Episode 132: Liz Allan and Sukky Choongh - Advancing Clean Air Zones and Sustainable Urban Transport

Episode 132: Liz Allan and Sukky Choongh - Advancing Clean Air Zones and Sustainable Urban Transport.

Liz Allan speaks to Sukky Choongh, Environmental Manager at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Sukky has passionately advocated for air quality improvements, fleet decarbonisation, and sustainable mobility. She shares her journey from working in local government on air quality initiatives to shaping environmental policies at SMMT. They discuss the impact of transport emissions, clean air zones, and how electric vehicle (EV) adoption is shaping the future of mobility. They also explore the challenges of public charging infrastructure and fleet electrification and what’s needed to ensure the EV transition is accessible and equitable.

Sukky Choongh Bio:
Sukky Choongh is the Environmental Manager at the SMMT, where she leads policy development related to air quality, emissions, and sustainability in the automotive sector. With a background in environmental health, she has worked on freight and logistics projects across local government, Transport for London, and multiple boroughs. Sukky has played a key role in shaping clean air initiatives, ensuring that the automotive industry supports the transition to cleaner, more sustainable transport. 

Sukky Choongh Links:
Website: https://www.smmt.co.uk
Clear Air Zone Links: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/driving-in-a-clean-air-zone
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sukky-choongh-she-her-67669440/

Quote of the Episode:
"The biggest impact we can have is through our purchasing power, who we buy from, what kind of vehicles they use, and how they operate. Consumers have the power to drive change, and businesses must step up to meet those expectations." – Sukky Choongh.

Episode Keywords:
SMMT, Clean air zones, Ultra low emissions zone, Air quality, Nitrogen dioxide, Particulate matter, EV charging infrastructur

Transcript

Liz Allan  [00:00:01]:
So today, I have Sukky Choongh with me. She is the Environmental Manager for SMMT, and I know I will fall over these words, but it is the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. I did it. 

Liz Allan  [00:00:17]:
Thank you ever so much for joining me.

Sukky Choongh [00:00:18]:
Thanks for having me. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

Liz Allan  [00:00:22]:
So we are I've seen you speaking at events, and we're on a very wonderful women in EV WhatsApp group. And you've always just come across as such a lovely person, so getting to know you through the podcast and our previous conversations has been wonderful. And I just wanna point out she got the GF100. So Green Fleet 100 most influential people. She was number 44 in that list out of a hundred. Congratulations. That's absolutely fantastic.

Sukky Choongh [00:00:54]:
I don't know how it happened but thank you.

Liz Allan  [00:00:57]:
Oh, god. Don't say that. You did some wonderful things, honestly. So, just going back a second, besides what she's doing now as environmental manager at SMMT, she was also the previous air quality officer at Izzling Islington Council. But there's a personal thank you from me. Okay. Because last year, for those of you watching and listening, Sukky was an absolute star. My son James was taking him A levels, and he was doing, he's doing he was doing geography a level, and he was actually, collecting data on air pollution from traffic in Redding where we live.

Liz Allan [00:01:36]:
And I got in touch with you, Suki, didn't I? And then I put you in touch with my son, and you helped him out. And I just really, really wanted to say I really appreciate it. And, you know, I told you, didn't I, he got he got such a high grade. He did so so well.

Sukky Choongh [00:01:52]:
I'm so pleased. And you're welcome. I mean, with any of the things that we know, there's no point in knowing it unless you're gonna share it with somebody else. And I think for air quality in particular, it's really, really important that other people understand cause and effect and what they can do about it. And there's a lot of resources and a lot of data out there, but people just don't know it's there. So a little pinpoint is all it took, and he was flying. It wasn't much effort on my part for him to understand what was going on. He just got on with it.

Liz Allan  [00:02:23]:
Yeah. I was so pleased, and it was just great to have you sort of involved. And, yeah, it was it was it was lovely. So, thank you again. But let's start off with why you got into what you're doing now because so going from the council to the SMMT is one leap, isn't it? But then but kind of looking back to your, you know, to your youth with a f at the end. How did you how did you get into this? Because you've had a personal journey as well as a professional journey, haven't you?

Sukky Choongh [00:03:00]:
It's all been a I guess it's a hop, skip, and a jump, really. You know, none of us really know what we want to do when we're leaving school. So, you know, I like many just went to college and to uni for a while to see what happened but my my focus was very, business and finance and international business and I think, you know, the family pressure to throw you into the corporate world but I I always had this massive interest in the environment, going back to the Earth Summit in Brazil. It was, you know, being a personal campaign, and I never imagined because I think at the time it wasn't a thing that you could understand that you could make a living out of. Like caring for the environment, there was this connotation of you just being a tree hugger and being nice, etcetera. And of course now here we are, however many years later, thirty plus years I think, it it is just so important and we recognize the value that it brings to all of society, not just to us as well. But yeah, I did my degree in business and finance. I went to work in the city in telecoms. I think when I had my son, he was asthmatic so whenever he got a little bit sick he'd end up in A and E. I would have to make the run back so I just made a strategic decision that whilst he was very young and this was happening, I would get a job that had flexitime that was close to home. I found myself as an administrator at the London Borough Of Islington in their environmental health department.

Sukky Choongh [00:04:32]:
Fantastically supportive management there, I have to say, And they guided me and encouraged me to do a postgraduate in acoustics and noise control engineering and then subsequently my Masters in Environmental Health, where noise and air quality are deemed to be much more interesting, in my opinion, than food and housing. So, so yeah. So, I am always stuck in the environmental protection world. And moving

Liz Allan  [00:04:59]:
on to the next phase.

Sukky Choongh [00:05:02]:
Yes. So, from the council, I went to Transport for London for a little while. Different culture didn't, you know, quite like it. So then I moved to a contract for a number of boroughs on freight and logistics. So it's a meso quality funded project led by Lambeth council, including seven or eight other boroughs as well, and we were really trying to get them to create some efficiencies within their freight. So consolidation and retiming and purchasing things together and changing procurement rules really did have a big impact. And then suddenly, I happened by chance to see the advert for the environment manager at the SMMT, and I thought, oh, I could do that. And that was really simple and I just I went for it and I've now been there for seven and a half years.

Sukky Choongh [00:05:52]:
Wow. Every day is different. I still enjoy every day. I've not yet woken up and gone, I don't want to go to work today. So it's been a challenge, and there is definitely some growth in there. But, yeah, I still love it. I really do feel like we're in the thick of it. We're at the forefront, at the SMMT.

Sukky Choongh [00:06:12]:
There's always quite a lot happening.

Liz Allan  [00:06:15]:
So if I said to you, what does a day in the life of Sukky look like? What does it mean? What are you doing, you know, kind of and probably lots of different things, but on on an average day, what kind of things are you doing?

Sukky Choongh [00:06:31]:
There's, so there's the position papers of course, so our policy positions are based on, what members want, so the whole process of collating a position paper is understanding what the issue is in the first place and what the risk would be to our members and collating that information. So it may be going to visit people, it may be a team's call, it may be a committee meeting, and then, of course, there's the drafting. So, at some point, I have to sit down and actually write something. I try to reserve my Fridays to just do that because we spend a lot of our time out at events presenting panels, etc., but at some stage, I still have to do the work, so that's always a challenge, but we do find the time. But then also, you know, whereas I kind of lead in on the heavy-duty vehicle policy side of things, it's a very collaborative process. Of course we've got our section manager and, of course, our technical manager as well, so we do work as a team to pull that position together. But I also lead on our regional engagement work. So I was when I first started working at SMMT, the main goal was to understand the clean air zones and what the government were doing with their plan for reducing NO2 at the roadside.

Sukky Choongh [00:07:47]:
So I went and met every local authority that had a plan at all. That was quite fruitful. It was a useful discussion. And I think there's been some really good things that have come out having clean air zones. Controversial, I know. Some people may not agree but I think the proof is in the air quality improvement that we can see. So it has been worthwhile. Other things I do, I also lead on our internal environmental management system so we are accredited twice of 14001.

Sukky Choongh [00:08:18]:
We have been since about 2012, so before my time, and now I'm working on setting a science-based target. So there's a lot of work that happens internally about our own impacts and our carbon emissions. So yes, it's quite a full-packed agenda.

Liz Allan  [00:08:37]:
It does sound like it. And, actually, I I was gonna say, and I and I know I talked to you about this before, didn't I? I find that some of the some of the areas with regards to air quality don't they don't always hit home besides, you know, obviously not to do with what you're doing at SMMT, but people, it's not like when I was young I might I remember my well, actually, when I moved down here from Halifax in '95, my mum kept my mum and dad came down. And I remember my mum saying, there's not very many chimneys down here, is there? And I was like, no. No. There's not. Because up north and it was, you know, there was a lot of, industry and manufacturing and things like that, and you could see pollution coming out of a chimney, you know. And when we look at it when we look at air quality and air pollution now and it's a lot of it's from, you know, transport, isn't it, where not everybody sees it unless you've got a load of cars with their engines still running down. So, like, down the Reading, we've got what we call the IDR, which is the Inner Distribution Road, which is like a little dual carriageway that comes all the way around.

Liz Allan  [00:09:56]:
You know, people, it's kind of like, can I call it it's an invisible killer, isn't it?

Sukky Choongh [00:10:02]:
Absolutely. I think people don't see it, don't quite understand it, and it has improved. We've had legislation, under the Clean Air Act and smoke control zones and etcetera, that have changed the way manufacturing works and the controls that people have to put on. So there is, I remember it's been a while I guess in my local authority days where sometimes if somebody did complain about black smoke you would compare it against the Ringleman chart to see how grey is it against this guy's background. And now of course, you know, that it just doesn't happen anymore. You don't see that so much but the offence was about the smoke being dark, not that there being emissions out there. That is a a whole other issue that requires another load of management and industrial processes. But I think people don't see it as an issue therefore don't take it too seriously.

Sukky Choongh [00:11:00]:
In my 20 of working in air quality, when we've explained to people this is what it will do to you, and this is the impact it will have, if that person feels that they can't do anything about it, they tend to go into denial. So I think whenever we're educating people on air quality is bad and what have you, it has to go hand in hand with what can you do about it. We can't just say oh look it's bad and that's doom and gloom. We do have to empower people to make choices, make decisions, make purchasing decisions, I think that is quite strong now, so that they can improve things, you know, and if you're in a situation where you can't do anything, you can perhaps reduce your exposure. So take care of yourself first, you know, think about where you're walking, you know, the actions that you take, your route to work, your mode that you take as well. How do you reduce personal exposure?

Liz Allan  [00:11:56]:
And I would say that actually, my husband has done this because so I'm the one who has to drive a lot because of the fact the work that I do, he works in Reading. So he stopped cycling down the really majorly kind of we've got we've got bottlenecks where I live in, Caversham, where we live in Caversham. We've got two bottlenecks, and those are the bridges that go over the Thames. We've got the Cabbagem Bridge. We've got the Reading Bridge. The bottlenecks are horrendous. So it basically means that it meant that when he was cycling past them, you'd have a bottleneck and you'd have all that air pollution, you know, so he'd be breathing it in. And now he'll go down.

Liz Allan  [00:12:35]:
If he's, and he doesn't cycle as much these days, he'll go down by the river. You know? Yeah. Kind of sort of down we've got the Thames. We've got the Kennet. 2 2 rivers near us. So he can do that, and he can avoid a lot of it. But what I wanted to just ask you is so we talk about people not understanding what pollution is in transport. Can you break it down and just say, you know, so what that pollution what what is it? So we can make it really simple for people who who might not know who are watching and listening to this.

Liz Allan  [00:13:13]:
You know, what comes out, and what we really need.

Sukky Choongh [00:13:16]:
The main pollutant from an internal combustion engine is gonna be nitrogen dioxide, and transport is the largest source of nitrogen dioxide, n o two and NOx. The largest source of NOx is The UK, and this has been because the energy sector has been cleaned up so massively that those emissions have dropped as then, over the years, transport has come up. We're getting to a stage now where as the fleet is cleaning up, the proportion that comes from transport is becoming lower and lower. It's still the highest. It's still higher than other sources. But again, we are making those continual year-on-year improvements, and that has mainly been because of interventions like the ultra-low emissions zone in London and clean air zones elsewhere. So I think even the simplest thing like moving to Euro 6 has had a massive impact. We can do so much more, but if we look at the data, particularly from London, where the low emission zone and ultra-low emission zone have been introduced and all of the heavy-duty vehicles had to change to Euro 6, we've seen that change.

Sukky Choongh [00:14:21]:
We've seen that significant step change in concentrations, and of course, now, as the fleet is moving to zero-emission, we see that step change once again. The other thing we see is particulate matter. So, a small proportion of particulate matter comes out of the exhaust, particularly with diesel vehicles. And often, you will hear cited that, you know, 95% of PM comes from the exhaust. It's because it's minuscule, you know, or from brake and tyre wear because what comes out of the exhaust is so minuscule, anything else that's left would come from your non-exhaust emissions. We don't yet have it; there's a piece of work being done at the UN level that works on measuring tyre and brake and road wear. But again, we don't have the consistency of measurement within that yet, and I think things that we need to take into account are the wear and tear and the non-exhaust emissions that come from vehicles, they are from tyres, brakes, and the road. Where we've seen the investment in road repairs and maintenance just completely cut, everybody comes from potholes.

Sukky Choongh [00:15:31]:
It's to be expected that you're gonna get more emissions from that source. So I think there is a collective effort if we are gonna reduce PM from road traffic road transport. We have to look at the road as well as just the vehicle. Like it doesn't matter how great your vehicle is. If your road is awful, you're still gonna get more wear and tear. Yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:15:52]:
So okay. So there is one particular matter that is, that is is quite well known, isn't it? And that is PM 2.5. What can what is PM 2.5? Is that is that the particulate matter coming from the exhaust?

Sukky Choongh [00:16:11]:
So so, the particular PM 2.5 denotes the size fraction. Right. So if you imagine PM in its entirety, it's a piece of dust or a Yeah. Rock or something, you know, and as that graduates down, so the smaller it gets then the more impact it has on our health. So PM from road transport is around about 10 or 11% of The UK's total emissions. It is not the main source at all. As we move away from the internal combustion engine into electric vehicles, that minuscule bit that we used to get, that will go but it actually isn't gonna make a difference to the entirety of PM sources in The UK. So I think we have to be honest and realistic about where is it coming from, you know, what are the sources of particulate matter.

Sukky Choongh [00:17:01]:
A lot of it is from wood burning energy sources and industrial processes as well. But in terms of road transport, you know, we're doing the work on how to reduce non-exhaust emissions, but I think it's probably unrealistic to say that everything is going to go altogether because this is, you know, brakes and tyres work on friction so they require, some friction to be able to work and maintain the safety of the vehicle and the passenger in that vehicle as well. But there are massive improvements that are being made, in terms of the technology and the simple things like keeping your tyres maintained, making sure they're inflated, you've got a good quality tyre. We're seeing in electric vehicles perhaps regenerative braking having could potentially have some impact but we don't have enough EVs on the road in any one place for us to really, show the significance of that But, yeah, time will tell. That's up the fleet, and I'm sure there's the potential for those studies.

Liz Allan  [00:17:58]:
I was gonna say, so we have had Ella's Law, haven't we introduced, which was following on from the death of nine-year-old Ella Roberta, wasn't it, over in Lewisham? And I know that that her mom, Rosamond, is has been campaigning for this for a long long time because she was am I right? She was the first person to actually have air pollution on her death certificate as part of, you know, that it was, you know, the big contributor to her death at nine years old.

Sukky Choongh [00:18:38]:
Yeah. I think Ella Kissy Deborah's passing was quite significant in the air quality world. And I think it's not to say she's the first person that died because of exposure to air pollution, but this was categorical. And, you know, the work that professor Holgate did, and just understanding what was going on and I think that research tracked those episodes of pollution and exposure, and we're able to correlate those with when there was an an an episode of asthma. So that we can say categorically. But, you know, the the potential for the people living in those areas to get sick and to get asthma, etcetera is is still there. It's just the first one that's been recorded on the death certificate.

Liz Allan  [00:19:24]:
Yeah.

Sukky Choongh [00:19:24]:
But I think it has gone a long way toward raising awareness. So again, the first thing I'd say is to, you know, kind of reduce your exposure, as much as possible if we can but I think we do have to take into account for some people it's not possible. If you live on a main road, where are you gonna go? If you drive for a living, what's gonna happen? Because you're in the middle of the road, that is the most polluted place. The air inside your car comes from outside your car, and, you know, that is what people are exposed to. So I think that's where the interventions of making sure we clean up the fleet. The technologies there in the vehicles, we need to enable people to purchase those vehicles that are much much cleaner, for themselves if not anybody else. Some great interventions have come in if you look at the bus fleet and the London bus fleet in particular, and the ambitions for that to be wholly zero emission. I don't think TOEFL have bought a diesel bus since 2020.

Sukky Choongh [00:20:25]:
And if you look at those corridors like Putney High Street and Holloway Road etcetera where there are lots of buses, you can see the evidence in the concentration reduction from them. So yes, there's a lot that can be done.

Liz Allan  [00:20:40]:
And the clean air zones themselves, there's a there's quite an I can't do you know how many are there now?

Sukky Choongh [00:20:48]:
Oh, gosh. Some instances. There's there's not that many. There's probably, what, seven, perhaps? And they're they're quite different. And then emission standard for clean air zones is Euro six for diesel and Euro four pet for petrol. You know, a Euro four petrol car is really, really old. So Yeah. There's no reason why people cannot comply.

Liz Allan  [00:21:10]:
No. I was gonna say, so how, how old, right? How old is how old would that be then? Do we know?

Sukky Choongh [00:21:16]:
It would probably be about 16 or 17 years old now, I think. Right. Yeah. Don't quote me on that. But yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:21:22]:
So they but the no. No. No. It's fine. No. But, I mean, two for anybody going into a, you know, a kind of a a clean air zone or a low low emission zone, that's when they would be penalized for you know, or, you know, they would receive a, you know, a fee, wouldn't they?

Sukky Choongh [00:21:43]:
You'd you'd have to pay to go well, it's a pay to drive in. Yeah. So if your car isn't compliant, your vehicle isn't compliant, then you pay a charge to travel in. Scotland has got a slightly different system where you can't pay to pollute as, as some might say, and you actually pay a fine if you go into that zone and your car your vehicle isn't compliant. Okay. It's a slightly different approach.

Liz Allan  [00:22:06]:
But Okay. So the biggest drivers of the reduction in air pollution then, is it from the pushing towards the, you know, kind of the zero-emission fleets over the years then. Is that what you think? Is that what you'd say?

Sukky Choongh [00:22:25]:
It's very much fleet renewal at all. If we we look at Leeds, what happened in Leeds with their clean air zone? they were all set to go to be the first one, and then COVID happened, so they decided to delay. However, the funding that they had received, they spent it anyway, and they spent it and chose to support van drivers to change their fleet to US Six vans. And then the subsequent assessment found that they now meet the objective limit for one o two and they're not expected to exceed it again. So they didn't need to introduce a clean air zone. So there has to be this balance of supporting drivers to move and then afterwards, you know, if we still have a problem, then I think that's where you charge people because ultimately if people can't afford to change their vehicle and they're paying fines, nobody wins. You're still polluting. They can't afford to buy a new vehicle, so there does have to be this enabling of allowing consumers to purchase new vehicles.

Liz Allan  [00:23:30]:
So, okay, on that note, what are your thoughts about that? I mean, obviously, so we've got the, the benefit in the kind scheme, and there's a variety of other schemes that are out there for businesses. But the actual so the individual's, incentives, you know, for people like, you know, kind of me and you. Plus. Yeah. Yeah. People who don't have, you know, I've got a bit, I've got a business, but it's only a small business. They were they were kind of knocked on the head a few years ago now, weren't they?

Sukky Choongh [00:24:02]:
Yeah. The plug-in car grant kind of dwindled. It started off at £5,000 quite a few years ago and then slowly dwindled, and now it's only available for wheelchair-accessible vehicles. The benefits and the incentives that are available for company car drivers have shown that they work. There's, you know, about 60% of new registrations are fleet purchases. And there's also salary sacrifice included in there as well, but it's still a fleet purchase, you know, whereas people will take salary sacrifice, to purchase their car for their private use, I think if that vehicle wasn't available through that method, would they be buying it? And I think for many, no, they wouldn't be able to. So, there is certainly something that is needed, for the for the private consumer. If we want people to take this seriously, we have to make it a little bit easier, and it's a difficult situation right now.

Sukky Choongh [00:25:02]:
We've got these historical tax incentives, the luxury car supplement, which, you know, says that you have to pay an additional tax if your car is over 40,000. Well, electric vehicles are expensive. Yeah. We know this. You know, this isn't a luxury car in the same way that it used to be. The definition of that has changed somewhat. It just happens to be expensive because it's a newer and cleaner technology and I, you know, we do really think that there should be some consideration for that but, we'll see how that pans out. But then the other simple things we've been asking for, some alignment on VAT that's paid for public charging.

Sukky Choongh [00:25:44]:
You know, we're in this space where I think it's a privilege sometimes to be able to run your electric vehicle without thinking about it and the early adopters definitely have been those with a driveway or with a garage that have been able to afford it and then they get the privilege of paying seven p a kilowatt hour for their charging as well. Whereas if you don't have those things, I suppose London is not the case but it it's supposed that your socioeconomic background might be a little bit different, perhaps you can't afford to have a house with a driveway and all of those things, taking London some of the cities out of the picture as I say of course but but then you then end up paying more for charging, you'll probably pay more for parking as well so it is an inequitable situation and we will reach a point of saturation when all of the company car drivers are gone, when there's only some people that are in a job that benefit from salary sacrifice, this isn't for absolutely everybody. So when we've saturated that market, what happens to everybody else? So, yes, everybody else can probably get a vehicle in the second-hand market, but why should they still be paying more than others for charging? How is that fair?

Liz Allan  [00:26:58]:
It's not. It's not. It is. It's penalising those people who actually need that support, Isn't it? And, and yet, and we're lucky, but, you know, we've been driving an EV about eighteen months now, and we've got, we've got a drive. So, we are looking that way, but, actually, there are still a lot of people who don't. And I was talking on another episode where I met an Uber driver recently. He was basically saying that so he, lives in a flat. And I know that there are, there are certain things that are being introduced with regards to people in in flats.

Liz Allan  [00:27:35]:
That's another episode coming up in the future that we'll talk about. But he is driving up to, you know, kind of the West Midlands, all over the place. And to him, he was, and I talk about dealerships quite a lot as well, his dealership sold him, I'm not saying sold him a dream. It was made out to look like that, you know, he would if if he'd have had a drive with and been able to rely on home charging, the cost of ownership would have been great, you know. And I know we talk about total cost of ownership, but if we're talking about people who haven't got, you know, they're then they're not, above a certain wealth grade, they can't you know, that getting a car and you haven't used public charging at the rate, it becomes more It does become more expensive and

Sukky Choongh [00:28:32]:
it yeah. And it is unfair, and I think we just have to have that honest conversation about it and, you know, hopefully, we'll see something in the spending review about equalising VAT, but I think there's a lot of people asking for the same thing. So hopefully, hopefully, Chancellor Vives will listen.

Liz Allan  [00:28:51]:
I really hope so. I hope so because we know that that actually the more so if we go back to the kind of the fleets, electrifying, we know that more fleets electrifying will eventually because they have what it is. It's like a three or five-year rotation period, and then they'll come through as used vehicles or however long, depending on how they've bought them, whether they've leased them or whatever. So, you know, you do get lots of you know, you get EVs coming through that way, and that's how we got ours. Ours was a used EV. So it does it does come through that. But even, you know, you they've got to be the price point that is that is, that that everybody can afford, and we're not there yet. Like you say, you we're classing them as as as a luxury, you know. And there are, you know, there is actually, if you look at brand new petrol and diesel cars versus brand new EVs, they're, you know, they're cut they seem to have kind of not quite, but evened out.

Liz Allan  [00:29:50]:
And then we've kind of had quite a bit of a drop last year, didn't we? It is sort of like the price of of used EVs. But then maybe when that stabilizes, we'll see how that goes. And over time, we just need people to move. Yeah. To electric and to hear the stories that are true. And I and everybody probably get peed off with me talking about this rather than the whole misinformation malarkey because

Sukky Choongh [00:30:20]:
Yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:30:20]:
That's just hard for people to kinda grasp. What is true? What is the truth? Yeah. You know?

Sukky Choongh [00:30:26]:
Yes. I'm

Liz Allan  [00:30:27]:
a bit hard, don't I?

Sukky Choongh [00:30:28]:
We we can take a we can take a look at the million odd people that are driving their electric vehicle and driving it fine and carrying on and it's not the first electric vehicle that they've had, they've had a few. And when it works, it works great and I think when it goes wrong, like with anything, when something goes wrong you tell everybody and when something goes great you don't talk about it, you just get on with it. So, you know, there are still issues with charging and access to charging. We do still have charging deserts, so certainly, the charging infrastructure that's out there at the moment is growing. I think CPOs are doing a great job in terms of pulling out new charging infrastructure, but we need it to grow at the same pace as vehicle uptake as well. So I think everything just needs to move a little bit faster and it's got to be accessible for everybody. You know, we're looking at the vehicle market growing, but it's still not where we need it to be with the regulations that have been imposed. So, but I think the narrative for the consumer, like really to normalise this as this is just a car, you know.

Sukky Choongh [00:31:32]:
Yeah. This is just a vehicle, and this is how you use it. I'm hopeful that the next generation will see it that way, and it won't be such a big deal but I think, you know, we still do have to work collaboratively, with the government, with local authorities, with charge point operators and manufacturers as well, you know, to make sure that the whole ecosystem of being able to to operate an electric vehicle, is there and it's easy. You know, we've talked about cars quite a lot, and the car is the easy bit. Let's think about the truck, you know, where are we with the truck? I think we've got at the moment three charge points, three public charge points where a truck can go. The Zeehit project is gonna give us about 70 more this year, which is massively exciting but still a challenge for those operators to be able to use and purchase vehicles such as that and make sure that they can still run their business efficiently so that they're not charging us, the consumer, extra on everything that we buy.

Liz Allan  [00:32:36]:
And I had seen some really impressive trucks when I was at the Greenfleet EV rally last year. Just looking at them, they just are fantastic. And actually, it is it's it's about, it's about to me, it's about the mindset. It's changing people's mindset, isn't it? And we are going to have naysayers about all of this for for, you know, for years to come because there will people there'll be people who will be coming kicking and screaming into the into 2025, '20 '6, '20 '7, '20 you know, and moving forwards kind of. And but it's it's about I think it's about these other these other stories, isn't it? The things that we're talking about. You know, we've not even talked about, kind of, climate change and cut, you know, reducing our carbon emissions because I think I know that, in The UK especially, we've our transport is the highest carbon emissions. I think it was about 28% Yeah. When I last saw.

Liz Allan  [00:33:39]:
You know, but it's I I think it's it's not just you you were saying it this earlier, actually. When people don't feel that they can do anything, it's about getting past that because everybody can do something, even if it's just really tiny. As you say, like, looking after yourself, making sure that, you know, you try and minimise the exposure to PM 2.5 or Knox or whatever, you know, but it's what do you feel needs to be kind of like the level of messaging for people to understand this? Because I still think there's there's a lack of understanding.

Sukky Choongh [00:34:18]:
I guess understanding our own impact. What are we doing that is causing this, and how can we change that? And some things seem to be out of our control, but actually it and it used to be that energy was out of your control, but you can opt for a green tariff, you know. So if you get a green tariff, then you know that your energy is coming from renewables, etcetera. Pick the vehicle that you buy. Pick the mode of transport that you use. I think the greatest influence that we can have is in purchasing power, and that takes some time and research. So, who are you buying from? What do they do? What kind of vehicles are they using? You know, if I get Sainsbury's delivery, I go for the green one, which means that it's gonna be in my area anyway. I will walk down the road with my Hackney Chic shopping trolley to go and, you know, get what I need.

Sukky Choongh [00:35:08]:
But then I have the privilege of living in Zone Two, a five-minute walk away from a Piccadilly line tube, and I don't need to own a car. But I think we have to recognize and appreciate that not everybody's life looks like that. We shouldn't be making people feel guilty about things that they have to do, but then, you know, if you're taking the kids on the school run, take somebody else's child as well, you know, think about car sharing when you're going to work. Yeah, there were so many things that we can think of a little bit wider. I think there's a lot of pressure on companies, fleets, etcetera and fleets have done a a great job in the transition to zero-emission vehicles but where everybody's looking to get their own carbon emissions down and setting science-based targets and now measuring, analysing and trying to reduce their scope three emissions, I think that's where the biggest impact is gonna be on SMEs in particular and people needing to make the shift towards an electric vehicle or reduce their own emissions because we'll get into the stage where you won't be able to do business because you're not taking care of the environment as it were. Yeah. So I think greater transparency, organisations definitely should be showing what they're doing, and consumers are able to then choose who they buy from. Again I go back to the younger generation when people are going for jobs. When the younger generation is going for jobs, they're actively asking the question, What are you doing? What's your environmental management system? What's your diversity, equity, and inclusion policy? People want to work for ethical employers.

Liz Allan  [00:36:49]:
It's it's that that is a really interesting interesting question, isn't it? Because, especially, I don't know, especially around the kind of now because there's this whole, we could talk as a slight, slight tangent here. But ethical employment, does that also include flexible working? Because because, actually, I would say that there's a reason why people want to work from home. There's a peep there's a reason why businesses want people to go into the office or into the business in some places. You could have to go into the business anyway. But it's I I've been talking to a couple of friends where so one husband has been the company decided that they want to have a four day week with people going into the office now. My friend has, her organisation, they are shutting their offices down in Maidenhead. They're moving to London. So that's there's no flexible working on that one.

Liz Allan  [00:38:02]:
So like I say, I know it's a bit tangent a bit of a tangent. But, actually, to me, when we're talking about ethical employers, it also includes that level of flexible working as well, doesn't it?

Sukky Choongh [00:38:16]:
Yeah. As I'd mentioned, kind of recording and analysing scope three emissions. Your commuter travel, the way your staff travels to work or whether they travel to work or not is all part of your scope three packages. So if everybody's coming into the office, which I completely understand there is a need for, it depends on your business. What are they doing there? What's the value? And I, we're really fortunate at SMMT, we have a flexible policy. We've always had a flexible policy. We have this fifty-fifty hybrid working policy. As you can see, I am at home.

Sukky Choongh [00:38:48]:
This is my sofa. Yeah. So and it works really well for us and I think for me personally, when I've got member meetings or events or themes, I have to go to those. Yeah. Like, I'm not inviting those people to my house, right? So, no offence. But, I have to go to those, so it works out really well anyway. And then on the days when I want to sit and focus and write something I try to do that at home. But I think we do have to look at the benefit of people travelling unnecessarily.

Sukky Choongh [00:39:22]:
Yeah. If you're gonna go into the office just to sit on Teams calls with other people who are not in the office, what was the point? So let let's think more creatively about how we work. Absolutely. And it and it these policies often penalise parents and carers a bit more because then you've got to pay more for childcare, you've got to do the commute, you know, it's exhausting so then you buy a box meal from the supermarket rather than cook so there's that wider societal benefit of being able to have that work-life balance which I think is really important.

Liz Allan  [00:39:58]:
I think I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Work-life balance is, is so important and actually, of all the awful things that came out of lockdown and COVID, I felt personal that being provided providing people with the ability to be able to work from home. Because before that, you know, I kinda did because of my business, you know, on and off. But I was either in business or out, you know. But, actually, doesn't you know, giving people that level of flexibility doesn't mean they're not gonna be unproductive. And I talked to my friends about this yesterday because of the situation with people being forced, you know, pushed to go back in and flexible working being denied. Mhmm. To me, it's about and and another friend was saying it's about the the culture in the organization and making sure that they're bringing that, level of communication and empowerment.

Liz Allan  [00:40:56]:
And, you know, you can't run a business remotely in the same way as you can how you were before lockdown. It's it's about it's not just about lift and shift and then kinda go, oh, there you go. It's about actually how what works. If you know, I can imagine that some of the companies that are asking people to do this just have done lift and shift, and it's not worked. You know? So they're kind of saying, oh, we've not people aren't being productive. It's probably not that. It's probably the fact that they feel they don't feel supported. Could be the fact that some people are shirkers, but they're gonna be shirkers if they're gonna be in the office or not.

Sukky Choongh [00:41:31]:
You know, you know what your employees are doing. Like, you can see the output. And I think I'm very fortunate to work in a place where we don't have that situation. You know, I've worked in local authorities before, and you know, the people that are just watching the clock, right, but we don't have that. There's far too much to do for a start off, so you couldn't get away with that anyway. But it is fun being out there at events and meeting with members and that face to face conversation that you have, you can't beat that. But then again as I say, depending on what you do and what your what your role is, we do need to have that focus time where you sit quietly and actually, you know, create something. I think everybody works differently.

Sukky Choongh [00:42:13]:
Some people are creative around a group of people; some are not. I'm better off at the end of the day rather than the beginning of the day so, you know, I try to schedule meetings in the morning and leave afternoons for writing. But it's a personal thing, everybody's different and I think, you know, we really do need to respect the way people work so that we get the best out of them.

Liz Allan  [00:42:35]:
And that? Oh, god. You do hit you're definitely hitting the nail on the head that it is. It's about it's totally about that. It is about Yeah. Getting the best out of your your team, you know. Yeah. And as like I say, just working in the work that I do in improvement it is about pro providing your team. You've proven that you trust them.

Liz Allan  [00:42:58]:
You're not having to, you know? Yeah.

Sukky Choongh [00:43:00]:
If you keep the micromanagement then, there's something wrong.

Sukky Choongh [00:43:05]:
There's a slightly related issue that I get told a lot as well about, you know, the use of public transport, and that's what we should be doing. Everybody should actually travel and use public transport, and of course, that's what I do, you know, live in London. But I think again looking at car use generally, I think we have to be honest and respect what people's lives look like and put a value on their time as well. So for people to be able to go active travel all the time and just take the bus or the train or walk or cycle, you're assuming that there is a good public transport network for them to be able to do that. You assume that they can afford it, that it's safe to do so, that they're able-bodied, that, you know, they they have access to a bike, and they can ride a bike and all of those things and I think we sometimes make car drivers feel incredible guilt and we shouldn't do that. We should empower them to make the cleanest choice in their vehicle that they can and have a look at the other issues, have a look at the issues around public transport in certain areas and why aren't they as good as they are in London. You know, I go to my mother's in Surly Hall and I have to wait twenty minutes for a bus, and sometimes it doesn't even turn up after twenty minutes and whereas here at home if I get down to the tube station, it's four minutes for the next tube, I'm seething, I'm like why am I waiting four minutes? But it's just a London privilege, isn't it? So, well, even Yes. I think, yeah, we do need to take into account people's time and put a value on that as well.

Liz Allan  [00:44:34]:
I was gonna say, even in Reading when I first started going out with my husband, which was in about two thousand, two thousand and one, the buses in Reading were shocking, you know. But that's changed a heck of a lot. So, yeah, you just just you can't just assume that everybody everybody has that. So I suppose, really, it's about being interested in who you're employing and putting some care and concern into it and just not, you know?

Sukky Choongh [00:45:00]:
And where are they? And make it easier for them. You know? We want the London standard of bus service everywhere in the country. We've got zero-emission buses coming out of our ears. It's the biggest market for zero-emission vehicles. It definitely is the winner. Let's see that happen more and more across the country with reliable services.

Liz Allan  [00:45:19]:
So if we're if we're looking at what future cities could look like and towns, is that what your is that what you'd like? Is that like would that be if you rank the top five or three, Depending on how many what would your kind of top one, two, three be?

Sukky Choongh [00:45:38]:
So off in terms of the cities themselves, not wholly sure, I guess, London is an a plus plus city but it it stands alone, but for what a city would need, we want truly sustainable mobility. So everybody should be able to leave their house in whichever mode they choose, whether it's their private car or their shared car, and then connect all of the other services with, you know, one ticketing system. You should be able to get from A to B and back again without having to think too much about it. You just wanna be able to tap and go, and then if if you are taking your private EV wherever, then make it easy to park and charge at the same time. Make the rules clear. Don't put a restriction on the time that you can park that's different from the time that you can charge, you know, just make it transparent, and inviting, you know. If you're going to a shopping centre then you're going to be there all day, slow charging is fine. If you're just rushing in and out, then rapid charging is fine.

Sukky Choongh [00:46:41]:
Let's think about where we're sitting our infrastructure, our charging and refuelling infrastructure, And also think about the balance between the pedestrian, the cyclist, the car driver, the bus and the commercial vehicle driver as well. So, whereas we all as individuals can just get out and take public transport all the time if you're carrying goods or you're delivering a service, then that's a vehicle movement that has to happen, you know, how how do we interact with one another? So, I think a holistic approach to transport and sustainable modes works for everybody. What I guess sometimes people don't think about the impact that they're having because even people like me will say I don't own a car, I sit here and everything is delivered to me but I don't notice the impact of my deliveries. So actually if we could change our behaviour, you don't need something the next day, you don't need it in an hour, you know, you could pay more for it to be delivered faster, or the delivery company of your choice could just decide to pool all of the deliveries in your area and do them all at once and then that would mean less vehicles coming on my street all of the time. So I think there are creative solutions that we could deploy like that. I would always like to see an option for when I go shopping to have all of my shopping delivered to my house for me so that then I can go to the wine bar, I can go to the movies or go and have dinner and I would spend my money in that location much more, and for longer if somebody was just gonna take my stuff home for me.

Liz Allan  [00:48:20]:
And, actually, I think I think there are some delivery companies that do that kind of, take other companies' deliveries Yeah. In there. And I know, for example, it just came back to me that that, actually, on the shipping side, if you're ordering something that's coming by boat, they have what they call tramp ships, which actually, you know, you'll kind of put different cargo on at different destinations. But what you're saying there makes so much sense. And I have to say, I have a little penchant for Amazon myself, so I have to kind of, put things in the basket and then forget about them. But because I have a little ADHD shiny thing, oh, I need that. No. I don't.

Liz Allan  [00:49:03]:
I'm just leaving it in the basket until I forget about it.

Sukky Choongh [00:49:05]:
It's easy, isn't it? Life is easy for us.

Liz Allan  [00:49:07]:
Yeah. And actually urgently. You'll walk down the road and get it, but you know we don't. It's made that way. I mean, certainly, when I was growing up, this wasn't an option at all.

Liz Allan  [00:49:19]:
No. Me neither.

Sukky Choongh [00:49:20]:
When I was growing up, the internet wasn't an option, so

Liz Allan  [00:49:22]:
Well, me neither. It's one of those things. It is balancing convenience with sustainability. Yes. You know, for us, I call it an Amazon culture because we know we can get it. We can get pizza delivered. We can get this delivered. We can get that, and we can get it within that length of time when we want it. But we have become quite spoiled with it, really, in some ways.

Liz Allan  [00:49:48]:
And then and then that's when, in some ways, we've kind of made it worse for our businesses. Like, you I'll just talk quickly about sort of charging EV charging. You know, somebody sits at a charger, and they're not getting the speed that they want, or it's not initiating or whatever. People are happy to jump on social media, TikTok, and have a bit of a rant. Yep. No. You didn't used to have that. And that that's kind of you know, we we have made our own bed.

Liz Allan  [00:50:20]:
We've gotta kinda lie in it now, and we've gotta make it we've got to make it better and different and work for us now, haven't we?

Sukky Choongh [00:50:27]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, you know, we want that convenience. We want that lifestyle, I suppose. But then let's make it cleaner. Let's think the answer is not to stop doing something but to do it more sustainably. You know, think about where you're buying from, who you're buying from, what are they doing to to kind of reduce their carbon impact.

Liz Allan  [00:50:51]:
And I like what you said about the younger generation asking questions of the employers that they go and work for to say, what are you doing? Yeah. You know?

Sukky Choongh [00:51:00]:
Yeah. I have so much faith. I think they're much better than we are. So

Liz Allan  [00:51:04]:
Yeah. Because we've got, you know, people don't like change. It's it's it's a known thing. People don't like change. They find it difficult because it's scary. It's it's it's different. And and you know, we're talking if we talk about EVs, it is just a car. It's just fueled differently.

Liz Allan  [00:51:23]:
And people need to be helped to understand. Yeah. That those fueling required.

Sukky Choongh [00:51:30]:
Your life is not changing massively by going from an internal combustion engine to an EV. You're still going to the same places and doing the same things. It's not like horse and car where suddenly we went from horse and car to car, and you could go so much further that it was life-changing. This is just a cleaner, more sustainable way of doing it, but, of course, the driving experience is so much better and so much more comfortable. So, yeah, it's it's the right thing to do. And they didn't always get ready to enable and get on with it.

Liz Allan  [00:52:03]:
Yeah. Exactly. And you didn't always get 500 miles in a petrol or a diesel car, did you? You know? And why don't you need to be sorry? The people shaking their heads at me. You know, you don't always need 500 miles because No.

Sukky Choongh [00:52:20]:
You can go to the chargers.

Liz Allan  [00:52:24]:
Yeah. You've got the charges in the right places because, you know, I've talked about this a lot as well, but actually, bladder range, you know, that's a thing. And also health and safety. Do you know what I mean? I don't want to do more than a couple of hours in the car without a stop. You know, there are only people who do and they wanna get from a to b because we're always rushing so much, aren't we, these days? We've got rush rush rush, you know. And people don't think about the fact that, actually, maybe it would be good for you, for your mental health and physical health to stop. And if you can plug in and charge while you're there, have gone into the loo, get in a sandwich or a bag of crisps or whatever your, you know, whatever your fancy. It's just building it, building it in, isn't it?

Sukky Choongh [00:53:09]:
Absolutely. Just yeah. As I say, just normalize it, making it easy. Yeah. Accessible charging infrastructure for everybody. Yeah. I'm confident we'll get there. She's just, you know, a bit of a hurdle at the moment.

Sukky Choongh [00:53:20]:
But yeah.

Liz Allan  [00:53:21]:
But listen

Sukky Choongh [00:53:22]:
Thank you, Liz.

Liz Allan  [00:53:23]:
Thank you. This has just been such an insightful conversation. I've enjoyed it. You're such a lovely person. No wonder, you know, no wonder that's what it's
for on the GF 100. So, you know.  

Liz Allan  [00:53:37]:
You're doing some wonderful things. Just just keep keep doing it. And, again, a personal thank you from me for what you did for James last year. Thank you for what you're doing now with the SMMT, you know, and just just keep doing what you're doing. So thank you. I love

Sukky Choongh [00:53:52]:
it's probably well. So yeah, thank you for having me on. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.

Liz Allan  [00:53:57]:
So on that, on that note to everybody, I'm going to say thank you for watching and listening. Please do share, like, subscribe, do all those wonderful things and elevate this message from Suki. Let's get the word out there, but until next time, thank you very much. Bye.