our story
etheco began as an idea close to 20 years ago. Now, with the right tools, technology, and momentum, this long-held vision is coming to life.
inside the machine
Jason Hollingsworth, a Chartered Accountant, spent more than a decade in the private sector, taking senior roles at accounting and consulting firms as well as investment banks. During that time he watched the same thing happen: profit was put ahead of ethics. It was how the system worked. Everyone knew it. Almost nobody questioned it. It never sat well with Jason. It was, however, as a compliance officer with global responsibilities at a major investment bank, that he really had a front-row seat to the inner workings of capitalism — the incentive structures, the regulatory grey areas, the distance between what institutions said publicly and what happened behind closed doors. He understood, in granular detail, how money moves and where it ends up. And the more he understood, the harder it became to look the other way.
heart before head
So in the early 2000s, Jason made a decision that most people in his position wouldn’t. He put his principles before his pay cheque and began a deliberate shift away from the corporate world and towards the charitable and public sectors. He fulfilled fractional CFO / Finance Director roles for mission-driven organisations like the Aluna Project and Stronger Kent Communities. He co-founded Nice to be Nice, a charity supporting education in The Gambia. He served as a trustee for multiple charities. In short, he started putting his financial expertise to work for the kind of organisations that were looking to make the world a better place.
In the meantime, he decided to look at switching his own banking, insurance and energy to providers he believed in, but ended up asking the same question over and over: Why is this so hard? Why does making a single ethical choice require hours of research, cross-referencing accreditations and second-guessing marketing claims?
born of frustration
The idea was simple. To create one place where you could see, clearly and honestly, which companies were doing right by people and the planet – and not just that, but were affordable in comparison and performed as well as other alternatives.
For years, the idea stayed in Jason’s head – and, as anyone who knows him will testify, it featured in many conversations he had. At dinners, at conferences, the pitch would resurface: ‘What if there was a way to make this easier for everyone, then surely the collective change would be powerful’.
Then, finally, he did something about it.
building the team
Jason didn’t recruit the etheco team from job boards. He handpicked every one of them from people he’d known and worked with for years -people whose values, track records and expertise he already trusted. He chose them not just because they were good at what they do, but because he’d seen, firsthand, how they operate when no one’s watching. That matters when you’re building a company on trust.
a wealth of experience
Justin, who’d spent two decades leading digital transformation and sat on the boards of energy companies and innovation bodies, but who’d also been a vegetarian for 40 years and hadn’t owned a car in seven.
Robbie, the strategic creative who’d shaped campaigns for Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and who spent his weekends volunteering at a rewilding charity in Somerset.
Kelly, the journalist and editor whose career across Time Out, The Evening Standard and Radio Times meant she knew exactly how to make complex subjects clear, engaging and honest.
Phillip, the fine artist turned creative director who’d built brand identities for the Bank of England and Thomson Reuters, and who understood how to make trust visible.
They’re on board because they want to be part of something that actually matters. They’ve seen enough greenwashing, enough half-truths, enough of the corporate world doing damage to our planet, leaving us to pick up the bill. And, if they’re being completely honest, they’re probably quite relieved that Jason has finally stopped talking about the idea and started building it.
why now
The world has changed since Jason first had this idea. Climate anxiety is no longer fringe – it’s mainstream. People want to make better choices, and they’re frustrated by how difficult it still is. The greenwashing has got worse, not better. The need for something like etheco has never been greater.
But the tools have changed too. The data infrastructure, the accreditation landscape, the technology to build a platform that brings ratings and switching together in one place – none of that existed twenty years ago. It does now.
what we believe
We believe people shouldn’t need a degree in sustainability – or a premium budget – to make better choices. We believe the ethical and ecological conundrum we all face shouldn’t make us feel guilty about what we can’t do. It should help us feel good about what we can.
We focus on practical, balanced decisions – considering People, Planet, Pocket and Performance – so that making better choices becomes realistic, empowering and achievable for everyone.
etheco is the thing Jason always knew needed to exist. Now it does. And the team he spent years talking at about it? They’re the ones making it real.