We Are Nature - Turning Toward Regeneration with Charmian Love

Jennifer Norman:
Beautiful humans. This conversation is about nature, it's about climate, and it's about what we as humans, leaders and citizens need to do about it now. Because the truth is, the climate crisis isn't just an environmental issue. It is a human issue, a social issue, a moral issue, and it is reshaping everything. Today's guest sits right at that crown crossroads. Charmian Love, known to many as Char Love, is a fiercely determined optimist and a Chief International Advocacy Officer at Natura, where she helps one of the world's most purpose led companies decide where to take a stand for nature, climate justice and systemic change and how to do it in partnership with others. Char is deeply embedded in the global framework shaping our future. She's involved in numerous organizations chairing, advising and championing meaningful impact.

Jennifer Norman:
She also teaches regenerative business and system change at Oxford Said Business School, helping leaders rethink what business is actually here to serve. In this episode, we talk about the human impact of sustainability, the socio-bioeconomy and real pathways to regeneration, not as theory, but as action. So if you care about the future of humanity and our planet and want to understand how change actually happens, this conversation is for you. So now let's turn over a new leaf with Char Love. Hi, Char, how are you today?

Charmian Love:
Wow, I'm feeling great to be in this conversation with you. What a wonderful introduction and what an exciting invitation to be a part of this discussion.

Jennifer Norman:
I have so been looking forward to this, my friend. We both are on the supervisory board of the B Beauty Coalition, which is a group of wonderful individuals from around the globe who have come together representing different beauty industry companies that collaborate on issues such as sustainability and social impact, really driving meaningful change. But you, my friend, have been doing this for such a long time and you have such a storied past. I would love for the audience to get to know you a little bit more just about your history and how you came to do the work that you're currently doing.

Charmian Love:
What a beautiful open invitation. Thanks, Jennifer. And thank you for creating such a special space to sort of go deeper on some of the issues that I know, as you say, we share in common through not just the Beauty Coalition, but I think our shared pursuit of trying to understand how we can understand people in order for there to be the heartful connections that are made that can drive connection, but also change.

Jennifer Norman:
Right.

Charmian Love:
And my change journey, it's interesting, rather than doing sort of the chronological, this is where I was born and this is, I think for me I grew up with sort of real challenges in school, actually, I don't think my brain works the way that most people's brains work. So there is a piece here about how we find ways to think critically about issues and how we learn. And actually, I was in high school when I was invited to be a part of an art docenting program for teenagers. And docenting is a really funny word to explain the people that are in art galleries that help other people understand how to engage with paintings or sculptures or whatever the art form is. And I was put forward to go to this program in Toronto, which is where I was from, in order to go through a program to understand how you can help talk teenagers can talk to other teenagers about contemporary art. And having struggled a lot in school and being told I was wrong when it came to a lot of the stuff in the maths and the sciences, I went to this program and I remember the trainer said, you know, here's a work of art. And it was a Rauschenberg painting, who's an abstract artist? And they said to this group of teenagers, of which I was included, what do you think when you see this painting? And of course, all of us were like, what do you mean? It's a painting, we don't know how to interpret it. And I remember the trainer sort of said, there are no wrong answers. Whatever you feel or think in reaction to this painting is right because it's your own experience.

Charmian Love:
And Jennifer, honestly, that moment really unlocked something inside of me, which I think is the essence of how I try and show up in the world right now, which is there are so many answers that we feel are have to be in particular boxes and the things that we have to say or the things that we think need to happen. And actually, I really think, sense that there is a need in this world to really think critically about the challenges, to really listen to what our intuition is telling us, what our heart is telling us, and to have that openness, to know that if we can really tune into that and then find ways to talk to other people and help them awaken, ways that they can tune into what they're feeling and thinking, that can really lead to new ideas surfacing, innovation, and the kind of interconnectivity that I think really draws on some of the ways in which we can approach the challenges we're facing. So my journey was I actually, again, having struggled through high school quite a bit, this unlocking moment really took me on a journey into the art industry. So I spent the first part of my career having studied art history and classics then going into the insurance industry. So I worked in insurance where I was helping advise high end clients about their art collections which was a real dream job for someone in the art industry. But I also felt this entrepreneurial itch as well. So I went to business school and came out of it, joined a consulting company for a little while but very much got pulled by my heart actually to London, which is where my then boyfriend, then fiance, then husband and now father of my two beautiful children and my eternal soulmate, he was here in London.

Charmian Love:
So I made that move to come over here and in moving from Toronto to London to be with him again, a very heart led decision. I used it as a chance to try going into this new space of entrepreneurship. And so that's when I started my first business. I was the co founder of an organization called Volans which I co founded with an amazing woman named Pamela Hartigan. Late great, she sadly passed away a few years ago. As well as John Elkington, who's known by many for having sort of coined this, this phrase "triple bottom line". And we had so much fun building this business here in the UK and it was sort of a, it is, I should say a think take consultancy that was really looking at the intersection of sustainability, systems change and innovation. And one of the really important milestones in that journey was we were as volands, one of the first companies to certify as a B Corp here in the UK.

Charmian Love:
And that experience then took me on my next entrepreneurial journey because I ended up joining the team to establish the B Corp movement here in the UK ten years ago which was a really extraordinary, again heartful, joyful experience because it was about working with people who, coming back to the art story, were willing to look at the sort of quite hard to understand and interpret, painting a picture of the world. And we're willing to think about is there another way we can experience it, is there another way we can see it and is there something we can do about it to create a different approach? And that's why I always found my heart kind of following the B Corps and the people working within B Corporations. So yeah, that's some of the early experiences in my journey. And coming to Natura, it was sort of a natural step because again the golden thread that connects this is this really strong belief that people have power, they have agency. And, and I think this idea of how we can help people really awaken that power, embrace it and use it as a tool where we can really help find ways to use this business and the tools of business to create positive impact. And Natura is obviously a company that's on this journey of really looking for ways to do that. And so taking on this role at Natura has been a sort of really wonderful gift on my journey, too.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, audience, I want you to know how extraordinary Char is. I mean, I was so surprised to find out that you were originally in the art world and actually, you know, got your undergraduate degree in art, because you seem like such an intellectual to me at the outset. I mean, you're so smart. She went to Harvard Business School, ladies and gentlemen. And to make a jump from the art world over to business, I mean, I'm sure that that has a lengthy story unto itself, but I do see this fascinating combination between looking at art and appreciating art and appreciating nature, because I feel like they are one and the same. And I also feel that there was such great learning that you had in understanding that you don't have to think the same as everybody else to get it right. There is no such thing as right thinking and wrong thinking. There are ways to, as the late, great Steve Jobs said, think different about problems in order to come to solutions.

Jennifer Norman:
And you've been able to really be one of those advocates that is such a relationship builder between companies, between partners, between individuals to get things done, to come together and really look at impact and look at what a mission is and what that whole vision of the future could be, and let's march towards it. Can you talk to me about what it was in your journey of, like, looking at sustainability that really made such a meaningful difference to you? And said, yes, this is exactly what my purpose is. This is really what's lighting my heart on fire and why I love what I'm doing.

Charmian Love:
I got just electric even with that question, such a great question. And one of the really important moments for me in my journey was I was actually advising the CEO of one of UK's big accounting firms. This is when I was sort of in my consulting years after I'd come to London and was working with different companies that were on this journey. And I remember there was a program on appreciative inquiry. And I went to this program with a really open mind, knowing that, you know, I really believe in this idea of inquiring and thinking about different ways of doing things. And the trainer in that program presented this word, and this word is "heliotropy". And it became everything to me. It was almost like such a strong sign of almost a mantra or something that made so much sense and it inspired from my nature.

Charmian Love:
And so the word heliotropy actually comes from botany and refers to the tendency of plants to grow towards the sun. And actually helio is "sun" and tropy is "trepen", so "turn towards". So literally the word heliotropy means "turn towards the sun". And when I hear that word, I actually can visually see sunflowers. And you can imagine like fields of sunflowers that as the sun crosses the sky, you know, the sunflower blooms actually follow it. And you can sort of see this on the time lapse video. And the reason why I love that word, and I loved it in the context of appreciative inquiry as a concept, was I think we as humans are not that different than our cousins in the flora community.

Charmian Love:
I really believe we will grow taller and stronger and faster when we are moved by things that are full of warmth and light and positivity. And so for me, that word heliotropy has become a really important reflection of that purpose for me, which is how can we shine a light on what is possible, what the positive futures can be? And then how do we make sure that light shines such that other people can see it and have a direction to grow towards? Now we can go a bit deeper into the metaphor as well, because subsequently I've sort of been thinking a lot about sunflowers. And the interesting thing about sunflowers is they're not like a little balloon that a small child might hold and let off and sort of travel up through the clouds. In addition to being moved by the sun moving towards the sun, they're also really deep, deeply grounded within by the ground that they grow from, right? So they're rooted deeply into the soil. And I actually learned recently that the word "radical", which is often used to talk about, like activists and people that are doing radical things, it actually comes from the word "rooted", like that's the "radix", rooted. And so I think the metaphor is really also powerful because it talks about, yes, we must be moved by the positive future whilst also being rooted, grounded, radical with, in terms of what the scene is that we are operating within. And those include of being rooted in communities that we're operating within, rooted in the relationships that we have, rooted in what the science is telling us is needed. So again, you have let's move towards something in the future, but let's do it from a grounded position.

Charmian Love:
And that to me has become like, again, a really central metaphor and way of thinking about how we can make change happen.

Jennifer Norman:
Such a good point, because, yeah, I think that there is a wonderful time to dream. And then there's also, okay, let's balance that with actionable steps and what we can do right here, right now, in order to drive meaningful change. So I'm curious because you've spent so many years advocating for nature to be seen not just as a resource, but as something that actually has rights. What changes can we make when we come to think about that and that connectedness between people and planet? What do you think is most important for people to know right now?

Charmian Love:
At a very simple level, I think what we need to do is remember. Re-remember that we are nature, we're not separate from it. And I think sometimes we can put these positions where we're thinking about what the role of people are and are we trying to protect nature? Like, of course we are. But in doing that, it's ourselves. Like, we are ourselves. As humans are part of this natural system. We are interdependent with the air that we breathe, with the food that we eat, with the soil that grows that food, with the levels of biodiversity which enable that soil to have the right levels of nutrition.

Charmian Love:
So this sense of interconnection and inter dependence between us and nature, I think is the most important thing, again, that we need to, yes, we need to know it, we need to think it, but we need to also feel it and we need to for it that we're not separate. We are one in the same.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

Charmian Love:
One of the really fun adventures I'm on right now is I've recently taken a role with a company in the UK called House of Hackney as their legal representative for Mother Nature and Future Generations on their board. And this is the second business to do this in the UK. The first business is actually another beauty business called Faith in Nature, who established this as a model. But this has been a really interesting role to have to really think about. How do we find ways as people working in businesses to really lean into that connection, that symbiosis, that sense of connection with nature, and to do it with, again, being mindful of what are the different ways in which a business operates? What is the culture of the business? How can you engage with people? And how does your product itself build that, help enable that connection with nature?

Jennifer Norman:
That is incredible. Now, I think in this day and age, it seems that Europe and maybe other corners of the globe are really doing a wonderful job at marching towards these activist changes and being good stewards of Earth. I happen to live in the United States and unfortunately it seems that culture is shifting in the other way, which is really, it's alarming for those who really have a heart and soul and respect for nature. And it's interesting to see what that is doing in terms of dividing certain aspects of the conversation about what is the proper way to do business. Whereas a lot of folks would say capitalism is king and then others are, well, in the B Corp movement, it's really all about this triple bottom line aspect. I think that you have such a beautiful seat in that you work for a company called Natura which is based out of Brazil. Some of us in the United States might not be familiar with it, but there is such a massive respect for the ecosystem and for nature because the products come straight from the Amazon, the ingredients come straight from the Amazon, and there is such a partnership with indigenous people that live there.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm just curious, can you share some examples of some impact maybe that you have seen Natura take that might be great lessons for some of us to hear about in the United States or maybe others to emulate and mirror that might be in US companies to say, wow, this is really something where business doesn't have to be this way, where it's exploitive or it's just about profits. Here is something that we can do in partnership to showcase this symbiosis of the fact that yes, we are nature and that we care about all of the stakeholders within our business structure.

Charmian Love:
Yeah, well, I think Natura is a fairly special company. It was the first publicly traded company to be a B Corp. So we start off as Natura as an organization that has this focus on, yes, our shareholders, like we are a for profit business. So we absolutely see the importance of delivering to our shareholders. And we have very sort of specifically and articulately spelled out in our bylaws, which are available for public to take a look at direct references to the wider stakeholders that are also important to the decision making that's happening within the business. So I think we start from a place where we really want to show and demonstrate that it's possible to yes, be in business and to have positive impact. And of course that's a reflection of the wider movement of B Corps around the world. I think there's two stories I'd love to tell that kind of connect to how this shows up within Natura at a very like micro level.

Charmian Love:
One of the things, as you said, Natura is well known for is our Ekos line of products where we source ingredients from the Amazon to create these beautiful products like Ucuuba. And actually maybe the Ucuuba is the tree that I'll use for, for the story. I know you're not supposed to have favorite trees, but for me I do have a favorite tree and it is the Ucuuba. And the Ucuuba is a tree that grows in the Amazon and it actually was on going towards the red list for extinction because that tree was getting cut down to make things like broomstick handles. Now, Natura has on its team a range of scientists, both the scientists that are sort of more traditionally in beauty companies, you know, the chemists and the biologists that are working on the ingredients and the formulas. Natura also has cultural anthropologists on its team, so the social scientists. And it was through conversations with these social scientists who had been spending time with some of the Amazonian communities and the traditional communities in the Amazon, that they learned that actually the seed from the Ucuuba tree has these amazing nourishing properties. So Natura helped some of those traditional communities establish local level cooperatives so that there was a way in which Natura could support those communities and those cooperatives in understanding how to regeneratively harvest the Ucuuba seeds, which would enable them to actually capture more value for their community whilst also ensuring the tree stance is standing so it's not getting cut down to make broomstick handles.

Charmian Love:
So this is one example of one ingredient, but actually there's a range of other bioactive ingredients that we use within this ecos line at Natura which reflect this recognition that it is possible to find ways to run a business which create value across all range of stakeholders. So in the story, what we see is the local community capturing value because they're getting paid more for harvesting the seeds rather than cutting down the trees. And it being done, we're seeing the planet and climate having a positive impact because those trees are not getting cut down and obviously the carbon that's being stored within them then stays underground. And, and then we also see these trees continuing to nourish the biodiversity in the Amazon. So we have that sort of triple win that's happening for people, for climate, for nature, and really importantly for our business itself. Right. So we also have this way of having this beautiful product that has nourishing properties and we have a way in which we can then share with our customers and our clients a little bit more about the Amazon through the naming of the products Ucuuba, and using that as part of our way of communicating what the products are and what the ingredients are. So that's just one example.

Charmian Love:
And you know, that whole story of Ucuuba is one of many, as I say, stories of different ingredients. And the word that we use to describe this, and not just us, but others do as well, is the socio-bioeconomy because it is showing that it is possible to create these economic models which again are creating value for the communities themselves as well as the biolocal level, biodiversity and climate. So Natura is really focused on that. And we actually have a bioasset bond that was brought to the market a few years ago, issued to the market and where we are actually having our cost of capital that's tied to our ability to bring more of those ingredients to the market for particular timeframes. So that's one story of like how if you are a company that's operating within or close to within your supply chain mega biodiverse regions, really looking for ways that you can find ways to connect and look for these socio bio economy opportunities. Now the second story is actually Natura as itself as a big company, a publicly traded company, last year actually we took a really big step. We have had a sustainability strategy for a very, very long time, since I think 2014 was our till now most recent sustainability vision that we had set. But we know things continue to change and actually we recognize that being sustainable isn't necessarily enough in this world that we're in.

Charmian Love:
So we need to find ways, not just sustain things, but we need to actively fix the problems. So we recalled our sustainability strategy just as John Elkington recalled the triple bottom line a couple of in an article in Harvard Business Review. And we recalled it and we said we want to reframe our sustainability strategy into a regeneration strategy. So we launched that last year and what the regeneration strategy expresses is our desire as a business to become regenerative by 2050. And for us that means that we are positively contributing to climate, to nature, to social capital, to human capital, to natural and to financial capital as well. So we want to show that it is possible to run a business and creating positive impacts across all those four capitals without them offsetting each other. And the tool that we use in order to do that is we have an integrated profit and loss. So you know, most businesses have a P & L, we have an IP & L.

Charmian Love:
And again what we do is we measure the positive and negative externalities our business is a part of our the impacts our business has again across these four areas of capital. So social capital, human capital, natural capital and financial capital. And we will know we are regenerative as a business when we are creating positive impact across all four of those capitals. So that's another way in which Natura is really sort of leaning into this moment that we're in and looking for ways to scale up some of this really important innovation that we've had experience in with the socio-bioeconomy and think about how this extends to our entire business model.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow, that is so revolutionary. But yet it is the way that I think that business should be running. Because at the heart of it all is this element of respect. It's respecting the fact that we are gifted this land, we are gifted these wonderful people to work with and to be able to serve. And what a beautiful way to be able to find that one plus one equals three in order to give back and create a surplus and flourish and actually create this benefit for the planet. And it's a great lesson for a lot of leaders, a lot of people who are looking to make a difference. It's a, it's probably just a case study and how it can be done.

Jennifer Norman:
And I love, I'm harking back to a LinkedIn post that you actually did recently where you talked about human intelligence, natural intelligence, and then of course artificial intelligence. And that's a whole bucket unto itself. But it's really, you know, what can we do to really combine all of the intelligences and find even more intelligence and wisdom? I like the word "wisdom" because I feel that that has a bit deeper meaning. But this beautiful wisdom that is there before us if we're able to partner together rather than feeling like we're in this power hungry race to the bottom, frankly, which, you know, I think unfortunately some people are. Because the money aspect of it is important certainly, but it's not the be all, end all. It's not the only measure of success. The measures of success are what you had just outlined. It's social, it's natural, it's environmental, and of course, yes, fiscal. But how can we all feel that we are purposely moving to act as a force for good and using every elements at our disposal, including just the way that we are conducting ourselves in business and in our own homes by purchasing Natura products in order to help keep it in live and voting with dollars to keep these good businesses continuing to operate.

Jennifer Norman:
I think that that's just really special and thank you so much for sharing that. Now you had just come back from COP 30. And for those of you who are not as familiar with COP 30, you probably are familiar with our UN call to action. COP stands for the "Conference of Parties" and it's the annual Global Climate Summit that's convened by the United Nations where governments and businesses and scientists and indigenous leaders and civil society come together to address the climate crisis. And COP 30 was especially significant because it was at the 10 year mark of the Paris Accord. And it's significant because it's centered on nature and biodiversity. It was held in Brazil and the system's financial, political, cultural, that all these came together to shape our future. I'm curious, were there some interesting moments and lessons or hard truths that surfaced for you out of this meeting that you want to share with our audience?

Charmian Love:
I think the thing that I am most excited by, again, in the spirit of heliotropy,I think the way in which I'd reflect on COP 30 is actually to think about what I'm most hopeful for that's coming out of it. And you're right, the climate. It is the climate conference, but because of its placement in the Amazon, I think what we saw was how important it is to reflect on the challenges we're facing around climate and integrating that with nature and with the role of people. And so I feel like what we saw and what we experienced, and I think what's important to carry forward is a recognition that we need to address all of these challenges together, rather than necessarily having them always separated. And I think that journey towards an integrated approach to problem solving, which means that we seek solutions where we can understand what and how the solutions have an impact on climate, on nature, on people, is a really important part of the legacy from COP 30. I think we will see a lot more of a focus on examples from the socio-bioeconomy. What does the bioeconomy look like in practice? Because I think that was a really important theme that came out at COP30. Clearly there are a lot of areas that we still have a lot of work to do on. And rather than sort of dwelling on them, I think I would sort of share tha,. I think again, this focus on how we really can integrate our approach to problem solving with these three areas in mind is really key.

Charmian Love:
The other thing that doesn't get talked a lot about within the Paris Agreement, but I think is really fundamentally important, is one of the articles within it, which is Article 12, and it is the article where it talks about how the parties or the countries, the governments are involved, how they can enable the public to better understand, have access to information around climate change. And I think that that's really important. For where we're going next in this journey as well. So in addition to this sort of idea of how we integrate climate, nature and people, it's also about how we make this something that everybody can understand. Everybody can sort of feel they have a role to play and can understand the challenges we're facing, but also equally understand the power and the agency. They have to be a come together and be part of the solution.

Charmian Love:
So, Yeah, I think COP 30, again, it being in the Amazon was definitely, I think, a very different experience for a lot of people who for the last few years have been going to perhaps more, I don't want to say resort style, but like places that are not in the Amazon and not with the sort of changes and differences that we experienced in Belem. But I think one of my favorite quotes is from Einstein. The definition of insanity is to keep on doing the same thing and expect a different response. So I think because COP 30 was different, it was approaching the challenge in a new and different way. And I think that that's what we need to focus more on in the work we're doing.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, a little bit of difference goes a long way. So in closing, I would love to invite the audience to really ponder this because we talk about climate and sometimes it feels very ethereal or it feels like, well, what can I do? But this isn't asking us to be perfect. It's really all about just asking ourselves to be present, to remember that beauty was never meant to be separate from humanity or from the living world that sustains us. And so, wherever you are listening, let this be your invitation. I would love for you to pause, notice your relationship with nature, and just choose one way, just one, to move towards care instead of disconnection. And this might mean asking better questions at work. It might mean supporting businesses that honor people and planet protecting what's already alive around you, or simply refusing to numb yourself to what matters.

Jennifer Norman:
With The Human Beauty Movement, we believe that beauty isn't what we consume. It's how we show up for each other, for future generations, for Earth itself. So if this conversation stirred something in you, please don't let it fade. Make sure you share it, talk about it, and most importantly, live it. Because caring isn't weakness, it is power. And the future is shaped by those willing to care out loud. So thank you everyone for being here. Thank you, Char, for being my lovely guest today. You are such a beautiful human.

Charmian Love:
Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you for the beautiful conversation, the beautiful questions. And honestly, I think beauty in humans is when we can see it in each other and which I see with you. That recognition expands so widely. And that's, I think, where we really see change is when we can be confident, we can be courageous, we can be caring of each other, and we can see the truly beautiful world we all have the chance to be a part of and live in.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much much for being a beautiful human.