UoB alumnus mission to fight plastic pollution in seas - Ben Moody (Seven Clean Seas)

Ben Moody (pictured right) with Tom Peacock-Nazil

Biological Sciences graduate Ben Moody looks back at his year after graduating from the University of Birmingham in 2019. B-Enterprising caught up with Ben to find out about life after graduation and his time spent working in an environmental start-up....

Seven Clean Seas (SCS) is an Ocean Cleanup Organisation based in Singapore, and also operating in Malaysia and Indonesia. The purpose of Seven Clean Seas is to inspire the next generation of environmental activists to take action and save our planet.



Our mission is to clean and build infrastructure in the top seven most polluted countries in the world. At Seven Clean Seas we work hands-on to create permanent change in the world's most polluted places.

Seven Clean Seas was originally founded in 2018, beginning as a small voluntary beach cleaning community to educate and spread the word on plastic pollution. Since then Seven Clean Seas has built a plastic fighting community working with some world renowned corporations such as Netflix, HP, SkyScanner, Ogilvy, Amazon WS, BBH and many many more. To date, it has removed over 54,000kg plastic pollution from the marine environment by mobilising volunteers and corporate manpower.

I joined Tom and Pam after they originally founded Seven Clean Seas in 2018. Beyond our educational community beach clean-ups, Seven Clean Seas is now combating the plastic pollution problem on a larger scale. It is now expanding capabilities to build an environmental plastic recovery network, which recovers plastic from the marine environment and works toward formalising the informal waste management sector and satisfies both social and environmental UN Sustainable Development Goals simultaneously. Tom and I believe in creating a sustainable business model to retrieve plastic from the ocean. The plastic issue is gargantuan and we need scale to be able to tackle it efficiently. Ocean Plastic Offsetting merely helps to mobilise corporate capital to drive the removal of plastic from the ocean.


Life in a start-up

The best and worst thing about owning your own business is being your own 'boss'. This aspect means that there is a huge lack of structure in your life. I think I can speak on behalf of Tom on this   You need to find your own discipline not only to motivate yourself to work but also to know when to just stop and give yourself some time to chill-out. Finding your own balance through this is very key.
as well, when we are extremely busy with meetings and early mornings, it's difficult to even try and set up a regular routine, as you just have no idea what the next day will involve. With this constant change, switching off "after hours" is difficult as you constantly want to work and keep progressing the company as much as you can.

This aspect has actually gotten a lot harder since COVID-19 stopped operations and slowed everything down. Reworking and pivoting the business to adapt to certain changes has been our focus recently, despite this we are really excited for what we're about to produce.

I guess this is not one thing I wish I knew before starting a business venture but it's one thing I wish I knew when I left university. I think there is a lot of pressure to fall into a 'run of the mill grad-scheme' once you leave. But! You have all the time in the world and I think trying everything that springs into mind is so important before you settle into one career path.







You have just finished university, you need to work out what makes you tick and everything you do should be focussed towards High risk-High reward because you might not get another chance to try an opportunity.

   

Secondly, I would say a network is one of the most important things I wish I knew. A business network gives you insights to trends in the sector that you're operating in and you can always talk to the right person for the best advice.  Also, take the time to talk to the existing relationships you've made. Nurturing the existing relationships you have made in the business world as well as throughout university helps in support and knowing the direction to take with your company. I learnt very quickly that age is irrelevant. This was one thing I struggled with when I first got to Singapore, I had a lot of people tell me that I needed experience etc etc. However, one thing I learnt from Tom very quickly is that it does not matter in the slightest, especially in sustainability and environmental sector.

Another take away from Seven Clean Seas is that patience is everything, especially under the current circumstances (COVID-19). Patience, is one thing I struggle with and will always struggle with. When you are building something, it takes time to get to where you see the vision in your head.  For example, tackling plastic pollution is a huge issue and if I just make sure I do something every day to make sure I'm driving SCS to the place where Tom and I envisage we'll get there eventually.

Alongside patience is resilience, when something doesn't quite go your way you have to learn to take a setback; confide in someone about what you're worrying or stressed about; being aware of you mental state THEN rework it and carry on. My final two cent would be to always look further a field from the UK, moving to another country is no small change but the experience you get will stay with you for your whole life. The world is MASSIVE and there are many issues to solve, jobs to do and people to meet.

If you're interested in finding out more about Seven Clean Seas, drop a note through our website at www.sevencleanseas.com

Seven Clean Seas are in the final stages of accepting a UoB intern. Stay engaged with them on social media @sevencleanseas to see their progress.

With thanks to Ben Moody at Seven Clean Seas
Photographs on this blog feature on the www.sevencleanseas.com website - shared with kind permission by Ben Moody.


Edited by Bob Lee, Careers Network