LOOPED IN with Carl Warkentin
The podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models - this is the place where we dive deep into the future of business, sustainability, and circular economy. After a decade of entrepreneurial experience as a founder and investor, Carl had countless, meaningful behind-the-scenes conversations about how we can reshape industries, close the loop, and create real impact. And now, we want to bring these conversations to you.
On Looped In, Carl sits down with entrepreneurs, business owners, venture capitalists, and policymakers who are at the forefront of change. Together, we’ll explore innovative business models, breakthrough technologies, and the regulations shaping the circular economy.
LOOPED IN with Carl Warkentin
From Policy to Action: Building CIRCULAR REPUBLIC with Susanne Kadner
Susanne Kadner's journey from climate science to circular economy pioneer reveals a profound shift in how we approach environmental challenges. Rather than focusing on restrictions, circular economy offers a positive vision of innovation and redesign that gets people excited about change.
"Coming from climate mitigation, it was always about what we shouldn't do," Kadner explains. "The positive vision of circular economy—how to do things differently while being innovative—is a much better way to get people into action." This refreshing perspective helped her build the Circular Economy Initiative Germany at Acatech, bringing together over 120 experts to create Germany's first circularity roadmap.
Despite this policy success, Kadner grew frustrated with the slow pace of top-down change. Her transition to Unternehmertum, Europe's largest entrepreneurship center, marked a strategic shift toward implementation. As co-founder of Circular Republic, she now focuses on creating lighthouse projects that demonstrate circularity in practice through three pillars: Enable (capacity building), Act (implementation projects), and Inspire (communication).
The conversation explores the tensions between pilot projects and scaling, between theory and practice, and between sustainability and geopolitical arguments for circularity. Munich emerges as a uniquely positioned ecosystem for circular innovation, combining manufacturing heritage with startup culture and global corporate presence.
What distinguishes Circular Republic is its role as a neutral platform where companies, startups, academics, and policymakers collaborate without prioritizing any single stakeholder's interests. This ecosystem approach addresses the complex, interconnected challenges that no organization can solve alone.
Ready to move beyond theory and implement circular solutions in your organization? Connect with Circular Republic to explore how our ecosystem can accelerate your journey toward circularity and resilience.
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Welcome to LOOPED IN, the number one podcast about circular economy and regenerative business models. We bring behind the scenes conversations with investors, founders and corporate leaders into the spotlight, exploring how to scale impact, build profitable business models and redesign our economy for a better future. So let's get started with today's guest, our economy for a better future.
Susanne:So let's get started with today's guest, susanne. Welcome to another show and on the podcast here with Loved In. We're sitting together in Munich in our offices, and I'm really excited that we sit down together. It's actually the first time that we take the time to really sit down and talk generally about circular economy. We've been now for three years building up Circular Republic as an initiative of Unternehmertum, but I mean you're a very strong voice when it comes to circular economy in Germany in general and I've listened to a couple of your speeches before you came to Circular Republic and built Circular Republic. So maybe take us back a little bit to how you first came in contact with Circular Economy as a principle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, happy to do so, and thanks for being here, karl. It's really nice sitting down together and talk about it at length. It's a long time ago since we did that Three years, my God. How did I come in contact with Circular Economy? It's really almost 10 years ago.
Speaker 3:Um, I started my job at acatech national academy of science and engineering and was working on completely different topics.
Speaker 3:Then I had a strong background in environmental issue, had spent time with the potsam institute for climate impact research and the ipcc, and then started at acatech and initially, initially, I was very tech-focused and worked on topics like autonomous systems and things like that, and then it was really coincident I came across the topic of circular economy and it really struck me because of its simplicity and the clarity of the vision that's behind a circular economy.
Speaker 3:I found it really striking because it's so simple to think about how should we do things, if we do them right? And that's the beauty of the concept which I still love and, coming from this background of climate mitigation, it was always about we shouldn't do this, we shouldn't do that. It was a very negative image that was painted at the time. What climate mitigation means and the positive vision of a circular economy, how to do things differently and be innovative while doing it. I thought this is a much better way to really get people into action, and that's when I fell in love with the topic and decided I got to do something about it.
Susanne:Oh, wow, beautiful, I mean. I think that's also the same reason why I'm excited about circular economy. You mentioned architect already, right, like to what extent did you implement and work on circular economy with architect?
Speaker 3:Well, basically I started there. I worked on something different, like I just said, I got in contact with the topic and Martin Stuchtey at the time and decided we got to do something about it, and that's when I decided to build up something related to circular economy at Akatech, and it only, step by step, then turned out to be the Circular Economy Initiative Germany in the end. I thought then that, specifically at Akatech, we had a perfect ground to work on the issue of circular economy. Akatech has a strong history in the whole aspect of Industry 4.0, the whole digital aspects, iot, smart maintenance, things like that and I thought this is exactly that component, the digital side of the circular economy, which we already have here at Acatech. So I wanted to take this and then build the topic of circular economy around the expertise that we already had at Acatech.
Susanne:Oh, and that's actually very interesting because my first professional experience back then at Foyt in the strategy department that was all about Industry 4.0, industrial Internet of Things, and I loved it because it was the first time I felt that we were communicating and collaborating with competitors that we would normally not do, because everybody was kind of thinking what is this concept? So this is actually one of the things that were exciting me the most and I found later on circular economy is actually also one of the things where everybody knows we have to collaborate, so I think that's the common denominator here.
Susanne:Um, that's very interesting, and architect is known for bridging science and business and politics. To what extent did you hear work on this knowledge transfer?
Speaker 3:A lot. So, yeah, architect is, on the one hand side, like a typical science academy. So everybody knows the Royal Society in the UK. To one degree, akatech is similar to that.
Speaker 3:What makes Akatech special is that they do not only have scientists in their working groups but also experts from business, and for me, this was so super important that we don't develop recommendations for policy out of an ivory tower, but we always have this kind of real world control of business people sitting with us on the table and therefore, when we then delivered policy recommendations to governments, they have a different strength right Because they're already supported by such a broad range of different stakeholders from academia, from business, but also from NGOs, and I thought this was the real power of Akatech.
Speaker 3:And the knowledge transfer is sort of one of the general things that we did. We work on specific topics. I mentioned autonomous systems, it was mobility, new mobility concepts, and then the circular economy initiative, and we set up different working groups, 120 different experts, worked on the aspects like circular business models, ev batteries, plastic packaging, and then develop recommendations and in the end, we pulled it all together and sketched out a roadmap for the German government to show what are the framework conditions that you need if you are serious about getting to a real circular economy in Germany.
Susanne:About getting to a real circular economy in Germany, so the circular economy initiative that you co-founded that was basically a result or part of your work at ACATEC.
Speaker 3:Basically, I had backing from one of the presidents in ACATEC and we spoke to the Ministry of Education and Research and said we wanted to build up the topic of circular economy and they said it's a great idea. They had a bigger sort of funding going on towards that topic and said it would be really good if you bring this up and build up this circular economy initiative to bring this topic more to the forefront of people in business but also make it more publicly known in a way. So it was trying to pull a little bit all the science insights that were developed through the funding from the Ministry of Education and Research bring bring them into business, but then also sort of pull all this information together and try to find out what are sort of the big, decisive changes that would need to happen if these innovations would to become successful.
Susanne:In a way back then circular economy was a rather new concept compared to now. Do you think nowadays one would still do this kind of work with the ministry of education, or maybe because it's a circular economy topic more with a different ministry?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. My answer would be two-sided One. Back then I was already told that the topic isn't new. There were many people tapping me on the shoulder and saying come on, mrs Kardner, we've been doing Kreislaufwirtschaft and recycling for 30 years in Germany. Don't start this old story again. And I was always insisting. Well, guys, then, please read the circular economy action plan by the European Commission. It came out in 2015.
Speaker 3:This is not the circular economy we're talking about in Germany. This is something fundamentally and totally different. This is really a systemic change of our economic system as we talk about it. So that was one reaction. And then the other reaction. It was certainly we should have gone to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. This is a little bit sort of related to how ACATEC worked, because they have strong links also to the Ministry of Education and Research, of course, being the science academy, and there was the sort of like big opportunity to talk to them because they had this bigger funding round going on for circular economy anyway and therefore it was easier for us to get sort of flung into this, uh, ongoing funding okay, yeah, right, as part of the circular economy initiative germany, you also developed this first circular economy roadmap.
Susanne:Right for circularity, like what? What was part of it? What are the core pillars of this roadmap that you then identified?
Speaker 3:Oh well, it's boring stuff, it's always the same thing. Well, true costs is still something that I have to repeat. If we don't sort of make the environmental damages visible that our linear way of doing business or that CO2 emissions do to the environment, it's very difficult because we are competing against unfair subsidies and an economic system that has been set up to some degree reward environmentally destructive practices. So, true, costing is at the top and it's politically, of course, the most painful thing to implement. We've done it with CO2 prices for a circular economy. You can't compare and it would be so much more difficult. You can't implement resource taxes just like that, because you have all this range of different materials, resources, raw materials. It would be super complex.
Speaker 3:The other thing is investments, of course, in the infrastructure, right recycling infrastructure to get really good recyclers out of it. But it was remanufacturing, infrastructure refurbishment. You just name the different art strategies that we would need for it and of course, this can't just be public. This has to be sort of joint investments by industry and maybe by public, by the public. That is crucial. Then you have, of course, policy environment creating a demand pool. So a quota for recyclates is something that many people love, but many people hate as well. But it can create a demand pool for innovation. So it's these sort of big framework conditions that you can implement in order to create a more level playing field towards circular products I mean you, you call it before like a boring.
Susanne:I wouldn't call it boring, but it's obviously like rather very complex, very dry topic, was it then? I mean, ultimately, now you, you joined circular public and decided to build up Circular Republic as an initiative within Unternehmertum, which is Europe's biggest entrepreneurship center. So, like, was it like a strategic move from your side I assume a very conscious move towards a more entrepreneurial way? Or what was the driver for you to change?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I mean, for a long time I was convinced that the sort of I call it top-down approach now right, that informing politics about what to do to create these right framework conditions was the most powerful tool to get something done.
Speaker 3:But over the course of my sort of like professional experience, I came to the conclusion that, yes, it might be very powerful once it's working, but it's also sometimes frustratingly slow, and, in a way, I was fed up with this and I didn't want to wait any longer. And I had met many, many inspiring companies during my work at Acatech and the Circular Economy Initiative, and the speed and the readiness they had towards pushing this transformation really inspired me, and so, therefore, it was for me a really conscious move to change sides, like some people from my old environment called it, and now really work with these companies and create those lighthouse projects which can then can again inspire politicians to see, okay, there is really that these companies, these businesses show what a circular economy can mean, and we want to help them and support them in really trying to create it. So, yeah, now it's the bottom-up approach I'm working on and I love it.
Susanne:Yeah, I mean you do need both worlds Totally and since I met you, I learned so much from you about your views on, like a system approach and the more the academia, science-based way of things. Because me, coming from a startup world since my studies back then, I I'm really just a very pragmatic hands-on, let's just do things, um. But I also and I love that approach but I also learned that you need a lot of basics and frameworks and kind of data, obviously research in order to build this. So it's really so important to bring both worlds together. So I think it's really exciting that you are now at Unternehmertum. So now, looking back three years, how exciting or maybe also frustrating is it to be on the other side?
Speaker 3:I, I still, I still love it. I have to say I like the speed with which we work. It's these, these little posters you have hanging around here fail fast and furious. I love it. This is totally contradiction to my old world, because in in the science world, you can lock yourself up for half a year and think about something to get it exactly right, and here it's totally different. Right, go out, try and learn from your mistakes.
Speaker 3:And I really like this approach very much because for me, the speed is more important than ever If we know everything that we need to do in order to avoid the looming disasters in the environmental context anyway. So for me, I want to get moving, I want to see action, I want to see results and therefore this environment is great because we can just do it. We go out, we conceptualize a project, we find the right partners and just by implementing it and wanting to learn and wanting to learn what doesn't work is so important part of the journey, and here this is the context where you can just do this. So I love the mindset beautiful.
Susanne:Before we dive into what circular public does and and what we try to achieve here, you met, I believe, matze and I think even nicholas, like the, both co-founders of circular republic, I think already prior to building circular republic, right like. So what was the first touch point with both of them?
Speaker 3:when niklas, this is really, really beautiful thinking in circles, right, how everything comes together in the end. Um, it was my first conference where I was sent as this new person from akatek working on circular economy, and it's the um resource and efficiency congress in um, baden-württemberg oh wow, resource efficiency conference.
Speaker 3:I guess right like yeah, resource efficiency in southern germany, let's call it like this um, and his dad was on stage and was telling the example of lorenz water meters. And I loved it, of course, and went up to him and said, hey, can I have your card? We need to connect, I want to show your example to the people I work with at Akatech and can we pull it, pull you into our initiative. And he was very friendly, as he is, and then Niklas came along and we started talking and that's where I basically met Niklas for the very first time.
Speaker 3:Somehow, we didn't follow it up immediately and it took some time until we met again. And then Niklas invited me here to a it was some panel discussion and the rest is really history. So, and with Matze, I met him already during our Circular Economy Initiative, because Matze was at Systemic and we were cooperating closely with Systemic and Matze was involved in the working group on what else ev motors, uh, ev batteries and um. So we already had a little, a few touch points and uh, yeah then, when the discussion came up, that we might be doing this together.
Susanne:We fortunately already knew each other, not very intensely, but enough to just sit down and talk about whether we could imagine doing this yeah, I remember uh probably was like three and a half years ago or something when we were here at a conference of unternehmertum and then thomas, one of the ceos of unternehmum, brought us all together after the event and we all met each other Was you Matze, even Tim back then, one of the first colleagues at Unternehmertum, and Matze, I think, even Lars, who was also not at Unternehmertum. So it was a kind of a big, exciting group and we were building something new.
Susanne:Yeah, interesting how we all have a little like very similar but also different journeys that attracted us to ontario matom really really beautiful and I don't know when we will actually launch this episode, but it's very certain that the launch date will be when I'm not anymore full-time at circle republic yeah, this would be crazy so we'll be a bit crazy, because we started together. We started together.
Speaker 3:January 23.
Susanne:Like officially January 2023, two and a half years ago, but I mean kind of.
Speaker 3:I think my first touch point was probably at least four years ago or something with BMW back then, and then with, via BMW, to an animatome, and then, you know, I had a couple of meetings with Thomas and then at one point we were sitting all together this is funny how it comes together, because for me it was also, I would say, three and a half years ago or maybe even, yeah, something like that, where Niklas invited me around, I, we had a meeting with hemwood as well, and I was sort of sitting there and say, going like this is such an amazing ecosystem, we gotta do something. We have to build this kind of circular hub in munich, and what do you think about?
Susanne:and then the end obviously, uh, hemwood and thomas put all the pieces together and there we are yeah, that that's really funny and even very kind of emotional for me, Like last week I talked to Matze and I think even this week I will still record one episode with Niklas, so I wanted to record an episode with all of you three founders, before I kind of leave and um, and I personally, I I mean, yeah, I was back then co-founder and and ceo of monaco ducks, our footwear label, and we had the luck that a couple of board members from bmw were big fans
Susanne:and at this big car conference, which was back then the first time, not conference but the car fair, like IAA. It was the first time in Munich. So it was a huge buzz in Munich and we met one of the former board members and CMO for BMW and he was such a big fan and then he invited us a couple of times to advise the board of BMW on circular economy and we were like, wow, I mean, we have a footwear sneaker label, um, startup kind of, and what can we tell them? But it was really exciting and that led us to huge conversations bmw and how can we do something? And somehow we realized there's another department thinking the similar things and they approached now to name a tomb. And then I approached christian more from montenegro and and asked him hey, what's happening here? And yeah, so this was my journey, kind of before everything began we didn't even know that it would be called circular public no, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Before everything began, we didn't even know that it would be called circular republic.
Susanne:No, absolutely well, that's really exciting. Um, so now we're here at circular republic. What is your main focus doing here and and what is your personal vision for this part of your career now, after everything that you've done already in the field? Well, my, my personal vision for this part of your career now, after everything that you've done already in the field well, my, my personal vision when I started circular republic, together with the entire team, was to get circular economy implemented.
Speaker 3:I was really tired of reading yet another report which explained the fundamentals of a circular economy, which talked about framework conditions or, you know, sectoral deep dives, because I had the impression it's all theory. It was all still theory, and my idea was, if we don't get this on the ground now, this concept will fail miserably. And that's why, when the offer came of starting Circular Republic here at Unternehmertum, this was just perfect, because we have this environment here, we have all the relevant actors that you need. We have the big business right. We have medium-sized enterprises, which are so strong in Germany. We have the startups, of course, this strong innovation ecosystem, we have the links to policy, we have the links to science. So, basically, you've got all the ingredients that you need to build a circular economy. That's what the textbook says anyway. So, therefore, being here really gave me the impression that if it can happen anywhere, it should be here, right, and that was sort of the idea with which we sort of developed the concept of how Circular Republic should work as well. Of course, we have this what we call the three pillars Enable, act Inspire and the Act pillar is, of course, something which is our USP.
Speaker 3:Right that we develop projects which can be quickly implemented and carried out.
Speaker 3:So one year, one and a half years quickly implement it and carry it out.
Speaker 3:So one year, one and a half years it's not big sort of science calls where you need one year administrative burden and then you get funding for three years. We want to deliver the results quickly. So one year, one and a half years right is how we conceptualize them and that is certainly our USP. But then, connected to that, you still need to enable people to think in a circular way, and that's where I focused a lot of my energies on in the beginning as well, coming, of course, from the science and very strong conceptual background, and developing a workshop agenda here, really taking companies from zero to champion level and trying to think about what do they need and what kind of knowledge and skills do they need to have at what step in their circular journey. And that's what we built up with the team for the last two and a half years as well, and it's great. Now I think we've got all different levels of maturity. By the end of this year we will have different offers which will help you to scale your circular efforts this is basically.
Susanne:We're talking about these three pillars of circular public right like enable, act, inspire yeah, enable is what you mean with the workshops, act obviously, the, the lighthouse project and the pilots, and inspire our festival and all the communications part.
Susanne:I talked with Matze about it and generally, this is something that I'm wondering about lately a bit is the whole topic around pilot projects, because I do think they are absolutely crucial. But I also believe that we kind of need to be able to scale out of these Like no one needs yet another pilot project as long as it just stays a small pilot project and then disappears. Like, what's your take on that and and how, how, in how would you describe a perfect scenario for a pilot project that can maybe then become more than that?
Speaker 3:yeah, um, it's. It's a super relevant question, carl, and um, the scaling question is something that we certainly still work on to perfectly answer this. I'm just sharing some of my observations over the past years. What I see in in some companies it's exactly what you see there Pilot projects, it's like mushrooms right, there's one, there's one, there's one and somehow they don't develop the energy that it's being brought together and then being brought to scale. So we were just yesterday discussing in the team what does it need to bring all this learning, all these insights together and evaluate for that business, for their company, which are the most relevant insights that we got out of this multitude of pilot projects, and then focus on one or two topics and really push them through? So that's something that we are asking ourselves how can we, maybe with enable or whatever, how can we support this to cut them through the haze of fuzzy insights and really say this is what we learn from all these exercises, experiments, and that's what we're going to take forward. So that's the one thing.
Speaker 3:The other thing is I totally agree pilot projects won't change the world, but what we see and what I hear from the learnings from the different egg projects, from what you did with a ton of different companies in the textile sector. What Niklas is doing in industry electronics testing these processes despite it being so simple on paper, testing and setting up these processes seems to be such a big challenge in itself that I wouldn't dare to say come on, let's forget about these pilot projects. It's still so important for companies to learn. How can we actually facilitate this? How can we bring the back stuff? How can we grade this? And here, regarding scaling, what role closing the loop?
Speaker 3:Now to where I started from where do we bring in those digital technologies which are totally key for really bringing a circular economy from the ground right where it's? A huge white spot that we have, despite being a nation of engineers? Why can we build something in a perfect way but we are unable to disassemble it in an automated way? And there's so much still to do that I think pilot projects still have their own right. And the other point is this cooperation of startups and companies. Bring those fresh ideas into the companies Again talking about automated disassembly and things like that that the companies then can then start to scale with their ideas, with their innovations, once we have made the connection for them, once we've built the ecosystem for them, and you might remember that initially we said at the point where we are making ourselves redundant, we've actually achieved the best we can wish for.
Susanne:Right, right, earlier, you described basically the perfect ecosystem that we have here, and we do have pretty amazing global players as partners as well. So many startups. What does it take, in your opinion, or how challenging is it, to convince more companies even to join this kind of ecosystem? Because sometimes I think it's not as tangible as a pure consulting project to sell, which obviously does not have at all the same impact and power that we can offer, but it's also not as tangible outcome being part of this ecosystem like. But I I think it's so important that that more companies are jumping into this ecosystem, like. How big of a challenge do you feel it is, especially maybe also with the current economic system?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's certainly not easy to describe what these ecosystem benefits are, and I think we all know this from our daily doing that. Sometimes it's challenging to describe these non-tangible benefits, but if somebody is digging a little bit deeper into the logic of both what innovation and what circular economy means they're being pushed into the topic. You need ecosystems. So I think, despite the changes that we see in the sort of political landscape at the moment, that you don't need to come with sustainability arguments anymore, but now we have geopolitical arguments why you need a circular economy. It's still relatively well I wouldn't say easy but we manage well to convince people that this ecosystem approach and the innovation approach that we have here at Circular Republic and Unternehmertum is something to push this forward.
Speaker 3:And maybe this part of the thinking I still carry from my policy days oh, God der neutrale Makler, god the neutral agent neutral agent is the word in german, so we, as circular republic here, we can offer this kind of neutral platform for everybody to come together.
Speaker 3:Right, we carry out the projects because we want them to have the highest possible impact and we will not focus on the specific benefits for one specific partner, but we do this for the idea and for the concept, and I think this is very important as part of this joint learning effort, right, that they all benefit in the same way and not just one stakeholder or one actor is being prioritized above the others. So this neutrality of this place that we offer for joint learning, I think, is something that's powerful and that's why companies come to us and want to work with us. But still, of course, it could and always should be more, because the challenge is so gigantic not just talking about the sustainability, also the geopolitical challenges that we see these days are so gigantic that we definitely need to speed up and bring more people on board.
Susanne:And I think exactly that is bringing a bit of tailwind to the whole circular economy initiative, because I feel it's very tough to convince with the sustainability argument these days, unfortunately, but especially when it comes to, you know, onshore production and urban mining and resilient supply chains. I think that is then where people are becoming more aware and out of the blue budget is there to invest and innovate.
Susanne:So that is at least something positive. And where I'm now, I'm taking the after you've transitioned a bit to Circle Republic and now I'm transitioning again a bit more to the entrepreneurial side. I'm very excited to stand again on the other side of not trying to convince people to be part of this ecosystem as someone who builds this ecosystem, but rather now who wants to participate in these kind of ecosystems, and to change my lens a little bit now who wants to?
Susanne:participate in these kind of ecosystems and to change my lens a little bit. So, before we close, what is your vision like? Where do we stand in five years from now? Like with circular public, but also generally, maybe with with circular economy as a concept well.
Speaker 3:I would like to see the concept of circular economy to be understood as both a natural complement of combating our environmental challenges.
Speaker 3:It's not just climate. The whole resource side of our environmental challenges is often forgotten. Environmental challenges is often forgotten, and I would like to see climate mitigation and circular economy to be said in the same sentence when we talk about how do we combat this ecological crisis that we are in. At the same time, I want to see in the public debate circular economy as a easily understood solution towards these geopolitical challenges that we are facing, that 100% dependency on some states is not something that we take as given, but that circular economy is seen as a very logical solution to reduce these massive dependencies and that they make total business sense. And with this sort of like tailwind, I would like to see a circular republic scale. Of course, I would like to see here Munich, this whole Munich ecosystem, this manufacturing hub that we have in southern Germany, be seen as a hotspot for circular economy that attracts innovation, that attracts investors, that attracts great ideas, and that we were able to show how the implementation side of circular economy really functions.
Susanne:Yeah, I really share your hope for that and this. I think munich is set for something really exciting here, right, because unternehmertum really being the biggest entrepreneurship center in europe and we do have a lot of, as you say, also production here in southern germany, but we also do have in munich alone, we have microsoft absolutely apple and google building offices and amazon, um, so I think it's a europe-wide a really unique hub and startup mentality.
Susanne:So I'm really excited what that brings, also for the, for the area that we're here in suzanne. Thank you so much for this conversation and the three exciting years. Luckily, I will still kind of be also part of the Circular Republic team in the future, but it's been a journey and so thank you so much for the conversation and for this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for the ride, Karl.