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Mark Shayler

Sustainability advocate and business growth specialist

Mark Shayler is a prominent figure in the fields of sustainability, innovation, and eco-friendly business practices. As a Founding Partner at Green Lab, he plays a key role in an organization focused on reimagining food systems, designing new bio-materials, and promoting circular economy principles.1

Professional Background

Shayler's career spans various influential positions:

  • Sustainable Innovation Director at Green Lab1
  • Founding Partner of "reasons to be Cheerful"2
  • Co-founder of The Do Lectures2
  • Former Head of Environment for ASDA2
  • Owner of Ape, an innovation and sustainability company35

Expertise and Contributions

Mark Shayler is known for:

  • Eco-innovation: He describes himself as an "eco innovator" working to make things better and create better products.4
  • Authorship: Shayler has written three books, including "Do Disrupt: Change the Status Quo or Become It".5
  • Speaking: He is a sought-after speaker on topics related to sustainability and innovation.2

Philosophy and Approach

Shayler's professional ethos can be summarized as "helping big companies think small and small companies think big".3 This approach reflects his commitment to fostering innovation and sustainability across various scales of business.

Personal

Based in Leicestershire, UK, Mark Shayler has a significant professional network with over 500 connections on LinkedIn.3 He is also active on social media, sharing insights on sustainability and innovation.4

Highlights

Aug 30 · linkedin

The problem with climate change.

It's about persuading people that it needs solving in the first place.

A co-authored post with Steph Barnes

Aug 6 · linkedin

PLAYING FOOTBALL WHERE THE BALL IS GOING TO BE

My latest piece on Substack looks at future environmental scenarios and what they mean for you.

“Play football where the ball is going to be: I use that line a lot. I use it to explain the difference between data and trends. Data is ace, but its already history. It tells you what the consumer did yesterday. It doesn’t tell you want they will do tomorrow. Being able to go from data to insight is essential in business. We do it all the time for our clients and we do it by listening and watching tangential markets, other territories, but mostly imaging what a future world would look like given the acceleration and trajectory of the things we see now.

I was thinking about this on the train back from London yesterday. I’ve just co-written a piece on the problem with climate change (hint, it’s a “you” problem) and I was thinking about future scenarios and how I rarely unite the two halves of what my business does. One half is sustainability. 35 years working to reduce carbon, waste and resource use (yep, since before it was cool). Whilst all the innovation work I do is rooted in “good” or at least “better” I haven’t really looked at pulling the two together more formally.

Well, I have now.

So, what am I going to do?

I start with looking at possible worlds. From an environmental perspective there are a number of possible worlds, I’m going to focus on the most likely:

World One: A 2°C warmer world.

World Two: A world where the circular economy is well developed and “normal”.

World Three: A world where resources are scarce through a combination of availability and geopolitics.”

Read the rest here…….

Related Questions

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Mark Shayler
Mark Shayler, photo 1
Mark Shayler, photo 2
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Experience

Owner at Ape
Director at Springfield Agri, Founding Partner at Green Lab, Visiting Fellow in Sustainable Design at Loughborough University, Founding Partner at The Do Lectures