Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick for the webinar Vet welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat. As you know, we're always interested in listening to people from outside the veterinary profession. And some of the great ideas that they've had as well, and I'm very fortunate to have Musami Sato on the line, who is the founder and the CEO of B1G1.

And we'll hear more about that as the podcast progresses. But I'm really, really thrilled to have you on Musami. I know how busy you are, I know how much fantastic work you're doing.

In the space with B1G1, but perhaps just for those people who aren't as familiar with who you are, perhaps tell us a little bit about one, your history prior to B1G1, and then maybe we can talk a little bit about how the idea for B1G1 came about. Yeah, thank you for the question. Well, actually, although many people tell me that I look quite small and young in the, you know, as a person, but I'm actually 51 today, so I have a quite a, a long history to get to here.

So B1G1 as an initiative was born in 2007, but prior to that, I was a business owner, running a different company. So for me, my first venture started 25 years ago when I had a 3 month old baby. And, at that time, I lived in New Zealand, at Christchurch in New Zealand.

And, there was a reason why I started my business with a 3 month old, old baby at that time because, you know, many people would say, are you crazy? Why are you starting your first business at the, you know, at that time. So there was a reason why I did that.

And that goes a little bit further back into my origin story, but what happened was as a younger person and being born in Japan and, you know, growing up in, the world where I just felt I didn't quite fit and I was very quiet and, introverted, so I didn't know how to express myself. But when, I finished studying, I did something that most of the people, or most of the young girls at that time never did, which was to become a global backpacker and travelled around the world, you know, it's, limited fund, and I didn't even speak English at that time. So that was my beginning of, adult life.

And when I travelled around the world, I started to meet some amazing extraordinary people who seems to be different from me, you know, culture, looks, language, everything, but we found lots of things in common, such as the aspiration and their care for the family and the community or even, you know, being vulnerable and not Not having much money and facing many challenges along the way, I received the people's kindness in a way that I would not have imagined before I left my own country. So during that time, I also looked around and started to see the extraordinary challenges that the people faced or even young children being born in. Certain circumstances didn't have any means for them to live a good life, right?

Like because they couldn't even go to school to complete basic education or their family was struggling to buy medicine or just even get the clean water on a day to day basis. So when I saw that at a younger age and I didn't know how to solve these challenges. Normally I would go, well, I'm a small person.

I don't have a means to help or change the world, so I would just get by and live my life. But at that time I became a mother for the first time and accidentally, almost like because I didn't plan to be a mom. So when I became a mom by chance and I looked at my daughter in my arms, then at that time.

I wondered what would happen to my daughter if she was born. In the circumstance of like other children I met, and the entire world said, sorry, we are too small, we can't help. Mm.

So that was kind of like a trigger moment for me to go into entrepreneurship even though it was not perhaps the right time. So with a 3 month old baby on my back, I started the food business because that was what I knew. No, I cooked when I was travelling and I worked for a cafe and I was a chef and I was passionate about the food because the food brought it together.

So with that I started my first business and then you know, went into the business development, right, like improving the business every day, serving the customers and doing a better job and eventually my business against all the odd became a company that was selling the frozen packaged meals in Australia and then one day this very simple idea landed on me. When I was thinking that one day when our business is bigger or more successful, we would do something good to help children, you know, especially the street children that didn't have a parent. But then because of 5 years into my entrepreneurship journey I still didn't have enough time or with a little bit bigger business I was still not actually ready in order to make such a difference.

So then I thought, what if instead of trying to do big thing we did something small and the idea of B1G1, you know, you mentioned the B1G1 which used to stand for buy one give one, which meant that every meal we sold we would give a meal. And that simple concept really stuck with me because it's no longer wasn't about our company doing something good one day, but it became that something we could do every day and make a difference. And so that was my realisation of this power of idea of small actions.

And eventually I decided to sell my business in Australia at that time and moved to Singapore with two young kids to start the B1J1 as the global initiative. That helps businesses to integrate this act of micro kindness into what they are doing and as a result over the years businesses came together to create more than 393 million impacts to date like giving access to water, planting trees, or educating a child. It's amazing wasabi, it was really interesting.

I run an event, our one physical event called the Veterterinary Green Discussion forum, er which is held at a nature reserve and it's done in a way so that we as a veterinary profession, a veterinary industry, how can we be seen as part of the solution to the environmental problems which obviously then compound into social problems, you know, people don't have enough to eat because. The land is not being looked after, so it's, we have to look at these things holistically. When we were in London two years ago, we played a game which I think is actually originating in Japan but it's around the UNSTG goals and you actually play the game where you get cards and you make a decision, this might make you a lot of money but it degrades the environment.

And we played the game working on the principle, what would the world look like if vets ruled the world. You know, if vets were in charge of everything, how would the world be? And It was really interesting because it was 2024 at that time and we said well we'll go to 2027 and then we'll look at how finally we end up in 2030, which as you know is a critical date around a lot of UN STG goals.

And what happened was, by 2027, most of the people in the room had made lots of money, but the actual environment and social and governance had really gone down. And so everybody then thought, ah, we've got to be, philanthropic and so we'll start giving our money away. And by 2030 actually the vets had done a reasonable job of running the world, but it was exactly as you said.

If we wait until we're in a really good place to start giving, then. We'll never quite get to that place whereas if we make giving a part of our business, our own lives, you know, through tithing, through, through being generous in charity, then that has an immediate effect and it might only be you as one person, but if everybody does it collectively that can be a massive er contribution can't it? Mm mm yeah, you're exactly right because when we try to do big things by ourselves, then it's so easy for us to go, you know, we are not ready yet.

Yes, but when it was about doing small things but together. And then also doing it that on a regular basis then actually we all have a profound power because what we are doing day to day, the life we live, the work we do, the connections that we have every day just by living. I said so many, so many moments.

Yeah, no, I agree. I remember first hearing about B1G1, buy one, give one, and I think it's a really nice acronym in that sense because it really explains it. When I met Paul Dunn at an event and he was talking all about the benefits of how this would work, and he said he'd met you and you'd explained how it worked with him and he, he was amazed cos I think you said.

And I, correct me if I'm wrong, I might be getting this wrong, but he said, he said when somebody, when somebody buys a television, how can you give another television to somebody in another country cos that's really, really difficult. But then you said something along the lines of, and please correct me because I'm sure I'm not saying this right, you know, the television has vision, you can give vision to somebody else, so a pair of glasses. Can make a profound difference, you know, I know now I have to wear glasses as well sometimes, when you have them on, you have that clarity of vision that you don't have without them, so.

That was a really powerful story and and got me sort of interested in that whole strategy of, of giving back as business and as individuals as well. Yeah, it's actually connecting the moments with meaningful change that your business want to make and of course as businesses when we are delivering our products and services at a good quality and solving, you know, important. Challenge for our customers and clients as a business we are already doing good.

However, today's world is so interconnected that we cannot exist without relying on and receiving benefits from other people and the businesses or. You know, supply chain, the web of connections of the world. So if businesses were only thinking about maximum profitability for their own benefit, and if all of the businesses made the decisions to prioritise and only maximise the profit for them and the benefit for them, then we end up creating the world where sustainability is a problem.

And we are already starting to see what it means when businesses actually only have a practise of maximisation of own self-interest and how that impact all of us and our children. And but perhaps because we cannot say that system is the problem and we are all part of the system and we cannot influence this system then we might as well do nothing. But what if as a part of this connection and the web of interconnectivity of the world, what if we can be the one to also make a different choice and that choice could then.

Ignite and then trigger other choices that other people would or businesses would make and if we could do that in the mass scale, we perhaps don't need to rely on just government or big people to solve the challenges for us. Well, you know, I always look at all the problems and how we solve them is very much, you know, governmental, but governments move slow and are often fairly short term in their thinking. I think big business, you know, can make a difference, but the majority, you know, I know in the UK it's something like over 90% of revenue coming into the country is from small business rather than large business, so the large businesses obviously.

You know have massive amounts of turnover but there aren't huge numbers of those, so you know business is important and then as individuals we can't say well the government needs to sort this, we. Can have our own small actions that we can take to try and help with homelessness, with environmental problems, etc. Etc.

And I, and I think it's really interesting, you know, reading around the subject now, more businesses are realising that if if they're purely profit centred. They often aren't doing as well as purpose centred businesses because also consumers, on the whole, not everybody obviously want to buy from businesses that are doing good and not bad to the planet and to the people who work for them. Mm yeah, yeah, I agree.

Now I think the consequence of our decisions are coming to us faster than before where long time ago, you know, larger companies can make certain decisions that might be impacting the human rights issues and the supply chain, you know, human. Human rights issues, right, but we did not see the consequence of that for a long period of time. So we all thought that profit prioritisation seems to be the best way to grow the business, you know, because we could see in the numbers like quarterly returns and how CEO and the leaders get evaluated by making certain.

Decisions and how quickly those decisions are showing up in the financial numbers on the quarterly basis. So that's how like our businesses operated without seeing so much challenges in the shorter run but what what's now we are seeing is the first of all transparency and vis visibility of information that you know companies can do something and try to hide it before because we didn't have access to the information. But now the authenticity of leaders or decisions that companies are making and how they are navigating in this world is becoming increasingly visible and I'm not saying that that visibility is like already changing the way that the leadership demonstrate the best quality of leadership and the values just yet, you know, be, though we can see.

However, I think in the time to come. The trust of the people that you can harness as leaders making the quiet decisions. Even without the, you know, actively bragging or talking about it, it, it's starting to change the course of the humanity and how we actually consciously choose to proceed, you know, to create the world like people around the world, what world, what type of leadership in the world do they want to belong to.

And I think it's a very interesting time that we are part of. We've never been a, it's never been a time of like this. I think, you know, more and more people having the conversations like this and, and really looking at the, the decision consequences.

Of decisions and also the positive power that we all have that's profoundly important now when we especially when we think about our own children and grandchildren as well and our communities and I think hope is really important, isn't it, Masami, because. We also live in a, in a world where if you turn on the news there is lots of bad news on the news, you know, there is wars, there is famines, there is extreme weather events, all of those things which can depress people, we also know that we have an epidemic of people who are anxious, people who are worried, people who are stressed. And yet we know that you know stepping out into nature, seeing the, the beauty of creation is something that can be very er hopeful for us and you know I look at you with your smiling face and I can see that you're a a person of hope, because otherwise the the other the other option is you go into bed.

And you put the duvet cover over your head and you don't come out or you eat, drink and be merry cos tomorrow we die, you know, there's no chance of turning the world around, making it more equitable, making it, you know, a more beautiful place to live in. So hope is so important, but also, you know, as humans we are, as you've shown with, you know, doing B1G1, we are creative beings. Who often can solve really big problems and sometimes maybe part of our problem is, we wait until the problem is huge before we try and solve it.

Rather than having a more holistic preventative approach to it, so that we don't get into such a difficult position in the first place. Mm, I think the fact that I'm on this podcast and perhaps some of the people tuning in are dead and I just wanted to share something, so the hope and how we feel about what's happening. So when I was little, you know, a small child.

I didn't know how to connect with people, other kids, so my entire childhood was more about connecting with nature and connecting with animals or even insects, you know, so my, my friends were like caterpillars and the frogs and I, I, I genuinely believed that I could actually communicate with other animals and then I didn't know how to express myself with humans, so. I mean, like the nature and the animals really show us. How we would create real love and abundance, you know, around us, and, because in my younger adult time when I travelled around the world, initially I was actually quite judgmental about what was happening in the world and we thought, why in one side of the world we are trying to get more, you know, like even though some people seem to be having quite enough, but it felt like people needed more.

And then on the other hand, when we go to some other countries where people have very basic or not even having basic human rights resources, right, but somehow in some of those villages or communities when I visited there are people who would say, hey, come and eat with us, and then I would go like, oh, like they only have so little I can't take your food. But what I started to see was that actually there were more joy and happiness, right? Like first of all, in the people who are more in the focus of giving.

And another thing was when I judged the world as why is the structure of the world so focused on getting more, and then I in one instance thought, OK, well, I, I think I should actually not get. To consumerism, so I tried to move to the countryside to have a sustainable life, you know, by growing food with farmers and things like that. Then what I learned in that period of about 2 years trying not to buy things and then try to just create like a natural way of sustainable life, right?

What I learned wasn't that I could perfectly be sustainable by rejecting what was happening in the world. But what I learned was that the nature had a way of creating abundance. Hm.

And the abundance creation and the farmers, you know, like a traditional farmers' tactic or technique was that they would take care of the soil. Hm, yeah, the soil is important. So I feel like, you know, all that time, even before getting to the journey, part of the journey of B1J1 initiative, I think that I learned so many amazing things from people I connected with or even from nature, but it's indicating that If we are really focused on creating real sustainable abundance for ourselves, then the way, the simple way to do it is to take care of the whole ecosystem together.

And actually. It is much more satisfying to give than to take, isn't it, and I find that whenever I give something. I somehow always get more back from it.

Hm hm, yeah, I agree counterintuitive, isn't it, that whole idea, yeah, you think you would lose, right? Like if you, if I give away something, then you lose that thing that you give away, so it's a loss. But actually it's interesting if we hold on to things with out of fear or you know, we don't wanna lose out, then actually it doesn't create that fulfilled feeling.

But when we actually share, often what we realise that is that we don't end up with less. Yeah. And, and I think you know just going back again talking about purpose centred businesses and then of course it was really fascinating last year, maybe the year before I read Net Positive by Paul Pullman who was CEO of Unilever and now works a lot in this whole kind of space of holistically looking at, you know, you can't just think about environment, you have to think about social, you have to think about governance and so on.

And it was lovely hearing, you know, how sometimes he would have an NGO that would come in and talk to them and and you know lack a bit of trust and be a bit kind of almost bolshy with them at first. And then he said he would always try and do more than the NGO expected and and of course during his time as CEO of Unilever, it it not only did you know a lot of good, but it also increased its profits. And I love that kind of whole holistic way which.

You know, a bit like yourself, I think I from a very early age had that love of animals, and I found that when people said well oh you love animals don't you love people, I said well no I love people as well but I love you know the planet and actually, We have to almost love all three things because if we are so obsessed with people that don't think about planets or about the animals, you know, we all have to live together to make, you know, the planet healthy and everything, don't we, so it was, it was really fascinating to kind of see that holistic approach which you know I think I've always had as a kind of natural thing, it's not something I've had to think about too much in the same way. Of you, you know, spending time with nature as a child, I, I do a little class, my wife is a teacher, and I go into the class and I play a video of David Attenborough and of pictures of the birds, all of the beautiful creatures we have. And in young people there is that when they're watching that video they giggle and they they they gasp when they see things you know because there's that awe and wonder.

We lose that often as we grow older, if I show that video to a an adult audience. There is very little laughter and there isn't that awe and wonder that you see in a younger audience which I've always find quite fascinating. Mm, mm, yeah, children, younger people are the future of this world and I feel that now, you know, being a child is not easy because you will look around and you might go, well, I inherited this world even though I didn't create it.

And so how else that Young people can feel hopeful of the fact that they have a greater future ahead of them. It's really depending on what we are talking about now, what we are actually doing now, and and, and I think that in recent years, actually things like purpose conversation became much more of a focus which wasn't, didn't exist when I first started my entrepreneurship or even B1J1. But perhaps like now even though there are lots of talking about the purpose and the importance of what we, you know, should be focused on, but one thing that might actually like we might lack is the actions because that we, we can wish and hope, right, but then if we didn't know how else to take action on that, what we care, then we might not do anything.

But if we don't overworry about the big thing that we need to tackle, but we just make a decision on the little things we get to do today, then maybe more people can actually do it now and then also as a result of doing that ignites the joy. Of giving, joy of caring, joy of acting on behalf of others, and that's also a way to create a more, you know, connection with their purpose. I think that's really powerful, we, we run this event, the Veterinary Green Discussion forum and you know the word obviously discussion and listening and hearing, which is really important, but it, it, I set it up based on the work of Cardinal Cardine who set up young Christian workers.

And his thing was see, discern, act. So see the situation, really think and talk about it and try and work out why it's happening. And then act upon it.

So the action is really important and Saint Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscans, he said, you know, preach all the time, use words occasionally. So you know we have the phrase actions speak louder than words in English, which I'm sure you know. It's you know it's, you've lived your life in that way.

Actions are so, so important because with the challenges that are happening in the world now, sitting down and talking about them. The time just for talk is long, long past, there has to be action, so you know I, I'm so pleased with and you know, honoured with the work that you're doing and the difference that you're making and as you say, even, you know, it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. So one small thing that we do, better to do one thing than nothing.

Yeah, tell us a little bit more specifically. I think maybe two questions, one about B1G1. How people can perhaps help if they are listening and and this is, you know, chiming with them, maybe giving some examples of what you've done since 2007, and then I'd love to perhaps go back to that whole kind of net positive conversation that we've perhaps just deflected from.

Yeah, happy to talk a bit more about the net positive and Paul Pullman, but, let me just, give, how B1J1 model works. So, you know, it's a simple idea. Every time something good happens in the business, we make something great happen in the world.

And so the question is how do we do that? And when we moved to Singapore in 2007, we started with that, you know, simple idea and worked on figuring out how to make that happen. So that resulted in us connecting with all sorts of different causes from different countries and what we worked with them to break down their activities and the programmes into micro units of positive change such as deliver.

One day of access to water or education or healthcare to planting one tree or giving one brick toward building a school or so today B1J1 has more than 480 projects that are carefully selected and brought into the platform and the businesses can very easily link these impacts into business actions and activities and some businesses might go well like we. Gonna commit the percentage of profit or revenue toward, you know, making positive and measurable impacts so they could do so. Or some businesses might go like every month we're gonna do this many impacts going to these areas that we want to make a difference or so we have a really like, ways to link business actions with impacts and then, you know, let the the those businesses track that and we created the kind of model.

So how does the charity partnership programme work? So it's very effective and we don't take anything when, you know, business give $1 to plant a tree. Then how can we make sure that $1 goes to plant a tree?

Or so over the years we came up with the business membership model where there are businesses from all sorts of different places participating in the B1G1 movement and making a difference. So that's what we do. So that's kind of like how it works.

And obviously the website B1G1.com.com, yes.

Yeah, so people can go and have a look at that and obviously get in contact with your team to, to see how they yeah, please connect with us like if you are interested in how your business can be like impacted, you know, driven and also engaging the people around the business to create the positive impact together, not alone, then that's a way to. To do it and we love to work with businesses and the business leaders who actually care about the world, right, and so that we don't need to try to change the world alone and so that's kind of one of the things you asked and then you asked about the net positive so yeah I know you've, you've, you've met Paul and obviously came and saw you in. Kenya, where you're doing great work with children with blindness, so tell us a little bit about that project and how you got to know Paul.

Yeah, so, I got to know Paul Foreman, I think it was 2017 when I received this award called Inspired the Leadership Award at this very unique event. That was held on the annual basis at that time and when you receive this award, like nomination of this award, then you get invited to actually be part of this, network of amazing business leaders and so I was coming from the social entrepreneurship background, a little person, you know, and we, I, I had the honour to be part of this group, and Paul Pullman was one of the leaders who were part of this group. Like there were other large companies who were sending their corporate leaders to be part of the event.

And I got to know Paul in, in that instance. But what happened was over the years when the event invited us to come back. Because once you get nominated for this leadership award, then you are welcome to join each year.

So a number of years, I went back to this event and, occasionally exchanged connections awards with Paul as well. So I always admired him as an amazing leader and role model in the business world. But at one point in time, I had the opportunity to talk to him about what I believed in.

He said, Masami, like tell me more about your work. So I shared that and then amazingly, he kindly offered to record a video message about what we are doing and how he really recognised and respected our work. And after that, he made an introductions for me to important connections that he had.

But what happened, which Many people don't know about Paul Poman is that he was the co-founder of this charity called Kilimanjalo Blind Trust, which is an organisation that helps young blind or visually handicapped youth to have access to Braille technology. It's an electronic Braille technology, so it's not just the Braille books, but that is a technology that is a device that. Enable young people to read, write, store files, you know, and, and they work on the project and so on.

So it's actually very transformative and his organisation has expanded to reach so many lives of young visually handicapped population in multiple countries in Africa. And they have also applied to become B1G1 project and so they, the pro project after a couple of years joined the B1G1 project portfolio and so last year that when you saw the update from Kenya and our conversation they recorded the conversation between us, it was recorded at the. Office of Kilimanjalo Blind Trust where we managed to spend a day visiting different places to learn about how their work is making a difference.

Hm and fantastic work and beautiful country as well. I've, I've been to Kenya and to Tanzania and climbed Kilimanjaro, so I know the area quite well. So where do you see the future at the moment with obviously some geopolitical challenges, you know, across the board.

How, how do you see B1G1 developing? Is that something part of a big plan or do you just accept that it's gonna go where it, it will go and that the, the movement is, do you think that the movement is growing or are people. Pulling back because of, you know, situations in the world, so how are you finding things at the moment?

I think these conversations we need to have honest conversations about what's happening, and I would, say that, mm, it's a difficult time. Anthony, really difficult time for any NGOs, any giving initiatives, any social impact initiatives that we intend to do good work, but in this current circumstances that people may be feeling actually much more uncertain and also the conversation, like a visible conversations, at a certain space feels more increasingly divisive and, that might discourage people, that might challenge us, but I think that things will actually move to the right direction because we choose, we will choose to do so, you know, the world has amazing people and the young people are very honest, very conscious about what's happening, but what we need to advance is that we need to advance our positive decisions. You know, quicker, and that actually is our biggest challenge that we, we will face.

In terms of our direct work, I would not say we don't have challenges. We do have challenges, but I think what we need to reflect like, and then that, that is a shared reality for all of the organisations out there and leaders is that we need to come up with our focus clearly. And also, as much as we can, we also need to be simplifying what we do and I feel one of the things that exists in front of us as a great also challenge as in, you know, both potentially positive or negative, right, is that we've done so much work to create a really great model, right?

But then when you are all about the models sometimes we miss some of the Simple questions or status quo that we might not question to change because we've done the work or we believe this is the right way. So challenging all of the assumptions that we have and how in agile way we can make a change and the new decisions and also how do we work with people that AI and technology will give us time saving. And also new opportunities at greater scale as well.

But fundamentally, I believe that it's actually humanity. Yeah. And how we do, yeah, how we bring our human intention and decisions to the technology mix and how do we work together.

How do we work together is really key, hm. I think collaboration is always better than competition, isn't it, you know, when we can bring groups of people together to listen respectfully to each other, you know, we live in this binary world whereas actually the majority of people live in the centre, you know, they're not extreme right wing or extreme left wing or all the different binary choices that you can make. The majority of us do kind of want the best and we sit in the middle somewhere but sometimes maybe.

We, we don't have that time to bring those voices together and actually talk through and and come to solutions and, and so on, so it's been inspiring listening to you, Basami, thank you so much for your time, you know, I know how busy you are, and I hope people who've who've been listening in have have got as much as I've got from it as well. Anthony, thank you so much for creating the opportunity. And you know we are in different parts of the world right now at this point in time, but we can connect and we can have a real human conversation like this so I think we are still living in an extraordinary time that, you know, we couldn't even imagine possible.

The beauty of technology as you said with AI and technology, the fact that I was talking to my wife yesterday, you know, I have friends all over the world, you know, in the veterinary field but obviously in other areas as well. And that internationality, once you get to know people in other countries. You know, those friendships that develop.

Stop misunderstandings being created, which misunderstandings can then lead to conflict and arguments and war. You know, so the more that we can as people come together as, as humanity rather than as British or American or German or French or Japanese, but simply as citizens of the world, I think the world will become a better place, won't it? Yeah, yeah.

And I think there's great people in the business leadership and making the decisions every day to create a better world together. Then I believe we really can have a great opportunity ahead of us as well. Musami, great way to leave the conversation, thank you so much.

Thanks everyone for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it and hopefully see you on a podcast or a webinar.