Richard Milburn, King’s College London

In this episode, Sarah sits down with Dr Richard Milburn, Visiting Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London and UK representative for the Pole Pole Foundation, a gorilla conservation charity in Eastern Congo.

Richard shares how he applies behavioural science and creative problem-solving to tackle complex challenges in conservation, peacebuilding and social value. He explains why he sees conservation as a social issue as much as an environmental one, highlighting projects such as tackling malnutrition in Congo through spirulina to reduce reliance on poaching.

Sarah and Richard discuss how the same behavioural insights can be used to rethink social value in the UK, from replacing CV-based recruitment with challenge-based tasks, to creating back-to-work bonds and linking recycling levies to homelessness initiatives. They also explore his work with Tunza Games and how gamification can inspire engagement and fund real-world conservation.

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We hope you enjoy this episode. If you have a topic you'd like us to discuss or you would like to be considered as a guest please get in touch at hello@samtaler.co.uk.

Transcript

ST PODCAST RICHARD MILBURN

[00:00:00] Sarah Stone: Hello and welcome to Let's Talk Social Value. I'm Sarah Stone. And I'm here today with Dr. Richard Melbourne, who is a visiting lecturer in war studies at King's College London. He has got a PhD, is in conservation in war zones. Um, and he does a lot of work researching the links between wildlife [00:00:30] conservation, security, peace building and economic development, mostly in Africa.

[00:00:35] He's also the UK representative for the. Poly Polly Foundation. I hope I've said that right, Richard. 

[00:00:39] Richard Milburn: Yeah. Yeah, that's it. 

[00:00:40] Sarah Stone: Which is a gorilla conservation charity in the Eastern Congo and he's the founder of tons of games, which uses gamification to enhance people's engagement with environmental issues and raise money at the same time sport conservation projects globally.

[00:00:53] I'm super excited about this conversation, not least 'cause you are lecture in war studies, which is my degree from my old university, so I'm quite excited [00:01:00] about that. But also. You are known for your work using behavioral science and corkscrew thinking, and I know usually that you apply that to environmental issues in conflict zones, and how can we solve some of those problems?

[00:01:10] We're gonna talk a bit about that, but I obviously was thinking about social value and how you can apply that kind of thinking to social value ideation and solutioning and how. We can maybe solve entrenched issues by thinking differently about them because, you know, you, your work is centered around this belief that if you apply behavioral science, [00:01:30] you can come up with new solutions to problems that people previously thought were unsolvable and, and use that to drive progress.

[00:01:36] Richard Milburn: A hundred percent. I think that's the key thing, particularly when there's an entrenched problem that people almost think is impossible to fix actually. Then there's that real value in coming at it from a a different approach and using more psychology creativity, both in terms of the analysis and the solution to then, yeah, work out something that just comes across a bit different than can make progress.

[00:01:54] Sarah Stone: When you say entrenched problems that are difficult to fix, social value practitioners sit up and get very [00:02:00] excited. Yeah, because that's what they spend quite a lot of time thinking about. So we've called this episode, let's talk purple cows, but anyone unfamiliar with the term as I was, what is a purple cow?

[00:02:10] Richard Milburn: So hopefully the mere fact of calling it Purple Cow has made people sort of sit up and get interested, and that's really the idea behind it. So Seth Godin, who's a big sort of marketing guru, has written multiple books. It's his term that if you're driving along a road and you see lots of cows, you'll think, oh, there are cows in the field, but you'll just carry on driving it.

[00:02:28] There's so many of them around. It doesn't really stand [00:02:30] out. If you then drove past a purple cow, you go, whoa. That's really interesting. People would stop, they'd take pictures. Yeah. And it just makes it really stand out from the herd. Literally stand out from the herd. So I think there was another study done on zebras.

[00:02:42] They were trying to track them, so they painted a zebra with like a purple stripe so researchers could track the zebras. And the zebras were all killed really quickly by lions, because the lions could focus on the purple because those zebras stood out. So it's basic kind of ary thing as well. With the 

[00:02:58] Sarah Stone: researchers environmentalists as [00:03:00] well.

[00:03:00] Richard Milburn: Yeah. So that's why unintended consequence, yeah, we can't do that. But it, it is that kind of thing. And I think it fits into what we talk about today that particularly an entrenched problem, everyone goes at it the same way and says, oh, this is what you do, follow the line. Whereas that purple cow mentality is actually, let's try something different.

[00:03:17] Let's stand out from the crowd, look at it differently. And then by doing that actually, you know, attracts sort of engagement and progress. 

[00:03:23] Sarah Stone: I'm really fascinated by behavioral science 'cause so I remember reading the Nudge Theory. Yeah. A book about, oh, 15 years ago. [00:03:30] Probably now. Probably. And it really spoke to me because so many times you'll hear people say, oh, well we did this, I know we put on this event, or we put this support out.

[00:03:38] Nobody comes or nobody uses it. Whatever. But they don't think about whether that event or that support, you know how that reaches the person it's designed for, if it's what they need. Does it sound interesting? You know, is it appealing to them? And I think behavioral science really delves into that, doesn't it?

[00:03:57] I mean, what is behavioral science for anyone that might not [00:04:00] know what it is? And also cork's crew thinking, 'cause you introduced me to this term, this is a new term for me. 

[00:04:04] Richard Milburn: Yeah, so the behavior science has been quite well established. Yeah. The nudge theory was what came out there were Nobel Prize winners as well.

[00:04:10] So that's really trying to understand human psychology. So what makes us make particular decisions or not make, uh, decisions, and therefore how we can structure things like the choice architecture. So how do you enable people to choose between different options or how do you present. Information. So there's a really good example of like death metal group.

[00:04:29] All the death metal [00:04:30] groups have black gothic writing, and then this one death metal group has really colorful logo. So any sort of label they're on, they stand out, and then people are more likely to remember them. So it's fundamentally just understanding human psychology, moving away from the traditional model of a rational economic actor within conventional economic theory.

[00:04:48] And then starting to look at now how do we actually make decisions? What really, yeah, twists and, and often it. Like the small things that make us incredibly angry and how can you solve them or, or manipulate them. That's so true. Right? So there might be [00:05:00] some massive thing, thing on the news and people go, oh, isn't that awful?

[00:05:03] Yeah. And then some little thing comes locally and they go absolutely apoplectic with rage. So it's sort of looking at how you can, how you can mobilize that. So that's the sort of behavior science nudge theory and then coky thinking pushes it a bit beyond that. So it's a Churchill. Thing. At the started of World War ii, Churchill saw Britain was in a very bad situation.

[00:05:21] You know, the military was falling to pieces and we were gonna lose if we carried on with conventional thinking. So he called for these corkscrew thinkers. So [00:05:30] creatives, mavericks, people who thought differently and who would purposely again, be like purple cows, say, okay, this is the way everyone else is going.

[00:05:36] We are gonna go differently. And it is really two components. So one is. How do you think differently about the problem? So, you know, everyone says, oh, this is a problem. This is what's causing it. Someone else comes and says, no, no, no, we can completely redefine what's causing this problem. And then linked to that is how do you come up with a, a creative solution?

[00:05:53] So Churchill's corps, you thinkers were Bletchley Park, the SAS, the SOE, the guys who came up with [00:06:00] camouflage, kind of a whole range of really, they 

[00:06:01] Sarah Stone: didn't, they didn't have camouflage before that. See, 

[00:06:03] Richard Milburn: it was the emergence and the transition. So it started in World War I, some of that. And then more of it came through World War ii.

[00:06:08] They built. I think I'd 

[00:06:09] Sarah Stone: know that with a war degree. This is really embarrassing. Maybe we'll cut that bot. It doesn't get talked 

[00:06:13] Richard Milburn: about that much. No, it doesn't. Even though sort of within deception and so on that the kind of military strategy actually quite key to it. So I think, uh, Monty did it in El Main.

[00:06:21] He put wooden truck covers over his tanks. So German reconnaissance said, oh, there's loads of trucks coming. Actually underneath was armor tanks. And therefore [00:06:30] they're able to, they like trucks. Trucks. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's all that kind of. It's creativity, but it's creativity in both the analysis of the problem, how do we understand it?

[00:06:38] And then also how do we come up with a different solution? 

[00:06:41] Sarah Stone: And creativity is one of those skills that is highly prized, but not taught at schools enough. Yeah. In my opinion, that's a whole other conversation. So. I'm super excited. I've got so many questions and I know that you've got loads of brilliant examples for us that I wanna get onto.

[00:06:53] But I just wanna talk a bit about your background. 'cause obviously, you know, you do most of your work in the conservation field and a lot of [00:07:00] it's in Africa and most of the social value that people that are looking at this for application of social value in procurement are doing is UK based. But I know that you've often described when lots of people think about conservation, they think of it as an environmental issue, but you see it a bit differently, don't you?

[00:07:16] You see it as a social issue. 

[00:07:18] Richard Milburn: Yeah, so fundamentally, so I know nothing about sort of wildlife science, ecology, physiology, anything like that. You know, for me, conservation is all about dealing with the human problems that are driving the threat to those wildlife. So if [00:07:30] you leave an ecosystem alone, it self-manages, there's no real problem.

[00:07:34] So you still need ecologists and you still need environmental science. Within conservation. You still need vets and so on. But fundamentally. Conservation is driven because you've got people who aren't benefiting economically from conservation around say national parks. So they're some of the poorest people.

[00:07:48] Yeah. In the world there might be human wildlife conflicts. An elephant comes in, eats all their crops, possibly even kills oranges. Somebody from the village, one of their family members, and then they can't do anything about it. 'cause if they kill the elephant, that's [00:08:00] a crime and they might get arrested.

[00:08:02] Also, the illegal wildlife trade, which I look at a lot, there's a lot of demand for. Wildlife products, illegal products, but products from that, you know, animal skins, ivory rhino and so on. And then that leads a whole trade through to the ground. So if you wanna protect wildlife, you need to engage with those social issues.

[00:08:18] So you need to uplift development of people living around national parks so they get a benefit from conservation. You need to support rangers effectively. You need to deliver law enforcement, economic development, schools, hospitals. [00:08:30] So on. And even with pop-off in Congo, we run this project spirulina project.

[00:08:34] So it's like an algae, super nutritious algae. So there's about a 50% malnutrition problem in that region. So a lot of the families then go into the park to get, might be bush meat to cut down trees for charcoal so they can buy food or medicine for their families. So it creates a really big problem. So we ran this spirulina malnutrition project.

[00:08:52] So we give spirulina, they're called cookies, but they're like Peter Breads pasted with spirulina to these kids to cure malnutrition. So a lot of people might say, well. [00:09:00] What's a malnutrition project got to do with saving gorillas. But if you don't stop that malnutrition, you are gonna have people destroying their gorillas, having salmon poaching.

[00:09:09] Sarah Stone: Well, there's something really light bulb be, you said that conservation is a human problem, not an environmental, and you said the environment will, you know, if you live the environment alone, you don't really have a problem with it. Yeah, and that's. Really so true. I mean, I think that's true, whether it's in Africa, whether it's true, whether it's in the UK and we're looking at peat habitats or whatever.

[00:09:26] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Environmental degradation is caused by man. Mm-hmm. [00:09:30] And so if you look at it as a human problem, yeah. Then you do start thinking. When you're looking for solutions, you are thinking about how can you change the behavior. Yeah. That is slightly mind blowing when you think about it. Yeah, 

[00:09:38] Richard Milburn: yeah.

[00:09:38] Because most people think 

[00:09:39] Sarah Stone: about conservation, they think of it and habitat management and climate change, they think of it in terms of the environmental side of it. Yeah. And 

[00:09:45] Richard Milburn: I think that's the biggest problem. And as you know, when I'm trying to get the environment recognized, say within, you know, war studies within commercial environment or whatever, people are, it's the environment.

[00:09:55] So actually. Bringing in that social element and saying, no, it's fundamentally about [00:10:00] people. Whether that's that you lose an environment which is critical to human life or yeah, you need to help people. And fundamentally, the solution to conservation is make people who protect wildlife much better off than everyone else.

[00:10:10] And then everyone will say, hang on, let's protect wildlife. 'cause we become better off. You know, it's as simple as, yeah. As that sort of shift maybe in 

[00:10:16] Sarah Stone: the needle. 

[00:10:17] Richard Milburn: Yeah, those discussions aren't often had, and it's, you know, all these things have a legacy. So the first conservationist going out, it was, you know, real firefighting wildlife on the verge of extinction.

[00:10:27] How do we just protect them, build parts, have that protection, [00:10:30] which, you know, short term, okay, you have to do some of that. But yeah, the longer term, how do you actually solve it? Then you do have to flip and, and focus on that economic and sexual language. 

[00:10:38] Sarah Stone: And I could talk to all day about it, but I'm gonna get, want to get to these examples.

[00:10:41] Yeah. So just one more thing I wanted to ask you is about the school talks and the conservation game that you have set up. Can you talk a little bit about that? 'cause you do go into schools with it, don't you? So that's something that you do here in the uk. 

[00:10:51] Richard Milburn: Yeah, it's all about environmental education and, and trying to sort of bring the topic to life and these sort of conversations, getting just young kids to understand that.

[00:10:59] It's called [00:11:00] conservation crisis. So you take over control of a national park and then you have to rebuild it so you get a limited budget. You can build tourism lodges to earn revenue. If you hire ranges, you have to pay them, and so on. So it's designed to teach kids and families family game as well, basic sort of financial literacy, but.

[00:11:15] By protecting wildlife. So you're not saying, oh, here's a financial literacy game. It's, do you want to go and save your favorite animal? Yes. By the way, you'll also learn that sort of key financial literacy and then just introducing them to these concepts that we've talked about there. Really, that it's not just about wildlife, that you have to help [00:11:30] communities, that you need an economic solution, that you also need to restore habitat and so on.

[00:11:34] There's a bribe option in the game as well. So teaching people why corruption's a bad thing. We do anything from. An assembly in a school. You know, just do it through to a half day workshop, even sort of six week university style course we can offer as well. Really just to get kids engaged and just build that understanding.

[00:11:51] Give them a bit more of an opportunity to see that bigger picture. 'cause I've had, even to students I was teaching at uni, they come to me and say, I was the first person that ever. [00:12:00] Spoken to them about this sort of stuff in the environmental context, you know, it's quite a different way of thinking. So that is, yeah.

[00:12:05] Yeah. Really just trying to get 

[00:12:06] Sarah Stone: that. Also, the financial literacy piece right's really important. Yeah. But no one tells at you. I was talking to somebody at the weekend and she's, she works for university up in the northeast and she is, she does welfare for the students. Yeah. She works upstream, so she works with them before they have an issue rather than supporting them once they've got the issue.

[00:12:22] She was saying how much financial difficulty so many students are in, because obviously education's really expensive. University's like insanely expensive, [00:12:30] but also that they dunno about budgeting. And they, and I thought about it and I was like, I didn't know that when I went to university. Like I remember avoiding bailiffs and having no money whatsoever.

[00:12:40] And then you learn it through, it's quite painful. But you eventually realize, you know, you learn, I think I was about 45 when I realized that, oh, that's what savings is all about. Yeah. And so teaching people financial literacy early would be brilliant. 

[00:12:53] Richard Milburn: Yeah. And I think doing it in a way that's fun and tangential, so you are not.

[00:12:57] Being told you are learning financial literacy. Yeah, [00:13:00] you're being told you're saving wildlife. But through the process, your brain, then you pick it up and starts to realize. So for example, in the game, you can hire rangers and vets and they cost money. If you hire them in the first round for the rest of the game, you have no money 'cause you've just gotta pay their salaries.

[00:13:13] So really, really quick way of learning. Before taking in loads of things that cost money, make sure you are building up money and savings and you can balance those two things. So again, you could try and teach that in a class and say, oh guys, it's a really bad idea because X, Y, Z. Or you can just let 'em play a game where they learn it through [00:13:30] that mechanism.

[00:13:30] And what 

[00:13:30] Sarah Stone: age is this design for what age are children? So 

[00:13:32] Richard Milburn: yeah, we've gone with everything from seven upwards. I think sort of the 10 11 plus is kind of the sweet spot. 

[00:13:39] Sarah Stone: How do you get into the school? Do they come and ask you for it or has it 

[00:13:41] Richard Milburn: worked? So mostly through connections. So we, we did more, I mean, COVID partly broke off a lot of that, so it's been a bit slower since then.

[00:13:47] But yeah, mostly just we find often a parent says, you know, oh yeah, this sounds really good. They've got a school. 

[00:13:53] Sarah Stone: Yeah, yeah, 

[00:13:54] Richard Milburn: exactly. It's mostly sort of by And does the curriculum 

[00:13:57] Sarah Stone: cover, do they get taught about the environment in, I mean, it sounds like a [00:14:00] stupid question. You'd think they would, but 

[00:14:01] Richard Milburn: Yeah.

[00:14:02] So I think there's a mix. We get told a lot. It's, it's often the environmental club. That wants something like that, you know, specific, 

[00:14:08] Sarah Stone: right. Yeah. Thing 

[00:14:09] Richard Milburn: within there. But there's more and more sustainability and environmental education coming onto the curriculum, but I think it's still, how do you really bring it to life in the most, yeah.

[00:14:18] Powerful way. Because I was taught about the Amazon Rainforest being destroyed when I was about 12, so that's 20 odd years ago. The Amazon rainforest is still being destroyed. It's still the same messaging. Yeah. So [00:14:30] again, to me as the whole Purple cow thing, how do you go in there and say, well, well look, this is how you can actually Yeah.

[00:14:34] Start to change it. This is why it hasn't changed to date. These are the key things. You know, you've gotta address the social element, the economic element, I imagine like 

[00:14:41] Sarah Stone: brownie and cub and scout packs as well. You know, where they have environmental badges and stuff. Yeah. They'd love something like this.

[00:14:46] Yeah. What we'll do is we'll put, if there's anyone listening who's thinking, oh, we could use that game, we'll put a link in the, in the show notes so they can contact you and find out more about it. So I wanna kind of go back to these examples 'cause people need to get their notepads right now, by the way.

[00:14:58] Can't see Rich's face, but [00:15:00] he's, uh, smiling because you've got some examples for us of. Ideas or places where, you know, making a simple change in daily behavior had a social impact. One of the examples you were talking to me about was free school meals and the walking up the stairs. Can you explain that one to people?

[00:15:15] Uh, 

[00:15:15] Richard Milburn: yeah. The idea this came from originally and then how it could be applied to the free school meals. So there was, I'm pretty sure it was in Sweden. They were worried about the escalators being used too much and the cost of servicing them. And they also wanted to make people healthier, so they [00:15:30] made the stairs into a piano.

[00:15:31] So if you walked up the stairs, you could make a tune. And it's quite funny watching the video where the first person goes up, goes, oh, oh, this is weird. You know, why is it making a noise? And then it became a thing. So again, sort of applying that, how do you make it more interesting to use the stairs than, than use a, an elevator or something?

[00:15:45] So the idea around free school meals is if you are already thinking about funding free school meals, how can you. Two birds with one stone, and particularly in an office environment. I have a massive problem with it. I just sit down too much through the day, you know, sitting as a new smoke, all this sort of stuff.

[00:15:59] Yeah, we all, [00:16:00] and we did a study at King's I was involved with. They were tracking who got up and down and the guy said, look, fundamentally, you don't need necessarily a standing desk for the whole day. You just need to get. Up and down. So kinda linking those two things together. If you could put a sensor in a staircase and in the middle of the staircase, not at the bottom or the top, 'cause people could justand, but if you put it in the middle and then you say, if you tap your ID card on that sensor five times a day, we'll donate a free school meal.

[00:16:25] To a local school. So you are then getting your staff in your office to get up [00:16:30] five times through the day, so roughly once an hour that they're in there, if you think they'll also be getting cups of tea and so on. So you're just getting that movement in. You're getting 'em to go up the stairs as well. So a bit of extra fitness and just getting up and down, but there's a real reason for it, which is.

[00:16:41] Get the free school meals, even if you're not that motivated to go down all the practice 

[00:16:45] Sarah Stone: club or it could be anything. Yeah, whatever it's, it doesn't have to be, couldn't it? Yeah. 

[00:16:48] Richard Milburn: Yeah. And the great thing I love that I do about it, the longer you do it, so if you could do it for, say, for three months, it would just become like a standardized, 

[00:16:55] Sarah Stone: becomes a habit 

[00:16:56] Richard Milburn: behavior.

[00:16:56] So if you've say, got a toilet on the third floor and you're on the first floor, for [00:17:00] example. That can just become a thing where everyone says, oh, you go to the toilet on the third floor. Or if you're on the third floor, you go to the one on the first floor, because that's a really easy thing to do, and you've just, you've tapped in.

[00:17:09] So you've created a social expectation that people will go up those stairs every day. That should last beyond just that initial project initiative. 

[00:17:17] Sarah Stone: Have you heard of Tiny Habits? It's basically about if you want to make a change, often we'll try and go to the biggest change. So in that example, getting up, you know, five times a day.

[00:17:27] That's why we want to end it up, but by [00:17:30] trying to go stand up five times a day when it's not a habit, it's really difficult and willpower doesn't work. So what you have to do is you have to break that big thing down into lots of small steps. So what's the first thing you do? Is you push yourself back from your chair at your desk.

[00:17:43] Right. So that's the first thing. So you break it down into lots of steps and then you only do tiny steps. So for the first three days, all you do is push yourself back from your desk five times a day. Maybe you set an alarm. The other thing it us to do is to hook the tiny habit to something you already do.

[00:17:57] That is a habit. So say for example, I don't know. [00:18:00] Opening my email is a habit. I do far too much. You know, maybe if I teach myself to, every time I open my email, I push myself back from the desk. Yeah. And then what happens is you build it up, right? So once that's become ingrained, you just build it up and build up.

[00:18:12] And I did a course on it and it's amazing. Like there's all these things that I've always wanted to do that I now, I've just built into my. Routine through using that process. It's a bit like that, isn't it? You are saying if you, if you have the sensor and you encourage people to go and tap it in order to get the free [00:18:30] breakfast club school meals, and they then go to the loo on the third floor, that then becomes ingrained and that's what keeps them doing and going at it.

[00:18:38] Amazing. So we thought we would take this concept and apply it to some of the. Outcomes that Procurers are asking suppliers to help them deliver. And one of them is employing people with barriers and accessing talent in communities that are often overlooked. And I think you've got an idea for that, haven't you?

[00:18:56] Richard Milburn: Rather than asking for a CV and a covering letter and an interview [00:19:00] is trying to give people an opportunity to just do the thing that they're gonna have to do. So, you know, give us a job. I think that was. Old eighties or seventies TV show guy come around and give us a job. But it's this notion, let's say you are, you are hiring someone and they're, for the first year in their job, they're gonna have to organize a lot of events internally or externally.

[00:19:18] So that's classic one of my students, when they're applying for stuff they have to do, so you could ask 'em for a C and and so on and so forth. Or you could say, here's 10 events that we'd like to run. Maybe with a local charity, small charity that doesn't really [00:19:30] have a lot of support and say, okay, take control of that.

[00:19:32] Run it, see how you can publicize it. Can you do all the logistics? Can you market it? You know, all the stuff we've been talking about here. How, how do you actually do that? And the person that does it in the best way then gets a job at the end of it. So you are, you are saying to people, yeah, just use your creativity and here's a practical thing where you can prove yourself.

[00:19:49] It doesn't have to go perfectly, but if you can show the mentality, you 

[00:19:53] Sarah Stone: run a challenge maybe with, with different groups from different communities. 

[00:19:56] Richard Milburn: Yeah. Yeah. And specifically on, and the pride at the end of it. Yeah, and what skills are they gonna need? So [00:20:00] it's not, can you write an essay because you're never gonna write an essay in most jobs in a million years.

[00:20:04] So true. So true. So, yeah, what specific, or you might even have, say from a medical angle, you might say, okay, we've got this message that we really wanna get out, be that to a particular community group. So let's say there's about sitting down too much. So you might say, okay, who can come up with the most interesting or creative campaign to get people standing up or sitting less?

[00:20:24] Go for it. You know, be very creative. You'd probably need a little bit of sort of human resource support, some launch workshops and [00:20:30] stuff to get people going, but you just give people that opportunity to showcase that they've got that skill set. And I think with all the modern day trend of influences and TikTok is, and so on, you see there is a lot of creative, there is a lot of skill, but a lot of kids have sort of had that.

[00:20:43] Pushed out of them in school. Yeah. They, you know, are you on that academic lane? Oh, if not, then you're stupid. Yeah. Well, what a load of nonsense. You know, actually some of the most successful people on the planet can't write an essay. Richard Branson was dyslexic, didn't know the difference between like profit and loss properly.

[00:20:56] Yeah. And he's a billionaire, so it's how do you create. An environment where [00:21:00] those sort of people who have that natural ability to do stuff can demonstrate to you. They can go and do stuff. Even if they can't write an essay or they can't produce a great cv, they can do something really good. And yeah, if you're, particularly if you're looking among a particular community, if you go and say, what do you think is the biggest problem?

[00:21:16] How would you solve it? Go. The best solution, we'll just hire you off the back of it. You know, you create that real incentive and, and you get people excited. And the great thing is you don't just have one person doing that. You're probably gonna have at least five or six, maybe 20 or 30 [00:21:30] people all doing that a good experience.

[00:21:31] But you're a recruit for 

[00:21:32] Sarah Stone: certain roles. Yeah, right. I've got another question for you. What would you suggest to you, a company that wants to support struggling community spaces, but they wanna do it in a meaningful way? 

[00:21:42] Richard Milburn: Yeah, so like sponsor a park. So you know, if big companies are sponsoring Emirates Football Stadium, for example, take the similar sort of principles, but then go local.

[00:21:51] So it might be a park like near me that's, that's a big issue in council. So they have enough money to fund it. So one is putting the money up for the maintenance and so on. But then there's also [00:22:00] thinking how do you use that space in the most effective way possible? So it brings back value for you as a company as well.

[00:22:05] So running more events that might be, how do you get like social. Exercise groups for older people who are struggling to get outta the house or whatever. You run them in that space, or you run an annual charity football or cricket match, bringing in a few famous people to play against local people. So it's not just about giving them money, it's also about saying, how do we use that space in the most effective way possible and build up its ability to generate more revenue [00:22:30] to then.

[00:22:30] You know, provide one to stay in business and then to provide more services to local people. So a bit of a combination of a bit of money, and then also the thinking from that sort of commercial angle of how do we make a space viable. 

[00:22:41] Sarah Stone: Amazing. Have you got, this is gonna be a big one, right? Have you got any ideas for solving unemployment?

[00:22:48] 'cause unemployment rates have just gone up, which surprised me massively. But unemployment apparently is on the rise again. So any ideas for solving unemployment? 

[00:22:56] Richard Milburn: Yeah, so this one actually gets into the sort of economics of things and what I call [00:23:00] non-linear outcomes. So, you know, classic linear outcome is if you spend X, you'll get y.

[00:23:05] A non-linear outcome is if you spend X, you might get Y or you might get a hundred Y. So what I wanna do is create back to work bonds. So you create a financial incentive for non-governmental, be they for-profit or not-for-profit employment agencies to get people back into work. So they have to foot the entire bill.

[00:23:24] Of getting people back into work, but in exchange, they get that person's income tax for the next [00:23:30] 10 years. So the great advance of this is it costs the state absolutely nothing. And in fact, you force 'em to put a bond up of a thousand people. So if you wanna work with somebody, have the opportunity to get their income tax for the next 10 years, you have to put a thousand pounds up to put skin in the game.

[00:23:45] You have to foot the entire bill of getting them back into work, but you then keep their income tax. So the fascinating thing about this is. Those organizations involved have an incentive not just to get the people back into work, 

[00:23:56] Sarah Stone: but to get them 

[00:23:56] Richard Milburn: earning as much money as possible because their [00:24:00] income is directly correlated to how much do these people earn and it costs government nothing.

[00:24:05] Whereas government would usually say, oh, if you get this person back into work, we'll give you a thousand pounds. That's very, very difficult for any a thousand pounds. To get somebody back into work and you've gotta take the cost. Yeah. If you say, oh no, we'll give you their income tax. We as government save 'cause we're not paying universal credit or whatever else.

[00:24:20] You as a company benefit from, how much can you earn? I think the transformation impact it could have on training, on mental health provision and so on, on finding all these [00:24:30] barriers. To getting people into work, you know, as quickly and cheaply as possible, be absolutely transformational. And yeah, something like 6 million people out of work.

[00:24:37] So do a pilot project with a thousand people and uh yeah, get that moving. That'd be game changer. 

[00:24:43] Sarah Stone: Um, and so what you're saying, cost of government, nothing because they're not gonna get the income tax income anyway 'cause they're not in work. Yeah, exactly. So the government could argue and say yes, but all that income tax income is lost.

[00:24:53] To the state, but it's don't exist. It quite exciting. So 

[00:24:56] Richard Milburn: that's the classic cork screw thing. That's the kind of 

[00:24:57] Sarah Stone: thing if you had somebody who was bold [00:25:00] enough and brave enough and was because there are contracts, right? There are getting people back into work contracts. Yeah. Somebody who was brave enough to say, here's our offer instead of you paying us for it.

[00:25:09] This is what you have to have somebody who is quite ballsy, but that would be really good. The other thing I'm thinking is how on earth, the mechanism for how you would know, you know, how you actually get your hands on their income tax, but that's a whole other conversation, isn't it? Well, you've 

[00:25:21] Richard Milburn: got PAYE, so there's a whole Oh yeah, international.

[00:25:23] So you'd know their national insurance number that would be tagged. The other fascinating thing as well is you'd prevent tax evasion. 'cause anyone that was [00:25:30] helped, the company would say, no, you need to pay. Income tax, you must pay your income tax because that's where we are. Money off you. So you also have stock tax.

[00:25:38] There is a risk of fraud that, you know, could a company say, oh yeah, we've employed them on 65,000 pounds and actually they've employed them on 20 5K, they've got someone else on 60 5K. But that's why you have the bond, the thousand pound bond and you are the, you know, you are the agency in between the employer and the Yeah.

[00:25:54] Unemployed. So you know, you've gotta manage that. But again, 6 million people outta work. Like try it with a thousand people [00:26:00] and you know, try and make it work. And if you go through the market so you can get half of those 6 million, 3 million people back into work who earned something between minimum wage and and medium wage.

[00:26:10] Therefore they pay about 3000 pounds of income tax a year. So 9 billion pound. Market. You 

[00:26:15] Sarah Stone: have really thought about this, haven't you? 

[00:26:17] Richard Milburn: Yeah, yeah. We need innovation in government in this country. You, we did. I just say you are. 

[00:26:20] Sarah Stone: You are like wasted in the conservation space. I feel like we need it. We need this.

[00:26:25] Yeah, we need this in government, please. But anyway, that's the whole, the conversation for now. We're getting it in social [00:26:30] value. Right. Let's keep going. I'm loving this. So tell me about Rehome, this idea that if you take a small action, you reward people for a small action and then something else happens.

[00:26:39] Richard Milburn: Yeah, absolutely. So originally this was again, how do you take an environmental issue and flip it to a social issue. So it was how do you improve recycling rates? So particularly coffee cups really big problem. And I looked at the crisis statistics on how much money they reckoned was needed to solve homelessness.

[00:26:54] So if nationally you put a Tempe. Levy on all disposable coffee cups and then a [00:27:00] five P levy on plastic bottles that would generate about 1.5 billion pounds a year. The key thing with this project is you'd have bins all over the place, so you'd have to take your cup to this bin that would then get picked up by Homeless network, a bit like the big issue, but for recycling, and then they would recover the cost of that levy.

[00:27:19] If they didn't take it back, that levy goes somewhere else. So you're giving people that incentive to say, recycling isn't just, are you recycling? Is there a free rider problem? It's take it to this place and you are helping to end homelessness. So instead of [00:27:30] putting money in a bega cup, put your cup in a homeless recycling bin.

[00:27:34] And so you create that. Actually, you turn an environmental thing, which is a bit of a free rider problem. If no one else recycles, what's the point? You turn it into a socialist. You of, well, even if no one else takes this action, every time I recycle my coffee cup temp P is going. Doing end homelessness and you can use that for any issue.

[00:27:51] Again, in this case it's, I wanna improve recycling and I wanna end homelessness, but it could be anything you wanna do. It could be how do you get people to move more? How do you get them to [00:28:00] eat a certain food? How do you get them to do whatever behavior you want? Or two behaviors? And then how do you merge the two together to to drive change?

[00:28:08] Sarah Stone: I'm just like, my mind is doing lots of things. Yeah. Okay. But actually more, I can give an example on 

[00:28:14] Richard Milburn: Kings put a 10 P, which when I was working with the sustainability team, this was a project I pushed, but it took two years to come to fruition. So I'd left. By then they put a 10 P levy on coffee cups without the recycling bit.

[00:28:24] So they were just thrown away, which is a bit of a waste just in Kings alone that raises about 70,000 pounds a year. [00:28:30] So really that's extra's super 

[00:28:33] Sarah Stone: markets, isn't it? You know when you get, my kids love those little tags. That's their favorite thing. The little blue, you know, like Tesco coins and you can bin.

[00:28:39] Yeah. 

[00:28:40] Richard Milburn: Kids love 

[00:28:40] Sarah Stone: that. It's that idea. 

[00:28:42] Richard Milburn: Yeah, exactly. So you do have that. Yeah. I mean, 

[00:28:43] Sarah Stone: you could do that in your own company really easily, couldn't you? 

[00:28:46] Richard Milburn: Even if, let's say with coffee cups, if that's the problem, it might not be, but let's say it is, you could just have three charities, right? And yeah, you vote when you put your cup into one bin, the money goes to that charity, to another, and so on.

[00:28:57] So there's actually, that's just reminded me, [00:29:00] there's a brilliant thing of creativity from a beggar. So he put out a sign, said, let's see, who's the most generous and had like five cups out. One was for Muslims, for Jews, for Christians, for atheists, and for Budhist. And so of course everyone walking past and like, hang on, no, we've gotta fill up our religious cups.

[00:29:15] So again, things like that, if you can create that, that incentive where it goes, no, no, we really want, do you know what I'd be 

[00:29:21] Sarah Stone: like if I saw that? I'd be like, like give that man a job or woman a job. Exactly. 

[00:29:24] Richard Milburn: Perfect. In fact, and that then comes back to the give us a job project, right? Yeah. How do you encourage.

[00:29:29] That sort of [00:29:30] creativity, identify that person and say, yeah mate, you are wasted sitting on the basement, you're wasted on the street. Yeah, yeah. Come with us and, and come up with creative solutions to social values. Yeah. So yeah, it's all about how do you get that emotion, and that's where the behavior science comes in.

[00:29:42] What creates the emotion to drive the action that previously people can be bothered to do. 

[00:29:47] Sarah Stone: Amazing. Right. My last one for you is, and this is gonna be sacrilegious to you, I know. Yeah. But I see lots of companies making commitments to sponsor PhDs, and they're a bit of a nightmare because they always cost way more [00:30:00] than you think they're gonna cost and.

[00:30:01] It's really hard to actually make happen. And also I'm always a bit questionable about how impactful they are, which I'm not being read about PhDs. I'd love to do one one day, so I know it exactly just to ask you. But if you've got 50 grand, 'cause that's normally about how much people think it can ring fence, it's what would you do with it instead of sponsoring a PhD.

[00:30:19] Richard Milburn: Actually, I'm quite skeptical about the value of a lot of PhDs as well. So, uh, this, this is more positive. I think they can be really good, but I think often they're too academic. So I would mandate PhD. Yeah, that's thing. PhD have [00:30:30] to work part-time as well. Yeah. Um, I want 

[00:30:31] Sarah Stone: one 'cause I'd like to be able to call myself a doctor.

[00:30:33] That's the only reason I, 

[00:30:35] Richard Milburn: yeah, 

[00:30:36] Sarah Stone: I quite long side of it. 

[00:30:37] Richard Milburn: Yeah. So it is at least again, a sort of classic one. If you fund one PhD, you get an uncertain outcome from one person. So you could flip that on the other way and say, okay, how do we get lots of students to be engaged in this topic? So I'd say, pick the goal that you wanna achieve.

[00:30:52] Set a challenge around that with some very clearly defined minimum criteria. And then set it for undergraduates and say, we'll pay off your student. [00:31:00] Up to 50 K. 'cause if you think of that as a headline, that's gonna get on the national news, whether you are working with one university or 10 or 20. And then crucially, if you can make it part of the degree anyway, you know, do they have to do a project anyway, then say okay, within that project that you have to do.

[00:31:15] Yeah. 

[00:31:15] Sarah Stone: Something that links to their degree. 

[00:31:17] Richard Milburn: Yeah. So you are not forcing them to go outside because particularly for those on lower incomes who are struggling economically. Yeah, the extracurricular stuff can often be quite difficult. Because they exactly do. Exactly. 

[00:31:27] Sarah Stone: You know that woman that I was telling you about that I met, that's exactly what she said.

[00:31:29] She said one [00:31:30] of the problems they've got is people holding down two, if not three jobs. Yeah. And they don't wanna go to classes because they wanna work. Yeah. Should they wanna do classes online because they wanna work four to 50 hours a week in order to be able to live, to be at university. And so they're missing, you know, one of the key aspects of university, which is a social.

[00:31:46] Interaction piece, and I just hadn't, she said the average student leaves about 65 ish minimum round of debt, which is shocking and horrific amount. 

[00:31:57] Richard Milburn: Also, there's the power in that if one company does [00:32:00] it, you then start to create this environment that say, okay, can a lot more. Start to follow. I was talking to somebody who's a London University, so she's in recruitment doing the marketing for them, and that is very good university.

[00:32:12] So I was like, do you really have a problem with recruitment? She said, well, yeah, from certain groups we do. So one underrepresented groups and then two, some of the international students that they, they wanna target. So I said, look, one of the things is how can you reduce the financial risk associated with that?

[00:32:25] So say, look, you're a top university. If somebody gets a first. Why don't [00:32:30] you give them their employer a money back guarantee? So if they're not entirely satisfied after three months, you refund that employer the cost. Because you know, as a university, you're a top university. If getting a first class degree isn't a guarantee of great jobs, why is somebody 60 5K in debt having done your, your degree?

[00:32:47] So particularly as a top university, slightly different. Put your money 

[00:32:50] Sarah Stone: where your mouth is. Yeah. And 

[00:32:52] Richard Milburn: suddenly you go Love that idea. Elite and all this sort of grade inflation would start to drop off. You make degrees a bit more practical as well. You'd [00:33:00] say, look, you can't just write essays. You, you've also gotta do these from the employee perspective.

[00:33:04] Sarah Stone: They're gonna know, the university's gonna give them their best candidates. 

[00:33:07] Richard Milburn: Yeah. Yeah. So this actually came out, I had one student. He ended up being the top student in the entire department for his master first generation to go to university working class background. Yeah. Phenomenally clever. You know, intellectually clever, but also very just capable.

[00:33:20] He did some work for me, did some work for colleagues as well. Very, very high standard. Could not get a job at the end of it looking for policy, think tank stuff 

[00:33:26] Sarah Stone: really. 

[00:33:27] Richard Milburn: Yeah. And I was talking to a colleague of mine and admittedly he had a [00:33:30] couple of beers at the time, but on the train back was thinking, you know, okay, how do we solve this?

[00:33:33] Sarah Stone: Yeah. And 

[00:33:33] Richard Milburn: I was gonna get in touch with him and just put on LinkedIn, I'll put a 10 grand bond up. Because as the guy was amazing, 

[00:33:39] Sarah Stone: he knew how good he was. 

[00:33:40] Richard Milburn: Yeah. I would employ him like that. I'm just not employing people at the minute, like he'd done work for me. He, he was exceptionally good, exceptionally hardwork.

[00:33:45] He's 

[00:33:45] Sarah Stone: still looking for a job, 

[00:33:47] Richard Milburn: so now he's got one now. So, least as I was about to message him, I sort of sat on it for a few days. Sure. You a bit drunk. Pretty sure he was a bit bold, but, um, I was gonna message him and then he messaged me and said, oh, I've got a job. But you know, it's holding that because even.

[00:33:57] For some reason, if he is struggling again in future, [00:34:00] whatever, I'd do it again. But I think that really stood out to me that I knew he was really, really good both academically and practically. And I'd seen some of these posts go quite viral on LinkedIn anyway, so I thought there's quite a good one to do.

[00:34:11] And again, if a university offered these guarantees, but it creates that social pressure across the board and people ask, start asking, well, yeah, hang on. Why doesn't every university do this? If you get a first class degree from university, why don't you get a money back guarantee for the employer?

[00:34:25] Because that would showcase the value of university education. So again, from that cork group [00:34:30] perspective, often these things, you know, you might not have a huge amount of budget. You might not think you can change the world, but if you can pull a key lever. That then delivers a cascading social change. As a result, you can deliver a massive, massive transformation, even with a relatively small budget.

[00:34:44] And so doing something like that, forgiving debt or a university offering a guarantee, you might just do it once, but it compels everyone else, you know, to follow and can have massive impact. 

[00:34:55] Sarah Stone: It's like John Lewis is never knowingly undersold, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad always bought [00:35:00] everything passed away now, but he bought everything from John Lewis because he knew that if he wasn't happy, he could take it back and get Yeah.

[00:35:05] Everyth refund. I dunno if they still do it, but this is amazing. I've got loads of ideas. I could talk to you all day. We'll put a link at the bottom so everybody can find you. Just before we finish on the flip side, is there anything. That you've maybe done or you've seen done that was well intentioned, but didn't quite result in, and something that you wouldn't necessarily recommend doing again?

[00:35:23] Richard Milburn: Yeah, so one absolute classic comes from British Imperial India. So the Raj, as it was, yeah, British [00:35:30] rule. There were loads of Cobra snakes, so they paid money for the head of a snake. So of course the Indian people. Very quickly realized, well, if we breed snakes, we can kill 'em very quickly. Take the heads down and make money.

[00:35:42] So what you saw, so Indian government or the British government, as was 

[00:35:45] Sarah Stone: the population went up 

[00:35:46] Richard Milburn: well. So initially it cost them so much money they couldn't understand what was happening. So then it was costing them too much money to sustain. So then they canceled the scheme and of course, yeah. Then they let all the snakes go and they ended up with a bigger snake population.

[00:35:59] So. [00:36:00] That's a kind of example of a, you know, well-intentioned but not thought through. So even, you know, making a minimum length of the snake, so then it would take quite a long time to grow and then you pay for a result or something would've improved that if you just say, oh, the head of the snake. Well, yeah, okay, they're gonna breed them, so, uh, I'm rubbish 

[00:36:17] Sarah Stone: at making money.

[00:36:17] I would never have thought of that. Yeah, that's really clever. 

[00:36:21] Richard Milburn: Yeah, that's, yeah. Sort of tough. Give 

[00:36:22] Sarah Stone: those people a job. 

[00:36:24] Richard Milburn: Yeah, well that's it. And it's that sort of thing of how do you, I think it's, say the minute something becomes a measure, it'll very [00:36:30] soon get manipulated. So, you know, how do you shift that?

[00:36:32] That 

[00:36:32] Sarah Stone: is so true about measures actually. 

[00:36:34] Richard Milburn: Yeah. It's maintaining that. And then I'd say actually just from a kind of thinking more grounded in terms of what would be relevant for your listeners. So if you're coming up with like a ideas competition, so that kind of gives us a job being really clear on who the judges.

[00:36:48] Are. So if you want people to come up with really creative solutions, you need a judging panel that really values creativity. So I submitted to a policy competition a few years ago, [00:37:00] got a runners up prize about a thousand pounds, and winner was 20 5K, which is quite good. But the. Idea they'd come up with was already being pitched in Parliament.

[00:37:07] So they just spent 25,000 pounds to get an idea. That was already in Parliament. It was all online 'cause it was during COVID. So lots of people were ling, you know, sharing the link. So, you know, with any of these things, one, look at how you design it, but two, who's the judges, because that can be really critical.

[00:37:22] And if someone does do something really creative, they would just, oh, that's a bit. That's a bit risque for us. Yeah, let's go for the really safe option. Then [00:37:30] that message it will send to everyone is, oh, okay. Actually, you are already interested in safety rather than creativity. So designing the judging panel.

[00:37:36] Designing the measurement effectively to get those two right, so that you do very, very, so 

[00:37:41] Sarah Stone: you don't have the unintended consequences that are negative, but you, that's true of, I mean, how many judging panels have you sat on where people make decisions and you think. Yeah. Yeah. My other like pet hate is judging panels where they don't give the judges evaluation criteria.

[00:37:57] Maybe that's just 'cause I like sit in procurement, but I'm like, we [00:38:00] need to know what we're all measuring against and what we're scoring against. That's a whole other conversation. What's the biggest shift that you'd love to see in how organizations think about social value? 

[00:38:10] Richard Milburn: Yeah, so it comes back to a quote that I think was originally on the West Wing, and I'm gonna slightly butcher it.

[00:38:16] I love 

[00:38:16] Sarah Stone: that program. 

[00:38:17] Richard Milburn: Yeah. 

[00:38:18] Sarah Stone: My friends, 

[00:38:19] Richard Milburn: I get a few of it coming off of my, um, YouTube recommendations still, but there's this great. Line where somebody comes in and says, oh, government's generally terrible at innovation. If government had [00:38:30] direction had, um, sought to address polio, we'd have got the world's best iron, lung and no vaccine.

[00:38:37] And it's this kind of notion that everyone would've, oh, this is the way everyone does it, so let's just pile the money and improve that. And rather than the sort of purple cow. Solution actually let's redefine the problem, you know, and come up with a vaccine. So that I think is what I'd like to see. And the same in the environmental spaces in the social space, is how do we develop a vaccine rather than just a better iron lung.

[00:38:57] You know? Sometimes that's all you can do is just make [00:39:00] the existing system better. That's such 

[00:39:01] Sarah Stone: great advice for companies. 'cause there are times where really you are not the state, you're not the third sector. You are, you are a business, right? Yeah. And your function is to do whatever you. Business does.

[00:39:11] And so sometimes all you can do is try and solve the problem. Yeah. So maybe if there are people with barriers to employment, which of those barriers are you responsible for? And how can you help people overcome them to get into your company? But then actually sometimes there's the other side of it where you have to think, am I responsible for causing any of these problems upstream?

[00:39:27] And I find that's the bit that people find really [00:39:30] hard to do. 'cause they're not used to thinking about it. So you might say to them, you know, I don't know if we talk about barriers to employment. People think, well, we'll do outreach events and we'll do, you know, whatever engagement with different groups and different organizations.

[00:39:42] But then when you really drill down into, well, how are they going to filter the cvs and how are they going to select the candidates? You know, they're still selecting, they've got to have a degree. Yeah, they've got to have gone to this university. Do you know what I mean? All this kind of stuff. And you're thinking, oh, if you change that, you remove the barrier [00:40:00] fundamentally, or you, so I think there is a lot that companies can do.

[00:40:02] They just don't realize it. 

[00:40:04] Richard Milburn: Yeah, I think doing that as well, it's a bit like with the, you know, university jobs guarantee. If one can do it very publicly and showcase what can be done, how it can be done, and so on, that can then often deliver that cascading effect. And I always talk about this nation, how do you pull the strategic lever?

[00:40:21] That delivers cascading change. So from a sustainability perspective, there was a guy talking Kings years ago and he was saying to people always look at the head of the snake. [00:40:30] So he gave this example Ford. Ford mandated that all suppliers hit a minimum sustainability criteria if they wanted supply to Ford.

[00:40:36] He said that one simple decision change sustainability around all those. Companies, and I think this is actually going full circle where war studies comes in. People say, oh, well, you know, what's war studies got to do with social value? That's all about war. But actually that fundamental strategy is all about where's the vulnerability that I can exploit for maximum game?

[00:40:54] Where's my vulnerability? Where's the barrier to progress? That fundamental strategic thinking, 

[00:40:59] Sarah Stone: yeah, 

[00:40:59] Richard Milburn: if you can get [00:41:00] that right and then also be creative with it, you can do a remarkable amount. With a remarkably small amount of either time, money, you know, et cetera. Um, resource. It's the plumber, isn't it, that says, oh, it's $299 to tap your pipe, or whatever.

[00:41:14] Yeah, $288 is knowing where to tap that. If you do that analysis, you understand the problem, then you can actually really pinpoint. Game changing sort of shifts and that's the kind of piece, it does take a bit of work and and so on. And sometimes it's, it's not gonna be possible. But I think [00:41:30] just if people could take a bit of time to think, okay, is there something we could do?

[00:41:33] 'cause whatever we're gonna do is gonna cost money and take time. 

[00:41:36] Sarah Stone: Yeah. 

[00:41:36] Richard Milburn: So let's say, is there something we could do that could deliver those cascading effects? Because yeah, you might then have a really quite transformational impact across society from just one project. You're quite powerful, 

[00:41:47] Sarah Stone: which is kind of what we're all here for.

[00:41:49] Richard Milburn: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:41:50] Sarah Stone: Oh, it's been absolutely brilliant. Thanks very much, Richard. Yeah, that's so I can keep going with my questions. If anyone is listening and they wanna be that one impactful employer or you've got any questions [00:42:00] for you or like what they hear or are interested in the games, maybe wanna get the games in the schools, how do people reach you?

[00:42:06] Richard Milburn: Just go onto the King's website. My email's on there, so just email me through that. Or the tons of games website as well can fill in in that. Yeah, and just reach out. Brilliant. 

[00:42:14] Sarah Stone: I'll drop a link in the show notes. It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you very, very much for joining us. 

[00:42:18] Richard Milburn: No problem. Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:42:20] Sarah Stone: Um, and speak to you soon. I'm Sarah Stone and you've been listening to Let's Talk Social Value. You can find all our previous episodes on our website or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. [00:42:30] And if you found this useful, then please do share the episode with your networks and consider leaving us a review.

[00:42:35] I'd love to know what you think of that episode, so please reach out to me and let me know. You can find me on LinkedIn or contact me on our website, www.samara.co uk. See you next time.