NatWest Sense

Summer 2010

Is it time to reinvent yourself?

For many people, starting up their first business is the most significant step they will ever take in their professional lives; it’s as life-changing as leaving home for the first time or having a baby. It is also a time of reinvention: abandoning the safety of paid employment and taking on such a big, new challenge changes your outlook on the world - and how the world sees you.

Nearly all of us have dreamed about reinventing ourselves yet few are brave or confident enough to take that leap into the unknown. Making the right change is all about understanding yourself - and what you want from life.

Doug Stewart, Green Energy UK:

For most of my career I was in the motor industry, but by 2001 I had sold my car dealership and was looking around for something to do next. Having a young family was a catalyst in two ways. Firstly, because it was at a one-year-old’s birthday party that I got talking to someone, as you do, who was doing a PhD in photovoltaic physics. After three hours discussing solar energy I was fascinated by its potential. Secondly, having a young family brought home to me the importance of doing something more than just about money. The idea for Green Energy UK, supplying clean, green electricity, started to take shape.

I soon realised that solar power alone would not be enough to sustain a business, but my research turned up all the other ways electricity can be created: wind and hydro power of course, but also biomass, energy from waste, anaerobic digestion and combined heat and power. When I discovered that I could actually buy electricity and sell it through the grid, I knew the business idea could work.

We started Green Energy UK in 2001 with £50,000, initially supplying electricity to friends and former colleagues. An early decision was to give up to half my company away to customers both to reward them for being greener and to promote customer loyalty. So the first 100,000 customers receive 400 shares in the company, making us accountable to each and every one. These days, Green Energy UK is a 14-strong team supplying thousands of homes and businesses across the UK. Our turnover last year was more than £5m and we have grown year on year since we began, focusing on word of mouth rather than advertising.

Just as satisfying is that we are reducing reliance on fossil fuels and helping to cut carbon emissions. We are continually introducing new technologies to the market through our partnership with “generators”, the people who create our electricity. They are leading the green energy revolution and giving our customers energy from some amazing sources, including building and construction waste, old vegetable oil from caterers, even farms – it’s great to know we’re turning pig effluent into energy affluence! Plus we have people generating electricity from home via solar panels or turbines and selling us their surplus electricity.

For customers buying our electricity we offer a choice of tariffs –Pale Green and Deep Green – Pale Green competes on price with ‘brown’ energy suppliers, despite green energy usually being more expensive to supply.

We manage our cash closely, evaluating our risk strategy to make sure that we are not at the mercy of volatile market movements. Yet it is still a ground-breaking and innovative company – we formally survey our customers every two years and encourage feedback through newsletters and our AGM. We provide business customers with a certificate to show their customers they are green-powered, and we provide homeowners with “making a difference” stickers.

I think that’s the kind of approach that comes when you’ve had a change in career; you have the confidence to do things your way. Our customers share that vision and ultimately share the business.