Emily smiles across the room, walks across to Ell and asks, “How’s everything going with the Cult?” We’re asked similar questions often, but that’s ok. We’ve built a team with such a sense of purpose and together that, from the outside, people joke that we might be a cult. This is almost certainly amplified by our wonderful Head of Story tElling, firmly leaning into this and tell people we’re actually a cult.
As with many jokes, there is a hidden truth that is far more than it seems. It’s an acknowledgement that what we’ve built is unusual: intense, aligned, and energised in ways most rarely experienced at work. And that, perhaps inevitably, is where confusion sets in and the myth begins to take shape.
The term “cult” often carries a loaded connotation, but in the context of organisational dynamics, it’s frequently misapplied to companies that have deeply invested in cultivating a real high-performance culture. When an organisation functions with deep alignment, purpose, and intensity, it can appear almost unfathomable to those working in environments lacking that coherence. What looks like fanaticism from the outside often reflects a culture of shared commitment and mutual accountability on the inside.
At Oxygen Conservation, we accept the label some might give us, and we do so with pride – so much so I’ve even put it on a t-shirt: CULTure.
Because, in truth, “cult” is the term people reach for when they encounter a culture they don’t understand. When mediocrity is the norm, a workplace driven by excellence, speed, and shared values can seem radical.
Building Intentional Culture
Our culture is not an accident. We design it, test it, and evolve it continuously. Oxygen Conservation’s People Strategy codes this approach, serving not just as an HR framework but as the core mechanism through which we scale conservation by finding and developing the most talented people in the sector.
From recruitment to performance evaluation, we are unapologetically selective. We hire for potential, not just experience, seeking individuals who can exceed the organisation’s current pace of growth. This is not elitism for its own sake, it is a necessity if we are to keep up with the escalating demands of climate and biodiversity restoration in the rapidly developing natural capital economy.
We’re not striving for conformity. We’re striving for impact. And that requires deliberate, sometimes uncomfortable, change.
Culture as Performance Infrastructure
Culture at Oxygen Conservation is expressed through the clarity of our processes, the discipline of our feedback systems, and the precision of our expectations. Whether it’s onboarding that equips new hires with strategic insight from day one or learning systems based on elite sports models, we build environments that enable excellence.
We openly categorise performance: Elite, High, and Performing Elsewhere. These distinctions aren’t punitive, they’re necessary to ensure team alignment and mission integrity. Our environment is not for everyone, and that’s by design.
This isn’t a “cult” of conformity; it’s a culture of commitment.
Energy as Strategic Capital
We understand that energy—emotional, intellectual, and physical—is a finite strategic resource. We defend it relentlessly. Every hire must be additive to that energy. A single misalignment can disrupt entire projects or affect team morale.
Our recruitment strategy is inspired by professional sports: we draft / hire for mindset, for mission-fit, for coachability. If conservation now operates at Premier League pace, then every player on the pitch must be ready to contribute at that level and have the potential to play in the Champions League because that’s where we’re going.
Misinterpretation Is Inevitable
High-alignment cultures will always feel alien to those who haven’t experienced them. When people see a team thriving under intense expectations, they sometimes project skepticism. That discomfort often says more about their previous experiences (we’ve worked in some crappy places too) than our current practices.
We are fine with being misunderstood. In fact, we anticipate it. Culture must be built, maintained, and actively managed. It is not something you inherit; it is something you do.
So yes, we’ve set aside conventional playbooks. We are writing our own, one that reflects the realities of building an impact focused, regenerative, market-leading conservation business.
Culture Must Drive Outcomes
A high-performance culture must also be an outcomes-based culture. We do not conflate kindness with passivity. Real impact; restored landscapes, premium carbon credits, systems-level innovation, is how we measure our success. Culture isn’t a set of values on the wall; it’s the consistent delivery of mission-critical results and shared lived experiences.
That’s how we’ve acquired 43,000 acres of land in record time and fundamentally shifted the conversation around natural capital. That’s what happens when performance culture and commitment, replaces inertia and apathy.
Enabling Autonomous Impact
Our approach empowers individuals to act without waiting for top-down approval. We train, equip, and support our team to make intelligent decisions and drive forward our mission independently. That level of autonomy can feel alien in traditional structures, but it’s essential for pace, agility, and resilience.
You don’t need a decade of experience or niche expertise to make a difference here. You need clarity, humility, and a drive to execute. That’s why our intern programme feels like an elite training academy. That’s why performance reviews are developmental, not bureaucratic.
Every single process is a cultural signal. Every detail matters. How you do anything is how you do everything.
Culture as a Continuous Practice
Culture is not a static concept. It is iterative and performative. It’s how you act when the pressure mounts, how you respond to feedback, how you navigate the many contradictions and compromises.
At Oxygen Conservation, our values are literally field-tested daily. They live equally in our calls and conversations as they do in our woodlands. They shape the decisions we make when no one is watching.
So if a deeply aligned, purpose-driven, and relentlessly high-standard organisation feels like a cult to some observers? Then so be it.
In a world drowning in disconnection, we’ve built something meaningful.
We’ve built a CULTure that delivers impact for people, the environment and our investors.