I’ve never been any good at fitting in.

At school, that was bad. But now it’s an ace up my sleeve. Conformity is, quite frankly, dull. It lacks substance and character. And in business, it's costs money. Because it keeps organisations doing what they've always done, in a world that no longer exists.

The world is changing. And it needs organisations willing to lead that change.

I believe that while businesses created most of the problems we face today, businesses are also best placed to solve them.

So let's talk about money.

The word economics and ecology share the same root: oikos. It's the Greek word for home. But it means more than that, it's about managing your household resources. Somewhere along the way, business decided to manage money and ignore everything else. That's a problem.

See, most organisations treat sustainability as an afterthought. A cost to manage, a report to produce, or a box to tick before getting back to the "real work". I see this repeat itself across industries and it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense logically.
It doesn't make sense commercially.

As my friend Mark Shayler says: you can't make money on a dead planet.

Back in 2016, my MA Anthropology research took me to an eco-village run by research fellow, François Schneider, in Cerbère, on the Southern France-Spain border. Here, I saw how social, economic and environmental management can align.

What struck me was their resilience. This community produced wine profitably, built strong partnerships, and was thriving without working countless hours. They were a 10-minute walk from the beach and spent plenty of time there. By intentionally aligning sustainability with financial performance, they had built something amazing.

This concept is what drives The House Outside today.

We work with organisations that are ready to stop apologising for their values and impact and start using it to change the world for the better. We've supported NGOs, social enterprises, brands and founders who stand for something and are proof that environmental, social and commercial performance go hand-in-hand.

We're not a sustainability consultancy. We're not a brand consultancy. We work at the intersection of both. Because that's where the opportunity sits. Turning social and environmental impact into commercial value.

We all work in sustainability now.

The hardest part is finding how it works for you.

Together, we can do that.

— Kevin Karaca

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When I'm not helping teams and organisations thrive, you'll find me playing the guitar, rock climbing, or walking in the Peak District with my wife and lurcher.