Episode 4

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Published on:

29th Sep 2026

Growing a business to regenerate nature - Sally Gouldstone

Dr Sally Gouldstone, Founder of Seilich, a wildlife friendly herbal tea and skincare company near Pathhead, talks with host Osbert Lancaster.

Listen to hear how botanist Sally became so frustrated with traditional nature conservation projects that she decided to try a different approach – and created a new kind of business that thrives when nature thrives.

Sally reflects on journey that’s been both tough and rewarding, talking about:

  • how “natural” products aren’t always good for nature
  • how a genuinely wildlife friendly business approach regenerates nature
  • why luxury products should be held to the highest environmental standards
  • advice and lessons for other green businesses looking for investment and support
  • how other farmers and landowners can get involved with this approach
  • and much more…

Changing Climate, Changing Midlothian explores what the climate and nature emergency means with people living and working in the county. Their reflections will help inform discussions as cross sector representatives and community leaders meet in October to agree a new Single Midlothian Plan setting collective outcomes and actions for the next three years.

Changing Climate, Changing Midlothian is produced for the Midlothian Community Planning Climate Emergency Group by Thrivable Scotland, and is kindly supported by Midlothian Climate Action Hub, Midlothian Community Planning and Midlothian Energy Ltd.

Find out more about:

Thrivable Scotland helps changemakers engage their colleagues, communities and stakeholders to solve challenges today while building capacity to thrive in an unpredictable future.

Transcript
Sally:

And it's so important that more businesses do start to really, really

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understand the impact that they're having.

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But not just the impact they're

having, the opportunity for

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them to make a difference.

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And I don't believe that we need to look

to the government , it's in our hands

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to make change in a lot of ways, and a

business that's built around that is just

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a fantastic way to, to make change happen.

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Speaker: I'm Osbert Lancaster, and

this is Changing Climate, Changing

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Midlothian, where we explore what the

climate and nature emergency means with

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people living and working in the county.

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In this episode, I'm talking with Dr.

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Sally Gouldstone, founder of

Seillich, a wildlife friendly

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herbal tea and skincare company.

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I walked with Sally at her

Wildflower Meadow, near Pathhead.

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I started by asking Sally how

she came to set up the business.

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Sally: my background was

in nature conservation.

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I worked in science for about 20 years,

became a botanist, I was working at

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the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh.

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Fantastic job.

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But it was always really frustrating

because you get to a point in

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a project where you kind of

knew how to solve the problem.

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So whether you were working on a rare

species, and you'd finally worked out

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what was constraining the population

and you were ready to do something about

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it, and then the funding would run out,

or it would be a habitat creation or

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restoration project, and you'd finally

get to a point where you're starting to

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see change and the funding would run out.

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And you were constantly having to move

onto new and new projects, which is

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exciting, but it was really frustrating.

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So I was always kind of thinking about an

alternative funding model for conservation

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work where you could constantly drip

feed money into a project and it would

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have this continuity where you would

see real change for the long term.

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So when I had a baby, it was an

opportunity to make big changes in my

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life and I decided I was gonna start

a business that would drip feed its

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profits into some kind of habitat

restoration conservation project.

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Osbert: Right.

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Sally: And so that's how this started

and decided to work on Wildflower Meadows

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as a habitat that I was creating because

they're one of the most hopeful habitats.

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They're really quick to appear.

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They attract so much biodiversity,

they sink lots of carbon.

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And in terms of natural

timescales, they're doing all

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this really, really quickly.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: Which is amazing.

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And then I decided I was going to

harvest something from the Meadows,

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make them into something and sell that.

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Osbert: Right.

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So that was the model was to,

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Sally: yeah.

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Osbert: Make something that was in and

of itself was doing nature conservation

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and making money, money rather than what

a lot of businesses and organisations

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that want to support nature financially,

they'll like create a project doing

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something and then they'll donate some

of the profits to fund something else.

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We're just trying to do

everything in one package.

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Sally: That's right.

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Osbert: In one place, one field.

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Sally: And, and we're also kind of

challenging the idea of where our

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natural products come from as well.

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And I've got this idea that our

natural product should be good for

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nature, where nature is being used

as a marketing tool to sell products.

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And you see this in the

skincare market, for example.

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We've got these beautiful pictures

of nature all over the packaging,

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but nature isn't actually seeing

any of the benefits of that.

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It's just been exploited.

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Yet we are led to believe that somehow

these natural products are, you know,

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really good for the natural world as well.

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Which they're not

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Osbert: we don't need to go into

great detail, but what, what an

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example of ways in which natural

products aren't actually helpful.

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Sally: So if we go through

this hedgerow here,

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Osbert: you carry on

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Sally: this headland, you'll

see exactly what I mean.

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So behind us we've got our

amazing wildfire meadow.

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Supports loads and loads of biodiversity.

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So absolutely teaming with life.

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Yet from it we can harvest our

ingredients then, support this space

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as well as making beautiful products.

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Yeah.

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On the other side of here, you have

got miles and miles and miles of

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a crop, single species supports

very, very limited biodiversity.

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The soil is ploughed every year.

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Well, the carbon that was

stored in that soil is a emitted

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back into the atmosphere.

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And most of our natural products,

that's the way they're grown.

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Osbert: Right.

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Sally: And yet we see on the package

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Osbert: so lavender or whatever it is

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Sally: they're

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Osbert: Exactly.

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Sally: It's just another,

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Osbert: another monoculture.

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Sally: Another monoculture.

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Osbert: Right.

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Sally: Why is that good for nature?

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It's not good for nature.

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And then sometimes you'll see, the

companies that are producing these

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products, you know, they'll say, oh,

lavender supports so much biodiversity.

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But of course they're harvesting that

crop at the very point that it is

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producing all that nectar and pollen.

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Osbert: Oh, yes.

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Right.

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Sally: So why is that good for nature?

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Yeah.

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We just sold this story very clever

marketing teams lead us to believe

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that they're good for nature.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: Which of course they're not.

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So we are trying to kind of challenge

that in the industry as well and

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say, look, maybe , when we are using

nature as a marketing tool, maybe

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we need to be giving back to nature.

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So here we are.

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Osbert: Right?

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Sally: And in the summer when you're

in the meadow, you can hear the

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buzz of all the pollinating insects.

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Osbert: I'm sure.

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Sally: It's like somebody's left the

static on the television, then you

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come through here and it's silent.

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Osbert: So a field of barley, wheat?

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Sally: Yeah, it was wheat.

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Wheat.

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And it just goes on and on for, yeah.

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And you know, it's not, I'm

not blaming farmers here.

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They do an amazing job of feeding us.

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Yeah.

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But it just shows the direct comparison.

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Osbert: Sure.

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Sally: And this is what most of

our landscape is dedicated to

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now, especially in this area.

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Osbert: So you had this vision of

meadows doing good stuff for nature,

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being able to harvest from that in

a way which is not destroying what

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you're trying to save and create.

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Yeah.

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Sally: Yeah.

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Osbert: How's it working out?

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Sally: Financially it's tough.

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A product-based business.

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I hadn't realised, how much you

needed to invest in a product based

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business 'cause you've obviously got to

produce something before you sell it.

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So you are always chasing

the next stage up.

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So every time you want to grow bigger,

you've got to invest more to get there.

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And, I was completely naive.

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I had no idea about running a

business at all when I started

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coming from the science world.

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So that has been a real learning curve.

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In terms of consumer interest in this

idea of products that are good for

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nature and growing in different ways.

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There's huge, huge interest at the moment.

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Osbert: Mm-hmm.

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Sally: It's definitely a growing market.

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People are questioning where their

ingredients come from, so I definitely

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think there's room for growth

there, but in terms of support for

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businesses that are trying to do

something good, it's very limited.

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If you're not a charity, if you're

not a social enterprise, if you

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are a genuine business that's

trying to do something good.

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There's no support for that really.

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Osbert: Ah-huh.

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Would you describe what you're doing

as being a regenerative business?

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Is that a phrase that you would use

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Sally: Regenerative definitely fits.

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There's this concept of nature positivity.

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Mm-hmm.

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Nature positive business.

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That's a good fit as well.

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Hearing recently about this

idea of more than profit Uhhuh

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Osbert: that

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Sally: I quite like as well.

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Um, but in terms of the way we are

growing, 'cause regenerative of course

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applies to a method of farming as well.

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Osbert: Yes.

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Sally: I think what we're doing

is it's regenerative farming.

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We're putting back into the land,

we're reinvesting in the land.

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So I think that's quite a good term.

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That captures both the business model

and the, the growing model as well.

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Osbert: So , you said it was

difficult to find any support

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for growing your business.

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Mm-hmm.

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Do you think that was because

support is difficult to find anyway?

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Or was it because those who

could have supported you, didn't

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understand what you're trying to

do and didn't see the vision or?

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Sally: The issue was that I was up

against businesses that needed less

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investment for the same financial gain.

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So to, to create that meadow, for example,

was really expensive and it was, you know,

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a lot of people say that's unnecessary.

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How much ingredient do you need to grow?

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You need the small amount of land.

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You can grow that intensively over a much

smaller period of time, smaller amount of

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land, and get the same financial outcome.

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Why would we invest in something,

be because perhaps those additional

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gains in terms of the biodiversity

gains, the, carbon sunk, aren't

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accounted for In business models

particularly, we, we are still seeing.

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A successful business in terms of how

much profit it's making financially.

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And I think if we could look at businesses

more holistically and think about

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these ecosystem services that they're

providing to humanity and capture that

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Osbert: mm-hmm.

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Sally: Then I think investible businesses

that the whole framework would shift.

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Osbert: so a tough space to be,

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Sally: it is a tough space.

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But we went through the Scottish

Edge process, which is, um, kind

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of competition based business

funding for young businesses.

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And they, they could see the

value in what we were doing,

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and they had a special category.

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Yeah.

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So we were enable, we were able

to get some funding through that.

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Osbert: Great.

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Sally: And then we're going through,

ventures labs at the moment, which

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again, helps businesses for good

to find funding that wouldn't

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otherwise be available to them.

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So I think there's

starting to be these little

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Osbert: mm-hmm.

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Sally: Chinks where you can

get that support that you need.

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For me, the whole reason for

running the business is to create

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and manage spaces for nature.

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It's not actually to

produce these products.

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Yes.

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They're almost a byproduct

of what I'm doing.

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So, it's not like sustainability is

a bolt bolt-on to the business model.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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So you want to create spaces

for nature, in order to do

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that, has to work financially.

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Sally: Yeah.

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There is quite, kind of a dangerous

message in what I'm doing though

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in, and that I'm almost suggesting

that nature can pay its own way.

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And I don't necessarily that think that's

true if we kind of look globally, I think

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we definitely need to invest in nature

rather than saying, oh, well it should

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be, should be able to pay for itself.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Stand its own two feet.

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Sally: Yes.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Yes.

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Sally: I think we perhaps need to put

a bit back before we get to that stage.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: But I do want to demonstrate

that once you have put back then

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what it provides to us in return

is financially worth something.

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the Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network

started as an American organisation

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and they certify, businesses that

their sole kind of reason for being

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really is nature conservation.

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And it, and it was just so well

aligned with what we're doing and there

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seemed to be a lot of other businesses

that were started by people from

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the conservation sector like myself.

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So I kind of wanted to

be part of that network.

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And then I found out that they had the

certification system for the products as

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well, which was just such a great fit.

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And they've been hugely supportive to us.

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So we managed to get a stand down at

Chelsea Flower Show this year, and

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Christine, who runs the Wildlife Friendly

Enterprise Network, came across and

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supported us at the stand, and to me

that's so valuable to have them there,

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them present, we're not just another

skincare brand saying we're sustainable.

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You know, we've got the head of the

enterprise network who's come over

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because she feels so strongly that

what we're doing is the real deal.

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Osbert: That's evidence of real

confidence in what you're doing.

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Sally: There's lots of people that are

growing their own ingredients, they

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might be growing in an organic way, which

is great, but they're not necessarily

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growing in a biodiverse way, and they're

not completing the loop by feeding those

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profits back into that same land and

managing it for biodiversity necessarily.

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There is such pressure on our food system

to, you know, feed, feed the world.

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Yeah.

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So, I, I don't think it's fair

to place the same expectations on

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the food system that we have on.

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I mean, I'm really producing

luxury products, they're

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not essential to human life.

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And I think this is where we should

raise our expectations and and

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demand more from those producers.

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Osbert: So you're arguing like, if it

is a luxury, it needs to be done to a

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higher standard than, than for essentials.

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Sally: I really think so.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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This may be a bit, a bit controversial

but the argument around, should

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we be eating meat because of the

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Sally: Yeah.

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Osbert: Emissions from meat.

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You may, may argue, well,

okay, if we're gonna have meat,

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that is a luxury, therefore

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Sally: Yeah.

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Osbert: You need to make

it amazingly regenerative.

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Sally: And it can be because grazers are

such an important part of our ecosystems.

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Wildflower Meadows, for example,

this 97% loss of Wildflower

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Meadows since the 1930s, they

weren't a kind of natural habitat.

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If you left a wildflower meadow to its

own devices, it would eventually become

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shrubland and then Woodland, you know, we

are constantly pushing succession back to

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the beginning with a wildflower meadow.

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And that's how we ended up with

so many of them because they

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were part of this farming system.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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I dunno about in Scotland, but

certainly in parts of England,

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many of the water meadows were

actually physically like created

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Sally: Exactly.

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Osbert: And managed really, really closely

with like managing water levels and stuff.

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That's

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Sally: right.

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Osbert: For grazing and for hay.

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Sally: That's right.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: They're hugely bio diverse now.

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Osbert: Completely unnatural.

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Sally: Yeah.

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They completely unnatural.

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And I find it really interesting that

we're now trying to put them back.

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Osbert: Mm.

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Sally: And that's why they're

kind of quite hopeful habitats

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wild flower meadows, 'cause they

were created by man to begin with.

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They supported these hugely

high levels of biodiversity.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: To the extent that now

we are losing them, we actually

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have to put them back again.

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Osbert: Any thoughts you might have

for other people who were in a similar

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position to you who were looking to create

a business, which was trying to do the

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right thing for the environment, for

biodiversity, what would your advice be?

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Sally: I think now's a really good

time to go for it, to be honest.

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I think the market's there, I

think the public are behind it.

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They, they want these products that

are good for the environment, you

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know, that people are very aware of

their own impact on the environment.

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People are looking for them.

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So I think there's

definitely a market there.

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And then we've talked about

funding, touched on that, and I

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think there are more doors opening

to support businesses like that.

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So I think now is such a

great time to just go for it.

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Osbert: Mm-hmm.

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Sally: And it's so important that more

businesses do start to really, really

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understand the impact that they're

having, but not just the impact.

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They're having the opportunity for

them to make a difference and I don't

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believe that we need to look to the

government and, and it's all their fault

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that all these disasters are happening.

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I know it's in our, it's in our hands

to make change in a lot of ways, and a

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business that's built around that is just

a fantastic way to, to make change happen.

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Osbert: Why so important right now?

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Sally: In terms of kind of the, the

biodiversity crisis, climate change,

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pollution, things are getting worse, you

know, let's be perfectly honest, and

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for that reason, I believe there's no

better time the now to, to start reining

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that back in and turning that tide.

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Osbert: You talked a bit about

the funding stuff , some of

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the challenges around that.

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Are there things that, from your

experience that, the local, local

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authorities, other organisations,

both public and private sector,

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could they be working differently?

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Could they be supporting organisations

like businesses that are trying to

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do the right things differently?

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Sally: In Midlothian, the local Business

Gateway has been hugely supportive

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of what I'm doing and every time I've

gone to them say, I need help with

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this, they have found that support,

not necessarily funding as an example.

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Sure.

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I want to run an advertising campaign.

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I don't have the funds to go to a big,

ad agency to do that for me, but they've

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found an ad agency who's willing to

give some time to help me to launch

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that ad campaign , show me how to do it.

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Osbert: That is wonderful.

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Sally: Bits of support like

that are fantastic, I must say.

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It's not all that obvious

that that support is there.

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You have to make yourself

known, you have to ask for it.

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But if you do that and you keep

pushing, the support is there.

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I think Midlothian is actually

a really positive place to be

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working and, and making change.

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I think what's really nice about

Midlothian is that you do have this

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much more personal approach and that

there's someone that you go to talk to.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: And you say, this is

the particular situation.

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It's not a box ticking,

fill this form out.

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Well, I mean, there are forms

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Osbert: obviously.

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Sally: But you have that

more personal approach.

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And there's something very

special in that as well.

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Osbert: So we just walked around

some big fields full of, well,

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stubble, monoculture, stubble.

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We're now coming back to

your wildflower meadow.

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We are past the peak of the

peak, peak of flowering season,

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but what are we looking at here?

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What's, what's happening?

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So

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Sally: about six years ago,

this was an arable field, like

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those we've just walked through.

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So it had received an awful lot

of, herbicides and pesticides to

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enable it to be very productive.

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So when we inherited it, biodiversity

levels were very, very low.

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Indeed.

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If you dug down into the soil,

there were no worms, for example.

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We then, seeded it well with a wildflower

mixture and this is the result.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: So we've now got, a really

floristically diverse meadow.

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So we've got grasses, we've got what

we would call flowers growing amongst

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that huge numbers of invertebrates.

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So you've got all your pollinating

insects, got beetles, lots of spiders,

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and then of course you get the birds

that come in to eat all those things.

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The swallow population here in the

summer is just absolutely phenomenal.

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It's been amazing to see

that increase over the years.

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And then of course you get all the

small mammals that come in, as well.

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So just the other day we found a little

hedgehog, in the meadow, which was lovely.

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Osbert: Right.

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Sally: They've got kind

of layer upon layer

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: Of life that's

supporting each other.

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We've built up this incredible

ecosystem in a very short space of time,

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And we are really lucky here that

the landowner, the same family as

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owned this land for hundreds of

years, and they've maintained these

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wooded field boundaries mm-hmm.

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That go off into the wider countryside.

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Yeah.

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And they are incredible

connectivity corridors that have

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bought all this wildlife in.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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That's great.

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So what's next?

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Sally: My dream is that as our business

grows and our requirement for ingredients

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grows, we can reach out to farmers who are

looking to diversify and say, would you be

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prepared to create some wildflower meadow

and harvest some of these flowers for us?

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So we would then buy back at an

agreed rate, and therefore we'd be

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creating a market for wildlife friendly

ingredients, but an agreed buyback price.

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So the farmer wouldn't be making

this investment on a whim.

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They would know exactly what they could

get out of it at the end of the day.

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Mm-hmm.

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So we're working on that at the moment.

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Osbert: Mm-hmm.

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Excellent.

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That sounds exciting.

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can that interact with the various grant

schemes for conservation and wildlife

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friendly farming and that sort of thing?

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Sally: I think it definitely could.

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I think there's so much change

in that area at the moment.

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. And the way that I've built the business

is to ensure that there is this really

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positive gain at the end, and I would

hate for that to be constrained by

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some kind of government grant scheme.

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Osbert: Yeah.

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Sally: If we can create a financial

model that works without reliance

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on grants that benefits the farmer,

benefits us, benefits our customers,

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then I think that's the dream.

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Absolutely.

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And if there was a added

benefit of a grant, fantastic.

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But I don't necessarily want

to be constrained by that.

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Osbert: That makes a lot of sense.

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Sally: Yeah.

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Osbert: How much sort of input,

of time and energy to create

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this and to harvest it and so on?

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What works involved from the, from

the farmer's point of view, if they

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were gonna do something like this?

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Sally: So the initial investment is the

wild flower seed, which can be pricey.

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However, we offer a model where we

cut our hay, it's called the green

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hay cuts , when it's holding its

seed, and then we transport that

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onto the land where it sets its seed.

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So then you've got minimal cost

in terms of actually, setting up

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the, the meadow to begin with.

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And then of course you've got the costs

of harvest, as you do with, with any crop.

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We hand harvest a lot of this,

and then we've got little machines

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that go and cut other bits.

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Osbert: Right.

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Sally: So there's various different

ways of, of making it work.

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Osbert: That's very exciting.

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Thank you so much.

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And there you have it.

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You've been listening to Dr.

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Sally Goldstone, founder of Shali

on Changing Climate, changing

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:

Midlothian with me, Osbert Lancaster.

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:

I hope you found the conversation

as fascinating as I did.

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About the Podcast

Changing Climate, Changing Midlothian
Reflections from our community
What does the climate and nature emergency mean for people living and working in Midlothian?

I talk with people across the county and ask what would help them and others make more positive changes for the communities and places they care about.

We’ll discuss how organisations could work together better to co-create, deliver and support even more action on the ground.

As well as sharing inspiring stories and insights with you and other listeners, the conversations in this podcast will help cross sector representatives and community leaders as they meet in October to set collective outcomes and actions for the next three years in the Single Midlothian Plan.

About your host

Profile picture for Osbert Lancaster

Osbert Lancaster

Osbert is an experienced facilitator and podcaster, helping changemakers engage their colleagues and stakeholders to solve challenges today while building capacity to thrive in an unpredictable future. Osbert lives in Edinburgh and has previously worked in Midlothian.