Big Interview: Deborah Meaden on the importance of biodiversity in business

You may know Deborah Meaden as the shrewd, reasonable Dragon on Dragons' Den, the host of Radio 5’s The Big Green Money Show, or the savvy entrepreneur who ran her family’s Weststar Holiday firm from 1999 before selling it for a huge £83m.

These are just a few snippets from the Somerset-based businesswoman’s CV.

Ms Meaden supports ethical, fair practice both in business and in life, believing that taking care of the environment is essential for the future. She earned the nickname ‘Swampy’ from the moment she joined Dragons' Den, for her tireless promotion of sustainable practice in business.

She is actively involved in environmental charities, as a fellow of the WWF, a trustee of Tusk Trust, an ambassador for Mico-loan Foundation, Marine Conservation Society, World Horse Welfare and recently RSPB amongst others.

In October, Ms Meaden will open Blue Earth Summit, delivering the keynote address to the audience.

“I always think a keynote speech is not to dictate to people,” Ms Meaden told BusinessLive . “I think it is about opening peoples’ minds, to open up the conversations that need to take place.”

Returning to Bristol for the third year running, the summit brings together business leaders, investors, pioneers and more to inspire environmentally-conscious business practices.

When asked how she felt about delivering the keynote speech, Ms Meaden said she was “chuffed” as it’s a topic close to her heart and an opportunity to talk with an audience she “knows and loves”.

Ms Meaden will join the summit to discuss the need for investment in nature. BusinessLive asked the Dragons' Den star what this subject means to her.

“Businesses have really got their minds wrapped around net zero. But net zero has worried me for a long time because net zero has made businesses focus so hard on that particular issue that it hasn’t thought about the wider picture. We cannot have net zero without nature, it is as simple as that,” she explained.

Ms Meaden continued: “Biodiversity is nature, it's things we walk through day after day, it’s trees, it’s animals and clean water and fresh air, it’s everything. Oddly we’ve got our minds wrapped round this thing that is difficult to get your mind wrapped round and we haven’t joined it together with this thing that actually should be much more obvious to us, and I think that once we understand that and start looking at the impact that we are having on nature and biodiversity then it’s going to be a key that unlocks the path to net zero, because if you get all that stuff right you get net zero.”

Ms Meaden will open Blue Earth Summit — Blue Earth Summit 2022 (Image: Toby Butler)

The environment and climate action have always been on Ms Meaden’s agenda. She told BusinessLive how she did a project on climate change while studying business in Brighton.

She explained: “So I was doing an OND, ordinary national diploma in business, and my project then, was 40-45 years ago. So I was already concerned about it (climate change) but it was going to be something that was probably going to happen beyond my lifetime.

“There was this understanding that if we just kept pumping pollution into the air, using fossil fuels, making our waters filthy, it was going to cause a problem but it wasn’t going to be in my lifetime.

“But of course I was wrong, it’s happened and it is happening.”

Ms Meaden received her first environmental award for business about 30 years ago.

“It was very simple stuff, it was to stop spraying the weeds, let the grass grow. Then I got another award for reducing our impact; we had some swimming pools at the time and making them more environmentally friendly,” she explained.

“It has been on my radar for a long time… even in Dragons' Den from the word go they used to call me swampy. I joined 17 years ago and they were like ‘there she goes again, worrying about the blinking bats’. So they called me swampy.”

'Startups and SMEs are undervaluing what they can offer huge organisations'

In the past six to seven years businesses have pushed ahead with their climate agenda and Blue Earth Summit is committed to bringing people who could make a difference together to better understand the framework of the problems we are facing and how everybody can play a part in the solutions.

Ms Meaden who now invests in companies said: “I cannot tell you how startups and SMEs are undervaluing what they can offer huge organisations, because they are fleet of foot and we need to get on with this.”

Due to the rapidness of climate change, Ms Meaden told BusinessLive how the biggest challenge facing businesses, big and small, is time.

She explained how SMEs can shorten their decision making and plough on with changes quicker than larger organisations.

She continued: “They have the ability to be quickly creative. There is a lot of creativity in huge organisations but there is a lot of structure slowing that creativity down. But often, this links back to funding, often these smaller businesses are able to offer solutions that the bigger businesses just haven’t got round to yet.

Deborah Meaden as the shrewd, reasonable Dragon on Dragon’s Den — Deborah Meaden spoke to BusinessLive about the importance of biodiversity in business (Image: Charles Glover)

“Therefore, you get this natural partnership, whether that’s collaboration, whether that’s the smaller organisations saying to big businesses ‘you’re worried about that, we’ve got this thing that can do that for you, let’s collaborate on it’ or even acquisition, ‘don’t bother to set that whole department up, we’ve got it, we can help you with it’.

“So there is much opportunity with it, you can hear the excitement when I talk about it. When I walk among SMEs I get ever more hopeful because I think ‘there are some fantastic people doing some brilliant stuff out there’.”

When asked how she would advise startups and small businesses to go about funding Ms Meaden suggested finding an investor who has shown interest in more sustainable investing and are interested in investing.

She then explained that when these businesses have found an investor they need to recognise the challenges.

Ms Meaden explained: “If you’re creating a new market it can take longer for that new market to become mature. However, if you win that new market you have got massive gains.

“Now this will interest the more entrepreneurial investors, these are the ones who are used to bigger risk but huge reward, but if you get in the mindset of them and that type of investor and you try and find the ones who are showing interest in this kind of space then you definitely increase your chances.”

She explained how when on Dragons' Den she would have people come in to pitch to everyone then look at her and say “and we’re sustainable”.

“As if that is going to satisfy me,” exclaimed Ms Meaden. “Why? How? All those questions.”

'I don’t think we have the luxury of letting sustainability go out of focus or off the agenda'

In addition to talks and workshops, Blue Earth Summit will be hosting a pitch tent, which Ms Meaden is “looking forward to”.

She said: “It is what I do and what I love. It would be lovely to find someone to invest in.”

In 2022 more than 500 businesses applied to pitch at the summit, where over £6m in investment was raised.

Delving further into how Ms Meaden now works with businesses, she explained: “If I do invest in a business we sit down together and work out what their definition of sustainability is.”

She continued: “Let’s work out what we’ve got covered and what we need to work on, so let’s draw ourselves a map. A journey that says here’s our goal and here’s our plan to work towards it.”

The entrepreneur explained how businesses need to keep evolving and moving the goal post.

However she added: “I have to accept these businesses, they’re not my businesses; I am an investor in those businesses and their desire to reduce their planetary impact has to come from within the business, it can’t rely on me once every couple of months saying ‘so what are doing’. It’s got to be embedded, they’ve got to feel it, they’ve got to want to do it, they’ve got to work at it all the time.

“So my eutopia is when the business is chasing me and saying ‘we’ve done that, now what’ and I’m like ‘whoopee my work here is done’, and that has happened. I love it when I start learning from the businesses when they say ‘what about this, what about that, we’ve done this and have you looked at that, can this help any of your other businesses’, and that is fantastic and that’s when I’ve reached the goal.”

Ms Meaden told BusinessLive: “I don’t think we have the luxury of letting things go out of focus or off the agenda. Now it has to be 100% sitting on the agenda. I mean on the agenda, if we have board meetings, the businesses I talk to, or the management meetings we have we always talk about sustainability ‘where are we, where are we going, what have we achieved, where have we failed, what have we got.’”

This is why she is excited for the Blue Earth Summit, she is hopeful for big and small businesses to collaborate, come together and ultimately learn from each other.

Deborah Meaden is one of the keynote speakers at this year's Blue Earth Summit, which returns to Bristol in October with its most ambitious programme to date.
Featuring over 200 speakers, the three-day event is packed with talks, panels, workshops and networking, all designed to forge connections and foster collaboration.
Whether you’re a founder, investor, adventurer or activist, Blue Earth brings together a diverse community of changemakers to take action for a greener and more sustainable future.
To find out more and book tickets, visit blueearthsummit.com.

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