Thrive In Construction with Darren Evans
'Thrive in Construction' is the only podcast that delves into the personal journeys of sustainability leaders and innovators in the construction industry across the UK. Our show differentiates by offering unscripted, passion-fueled conversations that go beyond the buzzwords to the heart of what's driving the industry forward. It's tailored for aspiring professionals, seasoned experts, and anyone with a keen interest in the sustainable evolution of construction. We're here at a time when the call for sustainable development is not just a trend, but a societal imperative, empowering listeners to build a career that contributes to a greener future.
Thrive In Construction with Darren Evans
Ep. 45 From Urbanism to TikTok: Empowering Women in STEM Through Leadership
This week on Thrive in Construction, Darren sits down with Brogan MacDonald, an innovative engineer leading the way in integrating biodiversity into design. Together, they discuss the critical role of women in STEM and how platforms like TikTok can be used to highlight their achievements and inspire the next generation.
Brogan shares insights into implementing elements of nature into urbanism and modern design, exploring how reusing materials can drive sustainability in construction. The conversation dives into the impact of government and local authority policies on combating urbanism and promoting greener, more inclusive solutions.
They also explore the importance of mentorship in leadership, with Brogan emphasising the need to lead by example and serve as a role model for women in STEM. From staying informed on industry trends to understanding why lower-carbon solutions alone won’t solve our challenges, this episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone passionate about the future of construction and sustainable urban design.
I have so much autonomy and opportunity to make change in the organisation that it's really really nice. You know, every single day I get to meet new people, have new challenges, go to different conferences, you know, speak to my team, go to speak to clients. It's like a really nice mix of internal and external and I have lots of autonomy. So, you know, I'm often writing business cases to do research and then get funding to do really interesting stuff.
Darren Evans:so when you say autonomy, do you mean like complete freedom.
Brogan MacDonald:It's like brogan you do whatever you see fit and we'll support you I mean nearly as long as it's aligned with our strategy and our business. Then, yeah, like I'm doing a research project right now looking at embodied ecological impact so that's the impact of biodiversity due to the extraction of materials like iron and limestone used for steel and concrete um, so we're doing a research study and, um, I put that funding uh kind of business case together a few months ago and I said, yeah, and now it's like hugely backed and it's a kind of global research that we're doing so when you you say we, who else is involved?
Brogan MacDonald:So in Ramble we've got various markets. We've got buildings, transport, environment and health and energy and our management consultant team, so it's a combination of all the markets.
Darren Evans:Okay.
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah. So we've kind of pulled together global experts and we've got like biodiversity LCA experts in Germany, you know, and we've got some team in Sweden looking at biodiversity, and then we've got ecologists and then me as an engineer. I'm just like pulling everyone together.
Darren Evans:Nice, nice yeah, and what do you hope to get out of it?
Brogan MacDonald:So at the moment we have no clear metrics on how to basically look at the impacts of biodiversity loss due to, you know, the extraction of construction materials. It's very complicated, unlike LCA's for carbon, where we have a clear metric, which is global warming potential, and we've had that for many years. In biodiversity there's loads of impact categories. There's loads of ways that you can impact the biodiversity loss. It's really really quite complex loss. It's really really quite complex and also, unlike climate change and carbon emissions, which are kind of global, the impact is global, whereas biodiversity loss is regional. So you have, like, habitat destructions and invasive species on a local level. So it's much more complex and nuanced.
Brogan MacDonald:So we're looking to try and understand where the data gaps are and towards a metric that we can use with clients to say you know, as a result of this project you have, you know, impacted these species and that everyone's very carbon tunnel visioned at the moment it's very carbon in the in the project. So it's like, can we actually get you to look at some other metrics? But the quality of the data is quite poor. So it's meant doing a lot of literature, reviews of various different tools, but actually what you're finding is we simply just don't have that picture of the biodiversity loss in each regions, and the tropics are by far the worst at the moment with this information, then that's coming through.
Darren Evans:With reference to biodiversity, is that going to cause the clients to just have overwhelm?
Brogan MacDonald:probably at first.
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah, it's another thing they've got to think about, and they've got a lot of things to think about at the moment and that, and currently you know, a lot of the time saying that decarbonization doesn't add up, it's, you know, the business case is quite poor. It means a big investment and they're not getting that return. So if they've got to think about something else, then that's going to be really challenging. It's going to be challenging for consultants and designers, um, but at the end of the day, this is causing the impacts to the world right now. You know, we're recording this.
Brogan MacDonald:Just last week we saw the floods in spain, causing devastation that wasn't foreseen at all, and the month before that we saw the hurricanes in Florida. That's something that happens quite regularly, but not to this degree, and the magnitude and the effects that are having on the communities is huge. And these are going to continue to keep happening. And that's all within what we're doing the extraction of materials and burning of fossil fuels and things. So there's going to become a point where, if we don't act, the risk to businesses will be severe because they won't have a future business, because they'll be dealing with the consequences of these climate disasters.
Darren Evans:So which is your passion? Because it seems like you're an engineer looking at biodiversity and I've met very few people that have got that crossover.
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah, so I'm a structural engineer that's passionate about all things to do with protecting our planet.
Brogan MacDonald:I could say so. I fell into this role about six years ago because I was really passionate about sustainability. I've always been passionate about sustainability. I've been a vegetarian since I was nine, so it was kind of like a little thing that has always been in me.
Brogan MacDonald:And I started wanting to do carbon assessments on my projects when I was designing structures and that was not really.
Brogan MacDonald:It wasn't established like it is now six years ago. I mean, there's people that have been doing that for 20 years, but it only really came around and became as popular in the last few years. I wanted to do carbon assessments and measure it and reduce it and that kind of basically started a whole journey uh, embodied carbon, circular economy, reusing materials and done a few reuse of steel projects and now understanding the wider impacts to um biodiversity as a result of the extraction. It's really made me want to kind of pursue a different approach and try and actually educate not just engineers but our clients on the impacts of the extraction, because the upfront impacts of extraction have are the highest in carbon as well, but actually the biodiversity loss is a more imminent threatening danger for us what I see is that things are called, or the terminology, circular economy is used, but actually the manufacturing of the um of the items are not manufactured with any form of circularity in mind.
Darren Evans:No, and so really the circle economy is more just of a slight bend on the, on the line, as opposed to a circle. So is the true thing for circular economy to bring those two elements together that you're working on where you have that engineering. So I need this material to be changed from this into that. But the way that I'm changing it is actually with biodiversity in mind and I'm creating it so it can form part of a circular economy instead of, at the moment I'm I'm creating something as part of a linear economy and then I'm getting to the end of that or part way through that product's life and I'm saying right, how can I bend this line now to make it a little bit like a circle?
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah, Does that make sense? Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. It's a pretty poor term, to be honest. I mean, there's two elements that you get Circular. Everyone's definition of that is a little bit different, and that's one of the problems. There's no agreed metric as well.
Darren Evans:So can you talk through, then, the different definitions of that, before you continue with that point?
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah, so I mean circular economy. A lot of people say, oh, we have a very circular revolution already because we recycle. But to be truly circular, we want to be reusing the element component in its same value form. Otherwise what we're getting to is a spiral economy. So you know, we're going to, we're trying to reuse, but actually what we're doing is loading the component value and going into recycling or downcycling typically.
Darren Evans:Yeah.
Brogan MacDonald:The milk bottle, the humble milk bottle is a really good example. So the glass bottles that have been used for a very long time, the fact that you drink your milk, you give it a little rinse out and you pop it back out, that's a really perfect example of circular economy. And it works well because glass can be recycled quite a few times before, unlike plastic, which is only a couple of times before it loses its component value and can actually be recycled again. Glass is fantastic.
Darren Evans:So you're saying that you can't do that with a plastic milk?
Brogan MacDonald:carton. No, you can only recycle a plastic milk bottle a few times until the value's lost and it then would have to be downcycled into I'm not sure. There's probably loads of things plastic stuff that we use everywhere that it might be able to be used. Otherwise it's going to landfill eventually and then you've got an example of it downcycling, whereas you might take your plastic carton and cut out a wee hole in it and use it as a pencil pot or something. So you're reducing the value of that material down from its original purpose of a milk bottle.
Brogan MacDonald:So we see that a lot with construction products, concrete's a perfect one. People say, oh, we've recycled concrete for ages, but actually no, we've downcycled concrete for ages because what we've typically done is taken the demolition waste from a building, crushed it down and maybe used it as a base mat for a piling rig or used as kind of fill material for roads. That isn't recycling, because recycling would keep it at the same value point. Um, ideally want to be reusing that because that means minimal processing. So that's great. But we're typically having this spiral with most materials.
Brogan MacDonald:And actually what materials can you name that get reused in its existing form? There's very few. We're quite good with it in furniture sometimes. You know Facebook Marketplace things like that, but there's so many that are actually we're in this kind of downcycling economy. So you've got the circular element, which is we want to be reusing it in its existing form as much as possible, and then we've got the economy side. Now you can have a whole conversation about the economy side, because we have this economy that is thriving on gdp and increasing gdp, but there's so many studies that show the increase in gdp, um, you know, damages our environment and ecology and it's damaging our social foundation as well.
Darren Evans:Um, so what do you mean by social foundations?
Brogan MacDonald:so I I say that because there's a really fantastic book called Donut Economics by Kate Raworth, and she's an economist and has gone into really good detail saying that GDP doesn't work. You know, we're increasing this GDP but what it's actually doing is damaging our planet, because GDP thrives on people consuming and extracting more and we know simply that we can't afford to do that anymore. We've hit our boundary points. So these planetary boundaries we have nine planetary boundaries. They are things like climate change, they are things like biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, and we have hit seven of them.
Darren Evans:Can you list all of them?
Brogan MacDonald:Can I list all of them, if you?
Darren Evans:can, don't worry, but I'm just wondering.
Brogan MacDonald:So you've got climate change. You've got ozone depletion this one is still intact. You've got biodiversity loss. You've got ocean acidification. You have eutrophication. You've got novel entities and no, I can't Okay. But yeah, there's. So we've got all those different boundaries and we've crossed six for sure.
Brogan MacDonald:Yep, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, came out and said that last year we're nearly crossing the seventh, which is ocean acidification, and that is the change of our acidity in our oceans as a result from the change in atmosphere. So that means that the chemical composition of oceans are changing, which is damaging corals, it's damaging our marine systems and freshwater species. So we've hit these points. We know that GDP isn't working. Our economies just want to keep growing and growing. We're extracting more, consuming more, and that simply isn't working for us. The other side is that it doesn't consider societal needs, you know it doesn't consider housing, food, you know health and well-being. So increasing GDP doesn't equate to happier people.
Brogan MacDonald:So Kate Raworth came out with Donut Economics and it's this really fantastic book that explains that a thriving economy should be a balanced economy, which is our ecological kind of boundaries and a and a social foundation. So she she has it in a, simply in a donut, and the idea is that you want to be in the middle of this donut. There's that kind of happy, thriving place. I mean, your podcast is called Thriving Construction. How can we thrive in construction if we can't thrive in our own planet? You know that is the absolute minimum that we need to be doing and our current models don't work. So circular economy comes into that really well, because the best thing you can do for biodiversity is reusing what we've currently already got reusing buildings, reusing all our infrastructure because that means you're not extracting more materials. If we simply focus on carbon, we're missing out on a lot of the other impacts. And that's where the donor economics comes really well into it, because it explains that balanced approach and really puts health and well-being at the forefront, which is forgotten about in this conversation typically the wider sustainability conversation uh the
Darren Evans:conversation about demand, yeah, which you've labeled as gdp, which effectively that we're on this hedonistic treadmill, yeah, and we're just running as fast as we can, saying I need this, I need that, I need the other, because ultimately, what we're trying to do is feel happy, yeah, trying to feel satisfied. We're trying to feel content, connected, wanted, seen, heard. You can list it all and so if I just get this and it can be anything right house, car, clothes, holiday, job, earning level, children, it could be anything then I will be happy. Yeah, and I think it. To me, just as you're speaking there, it seems as though that the marketing machines that exist within organizations done a really good job of persuading people that you need their product oh yeah.
Brogan MacDonald:But there's brands that have gone the other way now. Patagonia is a great example. They came up with a campaign a few years ago that said you don't need this jumper, and that increased their sales because people love that radical honesty and transparency saying, actually, you don't need to have this, we're going to offer repairs in our store. So, you know, we give these lifetime guarantees. We think these clothes should, you know, be with you forever, so if you have a little ripped hair, come in and fix them. But they're saying you know, we, you don't need this jumper, you've already got ones. And, yeah, increase their sales. I mean, that's interesting itself.
Darren Evans:That was obviously not what they intend to do, but the reverse marketing but but I, you know the the maybe the cynic in me is like, did they really?
Brogan MacDonald:did they mean it?
Darren Evans:really kind of get surprised, and were they really upset that their sales increased as a result of them doing that? Maybe not, maybe so I don't know. But but one thing is that they they're generally making a difference out there and they have got a different approach, which is refreshing it is.
Brogan MacDonald:It is. I mean they've still been slated for you know they're still extracting and consuming materials, but it's imperfect to compare them to some other fashion brands. But culture's changing. You know people are much more conscious about purchases now, particularly Gen Z. They want to see credentials from you know products they buy. The challenge is with buildings, that same appetite's not there. You know we're not seeing tenant demands for you know, net zero, embodied carbon or whatever kind of term you want to use. Um, people don't really want, people won't pay more money for a lower carbon structure. You know, using novel materials or lower carbon cement, it's not. So the business case is not there for our clients. So currently you could talk all this donut economics, you could talk about all this lovely stuff which I like doing, but fundamentally the realism is that they're not going to get a return on investment, so they're not going to do it.
Darren Evans:And that's what I see at the moment. So I've had my sustainability consultancy since 2007. So initially, when I set the company up, everybody thought I was bonkers, because no one was using phrases like sustainability circle economy wasn't a word that people would put together or anything like that. But things have moved along significantly since then, but the thing that has been the same has been that consumer demand for something which is significantly different than what was on offer before.
Darren Evans:yeah, and it seems to me that there are these studies, so the one that you're involved with are coming out with evidence and coming out with information, but there seems to be a gap between the information and the emotion landing with the consumer yeah and I'm just wondering if you have seen or experienced that same thing, or if you see a way to try and bridge that gap from we know what good looks like, but actually in our hearts and our minds we want to do the good thing I think it's really hard.
Brogan MacDonald:I think there's very few people that have the hearts and minds, um, truly, or maybe not people, businesses, there's very few businesses that really have the hearts and minds and that that value is driven. You know, are people going out there and saying no to projects that are polluting? Some businesses are. We certainly are. Um, you know, we have quite a stringent ethics procedure that align with our values. But you know, there's really big mega projects out there getting built that are are overshooting our planetary boundaries, like these are the projects that are causing them and you're starting to see internal revolutions within people and businesses of people that are like I don't want to work on that. You know, especially gen z and our graduates coming and saying they want to be working on projects that make a difference. You know, projects that align with their personal values don't want to be working on these big. You know these big mega projects and that's brilliant. We need people to be doing that or you need companies that have that safe space for people to say not actually that comfortable working that project see, I think that you had it right, first of all when you said people because people make up businesses
Darren Evans:yeah, and people make up the demand for the businesses to produce whatever output that they've got yeah and so if you had tomorrow a whole load of people that said this, now is important to me yeah then that would just drive what the business does right, because the business at the moment appears to be driven by this gdp.
Darren Evans:We need, we need more, we need more, we need more. And that's why, in my thinking, it's always come back to how can you have people's hearts and minds be changed so that they want to do the thing that they know is the right thing?
Brogan MacDonald:yeah, in their heart and mind yeah, it's a big thing, psychological safety in businesses, isn't it so that people can speak up and if they feel uncomfortable about situations, then then do that. We've definitely got that in ours. But I know people that say they couldn't feel like they could speak up in their own businesses. And that comes down to people. Because that comes down to people from the top, creating that environment where staff can say actually I'm not sure about that project. Should we be doing this? Does that align with our values as a business and having really transparent values and ethics on your company website?
Darren Evans:as well, it's really important so you, uh, the first time I saw you was on um tiktok oh yeah and I was impressed with the following that you had and the way that you presented yourself on there.
Brogan MacDonald:I'm just wondering if the industry needs more people like yourself that are going on to those social platforms yeah telling stories that people can identify and connect with, to then change, change the narrative yeah, I mean, I started my tiktok about three years ago with a slightly different purpose than what it turned out to be now. And these things always happen, evolves and you have to leave space, don't you? But I started because I was doing stem outreach um and I was going into skills, talking to the students and you'd get half a blank face, you know, you'd maybe get a couple of people where you're going either actually listen to the rest or like, oh, my teacher put me here and I thought I don't feel like I'm making a difference and you'd prepare all these presentations and no one would really care. And then, consuming TikTok myself at the time, I thought there's a really young audience out there that I could have access to that maybe don't have the privilege where their teachers will actually put them in these situations and put them out there with STEM.
Brogan MacDonald:I didn't have STEM outreach. People come into my school so I was like how can I reach the people that I didn't have stem outreach? People come into my school so I was like how can I reach the people that maybe don't have that um available to them? So I thought to start my TikTok and at the time when I started I was working on site as well. So I really was trying to say look, this is, I'm a woman working on site, I'm an engineer. You know, these people exist and I got such a flurry of positive and negative um yeah, that's normally that's.
Brogan MacDonald:That's the line um of mostly positive, of support and wow, this is really cool, this is really impressive. Um and inspiring, and that was really nice and I kept you know, I built that up, kept doing more videos of working on site, um, which is always quite funny and awkward when you're like actually working on site and go.
Darren Evans:I want to try film something um, but I had just had this burst of creativity in your mind.
Brogan MacDonald:Oh yeah, that's what happened, because um, I mean, it's quite different to my role now, but that time I wasn't really using the my creative energy in the same way and uh, and I, I love, I love being creative, I I paint. In my free time I have loads of creative hobbies, so I was using my creative energy to do that. And my role changed and I moved to Singapore. I worked in a Singapore office there and that was a completely different role. And then I attracted loads of Singaporean followers and they were like, oh wow, a Scottish engineer Really niche in Singapore. And that evolved and again I had loads of creative ideas because I could also talk about what it's like to live abroad, what's it like to be an expat engineer, because it was really different, really different, to work in the UK.
Brogan MacDonald:So then there was a whole journey of telling those stories. And then I came back and I got my role, which is now head of sustainability in our structures division, and then that's evolved to a different story and what started off being kind of women in stem engineering content has then grew to be women in sustainability, sustainability leadership, women in stem stuff. You know, it kind of all merged together, um, and then I think I got to a point about nine months ago where I I was questioning what I was doing on there. I was questioning my relationship with social media. You know my consumption of it, because to create that, you kind of want to keep up with what's happening online, right? Um, because people respond to trends, people respond to news, and I felt like I was consuming a lot. So, um, and then some life events happened and I thought, right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a wee break, step back and go. You know what's my purpose and I think now that I'm at a point now where I could feel I can go back, but it's probably going to be more about storytelling and sustainability and what people can do and having that personal autonomy and responsibility.
Brogan MacDonald:So many people have that climate anxiety, which I totally understand. But how can you change that energy into something fruitful and useful? Because you know these amazing things can start, if you think of butterfly effect, from small ripples of change. You know, even just doing something little in your organisation can make such an impact. That literally got me my job now. You know, I came from being a graduate engineer that wanted to do something in sustainability and did a carbon assessment to become head of sustainability in six years. You know that was a ripple effect. So I truly believe that everyone has got the ability to do something small that will have huge, meaningful change.
Brogan MacDonald:It doesn't have to be changing policy or a law. It could be, you know, to be changing policy or a law. It could be, you know, educating a community. It could be starting a little kind of cpd, you know. It could be coming onto podcasts. There's so many small things that have such big ripples of change that I think I'm going back onto my tech. I really want to empower people that they, they can do that. And, of course, the climate anxiety is real. You know the news is everywhere. How often do you hear good news? You don't. That's what the news is designed for. Um, and actually stepping away from the news for a little bit, only reading what I needed to know for my job, has made me a much happier person and I think you're right there.
Darren Evans:You know that the the news that's out there is always bad news yeah the bad news is what sells, and the scandal is what sells as opposed to the good, positive stuff. Yeah, but I do think that that that good, positive stuff does exist yeah within social media and I think if you um just work with the algorithm, I think the algorithm will just give you positive stuff.
Darren Evans:It's so true, so many people that I speak to that are like oh no, the algorithm does this, the algorithm does that, but all the algorithm is is just a reflection of what it is that you're consuming. It will just send you more of the stuff that you're consuming. So if you just want the positive stuff, just scroll through the negative stuff and that's yeah, that's what will come up.
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah, or say I'm not interested. I've started to do that on a few videos. Yeah, because that's not what the that's not what I want to attract. You know, it's the law of attraction yeah, definitely isn't it? You know, if you keep obsessing over these negative stories, that's what you'll get. So changing the narrative within yourself, within your work, is hugely powerful so can you do that out then?
Darren Evans:is that your thinking moving forward? Is that you're in or getting yourself to a position where you are looking to create a narrative that's out there for the younger generation or the consumers of TikTok to see? That, then, lead them more to be conscious of and actually act upon choosing ethical, more biodiverse projects, as opposed to the same old stuff that anyone worries about, but just specifically in the construction industry, is that one of your it's super niche, isn't it? That's like a niche niche.
Brogan MacDonald:I don't know I always think you know that sounds like my dream. My career is definitely going down that way of what, what we call it more regenerative style, uh, we call it regenerative design, regenerative thinking, and the idea of that is that, um, there's different paradigms of sustainability and the idea we're in a very degenerative one where we are kind of taking too much and not replenishing, the net zero one which we're trying to strive for, but, let's be honest, it's not achieving anything and even still we're not replenishing. And then to restorative, regenerative, and the idea of regenerative is, no, we're giving back and more to what we're taking away. That is my career goal to educate and to work in that regenerative space. It's a steep one, but the idea of looking at biodiversity is that whole sustainability picture, because if I'm just focused on carbon, that's only a tiny bit of the issue, and health and well-being is also a social sustainability issue. We really have to be thinking all of it.
Brogan MacDonald:I don't know where my space on the internet is going to be, but that in construction is super, super niche. But part of me likes the idea of doing something that's also personal. I care deeply about the ethical consumer choices that I make. I like to go to plastic free shops, things that. But on the on the flip side of that, I've done one video once where, um, I compared my plastic free shop with, like a Tesco value shop, because it's more expensive. So, but not only is it more expensive, it takes time to do so. It depends on you know your privileges. Have you got the money to spend on it and have you got the time? Because I'm sure there's many families that won't have a few hours to spare to go around and filling up their pots and their glass jars. Personally, I think that's a really lovely way to shop because I get a lot of satisfaction. I get to speak to the local owner. It's a small, independent shop it's an experience, isn't it?
Brogan MacDonald:it's an experience yeah, and when I talked to my nan, she's like oh, that's how we used to do it. I think it's nice, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, but, um, so I don't know. I see I can see my content moving towards that combination of um and what it's like to be a woman in engineering, what it's like to be a woman in sustainability, because they're actually really different. There's a lot of women in sustainability and that makes you question like why is it? Because it's like to be a woman in sustainability? Because they're actually really different. There's a lot of women in sustainability and that makes you question like why is it because it's a more empathetic keyring role question? I don't know um. So there's a lot I've still got to uncover yet, so I think I'll be dabbling back into my videos soon I like that.
Darren Evans:I think as well that it will be less niche than maybe what you're suggesting okay and the reason I think that is because everyone has a connection with the building yeah, that's true and what we don't do a very good job of in the industry, and this is where I think there's an opportunity for you. If I was to sell you something, go on. It would be that, um, that the the story is not being told of the importance of buildings have to us in our lives they, they restore us and help us.
Darren Evans:They support us, they connect us yeah they heal us, yeah, um, and and they give us um expression. You know, our deepest expressions in our heart and our mind are projected out in buildings, and they also bring us together yeah, um, I love that, but I don't think that in the construction industry we really do a very good job at telling those stories to people, and people are just using the buildings.
Brogan MacDonald:Like when we're younger, we use mom and dad and we don't appreciate them oh and then we get older and we are oh gosh, I love you so much and so and so I think that that same relationship is.
Darren Evans:What we have with our buildings is like I'm just using you and I'm not seeing you oh, totally, and then when I oh, really okay, and I think that that's the story, and I don't think that is a niche one, I just think it's one that's not been told.
Brogan MacDonald:I think you're so right. Um, it was like when Marks and Spencer's marble arch um story came up. So it's an art deco building. They say we're going to demolish it we actually did a white paper on that.
Brogan MacDonald:Did you? Yeah, I mean, I got quite emotionally involved in that story and I did some videos on it as well because I followed it very closely. But I was quite emotional about it because I think Marks and Spencer is a British institution. You know, you get your first school shoes fitted in Marquis. Normally girls get their first bra fitted in Marquis and you get your fine pieces. You get your special treats at the weekend.
Darren Evans:Oh, the treats in Marks and Spencer is really nice.
Brogan MacDonald:Do you know what I mean?
Darren Evans:Oh, I could dine in I used to work in Marks and Spencer as well, when I was in school.
Brogan MacDonald:So I'm emotionally attached and so the idea that you know they were demolishing an institution store was, I think, deeply emotional for a lot of people, not to mention the fact that it was a building that had huge potential. We even looked at ourselves how you could retain it and do a little bit of kind of cutting and carving to make it what they needed it, and do a little bit of kind of cutting and carving to make it what they needed. So that was a big turning point, I think, for a lot of the conversations around demolition and circular economy. Now, and the fact is, like we've said, I think we are, in construction, so emotionally detached from materials. We're emotionally detached from where they come from, where they've been extracted and the hands that they've gone through. So take a steel beam.
Brogan MacDonald:I remember working on site and, uh, we were in an existing building, it was a refurb job and with all refurb projects there's always stuff you don't expect to happen and you open up a wall or something. You're like, oh, that wasn't what I thought it was going to be, and so you say, oh, we need a, we need a lint says, oh, okay, I'll go call up man and we'll get it tomorrow and it's like that's mental, you can just get a bit of steel tomorrow because that just-in-time delivery has made us so detached from the whole production and extraction and the human impacts of that material. So that bit of steel likely likely if you trace it back has gone through at least 11 processes to be from the coal and iron extracted. Likely from Australia, because like half of iron in the world is extracted in Australia or or China or South Africa, and then that's gone through all the different processes and it's finally got to your site in London and nobody's thinking about that because they're just calling up their child and saying can I have that lintel please, and how many hands has it passed through? And what's the human rights impacts that's happened, because I guarantee it's not been. You know it's not been good. So we have that detachment from the materials. It's not been good. So we have that detachment from the materials.
Brogan MacDonald:And then we have the detachment from the buildings and the, their cultural heritage, societal importance, like you say. You know how many people have, you know, got their first job in the building and the memories that you have your graduation, your, your first child child, your marriage, like all these special moments happen in buildings and, um, if they're not listed under, you know, the english or the scottish list, then they can simply just be bulldozed down. Uh, there was the concept of the grade three listed buildings for a while, okay, which was basically to put on another level of listing that would protect your typical 1970s to 80s buildings that we're kind of currently knocking down because they're not fit for purpose, and I say that like not fit for purpose for what? The low ceiling heights or the columns don't work for us. We're in a climate emergency. That's not good enough. That's not an excuse anymore. These are materials, these are valuable, valuable materials and these are memories. You know how many memories have happened that building.
Brogan MacDonald:So that that was the idea that we could put in this additional um idea of a grade three listed building that would protect older buildings that are not um, architecturally significant, that it had a very two, two sides of people. You know they're like, oh, that's a brilliant idea. And then it was like, oh, that kind of devalues the grade listing system. And I see both sides and I think it was more of. It was a kind of thought piece from Will Arnold, from the iStructi, but it has a point If we don't have this value onto a building, it's merely seen as a disposable object. Many like much things, like our phones, like you know. A few years we're like it doesn't work anymore.
Darren Evans:We get a new one, definitely with so many things which does bring it back round to your initial suggestion, which is around the circular economy and this push for consistent growth, because organizations want more and more and more and the marketing machine teaches the people that they need more and more in order to be happy. So I guess the way that I'm kind of suggesting to break that cycle would be to have a different message go out to the people, not wait for the organisations, because the people will drive the organisations.
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah.
Darren Evans:If that story is told and the people are like oh actually, metaphorically, I do appreciate mum and dad now I see them as opposed to you. Know why is the fridge empty?
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah.
Darren Evans:Can I have some money?
Brogan MacDonald:Our cities are increasing. It's said that that you know 80 of the population going to be living in in urban environments in I think it's by 2050. How can we, how can we embed nature and how can we still value nature, um, as a as a core part of our human survival, when you're essentially what you're trying to do is build these massive buildings, looking at more verticality than sprawling, which we've typically done? How can, how can we continue to value nature the same way when it's becoming increasingly difficult to connect with it? I read a book recently it's called if woman rose rooted, which talks about the feminine energy in c Celtic mythology and the relationship between the feminine and the land, because historically, you know, women looked after the land and it's really interesting to look at something like the Scottish roots and the stories around that. But she tells a story about, you know, women were the protectors. They, at least you know, used to look after all the crops and the animals and, you know, growing food and the idea of becoming grounded and rooted.
Brogan MacDonald:And I love going out in nature I'm a hiker, um, absolutely love that and just sitting on the grass and just connecting with place. But how can we talk and think about our future and our environment, which is you know, you want to be connected with the ground. You want which is, you know, you want to be connected with the ground. You want to be rooted in the earth. You want to connect with the earth. Ideally, you want to be making big decisions when you're in nature. Why are we making big decisions in skyscrapers a hundred meters from the ground, the ground that we're trying to protect? So this concept of high rise buildings something that you know as an engineer, that we do but when you think about sustainability and biodiversity, the idea of protecting our planet, and that relationship of balance, we're making some of the most important decisions about our planet when we're 100 feet in the air, so far away from the ground interesting concept.
Darren Evans:As you were speaking there, I was thinking also that, when it comes to this connection, often people have got better connections or spend more time connecting with things that have been manufactured, as opposed to things that have been grown or given birth to. So you know, when I was younger, we kept rabbits and there were loads of them, children generally like that.
Darren Evans:But then I look at my nieces and nephews. They've got more of a connection with their ipads and their iphones than they do with any. So that's interesting that you know that that concept there is for me. Where is that? Where is the value in that and how can we connect?
Brogan MacDonald:it's a good question yeah, I mean, it's so different, like we were growing up, you know, iphones and things and iPads didn't exist and we're perfectly fine, you know. But uh, you know, I read books and I went out and played and it was. It was also a bit different because I lived in Scotland as well, where it was safe to go out and play, um, and certainly London. That's not the case. You can't just say I'm going to chum knocks on your door, I'm going out to play with so-and-so and I'll see you in a few hours and you go kick a ball and you don't know, you've played the park. Um.
Brogan MacDonald:With the, the increasing urbanism, we need to be really mindful of safety, because children need to be outdoors. They need to be outside. It's part of understanding nature and in um, in the book that I just read, it said that the junior oxford dictionary a few years ago removed blackberry and acorn to be replaced with um, blockchain and um something else beginning with A. That was chat room or something Okay, and the idea that they're taking natural elements out of the junior dictionary and replacing them with technological terms is frightening, absolutely.
Brogan MacDonald:Absolutely frightening, because children and everyone should have access to nature and should have that relationship with nature. It helps you as a human. It regulates your nervous system.
Darren Evans:And so then, kind of looking forward to that, then I think that the answer surely must have children in that and enabling children to connect with nature and disconnect with fast-paced, um dopamine fueled types of activity where you you can't be still in that area and things don't in nature move anywhere near as quick as it does on an ipad or when you're flicking and scrolling on something. And so, um yeah, without kind of getting too uh, nostalgic, I remember on car journeys when I was younger we didn't have anything to in adverted commerce entertain us you play a game we just look out the window and use what is out of the window to you know, yeah, yeah, that's wonderful, because that's that's really mindful
Brogan MacDonald:yes isn't it? Because you're looking around, you're understanding what the colors and the textures and the smells, some of the tastes that you might have, and that's lovely. I remember when I was at university I did a geology module and my lecturer was like you know, when we were learning about different soils she said touch it. What is the sensation? She said put it in your mouth. I was like that's a bit far, you know that's a bit far, but the idea that when, yeah, grounding yourself into the fields, textures, you're right as you're scrolling, that's one of the reasons why I kind of took a break, because my attention span was reducing. I was finding I love reading and I was finding it hard to sit and read because my mind go, oh, oh oh. I check my phone and, and before you know it, you, you read two pages of your book and you've been on something else for half an hour. So I took that step back and, um, I love meditating and I love being outside.
Brogan MacDonald:I think it's just, it's made such profound impacts to my health physical and mental that we have to be so careful of what this increasing urbanism will do to people. And fortunately England's come in with fantastic regulations on biodiversity net gain, which means any new development has to have at least 10% increase in biodiversity to what it had before. So that's fantastic news. And then Scotland and Wales are looking to add similar measures. Other countries are doing the same, looking to add similar measures. Other countries are doing same.
Brogan MacDonald:That's really important because we need to be having these spaces, um, and safe spaces, not just green space, but safe green spaces that people can connect. But that's hard because I think you do really need to go out and you know, in the sticks, you need to have nothing around you. You want to see the sea, you want to hear the breeze and have absolutely no one around you and just look at all the beautiful wildflowers and look at mountains and roaring hills, and that's where I personally go and think this is what I'm doing. My job for is to protect this that's good, I like that.
Darren Evans:The uh. Just a little tip for you. I don't know if you know this, but, um, generally on on uh mobile devices, you've got a section on there that you can turn your color off, as you can just have a mono I had that.
Brogan MacDonald:I tried it.
Darren Evans:I found it really discombobulating yeah, and that's the advantage, because then it means that you don't go on it that much. Yeah, so that's what I do oh, do you yeah I turn it, I turn all the color off interesting black and white and it drives me mad and I only go on there when I actually need to do something instead of you have that moment of oh, let me check this, let me check that.
Darren Evans:When it's the receptors going off in your brain that says I just need some more dopamine. Can you give it to me?
Brogan MacDonald:yeah, but I mean it's an interesting one. I tried it and I didn't like it because it hurt. I was like hurts my eyes and I like to look at colored pictures you know, everyone does right. I want to see the beautiful colors in the pictures but then the question is is that the right way? Should we have to do that? Should we not have the self-control to say nope? I recognize this desire right now. I recognize that I'm going between apps. Why am I doing that? I don't need to.
Darren Evans:I'm going to put my phone in the other room so I I mean this is this is nothing to do with construction here, what I'm about to say, but I've done a lot of work with a guy that was the inspiration behind Instagram being created okay the guy's called BJ Fogg.
Darren Evans:He's a professor at Stanford University, and so he studied human behavior and habits for the best part of 30 years, and so it's because of his discovery that is baked into these apps that people have twisted and used it in the wrong way. That has given us yes, we've everyone's got choice, but it's the awareness element that um is baked into these things that mean that most people are not aware of what they're doing. Yeah, so you could almost argue, do you have a choice if you're not aware? Probably not, because all you're doing is you're just yeah, fueled on.
Darren Evans:Yeah, you know what, what it is, that you're that hedonistic treadmill, um, but that's what. But that's what he does and that's what people that are deep in the industry that are producing these multi-billion dollar organizations, um is they. That's what they do, because they don't have part of it, because they know the r& d that goes into the things to keep people hooked on using that application, because that's how the developers get money right. The longer you're on it, the more money they get.
Darren Evans:But, um, anyway, nothing to do with construction but you raise a really good point, which is you know, should we not have the ability to choose? Yes, we do. However, there is a whole industry focused on influencing your behavior, without you being aware of it, that leads you to do things that they want you to do. Yeah, and it's outside of government, yeah, and it's outside of any organization which is health related that says this is the best thing for you to do. And I think that's probably what leads my thinking when I'm, when I'm saying to you you know, I think that it's to do with the people, and if you can tell that story and get the people to demand, then the companies will follow, as opposed to wait for the companies.
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah.
Darren Evans:The government to lead the way and then the people follow, as opposed to wait for the companies or wait for the government to lead the way and then the people follow.
Brogan MacDonald:Oh yeah, I'm a true believer that we can't wait for government. I mean, we need government for many decisions, absolutely.
Brogan MacDonald:The demolition is a perfect example of one that without interventions, we're just going to keep devaluing these buildings and all these amazing materials will just get put to landfill or maybe downcycled. Policy is so important, though, but we all can't make and change policies. There's so many other things that can be done, but an example of a great policy that has made such a difference was Westminster City Council recently took in retrofit first policy. So it's exceptionally difficult to demolish now in Westminster City Council unless your building is structurally unsafe, okay, or there's a really strong social cause for the demolition. For example, you had a maybe a wee two, three story building that had to come down to be made into 20 story social housing, you know. So there has to be a really strong motive that aligns with the, with the council's plans.
Brogan MacDonald:So we have actually started doing pre-redevelopment audits and pre-demolition audits, the difference being a pre-redevelopment is before the decision to demolish has been made. You know, what can you actually do with this building? How can you look at all the different options to retain it, cut and carve it? And then the pre-demo is once the decision to demolish has been made. What are you going to do with the materials? How are you going to deconstruct it? Where are you going to sell the materials? They are basically all mandatory now in the council.
Brogan MacDonald:So any project we work on, we're having to try and say actually we're going to reuse this bit and reuse this bit. And there's a project I'm working on which is really fun. We've got um, a client with two buildings. So you've got donor and recipient and we're taking some of the steel from one building and um putting it into next, but not just putting it in. We are um using an inventory constrained design approach. So what I mean is we've got a kit of parts from the old building which is basically like a big portal shed that was a big sofa shop, so nice long spans and big structure and then we put it into a kind of parametric model software to say how can we most efficiently use the materials from that building into this new design, giving it constraints, and then it comes up with a design so you can effectively use the materials.
Brogan MacDonald:I see that as the future. I would love that to be the future, but we've got a lot of challenges in the way because at the moment and this is where government would help is that we don't have the central library of reuse centres. So we've got loads of recycling centres across the UK but we don't have a reuse hubs centres. So currently private companies are trying to do that, but they are located in regions, which means it's only really accessible to the region and we don't have this. Nice material flows are in the UK and because of the, you know, the wealth in London and the economic drive towards building in London, it means that all the great sustainable, low carbon, circular stuff's happening in London and that's not helpful. You know we can't just be doing solutions in London. I'm really, you know, one of my values is about equity and just transition and that should be fair and accessible to everyone and that's not helpful. So if the government could support that by creating these reuse hubs where you've got loads of fabulous materials like bricks.
Brogan MacDonald:We've been reusing bricks for hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of years, but they are end up going to these kind of private companies who sell them for a few quid, behind backs, by the way, as well, you know they don't have a reuse strategy. The contractors are taking them going. Oh, I'll get a few bob, you know, for these um heritage bricks. But we need to have this hub, otherwise what you have is just the kind of the clients that have got the privileges to share those resources and the money. They're doing it and then, at the expense of all these other projects around the uk, don't get that. So we can have these internal revolutions and these little kind of industry groups, which I'm part of, to say, oh, I've got this material, or I've got this material and you'll get them shared, but it's all behind paywalled platforms, you know it's not open to everyone. And you've got companies that are doing great stuff, like there's some fantastic companies out there that have bedded, like the eBay hub, dating sites of materials that's what they call themselves and ai, and they try and match it. But again, you know it's all behind these paywalls and things. So we need.
Brogan MacDonald:If the government could intervene and say actually we'll create these hubs, then that would save so many materials, so much carbon, reduce material extraction. I'm sure there'll be some kind of economic um driver that would increase jobs as well or displace jobs. You know the steel mills um port talbot, scunthorpe, lot, huge amount of jobs being lost as a result of the transition um direct them towards other green jobs creating these reuse centers. The government is just not thinking about that at the head. You know they've cut two, three thousand jobs and you've got what happened and you know back in the 80s and 90s as well of. You know the ruining people's livelihoods and ruining towns and cities that rely on these. You know big industrial um plants big employers yeah, yeah, so they've.
Brogan MacDonald:I've gone off topic now, but we need the government to intervene but be also not just reactive. It's very reactive we need. They need to be proactive. So if you're talking about just transition and you know changing the steel mills from the blast furnaces, which rely on coal and fossil fuels, to electric arc furnaces, which rely on still some fossil fuels but more electricity and recycled steel, it's fantastic. But not when you don't have enough recycled steel to feed them and so it all comes into material flows. And where you get the materials from we're going to have to import scrap steel, potentially to um, to make these run. It's just the economies don't really work out. And then you've got these jobs and they could be diverted to. You know retrofitting homes. We don't have enough people to retrofit the homes at scale. You know we could be training up apprenticeships to do that. You know the government could have displaced all these jobs to. You know the likes of that? Or the reuse hubs?
Darren Evans:I want to talk to you about leadership before we go to the demolition zone okay there's lots of people that I've spoken to that are very, very technically competent. Technically they know their stuff and they are given leadership roles yeah and they really struggle yeah they struggle to get the hearts and minds. They struggle to lead people.
Darren Evans:I'm talking about leadership here, not management yeah, yeah so what advice would you give to someone that has an ambition to be a leader? Technically, they're really really strong, but they've not got any experience leadership and they are either in a position where they're ahead of sustainability yeah, what advice would you give them?
Brogan MacDonald:I don't know if I mean I'm quite young to be in a leadership role and I'm still learning so much. Um, but the two things that I've learned in my my position is the importance of mentorship. Um, I've always had at least a few mentors since I was a graduate at least a few, at least a few like, like three usually, and I think mentors are really important.
Brogan MacDonald:You don't have to have one mentor in there, everything you have mentors for different things because everyone has different strengths, like three usually, and I think mentors are really important. You don't have to have one mentor and they are everything. You have mentors for different things because everyone has different strengths and qualities. So I had a mentor who was technical and he helped and supported my technical competencies. I had a mentor that was really good with clients and she helped me with presentation skills and raising my profile and being able to command a room, and that helped a lot when I worked on site, as commanding a room as a woman can be really challenging. And then I had mentors that supported navigating complexities of being a woman in industry and more EDI things.
Brogan MacDonald:EDI so equality, diversity and inclusion. So I've always had various mentors and learning from them over the years is one of the greatest gifts that I have received. But that is something that I had to do myself. You know I wasn't given that. I said I looked up and you're fantastic. I really admire what you do. You're very good at X, y, z, may I. You know it doesn't have to be a formal thing where you sit down, but it would be like oh, can we grab a coffee? Can I sit in your meeting, can I learn from you? And I still have. The mentors are different, but I still have mentors because we're always learning, we're always evolving.
Brogan MacDonald:So mentorship for me and learning from others has been a huge part and I think everyone should have at least one, I think a couple um of mentors and then mentoring younger generation, which I've just started doing myself, and I think that's really valuable as well because you can you get that um. It's a two-way mentorship. I think you learn so much from the younger generation. I'm still quite young but you know, like the people who are just coming in from university, their experience is so different to what mine was, you know, six, seven years ago. So that's a really valuable relationship to have. We never should stop growing and evolving and learning from others. And my second one which I learned, is being a role model. So being a role model is so important for women in STEM particularly particularly, and that's why I started my TikTok but it's really important for leadership because, I mean, I would never ask someone to do something that I wasn't willing to do myself is one thing, because I think that you should lead by example and values should be led by yourself. Um, you know it wants to be led by an organization, but you know, we we had a fantastic managing director that's just moved on into a different role and she had such strong values and she always lived them. You know through conversations with everyone. You know, no matter your grade or where you worked, the values were always lived true through that and I think that's really important. Lean by example. You know it's not just saying, something is doing.
Brogan MacDonald:I'm a big believer in action and people who know me will be like Brogan gets it done, because I don't like sitting on things like let's do this. Like you know, if we've got an idea, let's get it done, and that's why I get all these um, you know, little pots of funding from the business or an industry because I'm like that's a great idea, let's do something about it, not just sit and go on a year's time. Oh, we should have done that. So I'm a big believer in, you know, being a role model and living through the values. So something that I started when I when my role was I work for Ramble's, a big organization. We've like 18,000 people nearly. I work for Ramble's, a big organisation. We've like 18,000 people nearly, and the UK in building structures. In the division that I lead in sustainability, we've got about 200. That's a lot of people.
Brogan MacDonald:There's a lot of noise in organisations. You've always got different communication and there was a really interesting study in a book called Leading by Change and it's talking when you want to change vision, how you communicate through all the noise of organizations. So on average, if you did a briefing on a webinar, sent an email or wrote an article those three things together over a three month period, that would be 0.05% of communication that someone would receive. So the idea about repetition and being out there and talking to people is so important because if you're wanting to change a sustainability vision you know that is a evolving change, then you need to be out there and you need to be doing a lot.
Brogan MacDonald:So one thing that I did when I started my role was um.
Brogan MacDonald:I did a week. I do a weekly newsletter internally so that goes out to our team in the UK and our India team as well and in that newsletter I have an internal update because there's always things happening in the organisation. For example, I rolled out a mandatory carbon assessment tool earlier in the year because we have quite ambitious goals to reduce our carbon, so we mandated that everyone has to do it. So there was a lot of communication on that. But the most important thing is it's um weekly. It's a read, listen and watch every week and it's usually an article you know industry article, a podcast or like a wee cpd video and that's really useful for our um, our engineers who want to get chartered because you need to do your cpd I mean everyone needs to, but they especially do and for that was easy, because I'm always I wanted to understand what the industry trends are and I'm always on the lookout for news because for me that's important for my role and I'm talking to clients.
Brogan MacDonald:I need to be knowing what's happening and I'm telling them, you know what's coming. But through that, you know there's been really positive changes because now people have the they know this information, they can go speak to the clients themselves. So, you know, for me that was being a, I think, being a role model. See, I'm, you know, giving you the information that you need to go do your job. And I appreciate that you don't have the time, like I do, to sit a few hours a week scrolling, linkedin and understanding the news and engaging with all this, because I remember what it's like being on a project, 100%, 100% the time, and it's tough. You know I don't have time to be going, going to events and things.
Brogan MacDonald:So my role is to disseminate all the noise and tell them these are things you need to know every week and sometimes they're really nice structural engineering things like this is the new, you know, alternative cement, and then oftentimes it's more big things. So, uh, I do the newsletter every friday and it comes out on mondays, yes, so today's was um, about the labor budget and what it meant for construction, because everyone needs to know that they should be. You know that's conversations that our clients can be having. That's going to impact projects. You know it's impacting inflation. Um, and then a podcast about the future of timber. So for me, that's like something that's really important. It's repeating messaging as well, because it's not a one stop shop. Once you're done, you know here's the strategy Off you go. It's being there having the conversations and teams. I go and visit all the offices. I love talking to people. So being that role model that you role model that's there, that's present, that's there to support people I hope that I am, but that's a huge part of my values.
Darren Evans:Are you ready to go to the demolition zone? Yeah, alright, let's do it. Brogan, we are in the demolition zone and you have created what appears to me, from where I'm sat, to be three towers of varying or descending or ascending heights yeah, what does it represent it?
Brogan MacDonald:um, I mean it represents the stuff I had available, which goes back to saying inventory constrained design. I made a bit of a you know beautiful, a you know beautiful archaic, chaotic structure out of the stuff that I had, which is what I believe the future of design and construction will be okay, that you know.
Brogan MacDonald:We're going to get to a point we don't have. We can't extract any more materials. We've actually got loads already and we'll just have to build with what we got. So that was a 10 second building with what I've got. I don't know why there's three.
Darren Evans:Read into it how you will three pillars of sustainability is that what you're gonna call?
Brogan MacDonald:it maybe.
Darren Evans:Yeah, I'll go with that the three pillars of sustainability, and so did they have names. Do they have titles?
Brogan MacDonald:uh, well, you can call it, I know, because I don't want to, because you might view it as one being more important than the other, depending on its form, but we'll call it social, environmental and economic.
Darren Evans:Okay.
Brogan MacDonald:Yeah.
Darren Evans:And so clear up the myth. Then, what is it now that we need to do, or need to understand, better moving forward.
Brogan MacDonald:We need to understand that lower carbon solutions products are not going to save us. There's a huge over-reliance on these lower carbon strategies, whether they be a cement replacement or a reused floor tile or whatever strategy you might use in your building that it's going to make it okay. You know there is increasing scrutiny now on these products as well, and the truth is there isn't enough. We don't have enough. Reused steel is a perfect example. Recycled steel is a perfect example. Ggbs, which is a cement replacement another example. All these lower carbon solutions are not in abundance. They are infinite resources. Timber is a finite resource.
Brogan MacDonald:The over-reliance on these lower carbon solutions is not necessarily driving us to improve sustainability, but it's, I don't know, transferring a problem. It's putting a band-aid on the solution. The only way that we're going to reduce our emissions is by using less, building less, but that doesn't drive the economy in the current model. So when people say, oh, you know, we're just going to, we're going to use a lower carbon concrete or something else, I challenge that heavily and I think there's going to be increased scrutiny on greenwashing, and the green claims directive will be coming in shortly, and that is not just for construction industry, that is for all industry. If you make any claims that your product is sustainable or green or, you know, plastic free, whatever it may be, it has to be backed up by science and evidence. So we'll soon see people changing their hoarding that says you know fossil free sites, net zero, aligned buildings or whatever they say now, because that won't be happening soon.
Darren Evans:Good, I love it. The only thing left to do now is to destroy this myth.
Brogan MacDonald:Okay, over to you Okay.
Darren Evans:Love that A swift backhand.
Brogan MacDonald:I was a bit rough, there Should have went.
Darren Evans:That's great. It has been great having you on the podcast today. I've enjoyed your wisdom. I've enjoyed your enthusiasm and your passion.