Big Tech Emissions and the Truth About Corporate Climate Pledges

In this episode of the Climate Confident Podcast, I sit down with Tom Day from the NewClimate Institute to unpack one of the thorniest issues in corporate climate action: credibility. Over the past few years, big tech companies and multinationals have rolled out bold net zero pledges, but how much of it is substance, and how much is smoke and mirrors?

Tom argues that offsets, once seen as a solution, have become a dangerous distraction. Instead of reducing their own emissions, too many firms hide behind carbon credits and creative accounting. We discuss why greenhouse gas accounting, while essential, is riddled with blind spots and loopholes that allow companies to look greener on paper than they are in reality.

The conversation digs into the tech sector specifically, where energy demand from data centres and AI is skyrocketing. While firms like Google and Microsoft have pushed promising practices such as 24/7 renewable matching, others continue to claim progress by buying certificates far removed from the grids they actually use. We also ask the tough question: should software and cloud services that help fossil fuel companies extract oil and gas more efficiently really count as climate leadership?

From supply chain decarbonisation and product circularity to the future role of carbon removals, Tom challenges us to demand more transparency and honesty from corporate climate strategies. If we want tech, and business at large, to play a meaningful role in a 1.5°C world, we need to move beyond glossy PR and focus on genuine transitions.

The Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2025 that Tom referenced in the episode is available here.

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Should oil and gas companies be using AI to make their exploration exercises more efficient. Should the energy hungry algorithms behind advertising campaigns make it easier for other companies to convince us to buy things that we don't really need? Is there a role for tech to, to kind of take responsibility in this regard? Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 236 of the Climate Confident Podcast, the go-to show for best practices in climate emission reductions. I'm your host, Tom Raftery, and before we jump in, a quick word. This podcast, Climate Confident now has a subscription option. For just five euros or dollars a month, you can unlock the full back catalog of hundreds of conversations with climate leaders who are actually moving the needle. Subscribers get a personal shout out in episodes plus direct access to me so you can pitch new directions, guests and ideas for the show. Everyone else still gets access to the most recent 30 days of episodes for free. But if you want the archive and a hand on the steering wheel, hit the subscribe link in the show notes. Now, let's be blunt, big tech loves to brag about being carbon neutral while raking in billions selling software and cloud services to oil and gas giants. The very tools that help them squeeze every last drop of fossil fuel from the ground, faster, cheaper, more efficiently. At the same time, those tech companies publish glossy climate pledges, padded with offsets and accounting tricks while their actual emissions soar. My guest today, Tom Day, from the New Climate Institute, has made a career out of exposing this hypocrisy. We dig into the credibility gap in corporate climate promises, why offsets are a dangerous distraction, and what real leadership would look like if tech companies stopped enabling fossil fuel expansion and actually committed to zero. This isn't just about emissions accounting. It's about asking whether Silicon Valley is building the future or quietly helping to burn it down. Tom, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? Thanks, Tom. Yeah, sure. Tom Day from New Climate Institute. We're a think tank based in, in Germany and we're doing a bit of analysis on, what companies are up to and the credibility of the strategies they're putting forwards. Trying to identify some good practices and trying to offer insights to how the regulatory bodies or standards setters can incentivise some of those good practices. Okay. And how did you get into all this, Tom? I have been most active for the last 10 years in analysing the situation with regards to carbon credit markets, for the orange carbon market, the use of offsets. And we noticed obviously quite a wave of bold climate pledges coming forwards from corporates in around 2020, 2021. This kind of turned our heads a little bit. We were thinking hey, what's, what's going on over here? This looks really good. What's in it? And, and it was clear from the start that there was quite a bit of offsetting involved here. So, so I thought, okay, this is, this is an area to look at primarily with, with a carbon credits lens. In the meantime, it's obviously a much bigger picture that there's much more going on than, than just the use of carbon credits, which remains a very contentious topic in, in this space. But, but now it's obviously just one of many many issues that divide companies. Okay, so you've mentioned the use of offsets is contentious. Tell us why you think it is. I know why I think it is, and people listening might know why they think it is, but tell me why you think it is. Yeah. Well, I think there's, two elements of this, or there's two, there's two sides of it. And what was primarily, I think the main concern, maybe a decade ago or a little more than a decade ago when I first started looking into this, was the let's call it the supply side, kind of the quality of the credits that companies or governments could buy. Does it really represent an emission reduction? Was it gonna happen anyway? And there's, there's been endless amounts of debate about that. And I think there are very legitimate question mark still about the extent to which the problems that can ever be fixed. There's been plenty of efforts over decades to try and fix them, but that was the main problem. I think today that's not, that's a bit of a distraction. That whole problem. Like today, the problem is more on the demand side. We, we don't need anymore to be reducing emissions by 30, 40, 50%. The major companies in the world, they need to be deep decarb getting towards, towards net zero, towards real zero emissions, especially in the tech sector. They need to be getting towards real zero emissions. However good the quality of the carbon credit is, it's a distraction. It's a delay from the reality of the situation and the destination that companies need to be going towards. So I think we're seeing a lot of companies. Coming back from it now. We're seeing investors and consumers pushing back on it and courts pushing back on it. And it's really not the, the quality of the credits, this pushback is affected by, it's really more the demand side. What's the point of using credits in the first place? Okay. And how big a role is emissions accounting playing in all of this? Are companies just gaming the numbers or are the rules just too loose or, you know, what's happening in that space? Emissions accounting plays a, plays a huge role, in this and it's, it's been standard practice now since corporate climate action was, was a thing for companies to create greenhouse gas inventories, come to a number and to focus a climate strategy on reducing this number. The number being the aggregate GHG emission footprint. And there's, there's a lot of good reasons for doing that. There are still a lot of good reasons for doing that, especially at the country level. I think at the company level, greenhouse gas accounting is much more complicated. It's it's less black and white. The boundaries are difficult. The responsibility the companies have is difficult, and this means that the accounting system has a lot of value judgements in it. It has a lot of estimation in it. This doesn't make it very conducive to target setting.'cause all of these assumptions, boundaries change over time. But the other problem is that, that summarizing everything in this one metric and having the objective to, to just lower the number of this metric brings in the option of using all sorts of creative accounting mechanisms. Maybe creative accounting is a too cynical word for it. But, all these market-based approaches with the primary focus to just bring this number down. Whereas we actually know what we want companies to be doing, what actions they need to be taking, what transitions they need to be embarking on. And I think there's a lot to be said about thinking about changing the system from focusing on this one number, which could have, which can really create a bit of a foggy scene for what's really going on in the background. And actually having a bit more transparency on, on where we are with those transitions and are companies embarking on those transitions or not and not trying to talk about it in terms of GHG metrics. So that is indeed one of the issues at the moment and the greenhouse gas protocol is in the process right now of revising the accounting standard. For now, a GHG accounting standard is going to remain the bedrock of, of corporate climate strategy development. But there's a lot of open questions and debates to be resolved still about how these metrics are defined. What kind of accounting approaches can be taken, will there be room for creative accounting? Will there be less room? Might there be more room? We're quite a crossroads in this regard right now. Okay. And the transitions you're referring to, are you talking about the transition, you know, the, the energy transition as it's known away from fossil fuels and to electric or some other, or. Or yeah, transitions are we referring to? Yeah. So for, for the tech sector I think the, primarily the transition to using renewable energy and to using renewable energy a hundred percent of the time. But also using renewable electricity in the supply chain. Also the transition to designing products in a way that increases the lifespan of the product, increasing the, the use of recycled materials in designing products. These are important transitions. There's a whole nother layer I think of, of very relevant transitions for this sector that, that I perceive the community really doesn't have a good grip of yet, and we also don't have a good grip of it. And, and that's what, what these platforms are even being used for. So I think there's, there's a big question mark about. What sustainable tech really looks like. Does it mean procuring a lot of renewable energy and making sure that your devices are made in a, in, in a, in a clean way, or does it mean making sure that your platforms are not used for unsustainable consumption. And that's a completely different type of question, but, but there are already some sectors that are where their climate leadership is used more through this lens. If you look at financial institutions, for example, or consultancies or marketing agencies, it's more the question of, of which clients do they have, rather than do they power their offices with renewable electricity. There's more and more discussion about should the tech sector actually be seen in this box when it comes to its transitions. Should oil and gas companies be using AI to make their exploration exercises more efficient. Should the energy hungry algorithms behind advertising campaigns make it easier for other companies to convince us to buy things that we don't really need? Is there a role for tech to, to kind of take responsibility in this regard? That this could be a whole nother layer of transitions that we're really not talking about yet but I think is going to become increasingly important in the future. And it's not the kind of thing that, that you can easily address or even see as a relevant hotspot through traditional greenhouse gas accounting. Interesting. What about, maybe slightly controversial, but what about the likes of the Microsoft's, the Oracle's, the Salesforce's, et cetera. What about their selling their software and services to fossil fuel companies to enable fossil fuel companies more efficiently extract fossil fuels? Exactly. This is a very, I think this is the, the real challenge that we need to start talking about in the next the next few years. It's, it's something that we haven't been considering enough. Platforms like Science-Based Targets initiative haven't been considering enough. You will, when you look at the standards that companies need to comply with, it's really asking them to reduce their scope one, two, and three emissions. So that means to take actions like put solar panels on their roof to make sure that things are produced in a clean way. And our own reports, which are, which are already rather critical about the direction of power for the tech sector, is really focused in this area and no one yet really does even venture into this topic of who are they selling their services to? And it sounds almost outrageous, but that is what we're expecting the financial institutions, there's a new standard that exists for them now since a few days ago, which is published by the Science-Based Target Initiative where it's clear that they should not be financing exploration of oil and gas. And when you look at the drafts of standards or guidances under development for major consultancies or, or media companies. It's essentially the same thing. So it's really about choosing your clients. It's not clear how that's possible for, for tech companies with issues like software, but I think it is a thing that we'll need to, grapple with some of these breakthroughs. Like the breakthrough of artificial intelligence. The major tech companies are are saying themselves that they, yes, this causes a lot more energy consumption now, but it's a force for good in the future, but that there's a lot of uncertainty about that, but can only really be a force for good if the use of it is controlled and, and whether or not there's a role for tech to do that. I think that's the next frontier of, of climate leadership, but it's, it's very unclear at the moment. And I mean, as you mentioned, AI and its use. Its use is exploding. So how realistic is it to expect emissions to go down in this sector anytime soon. Being very unrealistic. That's that's a bit the problem right now for these companies. It seems there's a bit of a head scratching moment going on where the major tech companies, they always had these very bold sounding climate pledges around 2019, 2020. And perhaps the situation or the forecast for the future looked a little bit different back then. But in, in any case, in the, in the five years it's passed since then, the energy demand of these companies has increased by two, three times. And the forecast out into the end of the decade is for even further growth than. If you simply look at the, the emissions caused by this energy use on the grid that the energy is used, then the emissions are really going through the roof. Companies are trying that scrambling as quickly as they can to procure renewable electricity. These companies do finance a lot of renewable electricity, but it's not necessarily on the grids where it really matters for them. The rules currently allow them to do this where they want, or at least to some extent. And so they're publishing two different numbers. Basically one number that's exploding through the roof, and another number, which in some cases is, is growing less quickly and in other cases declining to to zero. It's really creates quite a, a confusing picture, but the reality is that the sector is not, it's currently not on a track to reducing its climate footprint. And there seems to be a bit of a moment where these companies are, acknowledging that. We are hearing noises and public statements coming out the companies where they're saying, yeah, hey, okay, emissions are exploding. But don't worry, we'll pull it back. And I think we need to ask ourselves as a society for this sector, like every other sector, what do we really want for this sector? Is it realistic, for every sector to reduce its emissions to zero tomorrow. Or do we really just want a kind of transparent discussion about how we, how we manage emissions across the economy and where, where it's useful and where it's not. And I think that's the bit what's missing from this sector at the moment is a bit more transparency about the challenges it faces because it's not going in a direction that's in line with the, the targets that has communicated in the past. And are we seeing any genuine leadership from any of the big players, or is it all just pr? No, certainly, certainly we are I think from for most of them there's a few things that they are pursuing that are having serious impact. Of course, they're very good at pr, these companies. But that's, that's not a surprise, but it's, it's, it's definitely a step too far to say that everything that they're saying is, is greenwashing. That would not be fair. It's just there seems to be a bit of a, a race. With regards to the PR to exaggerate where we are and, and this isn't leading to a very transparent picture of the moment, but we do see some positive examples. I think Google has been very constructive over the last decade or so with regards to discussing and encouraging discussion on the nuances of exactly what it means to procure renewable electricity. They set, for example, a, a target to be renewable, a hundred percent renewable quite a while ago. In the last decade they, they reached it relatively quickly, but at that point also said, Hey, you know what? This doesn't really make sense. Like, we're not a hundred percent renewable. We've bought all these certificates, but you know, like that's, that's not really what the transition is of this sector is about. And they've been at the forefront alongside also Microsoft of promoting what's sometimes referred to as hourly matching and sometimes 24 7 matching. But the idea that you can only claim to use renewable electricity if that electricity is generated at the time you use it in the place that you use it. And it's a much more ambitious approach, but it's, it's creeping now into the mainstream. It might be the approach that is now taken in the greenhouse gas protocol as the new accounting standard. These kind of developments wouldn't be possible if some major companies had not been pushing them. So I think this example has been a very strong example of leadership. Even if those companies, even if their climate strategies overall are still very much, having the credibility issues and the transparency issues in in other areas, and this is a really strong, strong area of leadership. Okay. And for people listening, can you explain why the hourly matching versus daily or even annual is so important, and you think that the likes of Google and Microsoft who have been leading in this space are doing so to kind of give themselves a competitive advantage? So the current rules for greenhouse gas accounting and for renewable energy or reporting renewable energy share are, based on regions and annual timeframes, mostly that you, it can even be more flexible in some circumstances, but that means essentially today a data center in Ireland could contract certificates from a solar generation facility in Spain. And claim to use that electricity. Not only that, but the data center in Ireland and during the night, in the winter month contract Spanish, solar certificates from daytime in the middle of summer when there's a huge surplus of those to claim that. And and so very quickly it's possible to say across our entire load, over the course of the year we're renewable. That's not addressing in any way the challenges of the energy transition. Renewable electricity is, is a very mature technology by now, and especially during peak times. We have no problem generating renewable electricity. The real problem with this transition is working out how to deal with the non-peak times, how to deal with nighttime hours, how to deal with the winter how to deal with moments where the wind isn't blowing and overcoming those challenges. Those are the challenges that the electricity sector has to work overcome to decarbonise. So if we want companies to claim that they're decarbonising their emissions with this regard, they need to also have an accounting framework that holds them responsible to the same transition. If we allow them to, purchase electricity from whenever, wherever they like, then we are never gonna get anywhere with this transition. So it is a, it's a much more difficult goal. It really requires much more effort. It requires much more cooperation because it will not be possible for companies to do this in isolation. It requires them to cooperate with with grid operators, with other off-takers of the grid. Because until the grid is really nearly a hundred percent renewable, it's not going to be possible for companies to be reporting high shares of renewable electricity either. So it's much more of a. Yeah. Cooperative, solution oriented challenge to set for yourself than just to say, we'll buy some certificates from, from somewhere. Why these companies have done it, I think is I, I couldn't speculate. I suppose it could be that companies make different bets with regards to what direction they see accounting systems and regulation going in the future. And if, if accounting and regulation in the would go in this direction in the future, then obviously those that have been at the forefront of, of pioneering those approaches will be in a better place to continue them than those that have been advocating for rather loosening the rules of the current system, Okay. And we're seeing obviously, some companies shifting emissions to third party data centers. Is that a blind spot in reporting frameworks or is that an intentional dodge? It's a big blind spot. I hope that that will be re resolved now with the new Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards. Currently companies do it in very different ways. They report those emissions in different places in their inventory. In some cases, they don't report them at all. It's very unclear what proportion of data center usage is actually happening in companies' own data centers versus in third party data centers. And even if we see emissions data on these third party data centers, that also didn't give us a very clear sense because there will often be use of certificates involved in this as well. So there are several companies, for example, that use Amazon Web Services for their data centers. You will never really see how much, they're actually using these or what the real emission footprint is because they'll often report zero emissions because this is the emissions factor that Amazon passed on to them because they are claiming to be using a hundred percent renewable electricity. So this is a a massive blind spot at the moment. And it's something where we'd like to see much more clarity and also to see other indicators being used that it's not just a single emissions point in the end. That a company is reporting, but that you also understand for example, using energy units as indicators, where are their activities actually taking place? Is it in-house, is it somewhere else? So yeah, I would hope that this really improves. Currently it's, it's not well covered by the accounting standards. And what should we make of efforts to change the rules around electricity related emissions accounting? Are they improving transparency or are they watering it down? The direction of travel, I think is, is, is positive. So this is the Scope two emissions. For most companies it's Scope 2 is the emissions from the energy that they procure elsewhere. So, for example, the generation of electricity. And for tech companies, this is in many cases a huge part of their emissions footprint. And this portion of emissions has its own accounting methodology with the greenhouse gas protocol that is currently being revised. And the direction of travel I think looks good. That there is, a clear consensus as far as I understand for that shift to hourly or more granular matching in terms of it being hourly and on the same grid, that this is a more accurate approach. But there still remains counter proposals and one counter proposal is actually to, to loosen the rules forever. So I said before that the data center in Ireland can procure energy from Spain and some companies including Amazon and Meta are part of what's called the Emissions First Partnership, where they would actually propose that it shouldn't really matter where you are procuring things from at all as long as there is an impact with reducing emissions, that the data center in Ireland should be able to support projects in South Africa or in Australia and still claim to reduce these emissions. Their point is that emissions are a global problem. It doesn't matter where the emissions come from. And if you reduce emissions one place then you should be able to account for that somewhere else in the electricity system. But I think the problem with this is it really, as I said before, it, it really misses the point of the electricity transition. That yes, in this year you might, by setting up that project in South Africa, you might reduce emissions. But is that action actually having any constructive impact on the transition of the sector that you're actually using or the grid that you're actually using? Are you helping to overcome the issues of renewables integration, of smart transmission that you'll need when you need decentralised renewables in all parts of the country. It's really not helping at all. So, so it's still, it's too early to say in what direction the accounting systems are going. I think we see positive signs that it's going for a more granular, tighter approach. But it's we'll see in a few months how this, how this develops. Is there enough pressure from regulators or is the accountability system still mostly self policed? I think on some of these issues, there's not enough oversight from, from regulators. I think on, on some more meta level issues related to change and disclosure, we perceive a trend over the last few years towards governments getting more involved, asking for more data, or more information, and requesting either for consumer protection or for or for investor protection. Requesting that things are less misleading. But this has slowed down quite significantly over the last years. And some, some of the developments in this regard, as you'll know, are being watered down to some extent. I, I don't perceive that there's much pressure at the moment from regulators, especially on these more specific issues with regards to accounting of renewable energy, for example. I think there's still here very big role for what we call some of these more voluntary initiatives which in the meantime is actually not a good, a good term. These initiatives, they set standards. They, they used to be voluntary, but they're, they, these days, they're just standards and, and they're not really voluntary at all. Every, almost every company is using them. And governments also rely on approaches like greenhouse gas protocol to set regulations. But these initiatives are the ones at the moment that will have the most say in controlling the the direction of travel with regards to these accounting approaches for the next few years. And seeing, as you mentioned customers and investors, do they have any real influence in this space or are they just left to read glossy ESG reports and kind of hope for the best? I think both of those groups have had a, a serious impact maybe five or six years ago. And I perceived this, this wave of corporates coming forward, setting targets is very much in response to consumer and investor expectations. My own perception is that the level of influence at this point starts to wane as the details have become much more complicated for consumers and investors to follow. It's one thing if a company is, hasn't set itself a climate strategy yet for, for a consumer or an investor to say, Hey, come on. This is not, this is not the pathway we expect from you. And to, to get the company moving. It's another thing when companies have very detailed 100 page sustainability reports for customers or investors to understand the credibility behind them. So I think investors and, or investors especially, I think there is a, still quite a segment of investors that still really cares about this. But I do feel that their, their influence now when it's really about getting into the weeds is a little bit less than it is when, when it's more kind of black and white decisions about are companies talking about climate change or not. What can smaller companies learn from the messiness of the big players? What smaller companies can, I mean the big players are pursuing completely different approaches. So I think you can't say that there's only a lock-in to one certain approach depending on, on the standard. You can see from how Google and Microsoft push for one approach and how some other companies push for a different approach. The companies view despite the current frameworks, have flexibility to go for things that they perceive to be more credible. And there are by now many companies, including many smaller companies that sign up to setting targets based on 24 7 framework, for example. This is possible. It's also entirely possible for companies to talk with their suppliers to engage with suppliers that, are also making an effort towards things. So I think it's, it's very possible for smaller companies to make their own decisions and not just be takers of the rules. And to try to set up things in the most credible way that they can. And there are examples there and, and that's a little bit what we try to do with our exercise. It's, the results are generally very critical, but I think the reason for that is because there are isolated good practices out there. And it's really a shame when they're sort of hidden in the fogginess of everyone making the same claims and everyone being apparently as good as one another. And we really need somehow a system that brings these good practices forwards and therefore incentivises their replication. In the current system where there's no real means for investors or customers or even regulators to determine the differences between these companies, very different strategies, then there's also really no reason why a medium or small sized business on the one hand should understand what good practice is, and on the other hand, should have an incentive to pursue that good practice if they can see that other approaches are available. Fair. Yeah. And do you think tech can get back on track and still contribute meaningfully to a one and a half degree world? Oh, I mean, of course I think every sector can can be back on, on track. And the tech sector, the main emission sources underneath it are some of the, in inverted commas, easier to abate emission sources that exist. It's, it's primarily electricity. It's definitely possible to decarbonise this sector. I think where there needs to be some some serious discussions and questions is, is what role do we see for this sector in our society? Do we want to control it? Do we, do we want to allow it to to expand exponentially with the hope that it's improves efficiencies in, in other sectors, in which case maybe you allow it to be a sector that increases its own emissions. I think that's a, that would be a bit too much of a gamble. But for this sector, as for others, I think it's really, we need a bit more of a of a nuanced discussion at a societal level of what really are our priorities and how do we want to go about decarbonisation at the global level? And just to, to transpose the net zero objective of the economy or the society onto every company individually is really not a realistic way to go about that. So we first need to decide that for tech. What role do we see that it plays in, in a global net zero economy? And then we need to start asking ourselves these questions that I mentioned at the beginning. About what role does tech play in creating more sustainable consumption patterns? Who are its clients? How is advertising done? Of course, ai use has so many positive applications. It will also be something that's very important for security, for a lot of governments, for, for their own economic security as well as their defense. But do we need it to be driving unsustainable consumption? And so some of these question marks, we really need to talk about as, as I think the regulatory level and tell tech companies what we expect from them. But just asking them to, to set net zero targets and reduce their emissions, I think is, is missing the point. A little bit. So, what would real climate leadership look like from a big tech company in 2025? In 2025, I think from these big tech companies, we would really like to see them embracing these more legitimate accounting approaches like hourly matching. This is something that any of these big tech companies could do tomorrow to say, Hey, we are not a hundred percent renewable. That's clearly not where anyone is in this economy right now. We are going to give you more nuance and set more ambitious targets that reflect that nuance. That's something they could do right now. Also, right now they could set targets for renewable electricity in their supply chain. Apple is a really good example of this. And also go into the level of telling us what those targets mean and that it's not just about purchasing certificates in various countries, but actually setting up meaningful renewable electricity procurement in all the countries that they're trying to procure it from. That's something that all of these companies could do tomorrow. They could be giving us more concrete targets about the lifespan or how they deal with circularity and sufficiency with regards to the devices they make. But also I think the, we've, we've seen companies, like I said, with Google before being at the front of pushing some of these new questions about, for example, Google pushing hourly matching as the, as the new idea. And challenging themselves. And I would really like to see one of these companies coming forward on this more fundamental business model question and saying, Hey, actually we are, we are making as much progress as we can in these various transitions. But what we need to talk about is, is how our services are, are really used and how we make sure that they are. We don't just assume that they're used for efficiency improvements, but we want to steer that they're used for climate solutions and, and not for non climate solutions. And personally I think it's, it's too early to expect that any, these companies have a, a fully fledged strategy for right now. But I think leadership would be for one of these companies to acknowledge that and to, to start talking about it and kick off a discussion. And all of them are in a good position to kick off that discussion and I think they would set themselves they would demonstrate their leadership credentials immediately by doing so. Okay. A left field question for you, Tom. If you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for climate leadership, who would it be and why? Yeah, good question. I'd like to see someone along the, along the lines of Greta Thunberg at the head of, of one of these companies and helping them to redefine how they understand value and redefine their role in underpinning the future of a sustainable economy. Tech is going to be underpinning the future of our economy for sure. And if we want that economy to operate in a quite radically different way and to be sustainable, then the companies that provide the foundation, the service for they need to do that too. And I think there's no one better than youth, those who have been on the forefront of youth activism that are not jaded and they're not stuck into our current system. These are the kind of people that you'd love to see at the in decision making roles. But yeah, not sure if that's a realistic pathway. Great. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Tom, is there any question that I haven't asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about? There's one issue where I think tech is being very very proactive, and that's with regards to carbon dioxide removals. And that's, that's, I think that's a really interesting area because on the one hand we undisputably need carbon dioxide removals. At the societal level, we need to reach not only global net zero emissions but global net negative emissions. And there will be sectors like the agriculture sector that, that cannot reduce its emissions to zero. But so, we will need carbonide removals to, to be scaled up. It's currently extremely expensive. There's a lot of uncertainty with regard to the outcomes of more technological carbon dioxide removal problems. There's a lot of environmental concerns associated with these projects. The amount of water energy they require. We're really not there yet with this technology and tech is being very proactive in trying to support it. Microsoft, I think is responsible for over 80% of all agreements in the world for CDR. So they're really a big player in this regard. And this is on the one hand. This is great to see on the one hand. On the other hand, it's, it's, there's a question about how are the companies, why are companies doing this and how do they plan to use it? And for, for tech, that's a bit of a problem because the companies that are really leading on this. They, they appear to have plans to, to use the outcomes of carbon dioxide removal to, to kind of claim the offsetting of their own emissions in the future, to claim that they're already net zero at quite an early early stage. And realistically, this is a sector that should actually be able to get to zero emissions. There's not many sectors where we'll actually be able to hit real zero emissions. But, but tech should be one where that is actually the objective or as close to that as possible. So yes, these companies are in a great position to take responsibility for scaling up carbon dioxide removals, and, and we should create frameworks that encourage that and praise it. But we need to be clear about what we are doing it for, and it's quite different to make a, a claim to contribute to carbon dioxide removal as a public good, as opposed to claiming it for themselves as a license to continue polluting. And that's, a difference which takes this support or, or this activity from being potentially extremely good practice to being a highly critical issue. So, so this is, we'd obviously like the, this type of support continuing. But we would like to see these companies, yeah, change their communications with regards to what they actually plan to do with the CDR and to recognise that this is not a, a commodity that, that any private entity should be owning or claim to take ownership of. Makes sense. Okay, great. Tom, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them? All of our analysis is on our website at newclimate.org. And the things we've been talking about today are discussed in a bit more detail in our recent Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor report which was published in, in June this year. So yeah, I could highly recommend checking that out. Fantastic. Tom that's been great. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. Thanks so much, Tom. Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.