The genesis for Seven Clean Seas originated about eight years ago when Peacock-Nazil and his wife Pamela were on holiday in Thailand’s Ko Lipe island and encountered a stark reality. “We visited this beautiful place, Sunrise Beach, and enjoyed our day there, but when we returned the next day after a storm had passed, the beach was covered in plastic. It was the first time I had seen the scale of plastic pollution so starkly and it was a real eye-opener.”

At that time, Peacock-Nazil had a full-time job in the finance industry in Singapore, so he and his wife would organise beach cleanups over the weekends. “Our Facebook group began to grow. What started as just the two of us quickly grew to include dozens of people, then hundreds. As Seven Clean Seas expanded, my wife supported me, even as I quit my job to focus on it full-time. Eventually, she also left her corporate job to join the organisation full-time.” 

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Maintaining a work-life balance while working together has been an ongoing process. “The hardest part is knowing where the limits are—when to stop talking about work, especially on weekends and evenings. It’s essential to maintain some semblance of normality. We’ve learned to stay out of each other’s way at work because our roles don’t overlap much.”

He adds, “I think one of the most surprising things I’ve learned is that when you find something you’re passionate about, it doesn’t feel like work. In the corporate world, I thought I didn’t like working hard, but with Seven Clean Seas, I work twice as hard and love every moment of it. It’s about finding your purpose and aligning it with your work.” 

Navigating the initial years presented numerous challenges, particularly with hiring decisions, given his lack of experience in the sector. “In the early days, we were focused on building a team quickly, but we didn’t necessarily prioritise experience. We were scrapping to hire more junior talent at lower rates, thinking we needed to save cash. In hindsight, it would have been much more effective to hire more experienced people first, even if it meant hiring fewer people overall. These senior hires could have built the team organically and more strategically, which would have saved us time and resources in the long run.”

Quickly, too, the team realised that taking care of the planet also meant taking care of people: Part of the organisation’s efforts are also dedicated to making a social impact. For instance, for its work in Indonesia, it hired people who had lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Seven Clean Seas is also determined to help provide benefits and proper employment packages for those in the waste management industry. 

“In many of these countries [such as Thailand and Indonesia], up to 90 percent of the people working in waste management are informal workers. This means they lack access to fair wages, benefits or safe working conditions. It’s a huge issue because these are the people on the front lines of the fight against plastic pollution, but they’re often working in very precarious conditions,” explains Peacock-Nazil. 

To address this, the team at Seven Clean Seas has built operational frameworks to transform these informal jobs into formal employment. “It’s not easy and comes with financial and legal challenges, but it’s the right thing to do. We believe that by providing fair wages and safe working conditions, we can create a more sustainable and effective waste management system,” says Peacock-Nazil. 

A crucial element of Seven Clean Seas’s success is its partnerships with corporates and philanthropic organisations: “Partnerships are everything in this line of work. They provide the financial resources we need and the credibility and networks that help us expand our reach,” says Peacock-Nazil. “They allow us to take on larger projects, invest in new technologies and ultimately increase our impact.” 

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Two years ago, Seven Clean Seas partnered with Fifa, the organisers of the World Cup, to develop a plastic waste reduction programme for the 2022 games in Qatar. This resulted in the adoption of 100 percent recycled PET plastic (rPET) packaging for all the venues and innovative waste management solutions. 

“The World Cup project was a game-changer for us,” says Peacock-Nazil. “We were approached by the organisers who had heard about our work with plastic credits and they asked us to submit a proposal. It was a chaotic process—we had just a few days to put together a complex proposal and had to figure out things like getting a performance bond issued by a Qatari bank.

“But we pulled it off, won the tender and spent two years working on the world’s first methodology for measuring plastic footprints at a mega event,” he says. “We were there during the World Cup, conducting audits, running workshops and even building a sustainability pavilion. It was an enormous project and it really put us on the map internationally.”

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The question begs to be asked, however: What happens to the plastic waste once it is collected? Circularity is an important tenet at Seven Clean Seas and its goal is to “minimise the amount of waste that ends up in landfills”.

Says Peacock-Nazil, “We’ve been investing in solutions to create a circular economy for the waste we collect. For instance, we’re now able to turn plastic waste into high-quality bricks and corrugated roof tiles, which can be used in construction.” 

He adds that each country has a different legislation and framework, which adds to the complexity. “Each project is different, depending on the local infrastructure. For example, in Thailand, we can divert waste to energy, but in Indonesia, it’s more challenging due to the lack of infrastructure.

“Our job is to take plastic from unmanaged to managed waste streams, but we try to recycle as much as possible. We’ve developed processes to turn plastic into materials like furniture or corrugated roof tiles, which are being used to replace asbestos roofs in communities. It’s a continuous challenge, but we’re making progress and finding innovative ways to deal with the waste.”

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While striving towards his goal of collecting 10 million kilograms of plastic waste by 2025, Peacock-Nazil remains cautious about overextending the organisation. “We're making good progress, but it’s a delicate balance,” he says. “We’re constantly weighing the need to expand our impact against the imperative of maintaining financial stability.

“There are always trade-offs, especially when you’re working in a field as challenging as ocean conservation. You have to be plugged into every part of the organisation to make the right decisions, and sometimes that means making tough calls about where to allocate limited resources. It’s not easy, but it’s crucial to our long-term success. We’ve had to learn how to under-commit on impact in certain situations to ensure that we can sustain our efforts over the long term. The worst thing we could do is overextend ourselves and then have to cut back on our impact.”

During the interview, we also asked Peacock-Nazil a series of questions to get behind the mind of a social entrepreneur.

Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

Tom Peacock-Nazil (TPN): There’s a broader view where I think we’ve been incredibly lucky, and things have gone well overall. But when you zoom in, you realise that almost every decision in the early days was a learning experience. I made plenty of mistakes, particularly around hiring. Initially, we didn’t hire enough senior talent, which slowed our progress. If I could go back, I would prioritise bringing in experienced people earlier to help guide the organisation. However, every mistake was a lesson, and it has shaped how I lead today.

How do you balance the need to invest in talent with the financial constraints of running a social enterprise?

TPN: It’s definitely a challenge, especially in the early stages when the impact we wanted to achieve often outpaced our revenue. We’ve had to make difficult decisions about where to allocate resources—whether to spend on impact or building the team and operations. Over time, we’ve seen that investing in the right team members has been crucial to scaling our impact. As the organisation grows, the initial heavy investment in talent pays off because it allows us to maximise our impact sustainably.

If you were to describe yourself in three words now versus before, what would they be?

TPN: Good question. Now, I’d say I’m clear, informed and still ambitious. I’m much clearer about what I want and how to achieve it. I’m more informed about what’s possible and what isn’t, and the ambition that drove me to start Seven Clean Seas is still very much alive. I’ve always had big dreams for this organisation and while the journey has had its ups and downs, that ambition has kept us moving forward.

How has your approach to management and leadership evolved?

TPN: In the early days, I was hesitant to give negative feedback or constructive criticism. I wanted to be a nice boss, but that sometimes got in the way of giving clear guidance, which is unfair to the team.

Over time, I’ve learned that good communication and accountability are key to being an effective leader. It’s important to tell people what’s expected of them and to be clear about how they’re doing. This has helped me build stronger relationships with my team and create a more productive work environment.

How do you manage work-life balance, especially when working closely with your wife?

TPN: We’ve learned to compartmentalise. At work, we maintain a professional relationship, with clear communication and accountability. Luckily, her role doesn’t require much oversight from me, so we don’t often find ourselves in conflict.

When we step out of the office, we switch back to being husband and wife. It’s important to keep that balance, and we’ve gotten better at making sure we carve out time for our personal lives.

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