Hi everyone, welcome to GreenMonk TV. My guest on the show today is David Lockie. Dave, do you want to introduce yourself? Hi, good afternoon. My name is David Lockie from Low Carbon Economy and pleased to be talking to Tom today. So Dave, low carbon economy, what exactly is low carbon economy? Low carbon economy, do you mean the term the low carbon economy or our company, Low Carbon Economy? The company, Low Carbon Economy, is a small UK company, a startup, and we're here to connect people and businesses with low carbon information and solutions, whether that's products and services or discussions, tips and links and resources. That's our core goal. And how are you doing that? We're mainly doing it online. We've developed a sophisticated website, as everyone has these days, that essentially allows anyone, it's a platform. So anyone can come on, whether you know that dried out orange peel is good for lighting fires with, or you know a particular solar panel performs better than the others, or you have something you feel that can contribute towards reducing our overall carbon footprint, whether it's a small thing, whether it's a small thing, whether it's a small thing for people in your particular circumstance, or whether it's something you feel everyone should be doing, or whether you want to know more. If there's no emissions, we should build loads of power stations. So we're aiming to provide a platform where everyone can come and either contribute, learn and get involved and feel like they've come away from the site with something they didn't know before or having shared something that they think other people didn't know. And really, we built the site because there was no single place for this. In the UK, we have the carbon trust, which is a quango set up by the government to aim at reducing business carbon footprint.
2:11You know, the energy saving trust, which is aimed at the domestic market. But there's no one central place where everyone can bottom up, add whatever it is they know or discuss what they want to do. So we want to cover everything from energy efficiency through renewables, sustainability, lifestyle choices. And this is right from a, what could your kids do as a school project to help spread the word right through to, I'm an industrial magnate, I've got factories all over the world, and I desperately need to reduce my carbon footprint because of the carbon reduction commitments or my CSR policy. So really the scope is very big. And we're harnessing the power of Web2 to help people get answers, to contribute those answers and to spread the word. We also work offline. So because we have this central platform where everyone's coming and interacting, we get a lot of insight into specific requirements and also specific solutions. And obviously there's a, there's a market there for us to make manual connections and to, um, and to make some money from that. We are here as a for profit company. We think that low carbon economy is the biggest commercial opportunity of our time, perhaps ever, um, and certainly the biggest game changer since the information technology revolution. So yeah, we, we're definitely here to make a profit, but we don't see that that's, uh, in any way harmful, um, in our, in our vision of helping make a low carbon economy happen. Okay. Well, two, two things. So come to mind. Uh, first question is if you are crowdsourcing your information, uh, how are you doing QA on it? And, uh, second is you mentioned that you're a far profit company, which is, you know, good in these times. Um, uh, how are you making your money? Okay. So the first, the first question first, how do we ensure that the cause, the, the quality of the information that's added to the site?
4:18Um, there's something obviously that, that every web two site has to deal with. Um, uh, at this stage, I'd, I'd say we're primarily at the, the getting as much information into one place as possible stage. And that's web two is very chicken and egg. You have to have content to have people, but then you have to have the people to ensure that the content is good and the, of good quality. So we've made the decision at the moment. We're, we're talking to organizations primarily. We don't do any, um, B2C marketing except naturally through, uh, Google's organic, uh, listings. So what we're trying to do is talk to as many companies, uh, have a, have a stake in their low carbon sector. So they might be producing renewable energy products. They might be producing energy efficiency products. They might be consultants. They might be doing new performance certificates for buildings. They might have, uh, case studies that others can learn from. And obviously that helps, um, helps them get their commercial message across. So the stage at the moment is really talking to companies, uh, getting them to add as much marketplace content, um, uh, as possible. And that brings people in and what we're starting to see now is that people are discussing products, discussing services, um, and we're, we're bringing in more, more functionality as, as we grow and as the site needs it. So being able to review specific products and eventually we'll be, we'll be, um, we'll be adding rating tools. So the idea is that it's a very much a community driven QA system. Obviously we're here, we don't let any swearing or any flaming or, you know, the usual web two stuff happen on the site. So we, we try and kind of maintain that baseline quality, but we, we, we feel that the low carbon sector is really the longest of long tails because its impact is on every aspect of all of our lives.
6:18And that our individual circumstances across different countries, different lifestyles, different beliefs, different environments, different houses are so different. Um, there's nothing else quite as far reaching, no tail quite as long as, as the low carbon sector. So our only, our only route is, is to, to turn it over to the community and say, look, you can have what you want, um, unless it's plagiarism or libelous or, you know, outright lies, then, you know, we're not going to take it down. But what we, what we do say is that anyone else can come on and respond to that. So if you're a company and you say, uh, uh, just for example, our new hybrid car is, is low carbon and anyone else is free to come on and say, well, what about the embodied carbon footprint? Or what about the life cycle or the disposal of the materials once the, once the products life, life cycles ended, what about these things? And so it, in, in the, in the best, what, you know, the, the best, um, parts of web two is that it allows that, that discourse and that discussion. And if you, if you're a business trying to promote yourself in the sector, I think this is one of the hardest sectors to, to, to, to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. I mean, there's a, there's a lot of misinformation out there, but I've never found a sector with so many committed, passionate, knowledgeable people, knowledgeable people that are, are, are ready to dispel myths and they're ready to, to set people right. Or at least to, to say, look, this is a good thing to do, but be aware of these limitations or, um, be aware of these things, or it might only be suitable in these situations. So a great example is solar thermal, um, accounts for heating hot water. A lot of medical Mediterranean countries, it makes total sense in the UK. Um, it also makes good sense as long as you choose the, the right situation, the right equipment,
8:18get it installed correctly as part of, and you get your house insulated first. So there's a, there's a lot of things to think about. And, um, really what we, what we're trying to do is create a platform where everyone can help each other work out what is and isn't appropriate for them. So that was a bit of a long, long winded answer to your question there. So I'm sorry about that, but that's, that's how we're doing the quick, the QA, getting lots of quality content that attracts people. And then providing tools for those people to, to provide a QA on, on the content. And ultimately perhaps even on the people as well so that people can become acknowledged experts in, in, in, in one area or another, um, and people can learn to trust their judgment. And it, this is, this isn't anything new that the concepts that we're using from Web2, we're not saying we're, we're, we're doing, um, something brand new and innovative in the Web2 environment. What we're trying to do is apply those lessons to this massive problem with, um, carbon emissions. And we, we, we think we're doing that in a, in a fairly unique way. Um, as far as how, how we're funded, we're funded entirely, um, we, we had some small, um, angel investment. We're an existing team. We've been working together for, uh, seven or eight years. Uh, our sister company, Fuel Cell Markets, it's one of the largest websites in the fuel cell hydrogen sector. And, uh, that, that's, that's where we, um, that's, I guess, where we, we cut our teeth is making connections in that advanced technology, energy technology sector. So we learn about the, um, the diversity of possible solutions, how they can all fit together, the limitations, um, why, why some components would work here and not there. We learn to look at the, the life cycle analysis of something. So, for example, hydrogen fuel cell cars would seem to be a brilliant idea and they, they are ultimately, um, but we need to, we need to cover things like how do we produce that hydrogen in a really sustainable way.
10:25So at the moment, the most, in fact, pretty much the only cost effective way is to take, take it from natural gas. Um, and clearly that's not, uh, that's not something we can do once, uh, natural gas is, is run out. So there's many different levels to think about things. Even if you get technology suites that work together, you have to, you have to look at their dependencies and so on. So Fuel Cell Markets still runs. We still get an income from that. We still work on that as a team. Um, our income for low carbon economy is split between online, so, um, the marketplace content I talked about, organizations can, can add their products, their services, um, their opportunities and they pay us for that privilege if they choose to do so. So anyone can add anything for free, if you want to promote your product, um, if it's worth X amount to have Y visitors to your site, you can pay us and we'll deliver that for you. Um, the other, the other avenue is offline. So through, uh, consultancy basis, we'll, uh, work on a success fee arrangement. So, um, if we introduce business to one company, so we, we know that a hotel chain wants to optimize their voltage across their hotels and thus reduce their electrical consumption, we might then introduce them to, uh, a company that manufactures of our products. And obviously that's, that's a very common business arrangement of this consultancy, just a, a, a, a straight commission. Um, the online side we've, we've modeled on, on Google AdWords, so, um, it's, it's pay-per-click and pay-per-impression. We, we, we offer the combination of the two, um, simply because it's the most economic and by, by, by large consensus, the, the fairest way of charging for advertising is charging for results delivered rather than just charging for, say, sending an effort out in, in the magazines, may or not.
12:26Which, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're trying to be helpful by delivering real commercial benefits because a lot of the companies we talk to, they're, they're small or especially at the moment, the advertising budget is small and there's no point for us in, in, in charging these companies money and then not giving them benefit in return. So the way that we keep ourselves in check and deliver the benefit to the companies is on a very measured basis and that's, that's been a really conscious decision. The other thing I'm interested in, I mean, it seems like you've got a, uh, reasonably standard business model that it's, it's paid listings, uh, and, and introduction service, uh, the, the, uh, the web two model around content generation and crowdsourcing your QA as well. Again, reasonably standard there. Um, what have you planned going forward? What are the next steps for you guys? Where are you looking to go? We're looking, we're looking at inspiration from people like Tim Berners-Lee. So we realized that data is going to be really important to this. So as you know, I've been trying to stay involved with, um, home camp, which is a grassroots movement to, to encourage, um, energy monitoring and communication, that energy data between communities, between individuals. So looking at reducing our, our collective carbon footprint through, um, things like demand shifting. So when, when EastEnders is finished, we don't all go and put the kettle on at the same time. Um, things like integrating with Amy, the, uh, the energy identity startup. So something that's really relevant for a low carbon economy is how much does a typical dishwasher, typical toaster, typical solar panel generate, uh, and use. So we're looking to integrate more and more aspects of, um, the low carbon economy into, into the website. Um, as I said, we'll be bringing in things like reviews and ratings so that the community's got more power to, uh, to promote ideas, which truly are low carbon.
14:31And make, make, make that a little bit more viral. Um, ultimately our goal is to, to be the central resource for everything low carbon. And we're very happy if that's just to, to pass the visitor straight on to another good resource. As long as we've made that resource easier to find through, through our platform, that's our goal. So yeah, think low carbon, think low carbon economy. I think it's, it's, it's the message. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we are a small startup, so obviously we've got lots of priorities. One of our, our next priorities is to be able to, uh, to make our, our information accessible first by feeds and then through, through an API. So that whether it's your profile of things that you've added, you can bring it into your social network or whether it's, uh, programmatically so that users on a different website wanting to find low carbon information and ratings and reviews from our site to add it to their own. And whether it's one of our own, uh, clients who has a solar panel and wants to show people that it's, it's part of the low carbon economy and this is how it fits in and this is what people think, or whether it's, uh, perhaps a, a, an e-commerce platform that sells energy efficient products. And they want to add some, some third party verification and credibility. So really being a, a source of low carbon data, whether that is user reviews and ratings or whether it's behavioral. Dave, thanks a million for coming on the show. Thanks Tom. Thanks for your time. Cheers.