“Supply chains are made of people, not just products or paperwork.” – Sara Otto

Supply chains touch almost everything we buy — clothes, home goods, gifts, art — yet most of us never really see how they work, or who they rely on.

In this episode of Flying the Coop, we’re joined by Sara Otto, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Nest, a nonprofit working globally to make artisan supply chains more equitable, transparent, and sustainable, especially for home-based and small-workshop makers who are often invisible to traditional oversight.

Sara shares how Nest operates at the intersection of ethics, compliance, logistics, and real-world commerce, translating “we want to do business better” into systems that actually protect workers’ rights and dignity. Drawing on years of experience living and working alongside artisan communities, she offers a look at what real-deal ethical sourcing looks like.

Together, we explore:

• How "social compliance" rests on relationships

• How Nest bridges the gap between global brands and small-scale artisans

• How transparency begins with simply knowing who is in a supply chain

• What equity looks like beyond paternalism or "white savior" models

This conversation is a grounded, compassionate look at how complex global systems can be redesigned to respect humanity at every level.

“Human rights aren’t things that happen over there. They show up in everyday business decisions.” – Chloe Poynton

Chloe Poynton is the co-founder of Article One Advisors, a global consultancy that works with companies to put people and human rights at the center of business, from supply chains and product design to emerging technology and AI governance. They have partnered with organizations ranging from major consumer brands to tech platforms and manufacturers, helping them move beyond surface-level compliance towards real change.

Chloe shares her path from humanitarian work in refugee camps with the UN and why she shifted to working with businesses. We talk about what actually changes when businesses stop treating human rights as a compliance exercise and start treating them as a lived responsibility.

What we talk about:

• The difference between preventing harm vs repairing harm — might sound simple, but it isn’t!
• Why every company has a responsibility to human rights, whether they acknowledge it or not
• How incentives, governance, and KPIs directly shape ethical outcomes
• Real stories of uncovering and remediating harm inside complex global companies
• What it means that the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is a process document
• How AI changes the scale of risk, but NOT the underlying responsibility
• What gives Chloe hope, even in a turbulent moment for values-led work

Join us to talk about how care, accountability, and dignity can be implemented inside large, messy systems, and why centering people in business is often about designing better structures to hold them and their work.

This interview covers a lot of ground with a lot of heart.

"Every business could be a social enterprise if they wanted it badly enough." – Lauren Edwards

Lauren Edwards has spent her career helping businesses stop treating "doing good" as an afterthought, and start building it into the core of how they operate.

As Executive Director of SeaChange and owner of NextStep Business Consulting, Lauren works with entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and corporations to prove that profit and purpose don’t have to be in tension.

In this conversation, we dig into what social enterprise actually means (and why the label matters less than the intention), why nonprofits and for-profits are both constrained by broken systems, and how trust (and the lack of it) shapes everything from wage gaps to public policy.

We also cover:

• What defines a social enterprise (and what doesn’t)

• How profit and impact collide, and how to navigate those moments honestly

• Practical models for values-led businesses (B Corps, benefit corporations, worker ownership, revenue sharing, and more)

• Why "shop social" can matter as much as shop local

• What it looks like to show up ethically when no one is watching

This episode was a beautiful reminder to us that how we structure our business is one of the loudest ways we can show up in the world.

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Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a messaging co-op that gives a flying duck. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long-term strategy: if you want your brand, offers, and experience to tell the same story, we can help.

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• (00:00:00) - Flying The Coop: Lauren Edwards
• (00:01:03) - What's a Social Enterprise?
• (00:03:25) - Double-Bottom Line
• (00:05:26) - Social Entrepreneurs: Profit and Purpose
• (00:08:13) - The Case for Social Enterprise
• (00:11:47) - The Fight for Higher Taxes
• (00:17:35) - Shop Social: How to Support Social Enterprise Companies
• (00:20:18) - The Importance of Choosing Your Own Money
• (00:23:08) - The role of individuals in fighting climate change
• (00:26:31) - Give More to Nonprofits: We Need a Business Model
• (00:30:30) - Five Ways to Do Good While Starting a Business
• (00:36:44) - Local Businesses to Support
• (00:37:19) - The role of trust in our society
• (00:42:15) - The Value of Communication
• (00:44:43) - SeaChange: Celebrating Social Enterprise's 10th Anniversary
• (00:46:25) - Flipping The Coop