Seeby Woodhouse – Managing Director
Seeby Woodhouse is a New Zealand success story at only 31 years of age. A true entrepreneur in every sense of the word, Seeby has been involved in starting and running numerous businesses over the years encompassing Internet, mobile, IT, hospitality, radio, property and finance. He was the New Zealand Young Entrepreneur of the Year and HiTech Young Achiever of the Year in 2004.
Seeby’s main claim to fame was his success with Orcon Internet. Seeing enormous potential in the Internet, he dropped out of his engineering studies at Auckland University, and with a $100 in his pocket started up in business as an Internet Service Provider. Years of hard work paid off. He built Orcon into a multi-million dollar business without borrowing a cent. When the time came to move on, he sold Orcon to Kordia, an SOE, for $24.3 million in 2007.
However, Seeby is now increasingly concerned about Global Warming and the Environment. He has decided to sell up all of his other business interests to focus solely in this area.
“There are so many reasons why now is a time for urgent action” says Seeby.
“I am constantly frustrated by global warming deniers and people with their heads in the sand about the major issues that the world is facing, so I decided to set up Green Carbon to do something about this problem, and make it ridiculously easy for Kiwi businesses to offset their carbon emissions with a trustworthy partner. I believe that solutions to global warming will come from commercial realities and consumer desires, rather than government legislation and intervention, and that going Green is most definitely good for business.”
“The world will face challenges like never before over the next 100 years. For example – many people claim that the earth in fact has many more resources and could even happily support double the current population, but how many people do you hear going around saying that the world could support twelve times the current number of people? Not many. But, third world people only consume around 1/32nd as much natural resources as the average 1st world person. If everyone in every third world country was to reach 1st world standards of living, then the resource strain on the planet will actually be twelve times current levels. We need to start focusing on the issues of global warming RIGHT NOW, because there will be other even larger problems that need to be solved down the track.”
Although Seeby sees many problems for the world over the next century, he is optimistic that human beings can avert disaster. He cites the global accord to phase out CFCs and prevent the destruction of the ozone layer in support of his belief.
He is keen to get “stuck in” to environmental issues and make a difference. |
