At dinner one evening, the CEO of one of the world’s largest palm oil companies surprised Scott Poynton with a question about endangered species. That quiet conversation sparked a chain of decisions that reshaped an industry. 

Scott has built a career on moments like these – not by berating executives, but by helping them face what they most want to avoid. From his beginnings as a forester in rural Australia to founding The Forest Trust (now Earthworm Foundation), his work has taken him from rivers in the Mekong Delta to the most powerful boardrooms on the planet. In this interview with our Editor in Chief Hannah Finch, he shares how vulnerability can become the catalyst for lasting change. 

This article first appeared in Issue 06. Get your copy here.

Hannah Finch: You recently came back from a trip to Ghana, spending ten days helping in the fields. Tell us about why you were there? 

Scott Poynton: Going there is always a rich experience. From the bush to the boardroom, you can’t provide real support unless you’ve been out there to see it with your own eyes. People will see it in a day and call themselves an expert. But you’ve got to go there, feel it – talk to the people, find out how they’re going, what’s motivating them. 

Time and again, ideas are dreamed up in boardrooms, but they fail because no one asked the people on the ground how it should be done. People are willing to learn, but it has to be done in a way that brings them with you. 

Hannah Finch: Can you share an idea that came from the boardroom that went wrong? 

Scott Poynton: My turning point came in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. I was managing a reforestation project when swamp forests had been cleared to grow rice – the country’s top export. Some of these areas sat on acid sulphate soils, which, when drained, released sulphuric acid, devastating ecosystems that had once been beautiful gardens, full of nature, fish and birds. The Vietnamese government said, “We’ve made a big mistake.” 
The challenge was flooding. Each year, the Mekong would rise and submerge trees underwater. We had to find tree species that could grow underwater. Surprise, surprise: the solution was a local species. 

During our research, a Taiwanese company arrived, determined to plant eucalyptus. I warned them it wouldn’t work – the eucalyptus would drown – but they refused to listen. They planted thousands of hectares instead of a small trial, exposed all the acid, killed the recovering fish populations, and then the floods came and killed all the trees. The opportunity to create long-term employment and a better environment was chucked in the bin. That’s when I realised I had to help businesses get it right. 
 

Hannah Finch: Now you’re having those conversations with leaders head-on, how do they react to you when you try to get them to change how they operate? 

Scott Poynton: Calling CEOs and leaders out touches a very personal place. The first reaction is often push-back – sometimes aggressive, swearing, screaming. They recoil: “No, that’s not who I am. I’m not like that. I don’t pollute rivers. I care.” Otherwise, they might say: “Screw you, we’ll do whatever we like”. I have to be the calm person in the room. 

And then I start talking about inner beliefs, soul and wisdom. I’ll go in and ask, “Why are you doing this? Who are you as people?” and it opens a different conversation. 

Hannah Finch: How does the conversation go from that point? 

Scott Poynton: They feel absolutely lost. They’ve let go of the reins and now they don’t know which way to go. Everyone’s looking to them to solve it, and they’re lost. But simply acknowledging it – “You sound a bit lost” – can be like lancing an abscess. It gives them permission to sit quietly and be vulnerable. One example is Mr Kuok Khoon Hong, Chairman and CEO of Wilmar International, one of the world’s largest oil palm plantation owners. He was experiencing trouble from NGOs, for fires in Indonesia linked to the company’s supply chains. He denied responsibility. It took him a few months before it dawned on him. At dinner,he leaned over to me and said, “Is it true that there’s only 200 Sumatran tigers left in the world?” I said yes. After a couple of minutes of silence, he says, “What about the orangutans? I’ve heard that there are only 20,000 left in the world.” Indeed, before the palm oil industry, there were two or three million. He reflected, really chewed over it before saying, “We’ve got to do something about that.” The company trades 45% of the world’s palm oil, but I helped him push back. The industry was trying to get him not to. But eventually, he crossed the threshold and launched a policy, and now everyone’s got one. He was the breakthrough. 


Hannah Finch: What would you say to the internal change champions in companies who want to help their leader make that leap? 

Scott Poynton: Remember Newton’s third law: for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. If you push a CEO, they’ll push back. Activists often hit leaders over the head with a rubber cricket bat, and all that does is make them fight back. It might default to an adversarial process – litigation, campaigns, courtrooms – but the leaders usually have more resources, better lawyers to push back and defend their position. I’ve seen organisations spend decades in conflict while the forest continues to be destroyed. 

Trying to force someone to change is rarely effective. You have to ask: “Who the hell am I to force my ideas on someone else?” I screw up, I stumble, I mess up all the time. You’ve got to help them find their way. 

Go in without judgment, because as soon as you bring judgment, it’s really difficult to come back from. The other person feels it in your body language. They smell it. It’s like blood in the water. The hair on the back of their neck goes up and they’re already in a defensive posture. 

There’s no way you’ll beat the brains and the arguments of some leaders. You need to help them connect to their emotions. Even if the first emotion is anger – “bloody Greenpeace” – it’s a start. Because then they can start to connect to the concept of suffering. And emotion is down in the gut. 


Hannah Finch: What’s one message you’d like to leave to leaders wanting to make that change? 

Scott Poynton: We have true darkness ahead. But what sustains me is determination. History shows we’ve been through these periods before, and we’ve emerged out the other side – because good people stood up for what’s right.