Welcome, my name is Frank Boons. I'm a Professor of Innovation and Sustainability at the University of Manchester, and I'm here together today with Kené Umeasiegbu. And he's head of climate change and sustainable agriculture at Tesco. A multinational grocery and retailing company, and we are here to talk about ecological sustainability. So this is the sustainable development that focuses on natural ecologies and we are particularly interested in how ecological sustainability is managed at a company like Tesco's. So welcome, Kene. >> Thank you. >> And maybe you can start by telling us a little bit more about yourself. So how did you grow into this role of Head of Climate Change and Agricultural Sustainability at Tesco? >> Thanks Frank. As you said I head up the climate change sustainability agricultural team at Tesco. I've been at Tesco two years now. And prior to that, I worked as a consultant for about five years in a number of consultancies including the Carbon Trust. My focus was always around sustainability consulting. And I advised the number of large multinational companies and smaller companies as well. Around how to drive some of the initiatives around environmental sustainability but also around social and ethical issues like human rights, child labor, and so on. Prior to consulting, though, I spent quite a big chunk of my career at first Cadbury Schweppes, the group, and then Cadbury. Eventually, the Schweppes business was sold and I worked in a number of areas for the global organization. Mostly again, around sustainability, social sustainability, ethical trading and human rights again for security and so on. But also worked in the environment side of things. Especially, around embedding sustainability into how business decisions are made. Prior to Cadbury, I also worked for a charity, a non-profit organization, a youth leadership organization called AIESEC. I worked in a number of countries in The Netherlands for AIESEC in Brazil, in Estonia and in Nigeria where I'm from. And before all of that I started geology in the 90s, and majored in hydrogeology. And it was actually while I was studying as a geologist in Nigeria that I got exposed to the environmental impacts of oil drilling off the coast of Nigeria and the Niger delta. And that led to a reappraisal, a reassessment of my preferences and passions and I moved from the focus of natural geology to hydra geology and that sent me on the path that I'm on now. And while I was at Cadbury we also did a part time Master's program at the University of Barth. Studying especially corporate responsibility, how do you take all these ideas of sustainability and corporate responsibility and make them effective in business? And that's a time in my career where I could reflect on my practice, I was already working at Cadbury driving some of these initiatives. And so, it was a cause that enabled me the space to think what I was doing in real time and reflect how I could improve it. So I suppose all of that together is what I might be reflecting in our conversations today. >> Okay, and can you tell us a little bit more about your particular passion for sustainability and also bringing that into business, so to speak. Because from geology to being a manager of Tesco that might seem like a big leap to some people. >> Yeah, so I think, to the points I mentioned, the experience of the Niger Delta in Nigeria and knowing what was happening in the Niger Delta. In terms of Nigeria as a nation needed resources, the money that came from oil to fund a lot of what was going on, a lot of infrastructure, education, healthcare, all those things. So we depended as a nation on all revenues as a country. However, one couldn't ignore the enormous impact it was having on the people on whose land the oil was coming from. There were minority communities in the Southern most part of Nigeria. So as a political group they didn't really have the numbers to win votes at a federal level. And so they could broadly be ignored, and under the military dictatorship we had at the time I was growing up, they were largely ignored. And that had knock-on effects that led to kind of unrest and eventually terrorism in that part of the Niger Delta affected the social fabric of this communities. The schools didn't function, the environmental commission meant people couldn't go to work and so on. And so, it led me to a questioning of kind of understanding how it is that something that could be positive like generating revenues for a country. Could also have such, I suppose I can use the word devastating effect on communities. And that's interplay between the environment, human rights, community rights and, of course, political stability became a theme I wanted to explore which is what led me to working for a non profit organization. And I chose to work in developing or emerging economies, just to understand a little bit more how other countries are managing that sort of transition. I became convinced of the role that business must play in resolving some of these things. And I think one of the most powerful arguments that persuaded me of the role of business was actually a talk I heard where a business leader himself was arguing business was neither saint nor sinner. It wasn't really interested in destroying, one could argue, as many businesses are not interested in creating social value. They're interested in growing shareholder value. And of course, the individuals in business would like to do that in the most responsible way they can. And sometimes they need help to find out what this most responsible way is and the most practice way to do it while also growing shareholder value. And so I decided that business was probably the place I could make my best impact and therefore I joined Cadbury after I left the charity and followed that career path today. >> Okay, maybe we can move now to Tesco, to talk a little bit about how that particular company is dealing with questions of ecological sustainability. And maybe we can start by you outlining, what are the particular challenges that on that topic, for Tesco's. >> Yes, so I suppose, Tesco is a big company. It's the UK's biggest supermarket chain. It's the world's second largest supermarket by revenue. And so, and of course, I suppose that brings with it an enormous opportunity. It also brings with it some challenges. One of the biggest challenges is that we are a retailer. We don't own farms. We don't own manufacturing facilities. We actually depend on another person, people in our supply chain to produce even own label tester products. So in a way, not many companies have the reality that the label that goes on their products is attached to their products by somebody else done in the supply chain That means that we have a responsibility for the brand. But sometimes we have only influence on the suppliers down our supply chain. So that kind of brings with it the next type of challenge, which is because we are a brand that people interact with very often, we're not like an obscure manufacturer of a zipper that goes in you trouser. We relate to people on something that they care about a lot, which is the food they eat, the food they give to their loved ones. And they have an interaction with us every week, some every day or a few times a week. That means we're a brand they recognize, a brand they have some kind of a very emotional connection with. And, I think it's been the case that, probably in the past 10 to 15 years, the view in the UK, which is our biggest market, of Tesco, has been that Tesco has become too big. It's affecting society a little bit negatively in terms of opening up in high streets, in terms of impact that it's perceived to have on suppliers and so on. And I think there's also a tension between society wanting the most efficient, and therefore the cheapest, food delivered to them. And also a perception that that might lead to compromising of quality which, by the way, is not the case at Tesco. But these are perceptions that we have to deal with, and then it affects almost everything the company does. And so there's a presumption that Tesco would always find the-, so in a way efficiency's then viewed as finding the shortcut. That Tesco would always find the shortcut to things, and therefore we start from a presumption of not wanting to do the right thing and then become targets of campaigns and criticisms that can make the business a little bit too defensive, and therefore going out and saying, here's what we're doing right and so on and so forth. So these are probably two of our biggest challenges. The fact that we don't have influence all through the tiers of our supply chain and the fact that there is probably a perception that Tesco is aggressive and ruthless. And overlay that with the third one, which is the diversity of issues we have to deal with. When I worked at Cadbury, what was most important to us, above everything else, was cocoa. Maybe some of the milk that comes into our products, some sugar. But if you list all the products, all the raw materials we sourced at Cadbury, there were less than ten. Nuts, raisins, all of that. When you think about Tesco, we have thousands and thousands of lines, each of them with complex production systems. And so, as a business, we look at it and say, gosh, where do we start? Do we start with the beef, or the tomatoes or the carrots? And we have a supply chain that spreads around the world. And those three things, I think, can be a little bit overwhelming for the business to decide where exactly are we going to start in addressing environmental sustainability. >> Okay I understand what you're saying. You're sort of pointing out sort of the critical issues from the management perspective, so to speak. I'm also interested in taking one step back and simply asking the question, what are the issues in terms of affecting natural equalities? So what is actually your impact on the natural environment, where you think that your efforts should be in terms of addressing that. >> And so about two years ago actually, we took another look at the way we've laid out our environmental sustainability agenda. And we started by asking ourselves at the time, as a business, we had a commitment to reduce our impact on the environments. That is still our commitment. But we want to do more than just reduce. We want to make a positive contribution where we can. But starting with that, we asked ourselves well, what are the environments we have an impact upon? So similar to the question you've just asked. And we laid out five environments that we think accounts for 80, maybe 90% of all the impacts we have. And the first is the climate. We have an impact on the climate. But through our own operations, and I can go into more detail on that later on, but also through our supply chain. We have an impact on the marine environment. So the sourcing of seafood, for instance, tuna being the most visible that people know about. But the sourcing of all seafood have an impact on the marine environment. We have an impact on rainforests and, particularly, four global drivers of deforestation that are relevant to us, which are timber, soy, palm oil, and Amazonian beef. There are the global drivers, which are not that relevant. For instance, mining is not that relevant to us because we're not a mining company. And there are the regional drivers of deforestation like cocoa or tea and so on. But these four are the global drivers, the ones that proportionally drive the biggest impacts. So we do have an impact on forests. We also have an impact on farm lands, or we have an impact through agriculture especially in places where agriculture is no longer happening, in the rainforest for instance. So agriculture in the Mediterranean region, in the UK here, or in Northern Africa or elsewhere in Africa. We have that. And then we also have our impact on freshwater bodies. So those are the five environments. The climate, forests, marine, agriculture, and freshwater bodies. That's the kind of environments or ecosystems, we think, if we address, if we get it right, we'll be addressing at least 80 or more percent of our environmental impact. >> Okay, so two questions sort of related to that, I would say. One question is, how do you actually make an assessment like that? And so how do you come to the conclusion that those are the main areas where you're impacting? Another question is, given you are almost talking about- >> Everything. >> Earth, yes. So how do you make decisions or within your company, I'm sort of guessing that you're not the only one making the decisions, so how do you, as a company make decisions about how to prioritize among all those impacts? >> Yeah, and so to your first question, how did we map out these impacts? I think a number of ways. First we went out and spoke to experts. So some were friends, some were critical friends, some were opponents. So some of the organizations would come to us through a campaign or through criticism and say you're not paying enough attention to this matter. And I touched on tuna as an example. Greenpeace led a campaign against a number of companies, including retailers, around the sourcing of tuna and gave us a depth of insights into the issue that we didn't have previously, and we listened to it, we engaged with them and said we need to understand this a little bit more. We looked at what the science was saying and so on. And we mapped where does tuna sit in the wider marine sustainability strategy we have. We ourselves put climate change on the agenda. Previous leadership had already identified climate change as one of the most profound environmental problems that humanity was facing and it would have an impact on our security of supply and the way we live and operations and so on. So we already put that on the map ourselves and we learned a lot from conversations. For instance, we focused a lot of our strategy around the output of the Stern Review when that came out in the northeast. So, that's another example. We also got, both a combination of ourselves and industry as a whole, put the question of forests and deforestation on the map. We're members of the Consumer Goods Forum, which is a forum of big manufacturing and retail businesses in the consumer goods sector, working together. And one of the earliest work, that that group did, in sustainability, was actually done at a time when Tesco and Unilever together were leading the sustainability thread or pillar of the CGF. And there we. >> Can you tell what a CGF is? >> Consumer Goods Forum, and under that group, we mapped deforestation as one of the environmental impacts industry as a whole was having. So that's an example of one that became an area of focus based on how we've all agreed as an industry. >> And then again the question, so how do you decide as an industry that that is an important topic? Is that sort of driven by resource scarcity, or what are sort of the? >> So, a lot of it is driven by research. There would be a lot of researchers speaking to different organizations directly, saying, we think that, looking into the future, this is an issue that's going to affect you. This is the impact you're having today. Some of it would be what our own internal experts as organizations are saying. These are some of the issues that we see when we go to source these issues. Or it could also be sometimes government policies in parts of the world that say, we're paying attention to the long term impact of some of these things. So it's a combination of factors, our own internal expertise, the expertise of campaigners and policy makers and so on. All of that feeds into a deeper understanding of exactly what the issues are. And then deciding exactly what our response should be. So a number of sources leads to that now. >> Yeah. >> The impacts on agriculture an interesting one because that's not Gwanda, there hasn't been any campaign activity around necessarily at least targeting ours. But we went out on our own, and went out to more then 30 different stakeholders from academia, from all the businesses, NGOs, campaigners, and spoke to them and said, what are the issues we ought to be thinking about around agriculture? How might agriculture, at least our environmental issues in agriculture, effect our business in the medium, long term and also what impact might we be having on the environment through agricultural activities in the short, medium and long term. And that's enabled to scope out and shape an environmental strategy around agriculture. And the same with fresh water. So it's a combination of ways that we get to map out what we should be focusing on, academic input, campaigners, policy makers, our own expertise and our own research and so on. >> And to what extent, [COUGH] sorry. And to what extent do consumers also play a role in that, and how do you take their sort of opinion or position into account? >> Yeah, absolutely consumers of course, I suppose they’re hard about business if we don’t get it right for our customers and our consumers we really wouldn’t have a business. Now, often consumers don’t get into the details, the scientific details of the issues. But they tell us what their values are. They tell us they want a company that's responsible. They want to buy products that doesn't require them to compromise their own values. They tell us they don't want to feel guilty having bought their favorite products. They might not have a solution. They might not be able to say this is what we think, therefore you should do. But they look to us to say, well, you're the big company. You have the resources. We'd like you to address this. And some of the ways that campaigners try and bring a sharp focus on a particular issue, is by actually persuading consumers or customers to write to businesses like ourselves, to indicate to businesses like ourselves, that this is one issue that they'd like us to address. And so they of course play a strong role in helping us find the ones that are of course top of the agenda. We don't however wait for customers or consumers to tell us. We know that they expect us to be addressing these issues already. So we don't wait for them to tell us that food waste for instance Is a massive issue before we start dealing with it. But when we choose our strategy, when we decide what it is we do, we also go out and ask customers. We run a customer insight and research programs to check with them, are we addressing it in the right way? Are we getting to the points that matter to you. So in that sense they act as a powerful sounding board for us and sometimes they are a key stakeholder in pointing us to the issues that they really want us to address. But if we keep our strategy just on the things that we've been campaigned against or the things that customers have pointed out to us, that might be quite irresponsible, because customers don't have as much insight into our own supply chain as we do, as our experiences give us. >> Okay. And by orientation of the different impacts, can you tell us a little bit more about that? >> Yes. So where we start as a business is actually, again, we take that kind of more than one input source. Where we started the business is to look at the biggest products that we sell. So we charge the ones that we are big in, the ones we sell the most, the ones customers want the most. Or the ones that have the biggest environmental impact. And so one way we do it is to look at our, if I take a number, like top 20 products that our customers buy every week, and that would tell you that these are the ones that we sell the biggest volumes. And so, say bananas and milk. We'll sell more of it than we'll sell, mangoes as an example. And so if we're going to focus our resources, we'll focus it on those bids where we're big in. That means we'll have a big influence, because we'll be a big player with our suppliers, and even if it's an industry issue that we need to resolve we can convene the whole industry, so that's a starting point. We also pay attention to products or supply chains that might pose a risk to our brand or reputation as a business. So we listen to the ones that customers have expressed a strong interest in. We go with that as well, we include that in our considerations. Now, we also look at the ones that campaigners say to us, this is not an issue today, but it will be tomorrow. You need to pay attention to this, and so we add that into the mix. When you've got all of those, the top products in your supply chain, the guidance or the directions given to you by customers or campaigners, you start to get a map of the products you're looking at, and those products take you to the environments on which they have an impact. >> Okay, and to what extent is that complicated by the fact that you're an international company? Because, I mean some of the considerations for prioritizing issues, they will be global, but many of them will also be local, or sort of specific to local markets. So, can you tell us a little bit about how you deal with it? >> Yeah, it can complicate issues. Because you have a number of there are cultural issues to bear in mind. Sometimes you have that, some of the issues that the UK consumer cares a lot about, would actually play an active role in finding a resolution. You go to some other markets. It's not really on their radar. You go to some other markets and it's not something they're aware of. And so looking at it purely from a market or customer driven perspective in that sense would therefore mean that we'll address it in the UK is an example. The other bit is actually the doing. Again, in some countries either the law or the enforcement of the law is weak or lacking. And that means that we find it's a little difficult to stand back and stay as long as our suppliers act in accordance with the law everything will be all right. And therefore we have to work more closely with the suppliers to give more support, we have to track and audit a little bit more actively to make sure that the standards we hold ourselves to are also applied in all our supply chains, even if the local law or expectation are not actually demanding that level. So yes, it adds a bit of complexity, if you think about it, but that's true for any major multinational corporation we have to deal and balance all these different realities. >> Yeah, I know that I understand. It's just a question of how do you actually deal with it? >> Yeah. Okay, maybe we can now go to like a more specific project that your company has been engaged in. And tell us a little more about it because up until now even though you have given us a lot of information it's still quite sort of generic I would say. >> Yes, yes. >> So maybe you can give an example of a project that you have been involved in. And how that exactly sort of made a contribution, but also tell us a little bit about sort of the things that maybe were difficult in that project. >> Yes. Yes. Okay. I'll give you an example of it, [INAUDIBLE]. But first of all just to point out that when we speak to our customers about trust and responsibility and all of these issues. Some of what we hear from them actually gives us a strong indication that they don't really, of course it is important to them but it's not as important to them what we do on the periphery of our business. So, they might see projects as something we do having made a profit. They might see it as the way we spend our profits and that's an interest to them, of course. But actually what's more interest, of a bigger interest for them, is how we make our money in the first place. How do you run your business? Not necessarily a project on the side. So if they feel that a company, for instance, is not paying the right taxes, it doesn't matter how many streams and rivers we clean up, they still wouldn't think you're a responsible business. So if I call it that, therefore. Our first biggest project actually, is to go into the heart of the business and make sure that sustainability is woven into the way we source, the way we run our businesses and so on. And that's an ongoing job, it's a task that we have to look at the standards, at specifications we give to our suppliers to say here are the standards we expect you to follow in terms of soy or palm oil, maybe. That's probably one example. We made a commitment, some years back, to source 100% of the palm oil that goes into our products from sustainable sources. And the timeline was December 2015. And so that's kind of an industry wide commitment. Now, palm oil is an interesting one. You're unlikely to go into a store in Europe and buy palm oil, yet you buy it all the time. It's in the shampoo that you buy. It's in the spreads and the margarine that you use. It's in biscuits. It's in everything. Yeah? And therefore, that's one that we know that it's in everything and that it has an impact but the average customer might not know. So that's one that we took upon ourselves that we need to get this sorted. And so we started working with other businesses on moving our supply chain, our entire supply chain all through to sustainable palm oil. We track every year their performance. We put it in our specifications to say that from this year to that year we expect to see you grow the volume and the ratio system of palm oil you use. We're trying to find out if there are any problems. If there are systemic problems from source we go in there with the rest of industry and try to resolve it and last count I think we had met just before the deadline was the last time I checked, we'd met about 90% sustainable physical supply chain. And by that physically segregated as well as mass balance. And the rest of it we met by supporting the growth of the sustainable palm oil industry by using green certifications, as other companies do as well. So that's one example of a project. But its success lies actually not just in running a project where we give people a range of businesses that have sustainable palm oil and the rest doesn't, yeah? It's actually looking at how do we transform all our supply chain to achieve that goal we have bananas is another one. >> A bit maybe a little bit deeper into that example of palm oil so, because one of the things that I hear you say is that it's sort of, it's starts almost with an industry agreement. Okay, this is something we're going to tackle. >> In that case, yes. >> Yes. So, to what extent is that a necessary condition almost for taking up something like that? Or is it also something that you could do as an individual company? >> Yeah. The banana example is a goal that we've chosen as an individual company. But I'd probably stop and say a little bit more on the palm oil. The reason that's quite important is that if you think the impacts of palm oil as an example is in the impacts it has on modern and ancient forest in Asian, Indonesia and Malaysia and so on. And while Tesco is a massive supermarket, and has a massive impact. Actually, when you look at it in the scheme of things, we're quite small. In our consumption out of Indonesian or Malaysian forests. Even if we take, up to 10%, and I don't know the number. Of palm oil from Malaysia there's no point getting that 10% of forest in pristine form, while the rest of us, we're surrounded by wasteland. So actually the gravity, the enormity of the issue, requires that all of us actually act together to address those issues or to avoid the tragedy of the commons. And so that's why palm oil is one example of deforestation generally is an issue that's big enough that just sorting our our supply chain is just not enough. What we can do is, of course sort out our supply chain, but only as an example to others, but the biggest prize comes from working with a broad range of other companies so that all of us together can sort out the supply chains together. >> Yeah. >> Now, when you come to agriculture, for instance, say bananas is one example I was coming to, or probably tomatoes, where, there, you could, maybe, if I take an example of a supply chain that has a lot of impact on water resources. So, say, the growth of tomatoes in some parts of Spain is leading to an ongoing reduction of the water table in those spots of the Mediterranean. Now, that we can look at as a business and say for our business, for all the regions from which we source tomatoes, we want to make sure that our suppliers are keeping track of how much water they use and they are reducing that water use year in year and that's a requirement for supplying us. Now, that needs us to act on our own as a start, and we can make quite a big impact just acting on our own. So there's a combination in some cases we're able to move on our own. In other cases we need to move as an industry, while of course going a little bit further as an example to others. And an example of a project that hasn't quite worked out was attempted a few years ago to put a carbon label on milk in the UK. We felt that one of the ways we could help customers make informed decisions was to map the footprint of the carbon footprint of a pack of milk and put the figure on the pack for customers. And we did that for many months and tracked customer response, and customers found it confusing. They couldn't understand it. They received this footprint. Is that good or bad? Should I using milk or not? What's the sign? What do I do with this information? And a number of other companies tried it as well. When we found that it wasn't leading to the clarity we wanted. It was clouding the issues more. Customers didn't know what to do with it. We discontinued that communication element of it, but the information we got from the footprinting was very useful for us. We carry on using a footprinting of our supply chain to understand where we deploy our resources, where the biggest impacts exist. So we use it to guide our strategy. We haven't found the most effective way to communicate it to customers. It might be one that we'll come back to. >> And what does that tell you about the kind of responsibility you have as a retailer? So I mean you started out by saying that you are in a difficult position, because you don't actually produce the stuff that you sell. So you are dependent on suppliers. What you're telling now basically means the consumers, they don't take the responsibility, or they don't necessarily act on the information when you give it to them. Which means that you as a company, maybe feel a bigger responsibility for that. Is that the way you look at it? Or, do you have a different position on that as a company? >> So there are two things actually, when you come to addressing sustainability. There are two ways you can go about it. One is the production side. How can we make production as efficient as possible and reduce as much as possible the environmental impact of production? >> Yeah. >> And there, customers look to us to take the lead because it's a complicated system. They don't understand it as well as we do, and so on and so forth. Then there are, there is the other bit which is the consumption side of things. That there are some things that no matter how efficient and how well they are produced. If we waste 30% of those resources. If we over-consume some of those resources. There's just no way to make production sustainable. >> Mm-hm. >> You can make it as sustainable as possible if the consumption that hasn't been resolved. That's, sustainability and production is big enough. Sorting our system ability in consumption is the real biggy. That's the real challenge, because that goes beyond the agency of an individual company. And people can instinctively say it goes to the agency of individual consumers. And that's probably true, but when you come into the challenge, the problem of collective action. You actually see that we're talking about almost the whole societal reconfiguration of how we consume. That's more than anybody's pay scaling business. We could have a role to play in it but it's not really something that customers feel comfortable with. Big business telling them how to consume. And so our instinct is to provide as much information as possible to customers, and then be guided by their choices. What we've found with the carbon labelling, is that if the information is too technical, if it's too detailed. The customer might not understand. People lead busy lives. They don't want to stand on the milk aisle for two hours checking whether the footprint is right, and if the price is right, and if the provenance is right. If the animal welfare of the milk, of the cattle that give rise to the milk is good. If the farmers were paid a fair wage, and that's just milk. And then they move to yogurt, and do the same, and then to oranges. It's just not realistic. So some of that we accept that if we can find an easier simpler more engaging way to share this with customers we must. If we can't, we already know that they want us to help them resolve these issues. And we'll resolve it, might be to do as much as we can from the production and, but also to raise our hands and say. We think the conversation is needed around consumption, which is why we've been very involved with the Sustainable Consumption Institute here at the University of Manchester. Because we know that that's not a conversation that we can have in isolation. Yeah. >> Okay, clear. Maybe again, move a little bit deeper into the, but not so much in the specific project. But more in terms of, we talked about more your outlook on ecological sustainability and sort of the general way in which you make decisions about prioritizing things. >> Yeah. >> Another question is about the multitude of tools and concepts that nowadays are available for managers also. >> Yeah. >> You can do life cycle analysis, you can do ecological food printing, we talked about it in relation to consumers, but for companies for sure. There is also, there's so much available. Can you share a little bit your thoughts about what are the concepts that you think are very useful in sort of addressing ecological sustainability issues within business. >> Yeah. So, at Testco, our sustainability agenda, the environmental side of our sustainability agenda resides within a wider climate change and responsible sourcing strategy. >> Mm-hm. >> And a responsible sourcing strategy has four main elements. One is addressing commercial relationships because, that's an enabler for everything else. The other is environmental sustainability. So we tend not to call it ecological sustainability. We use environmental sustainability. The other is human rights, which looks at the rights of individuals in the workplace, in the local community, and in wider society or the nation state. And the other bit is animal welfare. So those together is what we look at as a responsible sourcing strategy. And then of course, we have our own operational impact that makes up our sustainability agenda. Now, when it comes to the concepts that we apply. Business is not really, I suppose it is quite different from academia that we don't need big concepts. We don't need to present these ideas in big intellectual concepts. Now, the concepts might be useful for the individuals driving the sustainability agenda. But actually learning the issues, understanding the issues is just the foundation for an effective sustainability practitioner within business. Yeah. And so, understanding the theory of the issue, the science of how to resolve it is the start. The most important thing actually, having understood that now is understanding how to make business address them. How to make business address them in the light of commercial realities, of reputational realities, of the interest of investors, of the mandates of business to gross sharehood of value. And of course of the practice that you might see in a number of businesses which trying to find a balance between short-term or quality results and long-term focus. And a lot of the things we are discussing today around sustainability, the clue is in the name. It's actually dealing more with issues in the medium to long-term. Now the job of practitioner, like me, in house is how do we find the right way to take these ideas that we've learned, that we understand as scientists, as practitioners, as students or whatever else, how do we embed it into the way we do business? Now, one could choose a career to make this contribution as a consultant, where you'll be the one doing the technical number crunching, always updating information and providing the footprint and the scientific evidence to make the case. And that's an important role in the sustainability careers fair. But one could also play the role of being the person that takes this idea to market. The person who goes to the business and makes the business gaze. To say if If we don't do this here are the risks. Or if we get it right here are the opportunities. And one will need to find the right way to weave it into the language of business, into the plans of business and into the reality of business, and into the priorities of the leadership. And that actually can be sometimes more difficult than just understanding the theory of how deforestation happens. Or how marine ecosystems might be affected by acidification. >> So, I mean, you've mentioned this a couple of times now. Which is more about working with people, yes? Both within the company and also with suppliers, but even with stakeholders, sort of getting their position on how they look at things. Can you sort of say something? I mean, it's like, to a great extent. That's also about your personal skills. >> Yes. >> That you have as a manager. >> Absolutely. >> But can you say something more generic about it? So what are useful ways? Or what has helped you in sort of learning how to develop those skills and becoming better in interacting with other people within your company and beyond the boundary of your company to convince them of both of the necessity of dealing with the ecological sustainability but also of making it a viable business proposition. >> So I think, and it's an interesting question, in my masters course, that was actually the question I looked at. How do you exercise personal agency In a big company in this area? And it was something I spent two years exploring, trying to understand. And of course, there's always more to learn from one's experience and other people's. The key thing that I found is actually, of course, the basic, the foundation is that you need to understand the issues. The sustainability issues that you're dealing with and understand how it interacts with your business. But the impact you're having and the impact they could have on your business. That's, of course, a good foundation. The next thing actually, is to understand business. To understand how business makes decisions. How the mindset of business works. And what are on the priority lists of the leaders of business. That's a very important thing, because I find that when I speak to those whose career have been in the nonprofit sector or those whose career have in academia. For instance, in academics I find them to be guided, the goal at least is that they be guided fully by the facts as they see it. If the facts say, this is where I go. Business, of course, tries Tries very hard to be guided by facts. But it's not just facts that guides business. It's the sentiments of the market. How does the market view my plan? How do investors react? What do customers care about? What would have an impact on my reputation? All of that have an influence on the facts you have on the table. But also business has the ability, its success is somewhat rooted in its ruthless ability to focus on the essential. To strip out all the complexity, and just go for the three or four priorities which will make the most difference. And sometimes you speak to campaigners, they say you can't nail it down to just three. Well you better find a way to, because if it's more than three, if it goes into seven, eight, nine, ten Is too complicated business will actually strip you right down to three. Now if you have those three or four priorities, your job as administrative assistant practitioner is to find which one should serve as an anchor for your strategy. Which one is the one that if you can find a link, between that and what you're trying to achieve, then you have a successful outcome. So let's say a supply chain director might be saying that the thing that's keeping me up at night, is I'm about to sign this long term partnership with this supplier of tomatoes. And I'm worried, if I put all my volumes in this supply of tomatoes, will they go out of business in five year's time, in seven year's time, and I'm signing a ten-year partnership? So that might be the headache. And as a sustainability practitioner, you might find an opportunity there to say that's a very good point. Now, part of what might make them go out of business is environmental impact. So as you're doing that review of checking exactly whether this is the right partner to go for, let's include an environmental impact assessment, and look at long-term modeling. Where they're growing their tomatoes, what might be the impact that climate change might have on it in the next seven or ten years. So now you're helping them answer a business question but as the expert in sustainability, you've made sure that environment sustainability has now been included as one of the concentrations. Now that is a skill a number of people who have just the theoretical knowledge of sustainability but a very limited knowledge of business find missing and they end up finding themselves banging their head against a brick wall on each occasion because they're speaking a language that business doesn't understand and they can't really translate. There's a role for such people but maybe that role is stronger in consulting or in campaigning, when one is inside business, there is a strong need to understand business, and be able to translate your logic into a language that business can appreciate. >> Okay, thank you. Very insightful. Maybe to close off this interview, you've already given us a lot of your insights that I think will be very helpful. But, maybe you have one particular piece of advice for people who are a little bit earlier in their career. So what would be your sort of insight that you can give them that they can use to develop their own careers? >> I think the field of sustainability, social, environmental sustainability is a very exciting space. It's a very exciting part of business and I would say that wouldn't have spent 15 years in this field. That's the career that I've chosen for myself. But the reason I'm here is because it's that confluence between driving an impact and leveraging the skill and size of business. I think there's a whole ecosystem of careers in sustainability and each person I'd advise would be best served by thinking which Which area of this field plays well to their instincts as people, to their values, and to their action logic. How do they organize their thought? Say someone for instance, is of the view that there is the business. The nature of business needs to be overhauled completely, and there's an argument for that. And that the nature of consumption, the nature of capitalism and value needs to be behold. Perhaps that is someone more suited to policy conversations, to transformation of integral mental institutions. That's business, for instance. If someone holds that view, but also thinks while we do that business. There's a lot of room that business can play, and there's a lot that business can do already today. Then that could be a person that can play a role within business. The place to start in my view is to get to know business, to understand business. Either through interaction, or education or immersion. Take a commercial role, take a non-traditional sustainability role. As long as you keep your vision that the reason you're doing this is to be effective in a sustainability role. You can return to it in three years, in five years, having understood how business planning is done, when resource allocation is made. How you can include important things in the KP, as the key performance indicators of business. So that you don't have to go negotiating each time for middle managers to do it. Because it's already in the things they're measured against. So once you understand the fabric, and the nature of business cycles, and how the business instinct works. Then you become more effective in that sense. So again, it's not for everybody. Some people would feel most comfortable being guided by facts 100% of the time. They're not many businesses that will be guided only by facts 100% of the time. Yeah? And so, that's something to bear in mind. And yes, you mentioned the bit of personal relations having got all of these things right. The relationships you build in business and in a field like sustainability. It's actually company wide. Your influence is company wide. So, on one day I can be in a meeting with our energy team, who decide how we use energy across our estate. Next minute I'm speaking to someone who decides how we buy the electricity that we consume. And then I'm speaking to the standards team who set the animal welfare standards. And next I'm speaking to a commercial colleague about a supplier somewhere in South America or in Africa who I need to have a conversation with about raising their game. And so in the end actually, sustainability roles tend to cover, span the whole company. Requiring different skills, different approaches, different styles to engage with each other people. And the secret is as many of them as possible, hopefully if all of them can see us supporting and helping their agenda. Then when you come down the corridor they don't go God, here he comes again. Yeah, then they can actually see that I support them. They can actually support me in driving my own ambitions and that way you're more effective within business. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
