Blue Earth Podcast

Paint hasn't changed in 60 years. John Stubbs and Emma Bestley think that's a problem, and an opportunity. In this episode, Guy sits down with the founders of Yes Colours, a design-led venture tackling waste, wellbeing and the science of colour from first principles. John shares how discovering that 98% of paint waste ends up in landfill set him on a path to reinvent the product entirely. Emma, who has grapheme-colour synesthesia, a condition where words and emotions appear as colour, explains how lived experience shaped a company philosophy built around human feeling rather than design theory.They discuss the world's first recyclable paint pouch, the AI tinting platform they're building, and their long-term ambition: to become the global authority on what colour actually does to us. It's a founder story about turning a deeply personal perspective into a genuinely disruptive business, and why the most traditional industries are often hiding the biggest opportunities.

After years scaling the global market leader in impact protection, Alex and Marcus left to challenge everything they'd helped build. In this episode, they join Guy to talk about what they saw from the inside that convinced them the industry needed a new approach, and how RE ZRO® is proving that sustainable materials don't have to compromise on performance or price.

What if the answer to one of construction's biggest carbon problems wasn't a cleaner version of steel, but something else entirely? In this episode, Blue Earth founder Guy Hayler sits down with Stephan Savarese, co-founder of Technocarbon, to explore how an aerospace engineering mindset led to a breakthrough structural material made from stone and carbon fibre. They discuss why construction materials remain one of the least-talked-about sources of global emissions, how coastal infrastructure is quietly failing around the world, and what it takes to bring a deep-tech material from eight years of R&D to its first commercial orders. A conversation about patience, physics, and the scale of what's possible when you ask the right question.

IW Capital's Charlie Lyon Carroll has reviewed around 1,000 pitch decks a year — and the deciding factor is rarely what founders expect. In this episode, Blue Earth co-founder Guy Hayler sits down with Charlie to unpack what early-stage investors are really looking for, why humility in a pitch can outperform polish, and how businesses tackling e-waste, flexible plastics, and neurological disease are finally hitting commercial scale. They also dig into the rise of AI-native companies, the growing impossibility of greenwashing, and why Charlie remains optimistic about venture despite a turbulent few years in the market.

In this episode of the Blue Earth Podcast, Guy Hayler sits down with Ed Bartlett, founder of Kostüme and Blue Earth Ventures member, to explore how a 25-year founder journey, from raising $50m in the gaming industry to curating contemporary art, led to rebuilding performance apparel from the ground up.Ed shares how Kostüme flips the traditional retail model on its head: limited batch drops, pre-order production, no discounting, radically reduced waste, and award-winning technical cycling kit designed for how people actually ride.They discuss breaking broken systems, building brand trust without paid ads, scaling sustainably, and why the ambition goes far beyond cycling.If you’re interested in consumer brands, circular models, performance wear, or founders rewriting the rules, this one’s for you.

In this episode, Guy Hayler sits down with Rembrandt Koppelaar, co-founder and CPO of EcoWise, to explore how the built environment can cut carbon by fixing its biggest bottleneck: messy, manual product data. They unpack EcoWise’s digital product passports and building logbooks, how AI can turn PDFs into usable carbon insights, and why upcoming regulation makes this a “when, not if” shift. Plus: the grant-funded R&D journey, the upcoming £1.5m seed raise, and the roadmap to scale across the UK and Europe.

In this episode of the Blue Earth Podcast, Will Hayler sits down with Chris Boardman to explore what elite sport can teach founders about building real, scalable change. From Olympic cycling to transport policy and system-wide problem solving, Chris shares why progress doesn’t come from sacrifice or virtue alone, it comes from competitive edge. Together they unpack why people change when solutions are materially better, how belief is built through clear pathways, and why framing the prize matters more than repeating the problem. A conversation about performance, behaviour, and designing solutions that actually win, in business, policy and the future economy.

What if your pension was your most powerful tool for change?In this episode of the Blue Earth Podcast, Guy Hayler is joined by Nick Stoop, founder of Pangea Impact Investments, to explore why pensions sit at the heart of the future economy.After spending 15 years in traditional asset management, Nick set out to redirect capital away from deeply polluting industries and into solutions that put people, planet and long-term performance first. The result is Pangea, and the launch of the UK’s first genuinely sustainable default workplace pension.

In this episode of the Blue Earth Podcast, Guy Hayler sits down with Mayleah House and Chris De Cuyper from Fremantle Seaweed to explore one of the most promising nature-based climate solutions emerging from Western Australia. Fremantle Seaweed grows asparagopsis offshore and turns it into a cattle feed supplement proven to reduce methane emissions by up to 90%, while improving feed efficiency for farmers. It’s a rare example of science, nature and commercial viability aligning to tackle a major source of global emissions. They discuss the science behind the breakthrough, why growing seaweed in the ocean matters, how supermarkets and food supply chains are driving demand through Scope 3 targets, and what it takes to build an infrastructure-heavy climate startup from the water up.Recorded shortly before Mayleah travelled from Australia to pitch at the Blue Earth Investment Forum, this conversation connects ocean innovation with the capital and partnerships needed to scale it worldwide.