The Entrepreneurs for Impact Podcast: Transcripts
#126:
Rainforests, Satellites, and Nature-Based Project Data — Dr. Murray Collins, CEO of Space Intelligence
PODCAST INTRODUCTION
Murray Collins:
We're on a mission to enable a future of zero deforestation and mass forest restoration around the world, and we're doing that by providing the highest quality data on the natural environment possible. We're able to track changes in forest landscapes around the world, assess the biomass of those environments, and track, over time, the changing properties of the forest.
PODCAST INTERVIEW
Chris Wedding:
Welcome to the Entrepreneurs for Impact podcast. My name is Chris Wedding. As a former environmental private equity investor, four-time founder, climate tech CEO, coach, and professor, I launched this podcast to share the entrepreneurial journey, practical tips, and hard-earned wisdom from CEOs and investors tackling climate change. And if you like what you hear, please, leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. This is the number one way that listeners can learn more about the climate CEOs and investors I interview. Alright, let's get started.
My guest today is Murray Collins, Co-founder and CEO of Space Intelligence, a world-leading nature data provider for Nature-Based Solutions projects, such as those that protect tropical forests to preserve biodiversity while also helping corporations such as Apple reach their net zero goals. In addition, Murray is the Science Director and Co-founder of Picture Zero, a production company dedicated to quality content about climate change. He’s also the former Chancellor's Fellow for Space and Satellites at the University of Edinburgh and former Environmental Scientist in Residence at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
In this episode, we talked about his four years of rainforest work in Indonesia and Africa. Almost getting into a knife fight with a tiger. No, that's not a typo. Add the 30 years of experience in tropical ecology and data analytics, among him and his Co-founder. The 100-plus scientific papers produced by his team. How they work with conservation project developers around the world. The market validation they received from lots of consulting projects early on, that made them realize they had to create a tech solution in order to scale. Their use of optical data, LIDAR, on-the-ground metrics, and other satellite input, to measure above-ground biomass for key habitats and the projects that are protecting them.
02:37
How they help Apple invest in their restore fund. What pro-poor means and why it's relevant to one billion people around the world. Cover the difference between motivation versus discipline, as well as the [inaudible - 00:02:51] between passion and obsession. Plus, why he's reading multiple books about the Middle East and a whole lot more. Hope you enjoy it. And please, give Murray and Space Intelligence a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people. Thanks.
Murray Collins, Co-founder and CEO of Space Intelligence, welcome to the podcast.
Murray Collins:
Thanks for having me. Great to see you.
Chris Wedding:
So, we're joking, as I look behind your shoulder, you had referenced sunny Edinburgh, Scotland, and it is, in fact, sunny today. So, a good indication of a great podcast to come, I'm sure.
Murray Collins:
Exactly. The sun is shining on us, so what could possibly go wrong? You laughed when I said sunny Edinburgh, but we do actually get a lot of sun here, on the East side of the country. It's over in the West that you get a lot of rain. So, there we go. I see you've got the same. You've got the sun shining in on you.
Chris Wedding:
Indeed. Yeah. A beautiful April morning in North Carolina. Well, what else are podcasts for but to dispel misperceptions, whether it's about the viability of climate tech or whether it's sunny in Edinburgh?
Murray Collins:
Yeah, we could just leave it there, right?
Chris Wedding:
There you go.
Murray Collins:
That's our job done.
04:06
Chris Wedding:
Let's hang out. So, Murray, your background is super interesting. We'll get into it in more depth, but just as a teaser here, roughly four years studying tropical rainforests for your Master's and Ph.D., largely Indonesia, but also Sierra Leone, Gabon, other places around the world. Big focus on obviously protecting the habitats and certain key species, like tigers in those rainforests, leading to your Ph.D. across two different schools, London School of Economics and the Zoological Society of London, and then, as I mentioned, I've got a weak spot for Ph.Ds. turned entrepreneurs. They’re near and dear to my heart. So glad you're here to tell your story, Murray.
Murray Collins:
Well, great to be here, and you hit exactly on the head. I spent those four years actually in forest countries like Sierra Leone, Gabon, Indonesia, but that's been scattered across the past 16 odd years, including stints most recently at the University of Edinburgh when I had a Chancellor's Fellowship in Data-Driven Innovation. But as you say now, I'm solely an entrepreneur and leading this company, Space Intelligence, making an impact on deforestation around the world.
Chris Wedding:
Perfect. Well, we're going to go deep into Space Intelligence, but let's not go there yet. Let's stick with what it's like to study in the rainforest of Indonesia. I know you have stories to tell because I spent much less time than you did, but a couple of summers in the Costa Rican and Panamanian rainforest and lots of stories to tell. How about a story or two, Murray, from what it's like to be on the ground there?
Murray Collins:
There's been an immense amount of deforestation in places like Sumatra, but there still are fairly significant blocks of forest remaining, particularly up in the mountains. I've managed to get into some places where we followed along the trails, which you use to get to your research sites. You'll come across tiger footprints and sometimes elephant footprints as well, which are very, very fresh. And on one particular occasion, back in 2007, I was trying to find a new study site and the pugmarks of a tiger, which we were following, were so fresh that there were still trickles of water running into the print.
We came across a small gully where this terrible smell was emanating from. Of course, in a rainforest, that's typically something which signifies death, so there would be a dead animal somewhere. Sure enough, we found a dead pig. It was obviously the kill site of a tiger. And so, I just thought, I was in my late 20s at the time and bulletproof, of course, ‘Fantastic, I'll take a picture of this.” I put my bag down, got my camera out, and was busily snapping this picture. I turned around and my Indonesian guides were standing there with their eyes like popping out of their heads. And they're not staying. And they just left. They just went down the trail. They're like, “Come on, you're mad.” And so, I was like, “Whatever. I'll keep taking my pictures.”
07:24
Then, after I got a few shots, they turned out to be exactly right because from the undergrowth, I heard this huge roar, and I realized that I was indeed standing in a very isolated patch of smudge and rainforest over a tiger kill, and then with the tiger having returned to the kill. So, I couldn't see it. I couldn't actually see the tiger. So, I guess it wasn't quite on top of me, and I just had to stand and slowly back off from the kill. I did draw my jungle knife, my parang. And I remember looking down and seeing my hands shaking away as this noise emanated through the forest.
It's amazing. It's so powerful. The sound, you don't really hear it so much as feel it, it makes your diaphragm vibrate. It's an incredibly powerful and visceral experience. That's something which really motivates me to work in this field. There still are these scattered few wild places where you can walk in and come across a wild top predator like that. So, I got away with it, obviously, but that was, what should we call that? A memorable encounter.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, that qualifies. That impersonation of the tiger, I’ve not encountered tigers in the wild, only in these wild animal rehabilitation centers, but spot on, man. I’m sure you've had to practice imitating.
Murray Collins:
Yeah, I've actually heard them quite a few times up in the mountains, but then also in Birkbeck, where I did my Ph.D., I heard them a number of times. And speaking to some long-term tiger biologists, behavioral specialists, they called it a moan roar, which is like an expression of displeasure. So, it wasn't necessarily that it was trying to predate me. It was more annoyed that I was standing over its dinner and so that was what it was doing. It was vocalizing to try and scare me out, which I'd say very effective. And so, if they actually want to eat you, then you're probably not going to hear about it until it's too late.
Chris Wedding:
I was going to say that likely it's a silent noise they make or don't make if you're actually on the menu, if you will.
09:41
Murray Collins:
I'm going to have to think about that one, the silent noise, which they don't make.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. That's amazing.
Murray Collins:
Deadly.
Chris Wedding:
It's also ironic that this animal that you were in part trying to protect could have harmed you, biting the hand that feeds kind of thing.
Murray Collins:
Yeah, and I say it's an interesting point, but I think anybody who works in this field like yourself, that's part of the wonder of the experience where you don't do it as an expectation of gratitude from the animal, it's the preservation of that system. I mean, take some of that so much, it's an environment which has been vastly changed within our lifetimes. So, over the past three decades, since you and I were both born, huge areas of forest have been converted to oil palm plantations. And so, there are only really very, very small remnants of a world which once existed, say like 40, 50 years ago. It's crucially important to save them, I think.
Chris Wedding:
A hundred percent. Yeah. We were reminiscing about before pressing record when I was in Costa Rica and Panama, just the awe of some of the things that I encountered there. I know we went out once for a very short night hike and down from the branches came this kinkajou, this pretty cuddly, I'm not sure how you'd categorize it, but my daughter would want it as a stuffed animal for sure. So, not harmful, long tail.
Murray Collins:
There you go. That's conservation in action.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, there you go, and just so curious. My buddy and I were out just having a beer in a forest hike and this kinkajou came very close to us. Another moment, we're studying, sweating one night, learning about rainforest ecology from one of our professors, and I look up and there's one of these butterflies or moths. On its wing, one of the patterns forms the letters 68. I mean, I suppose it looks like an eye of sorts. Anyway, it's a mesmerizing place. Hopefully, we have more folks like you and REDD project to protect these animals.
11:52
Murray Collins:
They're incredible. I love hearing stories like that. Obviously, the statistics about the number of species you can find, the amount of biomass these environments store, it's like it can be quite dry, but it's really that engagement that you have and that sense of awe that you can feel when you see something, it hits you. Yeah, I love hearing that kind of stuff.
Chris Wedding:
Okay. So, we could record an entire podcast about rainforest study stories. However, that is not our purpose.
Murray Collins:
That's the next series.
Chris Wedding:
That’s part two. So, Murray, tell us about Space Intelligence, what it is, who you serve, and then we'll go back to maybe the origin story a little bit.
Murray Collins:
Yeah, sure. So, we're on a mission to enable a future of zero deforestation and mass forest restoration around the world and we're doing that by providing the highest quality data on the natural environment possible. Then more specifically, we're leveraging the 30-odd years’ experience with my co-founder and I, and the 100-plus papers which our senior science team has produced to be able to analyze huge volumes of satellite data using machine learning and integrating our ecological expertise. So, we're able to track changes in forest landscapes around the world, assess the biomass of those environments, and track over time the changing properties of the forest. So, things like forest degradation, biomass loss, and ultimately of course accumulation. That's what we do.
Who we work with, we work directly with project developers, so organizations like Forest Carbon out in Indonesia, Green Gold Forestry in Peru, and provide data to enable them to set up their projects. We also work with large corporates, so recently announced a partnership with Apple, and that's because we've been chosen to provide the digital monitoring, reporting, and verification of their new restore fund.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I think I've heard of that company before.
Murray Collins:
Yeah, it is a US-based entity. They make technology products. I could give you a link if you want.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.
14:02
Murray Collins:
I'm here to help.
Chris Wedding:
How do you find these project developers? I mean, you mentioned, I think at least two countries there. I also imagine most of these private developers are based specifically in their country versus crossing countries, but that may not be true. This sounds like a very fragmented market, if you will, of project developers. How do you find, trust, reach them, et cetera?
Murray Collins:
That's a good point, a good question and that is somewhat of a challenge for a growing company, especially the majority of us are based here in Edinburgh. But my co-founder, Professor Ed Mitchard, and I have a wide network, having worked in this area for some 16 years each. So, a lot of people that we know already … but further, on top of that, participating in excellent podcasts like this. People will spread our name, so we've grown through reputation and we also sponsor events around the world.
So, I've just come back relatively recently from New Jersey and New York, where we sponsored two events focused on sustainable finance and nature-based solutions. And then I arrived back in the UK two days ago from Singapore, where I was doing exactly the same thing. So, we've sponsored an event on how corporates can achieve net zero using nature-based solutions, and we will then present at those events. I'll go around meeting people and yeah, we're doing that with our business development team across the world. There's a lot of stuff going on in London, but US and Southeast Asia are very, very busy for us at the moment.
Chris Wedding:
Got it. Okay, let's go back a minute or two here. So, you have this deep science background. You're on the ground studying how to protect these habitats. What led to you and your co-founder saying, “Hey, look, this could become a for-profit business with outside capital scaling globally to provide solutions for REDD+ developers.”?
Murray Collins:
Well, we were both based at the University of Edinburgh, which has a multi-year commitment to creating what's called the data capital of Europe. So, it's a very supportive ecosystem you could call it here in Edinburgh, to support data-driven companies being founded and growing up. So, we came from that academic background and it was a combination of that supportive environment alongside really the impossibility of scaling as an academic because you're limited by the number of hours in a day or amount of research funding, which you can win and that's not really sustainable in the long term.
16:37
So, we were getting lots of requests for consulting-type work and then as those grew, we realized that there were scalable technology products, which could be built to address this new market. That led to the inception of the company and I got a scholarship to do something called, it was an enterprise fellowship, effectively like an applied MBA in a year through the Royal Society of Edinburgh. That really helped to lay the commercial foundations and address that question, which you raised at the beginning, like how do you transition from being an academic into an entrepreneur? That year was really, really useful to go around meeting people who are just straight up in business and just flipping some mindsets about the way you operate and how to develop products, marketing, et cetera.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. It sounds like the demand for your consulting, which is not scalable, actually was the validation that you needed to decide, “Let's form a company to scale these solutions through tech,” yeah?
Murray Collins:
Yeah, exactly. So it was that initial pull-through consulting work and it really just helped us understand the scale of the market and then how quickly it was growing. And so, that's what allowed us to set the foundations. Yeah.
Chris Wedding:
I think on your website, you show at least, three trademarked kind of product names, if you will. Maybe walk us through what one of those does, where it's implemented, with who, and what the result is.
Murray Collins:
Yeah, sure. So, let's take the CarbonMapper. The purpose of that is it assesses the above-ground biomass, and thereafter produces an estimate of the carbon stored in the trees. So, the way that we develop that, again, I'm really building on a lot of the research which Ed has driven over the past 10-plus years, is an approach whereby we integrate and fuse multiple different types of satellite data. So, optical data, which is, effectively, reflected sunlight from the surface of the earth that tells you about things like the canopy of the forest.
We then integrate different frequencies of synthetic aperture radar data, which tells you about the structure of the forest. And we use LIDAR data from space in order to inform the height estimates of the forest and then the height is related to the biomass of that forest through allometric equations. So, that's where you need a good amount of forest ecology experience and regional expertise in the area that you're mapping to produce these biomass assessments.
19:16
So, data fusion in a machine learning environment integrated with these forest ecology assessments. These will be typically forest plot measurements, so going into the forest and measuring trees on the ground, that's typically done by our project partners. We bring that all together to produce the assessment of biomass, which tells you how many carbon credits you can ultimately generate from a project.
We've used that in project sites around the world and across increasingly large areas. One in particular, which I think you might have seen already, which is on the website, is Green Gold Forestry over in Peru. That's actually been used in a real case to validate the project to assess the above-ground biomass stocks. It's a fundamental precursor to the development of the project. That's how we do it. Lots of technology, which gets all brought together in order to ultimately produce this estimate of how much biomass is in the trees and therefore how much carbon is stored.
Chris Wedding:
Okay, and where are those carbon offsets typically sold?
Murray Collins:
Well, there's a wide range of organizations that want to buy those now, so lots of large corporates are seeking to acquire those. I won't speak about that specific project, but at large that's where the market is. It’s selling to those large corporates who are trying to achieve their own net-zero commitments in the energy sector. There's quite a lot of demand, but this is an industrial solution to reaching net zero. As people try and decarbonize their supply chains, there's always going to be this rump remaining emissions which can't be reduced. And so, they're mitigated through investment in these types of projects.
Chris Wedding:
When those credits from the projects you all service, are they sold directly, like bilateral contracts to the corporates, or sold to an intermediary who sells to many corporates?
Murray Collins:
Well, this whole world is evolving very, very quickly, so the answer is both things are happening. You're seeing now that there are exchanges being created. There's over-the-counter trades, so people buying directly from projects, but there are brokers also trading those credits.
21:37
Chris Wedding:
Got it. The projects that you all service, is the sale of carbon offsets their only source of revenue, or is it one of many sources of revenue?
Murray Collins:
I mean, there are multiple different types of projects and increasingly, projects are being nested into a jurisdictional approach. They're producing large-scale assessments of forest change and nesting in these projects within those large-scale estimates. Projects typically, the ones that we're seeing are trying to address this triple bottom line. So, trying to address climate as a primary driver is to get carbon credits out of projects, but also trying to conserve biodiversity and support some of the world's poorest people in the process.
As you know, tropical forests are the most diverse, biodiverse terrestrial ecosystems, but tropical forests broadly around the world support around a billion of the world's poorest people. And so, conservation and sustainable management of those forests, that's also a solution to deal with rural poverty. Well, you see projects, particularly under things like Gold Standard, for instance, trying to address those other metrics as well.
Chris Wedding:
I heard you referenced one of these third-party programs. Can you say more about the Gold Standard, or maybe Verra, or other third parties, whose protocols are used to help buyers trust the carbon offsets that these projects with dual service are producing?
Murray Collins:
Yes. So, Verra is a standard body, and it has the verified carbon standard, which sets out the methodologies through which you can develop carbon offset projects. And so, there’s a set of methodologies which are now being consolidated for what we call reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation projects. And so, it sets out the sets of activities and the types of data which you need to collect in order to be able to generate projects which will be validated under that VCS badge. That’s the biggest one. That’s the, what would you call it? The 500-pound gorilla in the room, but there are others.
One, which I’ll give a shout-out actually to, which you may not have heard of, is Plan Vivo. So, it’s an organization also based here in the UK, up in Edinburgh, but it has a particular focus on pro-poor project development. So, it mandates a significant fraction of the returns, which come from projects, to support local communities. That’s one which is really worth looking at if you haven’t heard of that before. And particularly … say, if you’re a listener interested in the development of a project, but taking a particularly pro-poor slum, that’s a great standard to take a look at.
24:30
Chris Wedding:
I’ve never heard the phrase pro-poor before, so thank you for that. I think you’re also highlighting that, although selling carbon offsets is the largest or only revenue from projects like habitat protection, it isn’t the only focus, or the only benefit, or only consideration. I was unaware of a billion people, you’ve referenced, dependent on tropical forests. That’s a lot.
Murray Collins:
It’s a big number. I should get back to your question, and you have to bear with me because I’ve got a fairly jet-lagged mind. So, to answer those questions, speaking to developers and also asset managers who are investing in portfolios of projects, what we’re seeing now is some blended approaches to landscape management, where there might be some REDD-type activity.
So, protection of existing forest, some reforestation, afforestation activity, but also some sustainable agriculture, for instance, which then means you’ve got multiple income streams from a given project area. It doesn’t rely solely upon the carbon, say, from reduced emissions from deforestation. So, an integrated landscape approach, and that seems to be increasingly common as there’s more financial engineering brought into these projects. People are looking for different types of cash flow at different stages of the project lifecycle.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. Well, I tell you what, one thought I’m having is, who else I should introduce you to, if you haven’t already met them. One is a company called World Tree, where I’m on the board. It’s a company planting thousands of acres of one of the world’s fastest-growing trees, a Paulownia variant, but also incorporating regenerative agriculture as well. Anyway, I’ll have more names.
Murray Collins:
It’s great. Every conversation should turn into a business development conversation. Let me approach that one then. If you’re planting the fastest-growing species, does that incorporate then biodiversity into the planning? Because that is a little bit of a risk of some of these projects is that if you focus on, say, the sequestration of carbon and with a particular fast-growing species, then you lose some of the other ecosystem services that come from having a biodiverse range of different trees restored.
26:51
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I would say, it’s a fun conversation to have offline, as it were. There are many paths to protect tropical forests, native forests. One is to take pressure off of the logging, the legal or illegal, of those forests by planting tree farms of sorts that are fast-growing.
Murray Collins:
Okay, so it's addressing the wood supply by -- Yeah, okay, I got you.
Chris Wedding:
You got it, yeah. The lumber is the sequestering of the carbon, as well as what happens in the soil.
Murray Collins:
No, I mean, I’m probably being a bit provocative there, but in a robust forest economy, you’ve got to have all of these needs met. There’s obviously a huge demand for timber, so that’s a key part of the system.
Chris Wedding:
And, just for listeners, I referenced REDD or REDD+ in the beginning. You defined it just now, but let’s just make it extra clear for listeners. Can you please redefine REDD? It’s not the color, to be clear.
Murray Collins:
So, the reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, and the sustainable management of tropical forests. So, largely based on the protection of forests in developing countries. Think about places like Peru, Ecuador, Congo, conservation of those forests with the objective of reducing the amount of carbon emissions from those processes of deforestation-degradation.
Chris Wedding:
What does the plus at the end signify?
Murray Collins:
Do you want to have a go at that?
Chris Wedding:
I don’t actually. I don’t live in the world of tropical deforestation or protection enough these days.
Murray Collins:
Right. So, when I mentioned to you the work I did in Silla Waze, back in those days, it was a reduction in emissions from deforestation, and then it expanded to reduction in emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. So, degradation being the loss, which is slightly more cryptic, I would say, something like 30% of the canopy through things like selected logging. But then, plus, you’ve also got the sustainable management of forests, so that could include things like some improved forest management, could include some transitioning from a forest which is not really being sustainably managed. It’s probably being over-harvested for instance, so reducing the intensity of logging and having longer cycles between logging. So, there’s a whole series of things.
29:28
I mean, there’s an extent to which it might be criticized as old wine in new bottles. Writ large, this is all about sustainable forest management, and preserving more of the forest estate from large-scale changes driven by things like oil palm. There are some definitional issues, but writ large, that’s what we’re trying to do. And because there’s a generation of carbon credits, which large corporates need, we’re now seeing huge amounts of capital going into new project developments. So, there’s really a commercial basis for doing this. I’m going a bit away from your original question, but my own view on this is that that’s a wonderful outcome to have that suddenly there’s excess demand for forest conservation and long may that live and long may it be scaled up.
Chris Wedding:
I want us to switch to the next part of the podcast, talking about Murray the person versus Murray the CEO, but maybe one question, and this question really requires like an hour-long response, but I’m going to ask you to give it in two minutes. Which is, I think, some listeners will think nature-based solutions, nature-based carbon offsets are great and super intuitive. But gosh, forests burn and forests get destroyed by insects and there’s leakage outside of the boundary or whatever is protected. I have my own responses, but what are some threads or themes you would encourage listeners to think about in regards to those critiques?
Murray Collins:
Think about the multiple benefits which forests provide. Think about forests, not just in the context of generation of carbon credits. Think about them as a fundamental component of the life-support system on earth. We've got to be doing everything that we can to maintain them, to ensure that we've got a livable planet in the future. This is one way that we can take and we should take to drive investment into forest conservation. There may be others.
There is public funding in forest conservation around the world. Other sources of emissions, reductions, things like direct air capture, lots of people are very, very excited about that. But the price per tonne is orders of magnitude more than the price for reducing emissions and deforestation and forest degradation. You get these huge co-benefits from reducing deforestation and forest degradation as well. So, supporting some of the world's poorest people and also protecting the most biodiverse ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems on the planet. So, there are so many reasons for sustainably managing forests. I would encourage you to re-examine.
32:08
Chris Wedding:
Dot, dot, dot to be continued over a bottle of [inaudible – 00:32:12].
Murray Collins:
Yeah.
Chris Wedding:
One last one. I saw that you all received maybe your first outside funding last year. What was the nature of the investment or investors and what does it allow you guys to do?
Murray Collins:
Yes, we took some initial investment from Equinor, an energy company which is committed to becoming an energy company, so not dependent on fossil fuels. What that investment has allowed us to do and is allowing us to do is rapidly scaling up our team, our footprint around the world. So, we're attending a lot more events, as I say, to increase our profile. We're really solidifying and building on that core-technical expertise. Our engineering team has grown enormously, our analytics team similarly and so it's really accelerated the way that we've grown. Prior to that, we were bootstrapping. We were able to grow the company on the basis of contracted work and various bits and pieces of grant funding that we won here in the UK, but it's just accelerated that growth of the company.
Chris Wedding:
Excellent.
Hey, it's Chris. Just a brief message from our sponsors and we'll get back to the show. Just kidding, we don't take sponsors. On the other hand, I do have the privilege of leading the only executive peer group community for growth-stage, CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. With monthly group meetings, annual retreats, and one-on-one executive coaching calls, our members help each other boost revenue, impact capital raised, clarity, confidence, work-life balance, and team effectiveness. Today's 30-plus members represent over $8 billion in market cap for assets under management for climate solutions. If you're interested, go to entrepreneursforimpact.com and join the waiting list today. All right, back to the show.
34:11
All right, let's switch over, Murray, to … Murray?
Murray Collins:
Hi.
Chris Wedding:
Indeed. Hey, if you should hang out with your younger self, what advice might you give him on being more effective, happier, et cetera, on this journey?
Murray Collins:
Keep consistent in the gym. Really important to look after your health and it's one of those things where it's all too easy to just say, “Well, it's going to be a very, very busy day,” and so it can fall by the wayside. I address that now by trying to go in the mornings before everything happens. Maintaining your health and fitness is absolutely paramount because if you're not in good shape, you're not going to be able to deal with the workload and what you need to get done.
Staying focused is very, very important. Almost a daily basis, we get inquiry messages from people asking us to look at something which is quite different and so we productized fairly early in the company's development, but we'll be continuing to do that. Staying focused is really, really important especially when you're small, you can't afford to be spreading your energy over multiple areas.
So, just as an example, we had lots of interest in whether we could map things like pollution is a writ large waste monitoring. So, individual very, very small areas, the numbers of cars in car parks. We don't do that despite having been asked on multiple occasions. Looking after yourself, keeping focused personally and professionally, and not getting too distracted by outside interests. You've only got so much time and energy, so eyes on the prize.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I love that. It's like potential customers don't always know best, right?
Murray Collins:
Yeah.
Chris Wedding:
You mentioned, on a daily basis you're getting like, “Well, what if you did this and what if you did that?” And you said the opposite of that, which is, “We productize, we do these things, do it really damn well and we don't do other things.” This is a warning to small children listening to this podcast. I was in a meeting with some of the CEOs in this climate-mastermind that I run, and talking about focus, and the phrase came up, which is, save your fucks for magical shit.
36:33
Murray Collins:
I'm going to have to digest that one.
Chris Wedding:
I know. Shocking to be so early in the morning, jet-lagged perhaps, as well. Yeah, a lot of f-bombs in the room.
Murray Collins:
I think that's a great pitch. I want to join one of those. So, at least I mentioned the professional context, but I think, probably, the same is true, that your professional context should be a part of your life, and trying to keep focused on that and not trying to take too much on, outside of that, is really, really important. Something I am trying to improve on is, yeah, just making sure you've got enough space for yourself, and time away from the hard-grind of building a company, and focus enables you to do that. There's always going to be lots of bright, shiny things you can do. Write them down on a piece of paper and do them at another point because otherwise there's just too much going on.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. Your comment about staying physically fit in order to have the energy and longevity you need to build companies, which are not a year, but probably more like 10 years. You mentioned you do it first thing in the morning and I think there's a book by Stephen Covey. The title actually may be First Things First, or the key phrase in the book. But what you said is keeping first things first, right?
Murray Collins:
Right.
Chris Wedding:
First, because they're important, you do them really early, so they actually get done and don't get squeezed out of your day, right?
Murray Collins:
Yeah, exactly, and if you take control of the morning, get it done early, then that's you set. The rest of the day can maybe go a bit haywire, maybe not, but at least you've got it done. But an interesting little meme which has been going around is about motivation versus discipline. That's an interesting one. Have you seen this one that motivation, you can be highly motivated, but that sort of waivers over time. You can become demotivated and suddenly watch Rocky and find yourself remotivated and want to run up the steps and bust out some weights, but being consistent is really, really important. So, if it becomes a habit, then you got to just keep doing it. Stay disciplined. Even on those days when it's raining outside, you drag yourself out and do it.
38:51
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. The easy example is a writer. They need to get up and write from 8:00 to 1:00 every day, regardless of how they feel versus being inspired to go write. You’ve got to produce a lot of crappy words to produce good words is what I'm told.
Murray Collins:
Yeah, exactly and you just got to keep going and those are a general truth, just don't panic, carry on. Keep going. And that's really, really important. I think, whether it's Ph.D. or the business, you just keep plowing on.
Chris Wedding:
Where I thought you were going with the motivation versus discipline was something like passion versus obsession. Where I've heard some investors say, “I'm not looking for passion as a CEO, I'm looking for obsessed CEOs,” but he wanted to go along.
Murray Collins:
Yeah, and I think that is one of the reasons why people work with us. We’ve got, it’s Ed and myself, our senior team as well, lots of people with Ph.Ds. We've got 10 Ph.Ds., but people who've lived and worked out in places like West Africa, East Africa. In my free time out in Indonesia, after the Singapore trip, my partner and I were trekking around the forests of Gunung Leuser National Park and managed to spot some wild orangutans. So, this is something which has been central to my life, anyway, for the past 30-plus years. It’s not a flash in the pan, and I think you need that because it's what you think about the whole time. And how are we going to improve this, how are you going to address this problem?
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, that's amazing. I think that's a whole separate thread is encounters with orangutans in Indonesia. We're running short on time here.
Murray Collins:
We haven’t got the time.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. Aside from going to the gym first thing in the morning, are there other habits or routines that keep you healthy, sane and focused?
Murray Collins:
I really get a lot from reading. I'm being less good at the moment of carving out time to do it. I'm trying to do more of it, but I think it's very, very easy to get drawn into detail and start to get lost in detail, whereas you've got to keep sight of the big picture. So, reading, I find, really, really helps do that. Putting yourself in a different mental space, so literature can do that.
41:15
Reading things like industrial journals, economics, trying to keep track about what's going on in the world at large, I think that's really, really important, but something I found always to be deeply rewarding personally. I haven't been so good at doing that recently. On the plane of course, you've got a lot of time to do so. So, I managed to get through a couple of books on the recent travel.
Chris Wedding:
Excellent. Speaking of that, are there any books, podcasts, tools, quotes that you think listeners would find value in?
Murray Collins:
Okay. Interestingly, I listen to some of those podcasts like Lex Fridman, those popular podcasts. A climate one called So Hot Right Now, Scotland's Secret Space Race, which I co-hosted. So, I've got to give a shout-out to that one. I worked with a fantastic journalist, Kim McAllister, here in Scotland, and we've actually produced three podcast series on the development of the space sector within the UK. Obviously, every country has its own punter getting into the space race, but that is something that I really enjoyed, actually producing that podcast series.
In terms of reading, what have I got in the case? I've actually got a book about the Middle East at the moment, which I'm reading. I have a few books on the Middle East, I should say, which I'm reading in parallel about the political, social, economic histories and therefore their future. Now, places like the UAE, Saudi Arabia are synonymous with the extraction of fossil fuel, but there's suddenly some very, very large and significant changes occurring, whereby all of their development plans focus on things like female emancipation and investment in an economy which will take them away solely from fossil fuels.
So, there's a cliched quote, I think, from an old Saudi Oil Minister saying that the Stone Age ended, but not for lack of stones. And so, this is part of a world which I find fascinating because of those rapid changes, and that also includes investment in nature-based solutions. So, yeah, that's an area I'm reading up on quite a lot in the moment.
43:25
Chris Wedding:
Well, I did not see that coming. I also love that quote. All right. So, Murray, we have just one more minute here. Tell us, who do you want to hear from? Maybe it's project developers, maybe certain kinds of team members or investors. Who do you want to hear from?
Murray Collins:
Love to hear from project developers around the world who are creating new, large, ambitious, nature-based solutions projects and need digital MRV, so robust, high-quality data sets to support the projects. And also, asset managers and corporates, who are investing in these projects in order to mitigate their climate emissions, and are really, really focused on producing high-quality projects. We'd love to speak with them and discuss how we can help.
Chris Wedding:
Perfect. Hey, Murray, it's been fun to talk. Again, I think we need a whole separate pod on the adventures in the rainforest that led you.
Murray Collins:
Let's do it.
Chris Wedding:
Clearly, the world needs this tech, this MRV for nature-based solutions you all are building. So glad that Equinor is enabling you all to do this faster, better, more deeply, et cetera. And look, we're rooting for your success.
Murray Collins:
Brilliant, and thanks for having me. It's been great to meet you.
Chris Wedding:
Cheers. Thanks for listening. And if you want more intel on climate tech, better habits, and deep work, then join the thousands of others who have subscribed to our Substack newsletter at entrepreneursforimpact.com or drop me a note on LinkedIn. All right, that's all y'all. Take care.
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