Interview with Trewin Restorick, newest member of Seahorse Advisory Council

We are delighted to announce that Trewin Restorick, Sizzle Founder and former Hubbub CEO, is joining Seahorse’s advisory council alongside the wonderful Ben Goldsmith, Clare Brook and Shaun Spiers.

Trewin brings two decades of experience in the environment sector, having founded three award-winning sustainability enterprises, and recognised as a top leader in sustainability with the Global Leader of the Year award in 2020, and BusinessGreen’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.

He will provide expert advice across Seahorse’s work in public affairs, public engagement and creative campaigning. To celebrate Trewin joining the Seahorse team we sat down and asked him about his views on the challenges and opportunities facing the environmental sector.

1. In your career, you have founded multiple charities campaigning on environmental issues. What do you think makes a campaign successful?

It is complex - there is no silver bullet.  The first requirement is to be crystal clear on the objective and what are the levers of power that need to be pulled to achieve the change.  There needs to be a fertile set of circumstances for a campaign to work.  It needs to build on a groundswell of opinion, be topical, relevant and already being championed by some credible leaders.

If these things are in place, I tend to build campaigns that are collaborative, ideally bringing in some unexpected voices to back the objective.  I undertake public polling to ensure that campaign messages chime with the public mood, this can also provide useful statistics for press and social media.  The creative part is the campaign creation which involves developing compelling messages built around brilliant design, deciding on how best to achieve cut-through that reaches key influencers, providing evidence of success and ensuring there is growing momentum plus a legacy.    

2. A lot of your work, such as with Hubbub, has been aimed at getting individuals to change their behaviour or working at a community level. How can we put people at the heart of decarbonisation?

It is crucial to understand the circumstance that people face, the concerns they have and their aspirations.  Invariably financial or social pressures are top of that list with concerns about environmental issues growing but not front-of-mind.

The most successful Hubbub campaigns address an immediate concern that people face whilst also delivering significant environmental benefit.  For example, there are now over 300 Community Fridges across the UK freely redistributing perishable food that would have been wasted.  The core purpose of these fridges is to cut food waste but the benefits that are seen by users are the access to high quality free food and a community space where they can socialise and learn new skills.

3. How does your new venture Sizzle sit in this picture?

We need to radically hasten the transition to a more sustainable society.  I hope to do this at Sizzle by getting to grips with the everyday challenges that make living sustainably complex, expensive and inconvenient.  I believe that this can only be done if we take a fresh look at how products and services are provided and will seek to do this by bringing diverse organisations together to explore solutions based on insight, innovation and expert guidance. The first of these projects is already underway and details will be revealed soon.

4. What challenges and opportunities do you think the environment and corporate sectors will face in the next year?

We are facing an unprecedented ‘perfect storm’ of challenges which are going to be incredibly difficult to navigate.  The Ukrainian war has hastened a set of trends that were already in play creating a widespread resource crisis leading to food shortages, an energy crunch, flooding, drought and extreme heat.  These will create growing financial and social pressures.  The reaction of UK politicians has been to focus on the immediate impact rather than the long-term causes – this will only exacerbate the problem.

The challenge for all organisations will be to weather the immediate storm whilst also rethinking how they operate to radically reduce carbon emissions.  Those that get it right will create a more resilient organisation operating hyper-efficiently with an authenticity that is respected by customers, suppliers, politicians and communities.

5. What are you most looking forward to in your new role on Seahorse’s advisory council?

I have always admired the ability of Seahorse to take important messages to key political decision-makers in a way that is compelling, accessible and persuasive.  Their team has been at the forefront of the sustainability debate working with a diverse range of organisations offering them both solutions but crucially also challenges. 

I look forward to learning from their incredibly experienced team, to share thoughts with a great set of people on the advisory council and hopefully have a positive impact on all they are seeking to achieve.