Ready, Steady, Green!
In this podcast we are discussing challenges and opportunities of turning climate awareness to climate action. The episodes from Ready, Steady, Green! aim to inspire everyone to step up and step out in their lives and in their community, to make sustainability sustainable.
Ready, Steady, Green!
Why does your organisation's climate credibility matter? Simon King, senior partner at Edenseven
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Simon King argues how one can make sustainability the competitive edge of their organisation, why climate credibility matters for young people, if sustainability is primarily a management or a technological issue and why local authorities cannot afford to follow net zero.
Simon is a senior partner in Edenseven, a management consultancy firm that helps companies of all sizes achieve their sustainability goals and work towards net zero emissions. Edenseven provides sustainability solutions across a diverse range of industries in both the public and private sectors, for example focusing on buildings, electricity, supply chain, and transport. They develop effective strategies informed by data to ensure quantifiable results that deliver carbon reduction, cost savings, compliance with regulations, and enhanced credibility with stakeholders.
Highlights
7:50: About the 3 scopes of carbon emissions
12:25: about Science Based Targets Initiatives (SBTI)
17:40: how should we overcome the bareer that local authorities cannot afford becoming Net Zero
29:20: 78% of millennials, and it's even higher on Gen. Z will consider the climate credibility of the organisation they apply to work for
31:00: University of Roehampton launching both an MSc Business Analytics and a BSc Business Data Analytics programme
40:10: why nature based solutions need to be part of the toolkit
42:00: controversies around carbon offsets
43:10: Rapid Fire with letter 'H', the 8th letter of the alphabet:
- Heat pumps
- Heat waves
- Hydrocarbons
46:00: the wet bulb temperature and the human body
52:02: the biggest thing every individual can do is advocating for change
55:45: the analogy of mandatory seat belts and banning indoor smoking should encourage governments to mandate climate actions as well
58: 41: how carbon border adjustment (CBA) coudl contribute to people paying the full price of products and stop exporting carbon emissions to poorer countries
If you liked the episode, make sure to follow Ready, Steady, Green! on your favourite podcast channel, share the episode with your friends and invite others to listen. You can catch up with our earlier episodes and tell who would you like to hear next. Help us get the message through: We must act on sustainability now!
This was Gabor Sarlos, with Ready, Steady, Green!
podcasting: Ready, Steady, Green
news and views: LinkedIn
action: COPmitment
But even if the trees were planted across huge swaves of the planet, we would not be able to remove the scale of emissions that we currently pump out as a species. And therefore, everyone has to start with how do you reduce your emissions? And one of the things that I've regularly been told by local authorities, for example, is they can't really afford net zero. And until it's a legal obligation for them to do something about it, they're going to spend their monies on things that they do have a legal obligation to do. So the biggest thing that every individual can do is to advocate for change in whatever way they feel able. Because as I said earlier, the answers one of your questions is the people and enough to use problems.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the latest episode of Ready Steady Green. In this podcast, we are discussing challenges and opportunities of turning climate awareness to climate action. In other words, making sustainability sustainable. We will be focusing on young people as they are the ones who are and will be most affected by the global challenges of today and tomorrow, and they are the ones whose actions can actually change the current trajectory. This is not intended to be a specialist podcast to sustainability experts. Instead, it aims to broaden the discourse and help everyone realize how closely the topics of sustainability, climate, health, quality of life, equality of chances, innovation, technological development, mindset change are all connected. The episodes from Ready Steady Green aim to inspire everyone to step up and step out in their lives and in their communities. If you like what you hear, make sure to follow us. Share it with your friends and invite others to listen as well. You can also listen to our early episodes, and feel free to send us a message. Who would you like to invite next as our guest? Let me introduce our guest for today, Simon King. Simon is a senior partner in Eden7, a management consultancy firm that helps companies of all sizes achieve their sustainability goals and work towards net zero emissions. Eden7 provides sustainability solutions across a diverse range of industries, both in the public and private domain, for example, focusing on buildings, electricity, supply chain, and transport. The company develops effective strategies informed by data to ensure that results are quantifiable and deliver carbon reduction, cost savings, compliance with regulations, and enhance credibility with stakeholders. So welcome, Simon, to Ready Study Green.
SPEAKER_01Thank you very much. Great to be with you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for accepting our invitation. So was this a fair introduction about primarily the company, not that much about yourself. So how would you complete it with a few additions from about yourself?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it was a very fair uh introduction about the company. The one thing I would add about Eden 7, which may be useful for our uh later discussion as well, is that our focus is on how do we help businesses grow sustainably as well, because uh we have come to realize that for sustainability to be really embedded in organizations, they have to see commercial benefit as well as environmental benefit. If there's a choice, one or the other, unfortunately, that that can sometimes mean the commercial area takes precedent. And but actually, done well, sustainability generates growth. And so that's something which I think is is very important in in the business sphere. Um and you asked about me. I mean part of the reason for me saying that is my career has been varied, and I started life as an analytical chemist, for example. But the the main area that I ended up focusing on was procurement. So I became uh a senior leader in the procurement team at Coca-Cola and went through a range of different uh organizations uh sort of procurement director, chief procurement officer. I've got this sort of hard-nosed commercial background uh professionally, but combined with a deep passion personally for nature, for the environment, I grew up climbing hills, white water kayaking was part of the scout movement. I and I very much love the the whole aspect of nature and and everything to to do with it. Uh and so those two bits I think combine beautifully in what Eden Seven does about the commercial advantage, but with the environmental and and nature benefits. And I genuinely believe that both of those things are possible uh if it's done well.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's a very interesting thought, and I will come back to that uh in a moment. But before I do, I wanted to ask you a little bit about net zero. And the reason why I'm asking that is that perhaps this is one of the most overriding concepts that characterize today's thinking about how the country and how companies should be moving towards a more climate-friendly and sustainable direction. Now, if this is essential for fighting climate change, what does this actually mean for companies? Because I understand how and what it means for a country to balance its um output of greenhouse gases uh and what is being removed, but how can a company uh do something about it? How can it be measured and how can it be actually acted upon?
SPEAKER_01So primarily, whether it's a country or a company, the focus has to be on reducing emissions. The removal of emissions from the atmosphere is of course possible. Trees take carbon out of the atmosphere over time. Conceptually, there's the ability to remove emissions through technological means, still pretty unproven, but conceptually possible. But even if trees were planted across huge swathes of the planet, we would not be able to remove the scale of emissions that we currently pump out as a as a species. And therefore, everyone has to start with how do you reduce your emissions? And there are three kind of main areas of emissions. They get called scope one, scope two, scope three, but I'll try and explain them in normal language. So there's fossil fuels you burn yourself. So if you think of driving a car or using a gas cooker at home, and people will hopefully be able to identify with either of those things, you're burning a fossil fuel and you're creating emissions as a result. And that's what gets called scope one. So organizations can look at how they burn less fossil fuels. The next part is indirect emissions. So if you boil your kettle using electricity as most people do, or put a toaster on, or use an electric oven, or turn your lights on, charge your computer, etc. That electricity that you use, in many instances, will have been generated using fossil fuels. So you're indirectly using uh fossil fuels by using the electricity, and that's called scope two. And then we all buy things. So you go to the shops and buy food, or you go to online retailers, purchase things, they get delivered to your house. All of that buying and that stuff which comes into your life is what's called supply chain emissions, scope three emissions. So a business buys things in the same way as an individual, and so buying less or buying more responsibly so that you reduce the emissions from your supply chain is also incredibly important. And typically, that is 85% of a business's emissions, what they buy, they're scope three emissions, and so as with my old life of procurement, where you were looking at maybe 70% of the revenue of a business going on third-party spend, uh emissions are exactly the same. And so every organization to reduce or to move towards net zero, firstly, needs to quantify what their emissions are, measure it so they understand what it looks like, and then secondly, take action across those three areas, right? Fossil fuel use, electricity, and their supply chain.
SPEAKER_00It was interesting for me to realize uh how similar the situation of companies and individuals are in this uh respect, because the way how you describe this three-tier system, it can be applied both for individuals and companies, and and that is great. Now, uh one of the pieces of criticism I hear and I read about in terms of uh net zero is that it is connected to the year 2050, which is 25 or 24 years away, almost a generation away from now. Now, setting a target so much far in the future, doesn't this have the danger of actually delaying some of the actions that we should be taking? And here I'm referring to one of our earlier guests, uh Leo Rayman. He spoke about the concept of the meanwhile, the importance of the meanwhile. What he said was the period between now and by which we want to achieve something, how important it is for things to happen in the meanwhile as well. So, what is happening between now and 2050?
SPEAKER_01Firstly, uh, we can't wait until 2050. We have to be acting now. Now, 2050 is the target by which we need to be at net zero. And we are currently an incredibly long way from that. Global emissions are still rising. So we need to uh move from where we are today to that position. And 24 years is an incredibly short period of time to achieve that. Arguably an impossibly short period of time to achieve that. And so, as with any target in life, in business, you have to have a plan of how you get from where you are today to that future. If you decide to run the London marathon and do nothing other than turn up in April next year or even April this year, if you're incredibly brave and just start, chances are you're not going to succeed. And even if you do, you're gonna get an incredibly slow time and be in a huge amount of pain. If you, as a business, set a revenue target but have no plan as to how you're going to increase your sales or manage your costs, you know, you're simply not going to get there. Emissions are no different. And so there are lots of different mechanisms for how you can create that plan. One of the most well-known is what's called SBTI, the Science-Based Targets Initiative. And the Science-Based Targets Initiative expects businesses to set interim targets as well as that long-term target. So they would expect that a company reduces its its total emissions by a minimum of 90% by 2050, accepting there may be the ability to remove that last 10% or so through trees or technological means by the time we get there. But that they need to reduce their emissions by that 90%, but then also set realistic short-term targets. And they would expect that for a company that had a baseline year in 2023, 2024, they would expect that to have reduced by about 42% of emissions by 2030. Because again, as with most things, the easiest things can be done quite quickly. It's the much harder areas which take a little more time. So we need those interim targets, as you rightly say. Any business that went to its investors and said we'll deliver this by 2050 with no plan behind it financially, would be laughed out of the annual general meeting. And it should be exactly the same for emissions.
SPEAKER_00I understand what you're saying, but just to play the devil's advocate for a moment, do we have time until 2050? Will the planet actually manage until then or shouldn't we more brave and radical in terms of actually speeding up technological developments and so on to capture carbon and reduce the actual uh level of uh greenhouse gases in the air? Why aren't we more brave and bold? Or is this already a compromise between the various actors in the field and it cannot be pushed more than this?
SPEAKER_01So personally, I think we need to be incredibly more bold. Yes, we need to go much faster because every ton of emissions that we put out is then in the atmosphere, and it's the cumulative amount of emissions that matter. It doesn't matter whether the the emissions are put out this year or in five years' time, it's the total amount. So it's of course we we have to go faster. I'm I'm not suggesting anything other. Um businesses therefore need that plan to show how they're getting from where they are today to that that net zero 2050 point. The issue comes with well, what is it that they're going to do, and what is it that each of us could do? And there's a lot made of uh personal responsibility and personal actions, but there's also uh a whole structural question about how we live our lives. So you remember I said 85% of a typical company's emissions are what it buys. So let's just for the moment assume that the same is true for an individual. So you could get an electric car, which is one of the biggest things you can do to reduce your personal emissions. You could switch your gas heating to a air source heat pump and your gas cooker to an electric hub, an induction hub and oven, and they would make big differences. You could buy your energy renewably by getting a hundred percent renewable uh utility deal, or maybe even put solar panels on your roof. All of those things are indeed things we can do. But if nothing happens about the food that you buy, the things that you buy online, the uh decarbonising the production of your electric vehicle, the solar panels, etc., actually the emissions will reduce only a small amount, despite your individual actions. And therefore, as with an individual, it's also true for companies that they have to insist on system-wide decarbonisation. Their suppliers need to decarbonize as well. So, yes, we need to act very rapidly, and the great thing is the technology exists today in virtually all areas. You know, there are some technological developments that we need, removing emissions from the atmosphere would be great, incredibly energy intensive, and and therefore quite a challenge, but but that would be great. But what we can do now is address all of the areas where we currently use fossil fuels. The issue is less technological and more political. And I I mean that with a small P, not I'm not talking about any particular political party or or anything else, but that it's about the collective will of individuals, of organizations, businesses, but also public sector organizations, councils, governments, etc. And one of the things I've regularly been told by local authorities, for example, is they can't really afford net zero, and until it's a legal obligation for them to do something about it, they are going to spend their monies on things that they do have a legal obligation to do. One small example, UK-centric, but it shows how big a challenge exists in far more the collective will. We have to focus at least as much and probably more on how we persuade individuals, organizations, not only of the need to act, but of the benefit of acting. So I know, for example, on electric vehicles, that businesses can save between seven and twenty-six percent of their operating costs, depending on their fleet mix, by moving to electric vehicles. And yet, still only around 40% of vehicles that are sold to businesses are electric. And that's been true since 2019, roughly seven years ago. So making kind of organizations aware of this and then getting them to act is is crucial for us to go faster. So focusing more on that will rather than the skill, the technology.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you for that example that you brought along. And in fact, uh that illustrates a very clear case where something can be both sustainable and come at a lower cost because it uh brings lower operational cost for the company if they operate with a fleet of electric vehicles. What is the situation in those cases where someone, either individual or a company, would feel that looking for a sustainable solution comes at a premium price, they have to pay extra, it costs them more. So the two main benefits being both sustainable and at a lower cost do not go hand in hand. How can you operate in a situation like this? Or what does a consultant do if uh they come across the situation?
SPEAKER_01So the first thing I would say is there are many, many situations where you can get a commercial advantage. It's not just lower cost. You may be able to increase your revenue, you may be able to sell new services or goods as a result of a sustainable practice. You may be able to sell to new customers because you are operating more sustainability than your competitors. So we shouldn't be sort of blinkered in it's purely a cost saving uh you can you can have benefits in lots of other areas, and there's also costs which may not immediately be apparent. So there's a risk piece as well. Currently, no one really knows what's going to happen with fossil fuel prices. 20% of the global oil goes through the Straits of Hormuz. Currently, none of that is flowing. Now we don't know whether that will remain the case for a day, a week, a month, a year. Who knows? But already oil prices have increased dramatically, gas prices have increased even more so. And so there's a risk element to this as well, because renewable energy, electricity, for example, can be generated locally without that same energy security issue. So first thing is I just want to reiterate that there are so many areas and uh where you can save money, you can generate new revenues, you can gain additional customers, you can manage risk all by going down a sustainable route. And so any organization that doesn't believe that to be true has probably not been looking in the right areas or in the right way. First point. The second point is there will be some areas that are a cost. And so I would always look at it as part of a blended plan. So don't do the 60% of your emissions reduction, which is going to be commercially advantageous first, leaving the rest, and then go we've got 30 40%. Left, and that's all going to cost us a load of money, and we can't afford to do it, so we're just going to stop. What would make far more sense is do some of that hard-to-reach a bit alongside the stuff which is commercially advantageous, so that you get most of the benefit, but maybe not all of it, but address your whole emissions. So by having a plan which looks at your total emissions, you can structure it in such a way.
SPEAKER_00I see. You referred to examples, and I would love to hear one or two examples of which you are proud of personally, where you were part of uh something important happening, uh a major shift in a company, in an organization in terms of addressing this issue, lowering their carbon emissions, getting closer to uh uh net zero. Can you share any of these? Obviously, without names if that is the case, but just how does it happen?
SPEAKER_01One I can definitely talk about because I used to be employed by them before I moved to Eden 7 was when I was at Mighty as the procurement director, sustainability director, fleet director, um, and so had the pleasure of having uh all of those areas under my sort of direct control. And what I initially did at Mighty was with the fleet area was to realize that by electrifying our vehicles, we could save money. And I'll be completely honest and say initially that was the start point. There's a saving here, and so we should be looking at this. Very quickly, we began to realize how big the environmental benefit was with that. Mighty is a facilities management business, it looks after the buildings, the security, the cleaning, the engineering of large buildings and organizations. And so lots of the people had to move the tools of the trade from point A to point B or customer A to customer B. So lots of people driving around in vans and cars and emitting lots of emissions as a result. So electrifying uh the fleet was also going to significantly reduce our emissions. About 85% of our direct emissions were from the fleet, not the supply chain, but the direct emissions. So we started there, then suddenly realized that there was a much bigger opportunity because people and customers, potential customers, really liked the fact that we were taking action in that space and leading on fleet electrification, and so they were keen to talk to us when maybe they hadn't been willing to talk to us before. So there was potentially a new business opportunity. And so we were getting good coverage from customers, from media about what was happening, and it became apparent, well, there's actually an even bigger opportunity. We have the skills, the technology, the people to not only do it for themselves, but help their customers to decarbonize as well. And that could be their fleet, it could be their buildings, it could be buying renewable energy, it could be improving the biodiversity of their sites, all sorts of different interventions. And so developed a proposition called Plan Zero, which was MIT's go-to-market product around delivering sustainability solutions for uh its customers. And so it went from saving some money on some vehicles through to a full sustainability proposition for a group of customers. And that proposition, and MIT has now the largest electric fleet in the UK, well over 6,000 out of the 7,000 vehicles are battery electric. It has reduced its own emissions dramatically. It's faved hundreds of thousands of tons of emissions on behalf of customers. Uh, and it's also grown its share price significantly. One of the big strategic pillars was sustainability. And so it not only delivered significant environmental benefit, not only for its own business but for customer businesses, but also generated uh additional sales, additional revenue, high margin revenue, etc., which therefore resulted in improved valuations. So there's this huge uh opportunity where you can, as I said, do lots more than just save a few emissions here and there. So it was how do you scale that and make it much more impactful?
SPEAKER_00I see. Actually, this brings a question uh to understand better what the main driver for a company is when they commit themselves to working with with Eden 7 or working in general towards net zero, is it regulatory pressure or is it something coming for from their consumers who expect the company to do more? Is it because of these added benefits or combined benefits that they can expand their market or cut their costs? Is it perhaps the commitment of the management or or perhaps it is a combination of all of it? I don't know, but what what is the typical case?
SPEAKER_01In the intro, you talked about three C's, which cost, credibility, and compliance. They're similar, although not identical to the triple bottom line, which some of your listeners may be familiar with, which is people, planet, and profit. So either angle is fine. We typically see as Eden 7, it's one of or a combination of those three C's, which drive decision making. So cost is actually broader than cost, it might be revenue generation, but but it's around either improving the amount of money that's coming in or reducing the amount of money going out, which sustainability can do. So we've talked about it, could be as simple as electrifying your fleet to save money on fuel, it could be uh about generating more of your electricity on site and not having to pay transmission and distribution costs. There's there's lots of different ways of doing it, but there's a cost angle or growing revenue or growing your customer base. The second part on uh credibility is actually organizations that are taking a leadership position in this have a typically a better reputation, and with a whole bunch of different stakeholders. That could be that you're looking to sell into the public sector, and there are requirements if you're selling into the public sector. Most lenders have to have a minimum 10% weighting on social value, which includes the environment. Organizations have to have carbon reduction plans, and the government back in the day on some of the regulation uh need to or expect those uh requirements to to become more stringent as as time passes. So it could be that it could be with those, it could be your customers, it could be your employees. You know, we know that 78% of uh millennials, um, and I suspect it's even higher on Gen Z, will make it their decision about who they want to work for, in part on the credibility of the organization, on what the organization does, how it operates, not purely on what the job title is, what the salary is, etc. So if you're trying to impress your customers, your um stakeholders, your shareholders, your employees, then there's a big opportunity there. So there's a credibility angle that some organizations look at. And then the third part, which is far more common than I would ideally like, if I'm honest, but is that organizations purely do it for the compliance angle. They do it for the regulatory requirement. What does the legislation say, and what do we therefore have to do? And we will do what we have to do and no more. Um, and so there's a uh a requirement to meet certain legal commitments, certain legal uh targets. And so that's the the third reason that organizations take action. And given that that's so prevalent, it's why I also said about the the will more generally being so important for the political with a small pay element, so that organizations are obligated to go further.
SPEAKER_00I see. One of the things I notice in what you're saying, and also on uh your company's website, how important uh access and analysis of data is. Because without having data, probably you you cannot develop proper plans and propose action. Now, business analytics and data management is also very important now here at the university, and also we realize students are increasingly interested in this area. How do you find accessing data these days with companies? Is it something difficult? Is there a a standard way, a standard language, standard measurement uh practices in place, or is it something which is still pretty much changing currently and therefore uh one has to keep changing and keeping the pace?
SPEAKER_01Certainly so there isn't a standard, though. I mean, there's standard reporting requirements, so organizations have to report on certain metrics and in certain ways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01Um but but the where the data comes from and how it's captured and how it's then analyzed is is far from from standard. Um so you know we see huge variation when we provide a sustainability management platform as part of our services that enables companies to to measure and report on on a wide range of their sustainability, including emissions. And so we we see this regularly with clients. Some people will simply have the invoices for the fuel or the energy that they've bought at one extreme. At the other extreme, you'll have some organizations that have telematics in every single vehicle, every part of their building will have individual meters so they know exactly what the energy use is by part of their building, by floor of the building, by time of day, etc. So you can have a huge variation. And then when it comes to say supply chain, 85% of the emissions, as I've mentioned, uh it's the same challenge you have with a procurement lens. So some organizations will have a very detailed spend cube. They'll have taken what they spend with third parties, analyzed it in a lot of detail, really understand what's going where. Other companies will just have an accounts payable system or uh or even just a spreadsheet. And so the ability to take that hugely varied data and analyze it in a meaningful way to give crucially insight is is really important because without using that data, what far too many businesses do is head off in a particular direction that they think is important, but actually, if they'd started with a clear understanding of their start point, they probably would have prioritized other areas. And also that data allows you to understand where you can deliver the savings, etc. So the skills that we look for a lot in young people coming into our organization are exactly the ones you've just mentioned, that ability to understand complex data sets, to analyse that, to provide insight, to work with systems, including AI, increasingly, to analyze that, to give meaningful interpretation of that data back to customers with good recommendations around what they should be doing to have the biggest impact at the least cost or the biggest impact on emissions, whilst also maximizing the impact on their commercials.
SPEAKER_00Now, speaking of these organizations you just mentioned, in your experience, sustainability for them, is it primarily uh a management-related issue, or do they consider this a technological issue?
SPEAKER_01So clearly it's it's neither all one nor the other, right? So I'll answer where I think the majority of the challenge lies, um, which is with the management side, the people's attitudes bit, as you as you said. If I use another analogy, we're currently both sat with a computer open. Um if I said to you, uh, don't bother buying a computer, Gabor, you you don't need one, uh, because Moore's law says that the processing power of your computer is going to double every couple of years. And so, therefore, wait two years because you'll be able to get an even better one. So don't bother. Uh, and you believed that, you would end up never buying a computer. Because yes, the computing power is going to get better. So as soon as you buy one, within a month, two months, it's out of date. A better one exists. So I can't remember what number iPhone we're up to now, um, 18 or 19 or something.
SPEAKER_00Um, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But but you know, it's there's always a newer one, a better one, a faster one, a bigger one, more processing power. And yet people don't wait, they accept that they'll buy something, and yes, the technology will move on, but then they'll buy a better one in in the future. And businesses don't not buy laptops or mobile phones or any other technology because it's going to improve. So using that as a as an excuse for for not entering into the sustainability action area I think is pretty uh hard to believe that's the real reason. Of course, technology will improve. We'll get more efficient electric vehicles, we'll get more efficient solar panels, we'll uh hopefully be able to start removing some emissions from the environment at some point, etc. But but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing things now. What we should be doing now are the things which make sense now and for which the technology exists now. So therefore, from my perspective, it is all about the people and the people's attitudes. Now, why is that a challenge? And this is probably a slightly contentious view, but if you do some research and get some of your data students to have a look at it, um, it's pretty well understood and well demonstrated, but very little correlates with climate denialism. So people who say there isn't a problem with climate change and it's not an issue. It's not level of education, it's not level of intellect. You could think of a series of things, and very few of those correlate. The only thing that really strongly correlates is political persuasion. So where on that sort of a traditional left-right political spectrum one sits. And the more right wing you are, typically the more likely you are to be a climate denier. There are exceptions, of course, in all directions, but broadly that's the case. Now, if you look across the business community as a whole, and again, it's a very broad, diverse community. I'm not trying to lump everyone in one box, but broadly, senior, successful, well-remunerated executives with large long-term incentive plans, I would suggest are probably as a group more right-wing than the the mean of society. And so maybe there's there's a slight challenge there. That the the belief that actually this is something that we need to do collectively to address a problem which has uh an existential threat is one which kind of jars with some of their personal deeply held beliefs. Um, and I'm not for a minute trying to say where one should sit on a political spectrum or or pass any judgment on that, but I do think that there's a there's a challenge between the drive for growth, the expectation from shareholders that a business will continually deliver better returns and better returns and better returns, and often in quite a short-time horizon, and that, as you rightly said earlier, longer term lens of yeah, but we need to take action on something that will almost certainly not cause a problem to that CEO whilst they're sat in that chair. And and so there's a real balance there, uh, but it's it is absolutely a people and an attitudes issue rather than a technology issue.
SPEAKER_00I see. I have one more question before we move to another chapter, and that is the concept of nature-based solutions. And the reason why I bring this up, because I also noted this on your website. Um, and also there is quite a lot of words. Some of our earlier guests spoke about that, how important it is to learn from nature.
SPEAKER_01Well, nature-based solutions have to be part of it. Of course they do. Because we've talked a lot about emissions, but emissions is is not it. The impact on biodiversity, the massive reduction in pollinator species, etc., all of these are huge risks to humanity as well. It's not emissions, and that's it. Um heating planet does have a huge impact on many different species, and impact on biodiversity and a whole uh array of other areas as well. But so looking at nature has to be intrinsic to any sustainable uh solution. The only caveat I would put is it depends on what people mean by nature-based solutions. If they are saying, as well as reducing emissions, we need to also consider our sourcing activity to make sure we're not impacting biodiversity, then and hopefully investing in solutions which would improve biodiversity and uh reforestation with native species and so on, then of course that's that's a really fantastic thing. Sometimes people mean when they say nature-based solutions, don't worry about what you do about emissions, we can just plant some trees. And that's what they are actually getting at. And so nature-based solutions can be used in the the worst kind of greenwashing, where you can do whatever you want and emit as much as you like, uh, as long as you tick the I'd like to make this spend sustainable box when someone somewhere will go and plant a couple of trees, which you're reassured will will resolve the problem for you. Um, you know, and I've seen this with the carbon credits market. You know, if you want to go and buy offsets for your emissions, um, you can go and buy gold standard offsets, which is sort of meant to be the best, for a few pounds dollars per ton, uh, which is an order of magnitude, if not more, below the real price uh for that carbon, probably 20 times less than the real price for that carbon. And so if if that's what people mean by nature-based solutions, then it's greenwashing and and and shouldn't be engaged with. But we absolutely have to not only look at emissions, but also things like biodiversity, and and so in that regard, yes, there is absolutely crucial.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Thank you for this explanation. Now, in the next part of uh our uh session, I would like to invite you to a little game. This is our eighth episode now, and I would like to bring you a couple of terms or even just one word, all starting with the eighth letter of the alphabet, which is letter H, actually. So I'm curious to hear from you in maximum one minute each. What associations these uh bring to you in relation to sustainability? Okay, I will I will share three different terms with you, one after the other. So you're ready?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, let's go for it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so the first one is then what ideas associations come to your mind in relation to heat pumps.
SPEAKER_01Heat pumps are a huge benefit for uh moving away from the dependence on oil, gas, and other fossil fuel types of heating. So I have one in my own house. Uh my house is a little cotton. Since it was built in 1827. So the you can't have heat pumps in old buildings, nonsense. It works incredibly well. What they're very, very good at is providing continual low grade heat. So it keeps it at a good temperature the whole time. They're not fantastic at kind of spikes. So if you want the heater room up incredibly quickly, then they're not as good. But they're incredibly efficient at just keeping the temperature really nice and steady. And you've got there's lots of different types of two main sources, air source and ground source. Air source effectively is taking the energy from the air and ground source from the ground. And they're magic. They're basically like a phrygian reverse. So even when it's below zero outside, the heat pump can extract the heat from the air to warm your house up. Now that is really bore people with the thermodynamics if they want to understand it, but I'm just going to go with magic.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. So you're an advocate for them. Great. My second term I wanted to share with you are heat waves.
SPEAKER_01Sitting in the UK in March, heat waves is something that sounds quite nice, isn't it? We've just had huge amounts of rain for long periods. But the reality is that heat waves are going to become more frequent, more intense, and more destructive. And they already are doing those things. And there are going to be a huge range of impacts, but two of the biggest are on crop yields. So the ability to actually produce crops reliably, because without irrigation, many of the crops will die. So there's a real issue around food security. And as ever that will hit the least wealthy parts of the globe most. And the other one is actually the ability to live in certain places. So there's something called the wet bulb temperature, which is the temperature it shows on a thermometer of which the bulb is wet, and that's why it's called that, which is basically demonstrates whether the human body can cool itself. So if that temperature gets above 38 degrees, the human body is unable to cool itself because it's hotter outside than inside. And however much you sweat, you will not be able to reduce your temperature. Therefore, without the ability to get inside, somewhere that's cool, air conditioned, you will die. Not immediately, two seconds, but pretty quickly. And there are large parts of the world that are already very close to that, including places like Florida in the US, large parts of the Middle East, large parts of Pakistan, and therefore people will not be able to work outside for large parts of the year. If you particularly in a developing economy is hugely detrimental to life. And if you're having to run lots of air conditioning, you can probably see the issue that that might cause from a point of view. So a huge, huge issue.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Thank you. And the last one is hydrocarbons, and I'm looking at this specifically from the angle of um net zero and the persistent use of hydrocarbons. What what is your view on this?
SPEAKER_01So the short answer is stop burning stuff. I mean, hydrocarbons are basically the any fossil fuel, and any fuel we burn, like petrol, diesel, natural gas, etc. Great branding, by the way, calling it natural gas. That's very clever, isn't it? Um, but uh anything that we burn like that, all of those, the the hydrocarbon, the carbon bit, when you burn anything, you may remember the fire triangle, you need oxygen, air for things to burn. The carbon, the oxygen come together, and that's what creates the the CO2, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is the primary greenhouse gas. So anything that we burn like that will cause emissions to rise and will cause global heating. The simple answer is we need to stop burning stuff.
SPEAKER_00Referring to some of the things you said earlier, it is possible to pay attention to every aspect of life and in every step, but it is not possible to fully stop or exclude the use of hydrocarbon. And I don't necessarily mean in transport, for example, or heating, but for example, the use of plastics, what I find it is so overwhelming. It it is everywhere in whatever we buy, we use for so many elements of our life, they are there and they are all based on hydrocarbons, aren't they? So it is not an easy task.
SPEAKER_01And uh the stop burning stuff is is where the main impact is. But you're right, plastic's another big one, fertilizer. One of the big issues we're seeing currently actually with the the Middle East conflict is that there's this huge issue with getting fertilizer produced and distributed. So a lot of fertilizer comes from from there as well. So yeah, there's there's many, many other issues to do with hydrocarbons, but the the easiest ones to resolve and the most uh pressing are where we light it and turn it into energy, basically. So through transport, through heating, through those electricity generation, those areas are the ones which are the technology certainly exists to remove that that need today. In some of the other areas, it's there are things you can do. I mean, I used to work for Coca-Cola, as I said, and so um they uh looking at alternative methods of producing plastics um from from other sources other than hydrocarbons, looking at the recycling. I worked for a big dairy, uh, and looking at how you actually improve curbside recycling and making sure that milk bottles enter a closed loop, etc. So but yeah, primarily the most emissions and the thing we can fix now is where we burn those hydrocarbons.
SPEAKER_00And I think transport and heating are two main elements which affect everyone and where everyone has an individual choice as well to some extent. What is the means of transport they use and and what is the way how they generate heat or cooling, perhaps, but definitely heat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, over a third of the emissions in the UK, use that as the example, as we're both sat in the UK currently, uh, over a third are to do with transport. Um so about 27% is the actual transport, about 8% is the upstream refining associated with the fuels which are then used in the transport. So that's by far the biggest single area, and it can be addressed clearly through a range of different solutions. It's not just in electric vehicles, there's also mass transport and a public transport type solutions, there's active transport, walking, cycling, uh, etc., as well as electrification. So it's not just uh electrify everything, but uh that's certainly a pretty good first step for any organization that's still operating ice, as they get called, internal combustion engine vehicles.
SPEAKER_00All right. Now, in the last part of the podcast, I would like to invite you to a little bit of daydreaming and thinking about the future, and I'm appealing to your role as a consultant. So the first question is that in an ideal world in the future, what should individual people doing be differently if they wanted to act on climate change? Do you have any insights, suggestion, advice?
SPEAKER_01So the biggest thing that every individual can do is to advocate for change in whatever way they feel able. Because, as I said earlier in answer to one of your questions, it's a people and an attitudes problem. And the only way that change happens is if enough people advocate for it. So that may be that they want to choose how they vote, it may be that they want to consider other forms of advocacy, peaceful protest, contacting members of parliament. It may be that they want to talk to their employer or their education uh provider to understand what they can do to improve the sustainability of their organization. There are lots of things that people can do, but primarily advocate because it has to have that system-wide change. And it's important to remember that the idea of a personal carbon footprint was developed by BP, right? So we have to be a little bit conscious of whether there may have been an agenda there. Uh so uh the just taking action about one's own personal footprint is of course great and would never discourage anyone from doing that. But the primary thing is advocacy.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Now that leads easily to the second big group I would like to ask you, and that is companies. So, in an ideal world, what should businesses be doing differently if they wanted to act on climate change?
SPEAKER_01In an ideal world, I would love businesses to be doing it because it's the right thing to do. In in a completely fantasy world, right? This is the right thing to do, it's an existential threat to humanity, therefore we will act on it. In a slightly more real world, but still slightly idealistic. I would like organizations to simply judge sustainability on the same basis as they do any other business investment or business decision. I cannot think of any other example where I could almost without doubt save an organization between 7 and 26%, for the numbers I gave earlier on fleet electrification of a budget for a company in a particular area, and that they wouldn't have done it seven years after that became the case. I'm sure there are some examples, but I can't think of any off the top of my head, having spent a large part of my career saving large corporations money as was my career as a director, chief procurement officer. I really struggled to think of them, and yet, as I said as well, only just over 40% of new vehicles that are sold to businesses are currently electric. So just judge sustainability on the same basis you do everything else and don't be prejudiced against it.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. And the last group are governments. What should governments be doing differently if they really wanted to act on climate change?
SPEAKER_01They should obligate people to act. I would love that they didn't have to, but I see too many examples where organizations of of both public and private nature don't take action because there is no obligation on them to do so.
SPEAKER_00You would welcome a a stricter or more prescriptive uh line of uh government actions in terms of uh working towards net zero working towards a sustainable future, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean if we use uh an analogy again, a lot more people used to die in vehicle accidents than do today. Primarily as a result of two significant areas. One mandating the wearing of seat belts, and two, mandating safety testing of vehicles, both of which were government mandates at the time hugely controversial. I remember my grandfather being absolutely apoplectic about the idea that the government was forcing him to wear a seatbelt and etc. But but it was a mandate, and now nobody even thinks about it. And for a start, if you try and drive electric seatbelt and the little annoying beeping noise in your car will make you do it very quickly, but it's just habit. Um and so yeah, the things which seem crazy at the time or really difficult, people accept incredibly quickly. Now, another example would be banning smoking in public spaces, for example. If you talk to people probably of the age of many of your students, the concept of people being allowed to smoke in a an indoor public space, let alone in the office, as as you know, was the case, as we can probably both remember, seems absolutely crazy. That was the case only a relatively short period ago. So that need to mandate to drive change is well established in a whole bunch of areas. I've just made a couple of examples. And so sustainability is far more of an existential threat than motor accidents or smoking in enclosed spaces. And so we should absolutely be taking a greater level of mandating action.
SPEAKER_00I fully get what you're saying. And in fact, it would require, I think globally, in most countries of the world, it would require a much more responsible attitude from governments towards the real future, stepping beyond the four-year cycles or five-year cycles of whatever, and being ready to, you know, fight a battle and then make a decisive action on uh making uh a more stringent approach to many of these things that lead to the current situation. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01It's probably a separate conversation, but there are some really interesting things that governments could do, which are not actually as as as impactful as many people think. But uh we could spend ages talking about that, so maybe at some other point we can have a chat about that. But uh there's lots of very low negative impact, high positive change to the environmental uh side, which uh things which which can be done.
SPEAKER_00Can you bring an example?
SPEAKER_01Really simple one would be what's often known as CBA or uh carbon border adjustment or carbon border taxation, where you can actually start to uh in the same way that you in many cases levy tariffs on imports, have uh an element of that which is based on the carbon of the producing economy, and in that way you avoid what often happens, which is the offshoring of emissions. So rather than things being produced in efficient low carbon economies, they get produced in inefficient high carbon economies because it's cheaper, often for reasons unrelated to the emissions, it might be labour or so on. But that means that the whilst we might save emissions in the UK, again as an example, if it's moving to somewhere in Southeast Asia with incredibly high emissions, the planet doesn't care whether the emissions have been produced in the UK or in Southeast Asia. And so that all it's doing is is moving the problem out of sight. And so if you can start to adjust for that, then it actually encourages the production in in low carbon jurisdictions as one example.
SPEAKER_00Well, that is a great deal, and it aligns beautifully to what one of the earlier guests uh spoke about, and that is making the consumer pay the full price of any product, so the full price concept where also the ecological and social impact of any production activity is taken into account. And that would be the really responsible um attitude from everyone, because that again is not uh pushing the cost somewhere else or or making someone else in another country on another continent pay the price for the production, but make everyone realize what actually a product really costs. So um yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And done really well, you can also then redirect some of those funds to help the more disadvantaged in society to make sure that they're not negatively impacted as well. So but yeah, it's uh it's a very similar principle.
SPEAKER_00There we are very quickly, we have put together a new model. So uh let's work on this further in our uh perhaps in a later discussion. So thank you very much, uh Simon, for uh joining us today and and sharing with our audience uh all these lovely insights, both from the business world as well as uh uh your thoughts on the individual behavior change that is needed. I loved your thought about the need for advocacy, which can start at the family dinner table and go as far as building a community of likewise uh like-minded uh individuals in the neighborhood, and go even you know, knocking on the door of your MP and letting them know what you think and what they should go for. So thank you very much for joining and thank you everyone for listening to our podcast today. If you liked it, make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform, share it with your friends, and invite others to listen as well. You can also listen to our earlier episodes, and feel free to send me a message who would you like to be invited next? Help us get the message through. We all need to act on sustainability now. This was Gabor Charlotte with Ready, Steady, Green. Bye for now.
