Trying not to boil the ocean

‍Mo Dhaliwal

[00:00:03] Welcome to High Agency, igniting conversations with inspiring people, leading transformative change. Our oceans are at a critical turning point. The statistics paint a stark picture. Our oceans are drowning in plastic, with up to 200 million tonnes currently adrift in marine waters. Each year, we add another 33 billion pounds to this toxic legacy, claiming the lives of 100 million marine animals in the process. But plastic is just one thread in a complex web of challenges. Our oceans have become the planet's primary defence against climate change, absorbing 23% of human-generated CO2 emissions and more than 90% of excess heat in our climate system. Now, this heroic role comes at a devastating cost. The rising acidification threatens marine life survival, disrupting ancient food webs and undermining vital ecosystem services that billions of humans depend upon. Now, as we face a 93% likelihood that we'll see the warmest year on record by 20'26, and with global temperatures threatening to breach that critical 1. 5 degrees Celsius threshold, we stand at a crossroads. The science is clear. The data is compelling, but numbers alone aren't going to save our oceans. What we need is bold leadership and unwavering human will, the courage to make difficult decisions, and the determination to see them through. These are the forces that can transform statistics into action and challenges into opportunities. It's in this spirit of decisive leadership that we begin our conversation with Lasse Gustafsson. Lasse is President and CEO of OceanWise. He brings decades of data to the table. He has a global environmental leadership role at this Vancouver-based ocean conservation organization. His career includes executive roles at Oceana, at WWF International, and Greenpeace, where he championed marine protection and climate action through scientific expectations, policy advocacy, and strategic partnerships. Lasse's career began in Sweden, with an education in international relations and human ecology. He since then established himself as a pivotal figure in the global environment. Lasse is the founder and CEO of OceanWise, a global environmental movement to protect and preserve marine ecosystems. Welcome, Lasse. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on High Agency. We're going to talk a lot about oceans today and your work with them. But before we get into that, what did you want to be when you grow up?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:02:43] So I'm one of the lucky few who figured out really early what I wanted to be. I told my mom when I was 14, 15, maybe, I'm going to be an environmentalist for the rest of my life. And she started crying. And she said, 'Who's going to pay your bills?' Because this was in the mid-70s, and being an environmentalist was so far off any normality that she was just concerned. While John Cassandre is a marine biologist, and when he told his gran, 'I'm going to be a biologist,' gran, she said, 'That's a great career choice.' So environment has come a long way since I started more than 40 years ago. What were your influences? Like, how did you land on it so young? I think there was two different ways, two different reasons that brought me into environmentalism. One is the fact that I'm from a small, safe town, and my dad is an outdoorsy, was an outdoorsy man. And we had, my sister and I, the rules were we were not asking for permission to go outside. We were asking for permission to come inside. So Saturday mornings for us was breakfast, and then out you go, come back when you're hungry. And by the way, that's 12 o'clock. So we were encouraged, didn't have much of a choice. We were spending a lot of time outdoors. The other reason was a young girl with red hair that I was fascinated with, and she was in a group called the Field Biologists. So the youth organization of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. So that brought me into organized environmentalism. So never underestimate the importance of hormones and puberty and career choices. So that was, you know, an honest and genuine interest in nature, but also the social networks of. What I considered to be young and cool environmentalists, I wanted to be one of them.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:04:29] I mean, the 70s is a pretty early time to be starting into this. Like I've said, I consider myself kind of like a bit of a lame environmentalist, you know, like in high school, in the 90s. It seemed like we were in a moment where environmentalism and concern and that consciousness, at least at the consumer level, was really at the forefront. You know, there were workshops; we'd have like sort of mini-conferences in the high school about, you know, the environment and regeneration and things like that. And I remember doing some work years later with the David Suzuki Foundation and actually, you know, being on this what they call the Climate Leadership Council with David Suzuki and him talking about himself being an environmentalist in the 70s and about how the data was available even then around what's going on with the planet. And the human impact and the impatience he felt to get going right now and at the time, people had reached out to him and said, well, you know, or sorry, he had reached out to people to say, you know, what should I be doing in order to make an impact? And they all said, well, this is a cultural shift. What you got to be doing is focusing on education so that the next generation, they grew up with this awareness and this knowledge. And he felt such urgency that he's like, we don't have time for that. Right. And he wanted direct action and tried advocating directly. But decades passed with, frankly, a lot of inaction. And, you know, in sharing the story with us, he shared that one of his regrets was that he was too impatient, didn't feel or fully understand how long things would take and had wished that he had spent a bit more time on education to kind of lay the, you know, the cultural fabric. How has that changed in your mind of like the general awareness and care for environmentalism, like from the 70s till now? What have you seen as being the shift?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:06:22] I think it comes and goes. So sometimes being an environmentalist, you're totally out of the picture. So, that was the 90s when everybody was making money, investing on the stock markets. No, nobody cared about environmentalism. On the other hand, in the 80s, we were heroes just waving the flags as we're Greenpeace. And we were heroes and money just kept coming. Now, I think we're in a time where being an environmentalist is, yeah, that's a decent thing to be. That's normal. We're not yet in this space where everybody's an environmentalist. I think the success criteria for, for a wider environmental movement, if we can call it that, is, you know, just knowledge, absolutely fundamental science and traditional knowledge is the foundation for every solution we're looking for. But then you also need to attract many people, and people have busy lives. The environment is obviously one on climate is one of the major challenges we're facing. It's not the only one. We're living in times of war and poverty and drug abuse, all sorts of stuff that people can engage in. So. So. So you need to find ways to mobilize many people. And the most important thing that's missing is actual conservation, actual action. So we've been going from I think the first UN conference was in Stockholm 1972. And the number of conferences and meetings and commitments and papers that's been put out, there's an explosion. The practical implication of that is not exploding. So that's why we at Oceanwise decided to be. When we were looking at. What's missing and it's actually real conservation, practical conservation. So we're trying to be the let's do it organization. And we also try to mobilize many people, which requires us to be not the radical front runners, but the second wave. So we're very happy to see people like David Suzuki or Greta Thunberg and others just, you know, we need to go all the way over here and we're not ready. So we need to mobilize people who are willing to. To take small, many people take small steps rather than a few people doing everything right. So, that's what we think is our role. That doesn't mean we don't think these people are necessary or we don't think the advocacy work is necessary. No, they were just we picked one niche that we think we can add value in. And you pick your role and you pick your lever and you say, this is where we're going to apply pressure. This is our focus. Yeah. With full respect to other choices that other organizations and companies are doing. We just try to do what we are good at.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:08:51] Yeah. So you mentioned the cyclical nature of environmentalism, which is kind of interesting because it makes it seem almost like it's a seasonal fad of every decade or so. But what are the regional differences been? Because, I mean, you've worked for a number of organizations, really storied organizations like Greenpeace, WWF, Oceana, but you've also lived all over the world. So what are the regional differences and what are the cultural differences been between these various organizations that you work with?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:09:20] So in the political world, the European Union has always been a leader, always been ahead of everybody else. The practical implication, not so much. I think there are really the two kinds of environmental movements. The one that I'm part of, which are people are actually not living with the consequences of environmental destruction. We have the privilege of living in democracy and a very protected life. Yeah, a very safe place. Safe space. Not Canada. Sweden, Spain. Oh, yeah. You can live there. And then you have the other environmentalists who are actually living with the consequences. They live in drought. They live in floods. They live in scarcity. They have record temperatures. They're suffering from the environmental destruction. And the challenge is to make those two different subcultures of environmentalism, those two different constituencies to come together. So we can use our privileged positions in a country. In true solidarity with the people who are actually living with the consequences of the choices our countries or our societies have made.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:10:25] And that's, I think, been a big disconnect for a long time because, you know, I know for myself and others, we aren't experiencing the extent of what's happening in the world. We might notice a little bit when, for example, you know, so much of the province is on fire. Right. We have the fifth season now, which is our fire season and things get smoky and ashy. And between that, some rain and some flooding. Sure, you can say some things are changing, but we're not feeling that direct impact. But our appreciation of it seems to be quite mundane as well. Like, I'm sure you noticed, you know, the provincial election that just happened in British Columbia. For some reason, a lot of public opinion seemed to hinge on one party promising to do away with the ban on plastic straws. And these sorts of minor issues come to the fore. I mean, it's on the forefront as inconveniences, but there seems to not be necessarily an appreciation for what they mean. But what have you seen in terms of, like, the changes in individual responsibility versus government policy? Because I felt that for a long time, it seemed like a lot of responsibility was being thrust on the individual, on the consumer, whereas the most massive impact actually made at the government or policy level.

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:11:43] So we've gone from a public response to. To me or other environmentalists is why, why should I care to how, meaning what can I do? And that's where we need to step up as environmentalists, figuring out what can you do if you're just an ordinary citizen without significant wealth or political power? What can you do? And we have a couple of different things. We have a seafood label that helps people make right choices when they buy fish for their dinner. We we are cleaning up Canadian and American beaches. We've been cleaning beaches here for more than three years. That really should be the municipality's responsibility. But they don't do it. So we do it. And then we use the information to understand what kind of what kind of plastics ends up in the ocean and therefore ends up on our beaches. And straws are interesting because they've always been we have we write the report every September called the Dirty Dozen and straws has always been there. This year, however, it's not the straw is gone from the top 12 different categories of Pollution, plastic pollution that we find on beaches. So that's good. It means advocacy and campaigning kind of works, but it is not great that we are so focused on symbolic issues. So the mayor of Vancouver with the new mayor, relatively new mayor of Vancouver, one of the first decisions made was to take away what they call the 'tax' on single-use coffee cups and very proud of. Yeah, I'm back to normal, whatever. It's B. S. Change is absolutely necessary, but we shouldn't fight over relatively insignificant things like plastic straws. One, there's a solution that's relatively easy, but two, if we think that environment is a left wing or a right wing issue, we're wrong. Everybody needs to be an environmentalist. And if you're going to fight climate change and nature, nature loss, everybody needs to do everything they can and we can live without plastic straws. But that's not the biggest issue. There are many, many more important issues where we should try to come together.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:13:56] Well, a reframing of the problem that was actually very useful to me came years ago, again, when I was traveling a little bit more in sustainability circles. For example, I used to in the late 2000s. Produce this festival called 30 Days of Sustainability. And back then it was a big deal to have 30 days. days of sustainability events, and messages, and creative concepts, and people coming together, and conferences, and talks, and all of that. And eventually, the idea was, well, actually, we shouldn't just have 30 days of sustainability. 24/7. Yeah, this should probably be integrated into most of our work and our lives. But a reframing that was given to me was that in environmentalism, so much of it is about, quote unquote, 'saving the planet'. And actually, in a million, two million, 100 million years, the planet's going to be fine. That actually, it's about saving civilization, humanity, and this brief period that we've been occupying it. And there's such a disconnect, though, because humanity in general is bad at understanding exponential change. We don't understand it with pandemics. We don't understand it with the environment. We only understand it when it just comes and slaps us in the face. So what have you witnessed? How have you addressed the challenge of helping people understand what is actually exponential change and the time frame of it? Because we're all very much ruled by our lizard brains. And unless the threat is imminent, not many people are motivated to move as quickly as we need to right now. And here we have a situation where the threat feels pretty imminent. It's maybe decades away. But there still isn't that action. There's still a pretty massive, it feels, human impediment. Right? So how have you tried to counter that?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:15:47] So I think environmentalists are often perceived as, pardon my English, but party poopers, coming in with all the bad news, telling people what they can't do. I think that's no longer a successful tactic. Maybe scaring people about what's going to happen in the future was. Now they just need to watch the news. I don't know what you've seen, but I've seen Valencia and this big city in Spain, a very rich country, totally devastated, hundreds of people dying because, of course, of rains. They had half a meter of rain in four hours. That's a full year of rain in four hours. And that's the new normal. This is going to be the 100 droughts or 100 floods a year rather than a flood in 100 years. That's fundamentally changed. So we will all be feeling it much more. But I also think it's time for the environmental movement to stop preaching and look for what people can do. And in the spirit of, everybody needs to do everything they can, but also, looking at some things are inconvenient. And convenience is a really important part of North American culture. So how do you do it? Because I am a hardcore environmentalist, and I live an hour's walk from my office. I take the bus. My wife is not an environmentalist. She doesn't take the bus. And it's not that I haven't tried. She's just not. I'm going to go shopping, all those things. And I can nag my wife to death. And she's not going to change. I know that. She's a strong woman. She's going to do what she wants to do. And that's true for everybody. So you need to find a way where environmentalism makes sense in your life. And I think there's three big things that everybody should reflect on. One is how you transport yourself back and forth to work or holidays or school, whatever it is. Second is, what do you eat? So we have a culture here in North America. We love our meat. No? People eat twice as much meat now than we did only 20 years ago. So maybe cut out some of that meat, which is hard on climate, hard on water, hard on pollution, and eat more vegetables. It's probably good for some of us as well. But think about it. And then be happy with your choices. And then how do you heat your house? How do you? Here in BC, we have hydro, so that's relatively safe. But across Canada, that's if you have the possibility to choose, make a good choice on how you heat and cool your house, if you can. If you've done those three things, you've done a lot. And then start talking to your friends and neighbors to make sure that they do it too. Because if you make a couple of choices, your friends will notice, oh, he's taking the bus now. Why is he taking the bus? I'm taking the bus because A, B, and C. Oh, he's not eating meat every time we have a dinner together. Why is he not eating meat every time? Want to know? So you become a force. A force for change in your social circles. And hopefully, then that snowballs and you get traction as a movement. But then, of course, you need to support the people who are trying. So when you vote or when you buy stuff, you vote with your dollars. You support the leaders who are trying to do the right things. You imagine you're a politician. I never want to be a politician. It's horrible. I mean, can you imagine? The job must be horrible. Are you trying really hard? And then they don't vote for you. What are you going to do? Or you put a product or a service on the market, and nobody's buying. What are you going to do? You lose, no? So supporting people who are trying is also really important. So whether you want to support the company who's selling the right stuff or you want to support an organization who's trying to do the right stuff, do the three or four things that you can do in your daily life. Make some serious changes if you have to. And then support others. And then build community. Talk to people. It's going to grow.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:19:39] Yeah. I mean, I think. I think the reframing of some ideas has been really important. Another data point, I haven't validated this by any means, but I read somewhere years ago that if you are a vegetarian, that you can drive a Hummer H1 guilt-free. So again, I haven't done the math on it. But as far as reframing some of these ideas so people understand what the impacts are, what it means. Because even with what you're saying, the dirty dozen, plastic straws, the impact of it, I don't think it's widely enough understood and known that it has that sort of impact. It's definitely not understood when it comes to our election time or our politics. Because these things become very, as you said, symbolic things that people fall for or against. And it's an oversimplification. But what it sounds like you're describing is that the era of the environmentalist kind of being that finger-pointing party scouter. It's kind of over, right? And so we need to incentivize different behaviors. What has been your favorite way, or what have you seen as being the most effective way of getting people really mobilized and excited about doing something?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:20:48] So what I appreciate most is when people who's been really stubborn anti-environmentalism kind of wake up. And it's nothing better. And it's got nothing to do with Canada, unfortunately. Nothing to do with me either. But the farmers in Australia, Australia is a coal power producing country. And it's kind of a environmentalism hasn't been at the forefront in Australia. For years, we called the US and Canada, Japan and Australia, the filthy four. Every international negotiation, they were really watering things down and walking away, making it hard. And sorry, that was USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Japan. OK. The filthy four in the 80s and the 90s. Australian farmers are living with drought; they're not stupid. Out of pure, pure business sense, they've changed their mind. Australian farmers are now pro-climate action. Not all of them, of course. But a vast majority of Australian farmers are now pushing the governments to do more on climate because they are living with consequences. And they're an important part of the economy. So that matters. And it's those kind of changes where people say, you know what, I was wrong. I'm changing my mind. And now I'm going to go all in for what I actually believe in. And there are many of those examples. But I thought just farmers have a bad rep. And food is the biggest impact we have on the planet. So if farmers get it right, we'll come a long way.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:22:18] What do you think the world is doing right? I mean, I started this particular episode with a perhaps classical bad news, scary sort of framing of our conversation about what's happening with the oceans. And to some extent, it is really frightening. And it is scary. But what are you seeing? What are you seeing in addition to the farmers in Australia where, whether it's government or people or a cultural change, what are we doing right?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:22:43] So, right now is the last day of negotiations in the Convention on Biological Diversity, one of the three most important international conventions for the environment. And there is not as much progress as we need. But there's significantly more progress than what we are used to. And there's a couple of things that's entering the negotiation arena that wasn't there before. One is corporates who are pro-nature or pro-climate solutions and indigenous folks. So, the indigenous folks don't always have a seat at the table still, but much more than they did before. And that's important, because if you look around globally, land that is controlled by indigenous folks are in a better shape than land that's in the hands of governments or corporations. So, we have something to learn. And the fact that we're not going to be able to do that. It's becoming more and more obvious that environmentalism isn't bad for business; it's actually a business opportunity, making the stigma of being an environmentalist totally different. You have people who are now building their careers as environmentalists. Even if they're a venture capitalist, they can now build their careers as environmentalists. You have lawyers. You have construction folks. You have all sorts of people. When I was in my early 20s, you were either a biologist or just a pure activist, a sustainable banker-unheard of. It's like a contradiction of terms. A banker is, by definition, evil. That's no longer the case. So environmentalism has been mainstreamed. And that's important, because obviously, biology is important. It's the foundation. But it's not enough. And driving change is not driven by knowledge. Change is not driven by knowledge. Change is driven by emotional connections. So it's not enough. So it's something that you care about, that you're willing to make change for.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:24:40] Yeah. It's something that you care about, for sure. But what you're describing as far as the changes with the fact that you can be an environmental lawyer, sustainable banker, the economics have been incentivized. There's an integration of this mode of thinking and working into the wider economy, which gives people viable paths to actually enter it. But what are we? You know. So that sounds like an improvement. And it's a big shift and a change. What's getting worse? What are we doing wrong, continuing to do wrong?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:25:14] Everything is getting worse still. So that's the big challenge for somebody like me who's been around for a long time. We are moving the debates. We are moving the awareness. But all the major environmental trends are still going in the wrong direction. The climate change is not slowing down; it's accelerating. The World Wildlife Fund just came out with a report a couple of days ago, and they said, since 1970s, we have lost 73% of all animals in the world. 73% of all animals are gone in my lifetime. The only problem of significance we've solved is the ozone layer. The ozone layer is actually healing. And that was because the solution was relatively easy. There were technical products that could help us against the CFC gases. If you're old enough, you remember. Yeah. The deodorants and the hairsprays and whatever. And governments came together in Montreal, actually. So there's a Montreal Protocol, which everybody agreed, this is what we're going to do. And then they did it. So now the ozone layer is healing, which means, yes, it can be done. It's not done. And that's why Oceanwise is so focused on the doing part of environmentalism, not the talking part of environmentalism. Because we talk the right way. Most leaders now, mostly, not all of them, but most leaders now are saying, yeah, of course, we have an environmental program. And they have different environmental programs, which is good. People should be able to make choices. But the doing is not happening. We're still in Canada subsidizing the oil and gas industry with somewhere between 15 and 18 times more than we subsidize renewable energy. How is that environmental action? It isn't. It's just not there yet.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:26:58] Do you wind up interfacing a lot directly with government or advocating on the government level?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:27:02] No, and not because I don't think it's important, but it seems to be option number one for all NGOs. I'm an environmental group or I'm another, whatever it is, because I'm going to go talk to the government. And governments obviously are important because, you know, 90% of the people follow the law 90% of the time. So if you get the laws right, that's great. But that place is full, crowded. So we're trying to be more market-focused, looking at things that are effective on the market, because if you get the environment and the economy, right, and in harmony with each other, and you add social justice to that, then you have truly sustainable solutions. And once it's happening, so this is what my mom told me once. She said, 'If you just kept quiet and did what you did, it would be so much better because what you do is never controversial. It's when you talk about it that it's controversial.' And she said, 'I don't know anybody of my friends who thinks you've done stupid things, but all of them say you've said stupid things.' So I like to be in the space where the action speaks for itself a little bit more, and that we worry less about opinions and what's in the news, and worry more about what's happening in the ocean, on the forests or the rivers or the soil, because that's where it actually matters.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:28:26] I mean, that's been really encouraging, you know, for us, even as, you know, Skyrocket, my company and working with Oceanwise is in working with an NGO that is so action-oriented because you'd mentioned the seafoods program and I knew about the seafoods program for years before I even knew that it was you know conservation organization or what ocean wise was frankly I just knew that if there was a menu and there was a seafood item that was Ocean Wise, I would order that because it felt like the right thing to do; it is the right thing. Yeah, absolutely! And and that's that's one of many actions that Ocean Wise encourages you mentioned the shoreline cleanup program, you know, plastic reductions, a variety of things what are the efforts underway right now to motivate action?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:29:10] So it's interesting because we are actually measuring the hours of service that we are doing to the communities so we have our youth programs they're building on; they're building on three: three things education we want people to actually know stuff about the ocean that they don't when they join a program, leadership because clearly we need to lead the world in it in a new direction. But then also, community service. So if you go, if you're a young person somewhere between 15 and 30, you join an Ocean Wise educational program. You will learn about the ocean. You will learn about leadership, and then you will do a project where you live. If you live downtown Vancouver, you do a project in downtown Vancouver build a community around your idea. If you're from Haida, why you do it on Haida, why in your own community? And then we actually count those hours to see how many people have we been engaging with and how many hours of service is this so that's really important for us are we actually doing things are we saying that? We're doing things are we doing them, and we're looking; we're working on four different fronts. No plastics, obviously. We've been working with the apparel industry about how do you design a jacket that works in the weather we live in here in Vancouver? How do we work with washing machine companies? How do you wash your clothes so they don't shred more microfiber plastics than necessary? We're now looking at dryers: how do you dry your clothes without having a cloud of microfiber plastics just be out in the out in the atmosphere, and then we're going to look at detergent. We're trying to help people buy the right stuff. to plant kelp so kelp is the fastest growing organism on the planet really important for herring for otters it's a good sequester of carbon and we've lost 50 percent of the of the kelp and and BC is a really important place and Chile on the in South America is really important place so we try not to talk to governments and say why don't you plant some kelp now we're actually planting kelp together with our partners and they're always in in in both in Canada and Chile led by indigenous folks with ocean-wide scientists and experts with support from whatever government local or federal government and our ambition is to first Plant 50 hectares in Chile as a seascape laboratory, and then based on what we learned, plant 5, 000 hectares that would make us one of the biggest stewards of kelp forests in the world. After the Chinese government, I don't think we're ready to take on the Chinese government quite yet. Um, we work with whales, everybody in Vancouver, of course, BC, we love whales. I would have been an accountant probably if it wasn't for whales. I love whales, and we've been able as an environmental community to almost face out hunting of whales. There's still a couple of countries who are hunting, but the biggest threat to whales is no longer hunting. It's ship strikes and entanglement in in in fishing gear, so we built the system here together with the Port of Vancouver, called the Whale Report and Alert System, which is 8, 000 volunteers keeping their eyes open, an app on your smartphone where you can report 'I've seen a whale' that observation goes automatically to everybody who's on a on a ship within 10 miles from that observation and then they can slow down or reroute if they want to. We're now taking that to Prince Rupert, and we're taking it to Seattle, and we're hoping to take it to Dubai, to Colombo in Sri Lanka, to San Francisco, and have it in 13 different ports around the world by 2030. So, there's all sorts of good stuff going on and it's working because we're doing it in collaboration. Almost everything we do is a collaborative project. It's Ocean Wise, plus somebody or a group or a network or a bunch of individuals who know something that we don't. So, we become stronger together. We intend to out collaborate the opposition to the solutions that we are looking at, not out compete, but out collaborate. So, working together with others, so we build strength and that our solutions can get to scale because being right in the margins is just not enough anymore.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:33:22] Yeah, I mean it's um, it's fantastic talking to somebody that's so clear on the impact that they want to make, but buried within that um, and I'm going to be talking a little bit broadly beyond Ocean Wise even is uh, there's a leadership style that you're describing, of you know, the idea of out collaborating, the you know what you might face as opposing forces. Has your leadership style changed or what have you learned from you know the three main organizations that I named at the outset um, because to me kind of looking from the outside we're only really familiar intimately with Ocean Wise ourselves but just looking from the outside they seem to be even culturally Very different entities, right? Um, you know, Greenpeace, Oceana, and Ocean Wise... uh, they seem to be, you know, even though there might be a universal intent, there culturally they seem like different organizations. Greenpeace, to me, is very... I still have the remnants of you know, memories from, you know, the 80s and 90s, and, and, you know, the headlines that were made with this very activist, very forceful organization. But how has your leadership style changed, and how do these organizations kind of differ from from each other culturally?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:34:31] So, the organizations are different by choice... no, so... You're right, Greenpeace. Is confrontational not in a violent way but they are very direct, it's clear you know many of your friends work for Greenpeace. I like Greenpeace more on the outside from the inside, there's a really hardcore campaigner so when they turn inside into the organization as they tend to to do that's hard. But Greenpeace, the role of Greenpeace is to kick butt and when they do that Wf can walk in because Wf is really good at finding solutions that are uh acceptable compromises and then they have scale because it's the biggest conservation organization there is none so there's a carrot and stick going on there oh it and and when these two Organizations know each other when I was the CEO for WF in Sweden, I was on the phone with the CEO of Greenpeace all the time. So you need to be more radical so I can be normal. If you're not out there, I look like an extremist. There should be nobody between me and the decision maker, and it's your job to create an organization that's going to be able to create a crisis so I can help solve it. And sometimes that worked, and sometimes of course Greenpeace are hardcore; they think a compromise is a failure. So it is what it is. But that setup is benefiting for somebody who's more pragmatic than principal. Um, but we all play different roles-Oceana. Is the best organization in the world when it comes to fisheries policy on the national level. They've just set this as what we're going to do, that's very specific: we're going to be the best organization in the world when it comes to national policies for fisheries and fishing. Fisheries and then they've diversified a little bit, but I really like working for an organization. This is what we do-quotas, that's that's all. And they do it only in countries that matter. So when all these organizations doing what they're good at, and they're not trying to be different than the core of their identity, they're all amazing and they fail so when greenpeace try to be pragmatic or wf tries to be radical or oceana and doubles in consumer campaigns nah that's not what they should be doing they should stick to what they're good at and then talk to each other and then the synergies that comes out to that could be much so you mentioned that um culturally that everything that's happening politically in europe uh tends to lead the world um so i want to talk about vancouver specifically because i would say even in the landmass that is canada we've got a lot of cultural differences here from for sure east to east to west um but what are you seeing in vancouver and in comparison to the world and maybe major cities in north america uh where do we where do we sit in our leadership no so i think uh vancouver is a extremely fertile soil for environmental organization it's not by accident that greenpeace was born on the kidzской beach not by accident the sea shepherd has some of their first successes here it's almost like everybody in vancouver's environment lists not everybody but it's it's not controversial to be an environmentalist here there are other places where i would you know i don'tfia telling people what I do for a living. It's not safe being an environmentalist. If you were a forest protector in the Amazon or you were doing work on illegal fishing in Spain, no, that's dangerous. Really? Yeah. So journalist is really dangerous. Environmentalist is really dangerous. Some of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Some places. It depends on the context you're in. So Canada, safe. Vancouver, safer than safe. Environmentalism is encouraged here. I'm very surprised I came here from Spain, which is a good environmental country, relatively speaking. One of the best supporters Oceanwise has here is KPMG. I would never even dream of our accountants. I know KPMG is more than accountants, but our accountants would be one of our strongest supporters. But they are. And that's amazing. I don't think that would happen in many other countries. Or many other cities even. So Vancouver is very cool that way.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:38:32] Where do you think we can go next from here? What's your outlook on the next generation of environmentalism and leadership in this space?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:38:40] So when it comes to leadership, I think COVID will change everything. And that's good. Because we came from a culture which was primarily top-down. Old guys with many years behind and they're the ones who know. That would be me. No, I know everything. I've been around forever and I'm a well-educated man. So I should be the decision maker. That's a stupid model. So what we're trying to do in Oceanwise, we're experimenting what we call a performance culture. So we don't force people to come into the office. We are not counting hours. We're not counting butts on seats. We are trying to be really clear about this: this is where the organization is going, this is what we're trying to achieve within the next three years, within the next year, and within the next couple of months. And this Oceanwise through number so-and-so with this and that name. This is your contribution. And that's a negotiation between the line manager and the staff person. This is what we're going to do. And then as long as you live in a Canadian climate time zone, you're good. So we have staff from Vancouver Island to Halifax. We have people working on the ocean in Saskatoon, which is kind of weird. Because when you're in Sask, I've never been to Saskatoon, but I can see a map. It's far from the ocean and that works for some people and it's challenging for others. So we're trying to build a support culture around people. So you can. Yes, you can. You don't have to be in the office between these hours. You can work from your living room if you think that's the best place to be. We even had a guy for a while. He was living in a van in Mexico because he loved surfing. Then he came back because he said, 'I needed too much freedom.' I couldn't handle that. I need a few young guys. Yeah. He needed some rules. But the idea of co-creation and empowerment is what creates this high agency that your podcast is all about. If people know what they're expected to deliver and they have the resources to make it happen, and they're motivated and they're talented – which is the kind of people we want to be. You don't need to control them; you need to empower and understand. You need to unleash them, which is a very different thing. And I had a conversation with people yesterday and said, 'We want to have a four-day work week.' I said, 'No, you're not going to have a four-day work week. You can work when you want.' If you need to go to the dentist on a Tuesday afternoon, just tell your colleagues, 'I'm going to the dentist and then figure out between you because you're all grown-ups; you're all smart. How to work and realize you're not in this organization on your own. So it's not whatever you want. It's what's good for the organization and for you. Find that space, then we will be effective. We will be powerful because if everybody's an empowered in the organization, the organization is empowered. It's like love. The more you share it, the more there is power-it's the same. The more you share it, the more there is. So if if the people who work for me are afraid of taking initiatives because they are afraid that I'm going to criticize them or punish them because I'm their boss, that's bad leadership that that creates a nervous organization who is afraid of failing and people will not take initiative. And therefore, we won't get the best out of them. Do we have people who take too many initiatives? Yes, sometimes they're doing a little bit crazy. That's better than not having creativity in an organization. Absolutely. So unleashing and empowering is critical. But the accountability in the system is the challenge. Now, how do you, how do we hold each other accountable? Because we are depending on each other. It's conservationist teamwork. No. Yeah. And that's the challenge.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:42:20] But what you described as far as high agency people are creating a high agency culture. I mean, that's what I gravitate towards. Absolutely. And I'll share a quick anecdote. Years ago, many years at Skyrocket, there was a sort of like rumor in a small team that I didn't want people to take vacation. And the reason why this kind of rumor started was because, you know, somebody would request a vacation and I would kind of bristle and just get really awkward and not know how to have the conversation. And the effect it left people with was, oh, he doesn't want us to take time off. He just wants us working all day, every day. And it took me a long time to figure that out. And it took me a long time to realize myself. It wasn't that I didn't want people to take time off. I didn't want people to ask me because my point was, who am I to approve your vacation? I don't know what you're working on. Right. You figure it out. You're talking to clients. You're talking to your team members. You figure it out. And let me know that you need to take time off. Great. But who am I to approve this? Because, you know, that's that's so it felt kind of paternalistic. Right. And at the time, though, I didn't have necessarily the articulation of the tools to describe that. What I was looking for was ownership. That empowerment of you tell me what you're doing. Who am I to tell you? Right. But, you know, we learned and we corrected and we got to the other side of it. And I would say, you know, even us as a team now, organizationally, what you're describing is, you know, definitely what we're trying to create here, which is a high-performance culture, which is rooted in empowerment and the accountability. But I feel that there's a there's a bit of magic to impact organizations. Right? Whether it's social or environmental, which is that you're already starting with cause. So people that are going to come to you aren't necessarily-I could be wrong, but aren't necessarily people that are looking to maximize the salary for their skill set. They're coming because they have an intent for a change that they want to create in the world. Right. And they're very purpose-focused. And those people are going to be highly accountable anyways. I mean, in fact, when you say that, you know, some people are taking too many initiatives. Right. I feel like that's a problem that you would probably see in a lot of social environmental impact organizations. Because you almost have to tell people not to work so hard because there's so much that they could be doing. Right. But with with the team that you're building and what Oceanwise is doing, you know, if you had to look out 10 years and say, 'Here's my vision for where we've arrived. Right.' I mean, I know you've got targets for three years. We've talked about those. But if you had to look at even broader than that and say, this is what a fully arrived organization will look like, where we're fulfilling our potential and doing what we're supposed to.

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:44:53] What does that look like? So I think it's a never-ending journey. I don't think we'll come to the point to say 'I'll come to the point' to say I don't have anything more to offer. They need another CEO by now, and I'll move on. I don't think that's any time soon because we have more things to do. And I think I can add value still, even though I've been around for five and a half years, I actually never kept the job longer than the one I have now. Well, that's a good sign, I guess. It is a good sign. I'm not tired. It's not that I actually think we have things to do. But I think. I came here and the board asked me to turn this into an organization with global impact. We have a long way to go before we have global impact. And there are two ways for us to have a global impact. One is to actually spread the geographical reach of the organization. So, we've created a legal entity in Chile, in South America. We have a legal entity in the US and that might expand into other countries or regions. So, actually just spreading what we already have. So you would have a Vancouver OceanWise, you have a Toronto OceanWise, you have a Mexico City OceanWise, etc. But the other one is doing things that are so amazing and so inspirational that they actually have a global impact independent from where they happen. That's a much more fascinating model for me. I think we need to use both those tactics. But when our whale report and alert system, which is one of the things I'm really, really excited about right now, is in 15 ports, 20 ports around the world. Some of them just licensed by OceanWise and somebody else owns it and runs it. That's the way I mean, I really wanted to. I like it when people steal my ideas and they are more powerful than making them bigger, which happens every now and then. So I think OceanWise will have a bigger geographical reach. But also we've done a couple of things that are really very special. So they, you know, some things you remember. Do you remember when OceanWise did this and that? We'll have a few of those as well.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:46:54] Yeah, there's a lot of legacy, but inspiration that comes out of those sorts of projects for sure. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, you know, in these conversations, we always try to take out some powerful quotes. The part where you said that, you know, with power, the more you create, the more there is. That it's like love. The more you create, the more there is. I think that's beautiful. As far as like an invitation for people to come and get involved. You know, as far as your sort of next steps in your leadership and what you would even do beyond OceanWise. You know, if there was a personal development that you had to share with our viewers, what would that be? You know, what does the next version of LASA look like in your own leadership?

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:47:43] So right now I'm 100% committed to OceanWise. But there will come a day. I know myself. And I'm not the only one. One of my sons called me about a year ago and he said, 'Are you moving soon?' And I said, 'What do you mean? Well, you never kept a job longer than four years and you keep moving around. So where are you going next?' So I asked my wife, 'Are we going somewhere?' And she said, 'Let's try something new.' So I thought, 'Okay, we're going somewhere.' Where are we going? No, no, let's try something new. Let's stay.' So now we're staying. So now we bought a house. So now we're committed to OceanWise and Vancouver and we're staying here. But at one point, it's time to hand over. And I think my next step is not to be a CEO for another organization. Well, you should never say never, but I don't think so. I think my next step is to take all my experience and turn that into a couple of board roles maybe. Maybe I'll write the book. Maybe I'll become an advisor. And spread my experiences of leadership and my experience of understanding the fundamental challenges we're facing with climate and biodiversity loss and health into places where they are not. I'm fascinated by the big industries that we are depending on, but they are very unsustainable, like agriculture, like energy production, like mining. I don't think I'll be hanging around with too many conservationists on my last stretch because there's nothing wrong with environmentalists. But I'm fascinated. One of my best friends runs a construction company. Another friend of mine is a medical doctor. They're all struggling with climate change in their own way. And I think my experience is more useful in those arenas than hanging out with other ex-WF Greenpeace people. And I love these guys. But if you want to continue to have impact, you need to go to places where you're needed, not where you're comfortable.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:49:39] Yeah. So it sounds like a powerful legacy in the making.

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Lasse Gustavsson

[00:49:42] We'll see.

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Mo Dhaliwal

[00:49:43] All right, Lasse. Well, thank you so much for joining us on iAgency. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Well, hopefully we've given you a lot to think about. That was I Agency. Like and subscribe, and we will see you next time.