterprising offers that can give students opportunities to try things? Would you kind of agree with that statement?
Bob: Yes, I would. I would say, particularly in the last few years, I think there's been more at the university to help people with that. So I think it's about I think what we do is well, we we do have a lot of students and also recent graduates who come to us like in the same boat. You don't actually know what they want to do in the future that they have, but they still need that opportunity. So yeah, we run lots of boot camps that do have that sort of sector part of it. So we have different employers with different sectors, you know, like for engineers as an example or maybe for liberal arts and natural science student. So we kind of try and adapt what we do and help people find their feet. Really, it's all about we might not have the answers right away, but it's all it's about helping people find their own answers and see just try stuff and just try and not be afraid to fail as well. I think that's part of it too. Try life is isn't all going to work all the time. It's going to be times when you try something you don't like it or things you kind of trip up. You know, it's about overcoming setbacks as well. So I think it's a lot about that involved to do with the entrepreneurial mindset and yeah, ultimately helping people find their way.
Cate: I think that's really important. And I think also when we look at the world today, a lot of the jobs that students will end up working in don't exist right now. And the world is changing and so much is changing kind of from a technology standpoint, but also just in terms of people's priorities are shifting as well. And people are focusing more on things that they have an ethical alignment with. And I think it's really important. What's difficult then for us as career professionals at the university to prepare students for specific jobs when the reality is, is that most people won't stay in their first job forever, and even if they do, it will evolve a lot. But also the world of work is changing massively. So I think it's better for us to focus on helping students to become resilient, but also to be able to forge their own path and decide what works for them and and and what doesn't work for them. Rather than saying, okay, you're good with numbers, you should be an accountant and you should stay in this job forever because it's just not really realistic anymore, is it? Ben, I just want to talk a little bit more about your time at university. Did you was there anything that you were involved in from a non academic standpoint? So were there any internships or societies or anything that kind of helped, helped you decide what you wanted to do or was it really that kind of year in Australia? That was the real turning point for you.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, I was part of society, so I was part of the rugby team for the first two years and then kind of after that I did some squash, but when I went off to when I went off to the year abroad in Australia, I think that was definitely, I guess the key point in being like actually I'm learning a lot about myself in in that year and in that time frame you build a sense of independence whilst yes, you have independence when you first go off the uni and you know you think you have very big shoes when you go when you first your first year and it's a whole other ball game when you take a flight somewhere else and you know there's no one to help you like you are. I mean, there is obviously always some help, but you are you are by yourself and you do learn a lot about yourself. How do you cope with making friends around the other side of the world? And I think that that really helps then be like, okay, well, what am I actually interested in? You know, once I finish uni, I'm kind of going to be in a similar situation. What do I want to do? Yeah, the year abroad was definitely a turning point. You know, my free time, obviously I spent a lot of time with friends, but during study it was, Oh, actually this module is really interesting for me because it's focussed on ocean pollution or ocean acidification. So that's where then I guess I'm interested in the ocean or interested in understanding how can I scale my ideas to solve real world problems from what I'm studying?
Cate: And tell me a little bit more about that jump from university to Seven Seas and like how did you how did you get there? Were you looking for organisations that already existed? Were you thinking, we're going to have to solve this problem ourselves? What what kind of what brought you to where you are now I guess?
Ben: That is a great question, so I'll just explain how I normally explain it. So I finished university and after university, the one thing that I was 100% certain on is that I did not want to move to London and work in a finance job. That's what I knew. Right. So, you know, we're speaking about understanding things that we don't like. I didn't want that, so I knew that. So I was like, okay, well, I was then willing to take absolutely anything to just get out of the UK and use that as a platform to then build us. So this one opportunity came from network, which is, by the way, so I know one of the most powerful things ever, ever network. This one opportunity came from came from my network. It was in Singapore, it was a food and beverage consultancy role I was going into kitchens with, and that's all I knew then. I didn't like that. That's another thing I think like. So I was I was in this internship, so I just am not there. But what I knew at that time, I was like, okay, well I'm in Singapore is a fantastic network. I was like, okay, well I'm going to start talking to people. How do I talk to people? Like, What do I like do it? Oh, well, I've just done a year of going down to the beach and cleaning up the beach and studying the beach. So I'll try and find beach cleanups. I'll go to sustainability events, I'll go to film screenings or sustainability movies. That's when I started going to corporate sustainability events and starts of events, and that was the first time I came into contact with other entrepreneurs and really the world of Start-ups. And instantly I knew, right? I'm just like, this is something where I can take what I'm learning or I can join something and jump on the bandwagon and just skyrockets it. And I think from going to those events and networking with different people, that's where I kind of drew this passion of, okay, I want to do something in climate, I want to tackle that issue. And I love Start-ups and I love building things. I was never great of sitting at desk and doing work and so building things, right. That was when I then went to a beach clean up and met the founder of Seven Seas and my business partner, Tom. So Tom and Pam originally founded Seven CS. I went down to a beach clean up. I met Tom. I explained a little bit about my background and what I was interested in. And then we went to the pub and we sat down for more, spoke about seven places. I loved what he was trying to create and the vision that it had, and I knew what I could bring as a co-founder. And then that was then how it fell into Seven Clean Seas. None of this is planned. Nothing. You can plan everything, but it will not work out. So just go with the flow. I'm just take it as it comes. Yeah.
Bob: So, Ben, I mean, that's an interesting story. So, you know, the Start-Up, in effect, was already already there. How long had it been going before you made your introduction to meet them. How long had they been working on it before you started as a co-founder?
Ben: Yeah. Good question. So Tom and Pam founded Seven Clean Seas around six months before they found they found me on the streets of Singapore. They kind of had built a really nice beach clean up community in Singapore. And Tom was still working in his other job at the time. So the brand was there. The idea of plastic credits was forming and the community of beach cleanups was being built. So, you know, beach cleanups are great and this is how we started. It's great educational platform, but you're not going to solve the problem by just doing beach cleanups with corporates once a week. And this is then what we chatted about is like, well, how, how can you take an industry like waste management and really be disruptive within it? And this was then the idea that solidified over the years. And when I first met kind of Tom, Tom and Pam. That's a great question, actually.
Cate: And can you just tell us a little bit more for those listeners who don't know kind of what you guys do as Seven Clean Seas? Obviously, we know kind of the general premise that it is about ocean clean-up and about getting rid of plastics in the ocean. But can you tell us a bit more about how you guys go about that?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. So as I said, we started out as a as a small Singapore Beach community. So the company was the company was founded in Singapore. And that's kind of that's where we built sort of initially. But really where we're at today with the organisation that we've built is Seven Clean Seas, builds ocean impacts projects and works with and works with and empowers communities to turn the tide on plastic pollution. We collect plastic at huge volumes and we make sure that as we're having the environmental impacts, we're also providing jobs to communities in locations that previously either didn't have them or were under informal work within waste management. I won't get into too much of that, but on the other side of it we kind of co-create sustainability initiatives with organisations. So we follow the methodology of measuring organisations, plastic footprints, we help them reduce their plastic footprints and then finally we help them offset that plastic by removing plastic directly from the oceans with our plastic impact projects. So we have this kind of upstream intervention where we're measuring with the consultancy, we're reducing with the consultancy, and then we're having that downstream impacts of directly removing it from the marine environment. So in a nutshell, that is what 7 Seas is and does.
Cate: And it sounds like a lot of what you do then with the consultancy side of things still must involve a lot of networking. And you mentioned that earlier, you talked a little bit about how you can't emphasise enough the importance of building your network and utilising that, if you can put it into words, just how important that has been and how vital it's been both for you personally but also for the organisation. Can you give any advice to people who maybe find networking to be awkward and challenging?
Ben: Yeah, and Bob, I know you probably have some two cents on this, definitely. But the network is network is only as powerful as the effort you want to put into it. And that power can get you your dream job. It can get you in positions where you never thought you'd see yourself. It can also accelerate your career. You can be in a job at the moment, network in another organisation within the same sector, get a get an increase or promotion into that job in the network more and go back into the same company as a as a higher up position. So you skip essentially that promotional ladder. It can put you in touch with the CEOs of massive organisations to kind of understand what they do and then be like, Well, have you got any positions where I could learn from and absorb some information? So I can't so much put it into words of how important network is, but it is definitely one of the key aids in terms of accelerating your career growth. In fact, I would I would probably put it above skill level. You can get yourself into a job by networking, but then that's obviously where the skill level comes in. Can you can you do the can you actually do the job? I hopefully that summarises networking and I guess a sure way.
Bob: I agree. I think I think network as a word actually sometimes is feared by people they feel that it's they said it's awkward thing and it has to be sort of forced. But I think it's like you say, is the act of mingling with people and finding the right connections. It's more about and I can sometimes be accidental and it doesn't have to be this sort of formal setup. It can be like a social event connected to a business or university. It could be within societies, maybe. I think networking can be so many things, but it's about sort of finding opportunities for new people, if that's the way to say it. But the power of that is it's about like, I guess you meet someone, you know, you suddenly your door is open and you have a potential new opportunity. It doesn't always happen that way, but it just gives you another chance that you can go another direction or develop what you already have. So I think, yeah, the power of that is quite immense.
Cate: It's really important to kind of mention you've both touched on this is that there are lots of different ways to network. And I think sometimes when we talk about networking, it seems like these formal, intentional networking events where you go and sit around these kind of high top tables with maybe canapés or drinks and have to talk to strangers. And it feels very forced. And those definitely serve a purpose and everyone is there for the same purpose, so they can be really great networking opportunities there. But similarly, every social interaction, every time you meet someone new is a networking opportunity. And I think that kind of speaks to entrepreneurial mindset in my mind, because some of the most successful people are the ones that take every opportunity or think of every opportunity, every engagement as a new as a new potential opportunity for their career or for the cause that they're looking to pursue as well.
Ben: Completely agree. Every conversation is an opportunity and I've realised I didn't answer your question in terms of people who find that awkward. LinkedIn is incredible. It is an incredible platform. You know, even now I don't message people for business. I'm just like, Hey, you're another co-founder or you're another founder. Let's just catch up. What can I learn from this situation? And that is a simple DM. I if I get a DM from somebody who's applied for a job, I am more likely to get on a call with that person and understand what that person's about, because I know that they want it. And it's the attitude that I look for. And, you know, especially in sales, you want you want to be furious on that on that keyboard. But in any aspect of the business, if you have the ability to just be like, hey, by the way, I applied for this job, can we chat just about the role to see whether I'm actually a good fit or whether you know, anybody? And that is so powerful. It just shows up. You know, the impression that I get or somebody gets from that is enormous. And that's just a quick message on LinkedIn. You know, you could be sat on the train on your phone firing off DMs.
Cate: I think it shows a lot about kind of ambition and the type of person you are and how much you actually want the opportunity. If you take time to do your research but also find out about the organisation straight, straight from the people that are right in the centre of it as well. I just want to talk a little bit about Start-ups and you know, I think sometimes a lot of people have really romantic views of start-ups. What would you say are common misconceptions that you've learned along the way of kind of working as a founder in a Start-Up? What are your perceptions on that?
Ben: You need to have a certain type of resilience. You need to do it because you believe in your idea. You know, you're stuck with this company or this thing that you're building for five years, ten years, if you're trying to go enormous. These become so we're talking about it every single day. And that resilience doesn't come from I want to be an entrepreneur. You know, don't do it. That's why you need to want to become an entrepreneur. Second, and love your idea fast. You need to believe that your idea is the best thing since sliced bread because you're going to put your time, your emotions, sacrifice into this thing for the next I mean, minimum five years as a founder or co-founder to get it to where it needs to be. You're going to hear a lot of nos. You're going to feel super lonely sometimes. So I think that's really, really important and something that is a way of romanticise about entrepreneurship. You know, you see these kind of big tech B.S. backs, you know, CEOs and tech CEOs and yes, sure, it happens, but it doesn't happen to everyone. And there are so many businesses out there, incredible businesses that obviously are much more solid than these massive, high, high, high value tech companies. So it's not all like that's not all glitz and glamour at times. It sucks, but you love it and you wake up and you want to do it every single day.
Bob: So on that Ben, can you kind of give us a kind of sense of a typical day? I mean, I guess that no day or no two days are all the same. I'm sure that that just like an idea of what entrepreneur life is like for you when you get up in the morning and what follows.
Ben: Yeah, it's a good question because this has actually changed quite a bit over the three years. So when it was just Tom and myself, you know, we were in shorts and a t shirt in his flat, just sending emails and kind of doing everything very, not very casually, extremely intensely. But, you know, it was him. Him and me sat on a sofa just firing our emails and that was it for 12, 13 hours a day. It was pitching our idea and it was emailing people about business development opportunities or just opportunities in general, or just going to networking events. So that was kind of the first year. Then it got a little bit serious. We won a few grants with some with some large clients, then became a little bit more serious and we obviously realised we needed some help and that's when we started growing the team and that's when we realised that well actually now we need to kind of I guess step up a little bit more in terms of what we were doing on a daily basis. But it is very much kind of a wide spread of things. It's a lot of sending, sending emails, just talking to people about operational stuff, business development emails, strategic conversations with Tom and myself, a lot of recruitment and as we grow the team. So looking back now, I'm in a very different position with what I do, talking to people about different projects, talking to everyone about different projects, and then growing that team from when it was just Tom and myself. And now with 15 people and Bali, we have a team over in Singapore and then also a team in Bintan Island, Indonesia, which is made up of around 30 people. And now we're growing into growing into Thailand as well. So the spread of what I do changes day to day. Yes, but also macro. Looking at the time of Seven Seas, that's also changed as well. So I hope that gives some insight, but it's extremely wishy washy what I do on a daily basis.
Cate: I think that kind of epitomises the life of an entrepreneur, though. I think that's one of the differences between working for or working in a Start-Up versus working in a large multinational corporation. And, you know, some of these bigger companies, your role is very defined. You do very similar things day to day. You wear one hat, and that is that's what you do. Whereas I think when you're working with a semi or a Start-Up, you have to be at times everything like you're saying, you do business development, you do strategic things, you do you do recruitment, you do kind of the more granular bits as well. You do everything at every point. So you have to be kind of a master of everything, which I can imagine is an incredibly steep learning curve as well, if you know you're not from those business backgrounds. Yeah. Yeah. Have you found that to be challenging?
Ben: Yeah, definitely. I was. I was quite lucky. Tom he's got around six years in sales, I can't remember now - three years in recruitment and then like seven years in sales. So he did have a very solid sales background and that was something definitely that the as I was getting into I learnt from quite, quite quickly. And you know obviously if you were just a founder with, with no experience out university, you need to kind of learn from as many people as possible in many, many different industries. I would say to the people listening, if you want to progress as quickly as possible and learn multiple different skills and don't really see yourself as doing one thing over and over again, every single day starts up so fantastic, not founding start-ups, but just entering into a start-up. You know, you learn so much about yourself and what you like very, very quickly, because when you're when you're joining a Start-Up, you do everything. You know, your job role could be your job role could be business development executive, but you'd be doing account management. You could be managing the sales pipeline. You could be dipping in and out of marketing and content creation. So you do end up wearing so many hats when you go into the Start-Up and you then understand whether you like Start-ups or not and then whether you want to actually found one yourself, which is which is actually super important because you kind of get a taste for it.
Cate: I think that's incredibly interesting and I think Start-ups aren't for the faint hearted. And I think, you know, like you were saying, you have to there has to be a passion for the project, a passion for the cause above the passion for starting your own business. And I'm just I just wanted to ask one more question so I understand that Seven Clean Seas has a contract with the World Cup. Can you tell us a little bit about that and kind of how that came about, but also what you guys will be doing and what that means for you?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. So this was one of those moments that in my obviously in my career and as a business that yeah, it was a it was a massive highlight. It was a life changing moment, to be completely honest. When we found out that we won that contract, that's how it came about. It was hilarious. It was quite literally a random email. I've no idea how the Supreme Committee of Delivery Lexi found us. It was a random email to our general Hello at 7 second inbox and it said hi from the World Cup. We're organising the World Cup. We'd love to find out a little bit more about plastic neutrality. Tom and I freaked out. We were like, Let's get on a call. We don't care what time of see they're in Qatar, Doha. We jumped at the opportunity, so we got on a call. It was extremely serious. It was definitely more of an education for them. They didn't really know much about it. We explained the concepts of plastic neutrality and then explained Seven Clean Seas and how, you know, the World Cup should look at plastic neutrality. And obviously we're thinking, oh my gosh, this has never been done before. So, you know, I mean, we can do this, but how do we do this? Right. So that was, I guess a year and a half ago. We didn't hear anything. We were following up like crazy. We're like, Hey, guys, any words? And then kind of the next six months, next eight months, we were like, Oh, my gosh, okay, what's going to happen? It's like, come on, are they going to get back to us? And they know they're going to do this thing? And then, you know, after eight months of that, we found out from them. They sent us email saying, let's have a follow up call. There's going to be a tender out. So we had to tender for we had to tender with the government. It was a government tender. So we then had to tender along with other organisations and globally too to win this kind of win this deal. It was our first tender, let alone government tender. And we learned a lot about ourselves and, and, and government tenders in that process. And we, we, we submitted it with the team. So Ollie and from, from Tricia from Creative Partnerships and Ollie from head of Sustainability Consultancy, we built this proposal around measuring, doing the world's first measuring of a mega event, so building the methodology to measure plastic at mega events. We then looked at reduction strategies all back for that mega event. So at the World Cup, reducing plastic at the World Cup, then looking at that key piece. So plastic neutrality and plastic offsetting. So we submitted this holistic proposal which identified measure, reduce offset. And then how do they talk about that? What legacy are they going to leave behind? So this was that creative partnerships aspect. What are we doing at the World Cup to help people raise awareness of plastic pollution and the work that the World Cups do? So we packaged all this together. We DHL, this proposal to Qatar and we had and we won and it was like, oh my God, I was crying. It was amazing. So yeah, that was, that was massive for us and I guess really summarises the work that we were doing. What we're doing now is Trisha is executing this huge kind of stand at the World Cup. So that's going to be under the brands that Trisha has built called One Tide, which is now the government brand for policy and advocacy in Qatar. So the plastics and that was because of the work that Seven Clean Seas has done. So we're really trying to move the needle in Qatar and then all these work. You know, he's publishing the methodology on the world's first measurement of the mega event and the case study is the World Cup and then reduction strategies and then the offset pieces is compensating for the usage of plastic waste. So if you go into the World Cup and you see some plastic being used there, that whilst you're using that plastic 7 Seas is removing that plastic from the oceans and compensating for that use. Because if you're using plastic in the World Cup, most likely a plastic is necessary and you know, there are no other substitutions for that. So that is that work and that's really provide a springboard for investment now and kind of growing the business to where it is today. So that's really exciting.
Cate: Congratulations. I'm really, really looking forward to kind of seeing what that does for you guys as an organisation and seeing, because I feel like that's going to be a real springboard and you guys are already working so globally, but that just kind of the more exposure that you get and the more you do with different countries and on a larger scale is just going to kind of send you guys into space, fingers crossed. Well, I you know, I'm excited for you. How can people in the UK get involved with supporting Seven Clean Seas or kind of supporting.
Ben: You guys are doing a wicked question. So there's many different ways to evolve or get involved with some places. We obviously have that kind of business, which is with the consultancy measure reducing, offsetting, but that's more of a kind of private sector. If you're just at home and you're an individual and you feel like you can't do anything. Head to our website www dot 7 CS dot com and we use merchandise sales to mobilise money and donations to go directly towards our projects. And again, just help us remove plastic from the ocean. So whilst it's not up yet, it will be up towards the end of the year, which is really exciting and sign up to our newsletter to just keep in the loop on that. And you know, there are so many things that you can do in terms of educating yourselves, even your sphere of influence at university within your friends you can you can help in and just the ecosystem of Seven Clean Seas to stay self-involved. And we've learned a lot about that, about what you can do.
Bob: And I have to say, the final thing for me is like visually, I think that's a really cool yellow t shirt that the volunteers wear when they do the plastic cleanup. So yeah, look out for those because they look so cool.
Ben: Yeah, the yellow is bright and we're aggressive with our branding.
Cate: I like it well.
Bob: Ben, while we've got you and just the one thing I wanted to know, actually, just really quickly is what quite briefly, what is the future of Seven Clean Seas look like after the World Cup? Have you got sort of grand plans ahead in the future?
Ben: Yeah, fantastic question. I love this one. So we've got a target, obviously, of removing 10 million kilos of ocean plastic by 2025. That is a massive feat and will require a global expansion of our bright yellow materials recovery facilities, which hopefully you'll see popping up in Central America, South America across a patch. And I'm kind of looking into Europe and Africa as well. So, you know, global expansion on plastic collection. And hopefully we will be launching our business to consumer stuff as well. So hopefully you will be able to buy those T-shirts and get involved from a consumer level and build that kind of following. And I guess education and society and community feel that we want to build here at Seven Clean Seas.
Cate: Great. Well, Ben, honestly, thank you so much for joining us. It's been really, really exciting to talk to you and to hear a bit more about kind of your journey. Straight from the horse's mouth, what it's like kind of being involved in the Start-Up, but also from that international aspect. And Bob, thank you so much for co-hosting with us. It's been really nice.
Bob: Thank you.
Ben: It's been awesome. Thank you so much for having me, guys.
Cate: Thanks.