Insights from our Managing Director, Kathyrn Martino

17th October 2025

“The solution to big bad isn’t big good, it’s lots of little good.” These words from Ecologi’s Director of Climate, Sam Jackson, one of Blue Earth Summit’s speakers, for me summed up the spirit of the entire conference.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of climate and environment conferences. Same themes, same speakers, same chat. Same question I ask myself after each event, “and now what?” Same feeling of overwhelming overwhelm at the enormity of the climate challenge we face, and what difference I can really make.

But it dawned on me these past few days that I’ve perhaps been missing the point. The point of these gatherings is to recognise and reflect on the “quite a lot and not enough” that’s changed since the previous conference (to steal the delightfully eloquent words of Deborah Meaden).

As someone born without the patience gene (!), it was sobering that the theme of persistence is what struck me most. Creating change, at scale, takes time. Creating movements takes time. It takes immeasurable perseverance and unwavering passion to get s**t done.

Naturalist, Chris Packham, talked about doing things that you can do rather than worrying about what you can’t. What might feel like a drop in the ocean soon becomes a puddle, which becomes a pond, which becomes a lake, which becomes an ocean over time.

Planeatry Alliance made this feel real in their session on ‘what it means to eat for people and planet’. Food unites us all. We all make choices, daily, about what we choose to eat, and one thing we can all do is stop thinking in absolutes and embrace the concept of flexitarianism. Thinking of food choices as a continuum will keep moving the needle towards making shopping baskets better for us, and better for the planet.

Ex press secretary, Alastair Campbell, spoke of the long-term art of campaigning. Of how, initially, the issue you’re championing feels abstract. And how over time, the issue gains traction. How you capitalise on the impact to persuade people, and then, it starts to feel so normal that everyone wants to get involved to make the country a better place.

This was evidenced beautifully by Blue Marine Foundation and Open Planet Studios. In what was, for me, the most moving session of the conference, Blue’s CEO, Clare Brook spoke of how David Attenborough’s Ocean was a breakthrough moment for ocean conservation issues that they – and many other organisations – have been tirelessly campaigning for over the past 15 years. This session was a masterclass in cause-and-effect advocacy and a stark reminder of the persuasive power of film.

Timing (released ahead of the UN Ocean Conference and High Seas Treaty Ratification) + cultural connection + NGO collaboration+ pre-existing momentum = issue firmly on media, public and Government agenda.

I leave the Blue Earth Summit with a reframed perspective of conferences, a reinvigorated sense of purpose and possibility, and a renewed personal objective to cultivate patience.