Watching the fallout of the late Noughties financial crisis on TV, Matthew and Charis Watkinson came to an important realisation.
Both working as vets and living in an Essex council estate, the couple found their lives were being run by vulnerable businesses that could crumble at any moment.
"We had a sudden realisation that, 'Do you know what? I don't know anything about how the things I need to survive are produced'," Matthew, 44, tells the Mirror.
"We were totally reliant on utility companies for utilities, supermarkets for food, banks for... whatever banks do! Suddenly life felt very tenuous."
While many might simply despair at the thought, the Watkinsons were spurred into action.
Quitting their jobs, Matthew and Charis, 36, poured their mortgage deposit into a four-acre plot of countryside in Wales - and decided to go 'off-grid'.
Quit the rat race to go net-zero
Nine years later, the family - who have since welcomed daughter Elsa, seven, and Billy, three - have become one of Britain's most pioneering examples of sustainable living.
Enjoying the good life in an incredible home built from horse boxes and powered by (among other things) cow manure, they have sent their carbon footprint plummeting.
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As world leaders gather to tackle the climate crisis at the upcoming COP26 conference, the Watkinsons are hoping to inspire individuals looking to make a difference on a more localised level.
"We’re not environmental Nazis, we're not purists," laughs Matthew. "We’ve done our fair share of travelling and seeing different cultures, but there’s an awful lot of guilt associated with that once you know what it involves.
"I think often these issues get polarised really extremely. ‘All flying is bad, all cars and meat are bad’. We're not like that.
"We just feel like we should take responsibility for our footprint. Once you stop taking it for granted, you can do it more responsibly."
Matthew explains that a "collision of conditions" were behind the bold move.
Both he and Charis had become disillusioned with their jobs and felt they were at a "crossroads" of deciding whether to chase a career and mortgage or try something different.
Initially, they had just decided to buy the fields in Pembrokeshire as a holiday retreat, but then they discovered the Welsh government's One Planet Development Policy - which allows people to bypass tight planning laws if they can prove they are living sustainably.
"There wasn't really a choice then," says Matthew. "It took on its own momentum."
'We didn't know how to build a house - you just have to try!'
Packing their belongings into an old campervan, the couple drove down to Wales.
Initially, they had brought a former horse lorry to the site to use as temporary accommodation, but they then discovered it was a "really cheap and quick way to put together a house".
Before long, they had upped their floor space by adding a couple of caravans and flatbed hay trailers to the mix.
The couple built a wood stove heater to provide hot water, while their clothes are cleaned by a hand-powered washing machine.
And then there's Matthew's personal pride and joy, Biff the biodigester - which turns food and animal waste into methane, so it can be used as cooking gas.
"It’s so cool I’m kind of annoyed no one’s heard of it!" he says. "Making fuel out of rubbish, it’s pure Back to the Future - Doc Brown feeding the Deloreon garbage.
"If that’s not a solution to this whole problem I don't know what is."
Yet despite all their incredible innovations, Matthew insists they had no idea what they were doing at first.
"There’s no knowledge! You learn as you go along," he says. "I think that’s what stops a lot of people doing this, but actually you don't need to know how to do it.
"Society fosters this fear of failure and stops people doing things. They become more comfortable doing the specialist role they know and don't like going outside those boundaries and doing new things and worrying about failing.
"Actually when you’re living off-grid and building your house out of junk, there’s aren’t many rules anymore.
"You just have a go and try things: sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
"I didn't have a clue about building, I don't think anyone’s ever built anything like this before!"
Enjoying the good life... with Netflix for the kids
The Watkinsons are keen to show that being green doesn't mean you can't have a good quality of life.
With around 150 chickens on site, the family make a living selling eggs, honey and produce through their Beeview Farm business.
Alongside the obvious benefits of enjoying the great outdoors, they also have classic household staples like Netflix and Disney Plus for the kids.
Do the parents fear Elsa and Billy will get tempted back into the 'mainsteam' world?
"I don't know how it’s going to play out when they’re teenagers, but right now they’re fine," says Matthew.
"There are going to be constraints, they’re not going to have Xbox, PlayStation, unlimited power in the winter, but I feel that might be a good thing.
"I’m more worried about them having access to things like Facebook and Instagram - especially reading about thing like body image.
"So we've almost inbuilt into this system controls on how much they can use them because we just don't have the power.
"Otherwise they love it. They live outdoors quite a lot. They’ve got a four-acre playground and there’s a lot of kids that don’t have that anymore."
Alongside their farming business, Matthew and Charis also run tours and courses on how to build a 'low impact' lifestyle.
While Matthew admits politicians meeting up for a conference "doesn’t fill me with too much confidence", he'd love to see more schemes like the One Planet policy that give households the power to get back to the land.
This, he hopes, could pave the way for a "grassroots revolution" to tackle climate change on an individual basis.
"The summary of everything we’ve learnt is if you don't have much money and can't spent much, your footprint doesn’t really exist," Matthew says.
"If everybody realised that whatever they do, it has a price - and took responsibility for that impact - we might do things a bit differently.
"Stop taking it all for granted and we can still do a little bit."
You can learn more about Beeview Farm and book tours and courses by visiting instagram.com/beeviewfarming.
