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Earlier this year, we launched our sustainability data platform: PACT (Platform Advacing Change Together) - powered by Salesforce and delivered by PWC. The platform allows us to gain access to AI and data-driven insights to enhance reporting across our global corporate business and private equity portfolio. Businesses are under growing pressure to capture broader ESG data, as new regulations, accounting standards and rules aimed at accelerating the drive to Net Zero come into force. SMEs, which account for 99% of UK businesses, often do not have the resources to effectively manage their emissions and broader sustainability imapct. PACT will revolutionise this and transform the Private Equity sector's approach to sustainability, making new forms of data and reporting accessible to smaller companies - a previously underserved market. In this episode, Lily Billings, Head of Group Sustainability at Foresight, is joined by Keiran Bell, Senior Account Executive at Salesforce, and Matt Cook, Partner at PWC. The group discuss how PACT will transform sustainability analytics across Foresight, mitigate the risk of greenwashing and support organisations to make improved data-driven decisions. The podcast is for information purposes only and without limitation, does not constitute an offer, an invitation to offer or a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. Listeners should not construe the content of this podcast as investment advice and no reliance may be placed upon the content. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of their respective companies. Foresight Group LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 198020). Foresight's registered office is at The Shard, 32 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9SG.
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The Foresight Sustainability Forum, held over two days at the Eden Project, brought together leading experts and visionaries to address the fundamental challenges facing our planet and explore innovative solutions to these challenges. The event provided a platform for insightful discussions, thought-provoking panel sessions, and enlightening keynote speeches, all aimed at shaping a more sustainable future for our planet. In this episode, Dan James, Development Director at the Eden Project, Lily Billings, Head of Group Sustainability and Henry Morgan, Infrastructure Sustainable Investment Lead at Foresight unravel some of the key initiatives, thought-provoking discussions, and innovative ideas that emerged from the two days. The podcast is for information purposes only and without limitation, does not constitute an offer, an invitation to offer or a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. Listeners should not construe the content of this podcast as investment advice and no reliance may be placed upon the content. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of their respective companies. Foresight Group LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 198020). Foresight’s registered office is at The Shard, 32 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9SG.
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Hydrogen is increasingly being recognised as a key player in the transition towards a low-carbon future. As a clean energy carrier, it has the potential to decarbonise a wide range of sectors including transportation, industrial processes, and heating. Hydrogen can be produced using renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar, and can be stored and transported as required. Its versatility and flexibility make it a useful alternative to direct electrification, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy industry, aviation and shipping. However, scaling up the use of hydrogen requires significant investment in infrastructure and technology, and regulatory support from governments to enable its widespread adoption. In this episode, Joe Davis, Associate Director at Foresight Group and William Mezzullo, Head of Hydrogen at Centrica explore the development of hydrogen as a vital part of the energy transition, what stands in its way, and what needs to be done to realise its full potential. Key Takeaways include: Understanding the importance of the UK government’s new suite of policies addressing the drive to net zero. Understanding why a country’s hydrogen policy framework is one of the most important factors for informing investment decisions. Addressing whether the UK government is on the right track for supporting increased investment into hydrogen and whether this is competitive with other countries. Understand what is meant by hydrogen blending, and some of the main opportunities and challenges associated with it. William Mezzullo is Head of Hydrogen at Centrica Energy Markets & Trading, and Chair of the Renewable Energy Association’s Green Gas & Hydrogen Forum. William is responsible for commercialising hydrogen development opportunities for Centrica. Prior to joining Centrica, he was a Fund Lead at JLEN, a FTSE 250 environmental fund. William has worked in the renewable energy industry since 2010, developing and building commercial-scale green gas anaerobic digestion plants, where he was Head of Projects at Future Biogas, one of the largest anaerobic digestion companies in the UK. He holds a PhD from the University of Bath in bioenergy. Joe Davis is an Associate Director at Foresight Group and a member of the Supervisory Board for HH2E AG. Prior to Foresight Group, Joe was an Investment Manager at Pensions Infrastructure Platform Ltd, and a member of the financial modelling and advisory team at DWPF. Joe has an MSci in physics from Nottingham University and is a CFA Charterholder. Joe Davis [00:00:04] Hello, and welcome to Foresight's Sustainability Podcast, a series that explores the sustainability themes that will play a crucial role in shaping our world in the current period of accelerated change. In this series, we'll be sitting down with industry experts to explore some of the major developments in sustainability related fields, and consider the challenges facing businesses in a new decade of climate action. With these sessions, we aim to inform and promote dialogue around the mainstreaming of sustainability. I'm your host, Joe Davis. I'm an Associate Director in the Infrastructure Investment Team here at Foresight. Today I'm joined by Will Mezzullo. Will is Head of Hydrogen at Centrica. Welcome Will, would you like to begin by telling us why Centrica is so interested in hydrogen, and about your role with the company? Will Mezzullo [00:00:45] Hi Joe. Yeah, thanks very much. And really good to be here and thank you for the invitation. It's always really lovely to speak to you and the Foresight team. So yeah, I look after Centrica's hydrogen activities, across sort of the family of businesses that Centrica owns and looks after. So that's all the way from the whole value chain, from production of energy. So we manage 12 gigawatts of renewables across Europe and we're also building our own, all the way to sort of storing of energy, whether that's in gas or electricity form. We've got batteries, we've got things like rough storage facility where we do store, I think it's the largest sort of gas storage operating facility at the moment in the UK, all the way to transporting it, moving that energy and then optimising and delivering it for our customers. So yeah, our hydrogen activities really span across the whole value chain of energy, and that reflects where our participation is. When we look at hydrogen, we look at it as a tool to help us understand how do I decarbonise that particular part of the value chain, and how does hydrogen help overcome any decarbonisation barriers that we have encountered or the industry has encountered over these number of years?We never see hydrogen as a single silver bullet. I don't think we'd see any renewables as a single silver bullet, and the test of time over the last 15 years is a reflection of that. But we do recognise that hydrogen has a role to play. We also recognise that some roles are more developed than others, and we shouldn't sort of put barriers or close any doors. So yeah, that's what we do in Centrica and our activities around hydrogen. Joe Davis [00:02:10] Yeah, great to talk to you and looking forward to our discussion. Can you tell us about some of the projects that Centrica is currently working on within hydrogen? Will Mezzullo [00:02:19] Yeah, sure. So when Centrica looks at hydrogen and gets involved in different places to participate, I guess it's a reflection of where Centrica sits in terms of the energy value chain. And I have to say I've never worked for a company that's so across the whole value chain of energy, so all the way from sort of producing, from renewables, to taking gas from different parts of the world, to storing it, to moving it around, to then balancing it, optimising it, and then supplying it to customers, both private individuals, residents and commercial customers. And so when we then look at that value chain and we apply hydrogen to it, there's a role that hydrogen can play in all of those areas. And really that is where Centrica is focusing its efforts. It's first of all understanding how can hydrogen help me overcome some of the barriers in that particular value chain and how do I decarbonise that part? And then where can I apply the strength of Centrica and sort of the bits of other parts of Centrica to sort of help develop that part? Because hydrogen is is still incredibly nascent as an energy vector, as a use for an energy. But understanding sort of the benefit it can bring in decarbonisation is key. So it's a bit of a long winded answer to say we've got a number of projects across the whole value chain, and I'm happy to go through in more detail, but really it's important to recognise we don't see one silver bullet, one single silver bullet for hydrogen, but we do see that there is a potential for hydrogen to help play decarbonisation roles in all sectors. Joe Davis [00:03:48] Yeah, it's an interesting perspective, isn't it? I guess because you're able to see all of these different parts of the energy value chain and I think everyone involved in the hydrogen industry is expecting it to play a big role generally, but working out exactly how all of the different pieces of the system fit together is very complex and probably one of the more complex parts of this transition. So Centrica's role, or the breadth of Centrica's activities across the whole value chain is really, really interesting perspective to have. Will Mezzullo [00:04:19] Yeah, agree. I mean, one of the most exciting things that we look at hydrogen is its ability to store, in terawatt hour forms ,you know, serious amount of storage. I think Centrica was one of the first companies in the UK to install batteries, grid connected batteries, and we're very proud of that heritage. But really understanding the the difference between gigawatt hours of storage and terawatt hours of storage. And when you look at it totally makes sense to be able to sort of store large amounts of energy seasonally at the time of the year when you don't need it, store it in the form of hydrogen, and then use it in different parts of the year. On paper, that totally makes sense. And we see things like the Committee of Climate Change making significant reference to long duration energy storage of hydrogen. In practice though, that is quite a complicated process to actually convert, for example, like our rough storage facility, to convert that to hydrogen. To convert all the infrastructure and to make the infrastructure available to take hydrogen, and store hydrogen, and then use that hydrogen for energy. It does take an enormous amount of effort and policy implementation. And then actually this is the sort of, these are the areas that we're focusing on. Joe Davis [00:05:23] Yeah, I guess it's a reflection of the need for that unified transition approach. You know, you can't just have one part of the entire value chain transitioning independently. You need the whole breadth of the chain transitioning together. And I think that energy storage piece is a very good example. You mentioned the policy environment there. In the UK the government announced about a month or so ago a suite of policies that were called Powering Up Britain. I'd be interested in your views on some of these announcements and how they have affected Centrica. Just for some of our listeners who might not know some of the hydrogen specific details. Some of the key headlines to come out of that was in relation to CCUS. This is clearly a massive part of the Government's strategy for decarbonisation with two industrial clusters, one on the east coast of England called East Coast Cluster, and one on the north west of England, called HyNet, forming a big part of the plans to decarbonise industry. The government restated a pot of £20 billion annual funding to help get CCUS off the ground. They also announced the eight projects shortlisted for negotiations as part of track one, of which five are from HyNet and three were from the East Coast Cluster. The Government also announced an expansion or potential expansion of track one later this year, and indicated timelines for track two as well. Specifically in hydrogen, the Government also announced a shortlist of 20 projects that will move to the next stage of the hydrogen business model process, with awards expected to be announced in Q4 this year. The Government also announced a second round of this hydrogen business model process, expected to award 750 megawatts of capacity in 2025. And lastly, the government also announced 15 projects successful in strand one and strand two funding applications. So a whole raft of policy measures designed to help take hydrogen and industrial decarbonisation to the next stage of their development. What did you and the wider Centrica business make of all of these? Will Mezzullo [00:07:18] Well, I mean, just going through that list, yeah, absolutely, it's a wide range of announcements. And for them all to come up on one day, is positive for the industry. It shows the commitment from government and it shows that they're still planning ahead with all of their plans, both in terms of all the different elements of hydrogen. I think from an industry perspective, and this is, I should say, I also have a few other hats, I chair the Hydrogen and Biomethane Group in Renewable Energy Association and also the Electrolytic Working Group in Hydrogen UK. So I do spend a lot of my time listening to members of those associations because I do feel that they are a good barometer of where they feel government is going and the pace is going. And I think, for the winners of, or the ones who have been shortlisted in those announcements, that those announcements would have been, of course, really welcome news. And for the ones who haven't been shortlisted but may not necessarily be told you're not happening, then that uncertainty, that really doesn't help. And I think we've learnt a lot, and I've come from the renewable energy sector, I've spent all my career in renewable since sort of late 2000s. And one thing that we've repeatedly always told government is don't leave industry, especially emerging industries, in suspense. Because effectively these companies are cash flowing, a lot of development costs, a lot of overheads that are being incurred and having visibility early on of understanding, you know, has this been worth it. Are we still good to go. So I would probably call on government to make sure that that track one cluster announcement later on this year actually happen at a really rapid time. I think the surprise is why does it have to happen later on? Effectively, if you look at sort of blue hydrogen - let's take a step back. UK government has got a target of one gigawatt blue, one gigawatt green by 2025 in construction. They've now shortlisted for blue about, what, 600 megawatts. So they're short. And you know, let's get on and carry on those announcements. So I think the industry is saying, yeah, we're really pleased with the announcements, the pace that has happened, but actually we could do with understanding what the next steps are. Obviously that's not, the ones who haven't been shortlisted, being very clear from a government perspective around what was it that didn't make it to the shortlist and understand what is it that government is looking for for these projects. If we take the strand threes that have been shortlisted. So, the government has shortlisted of 408 megawatts of projects, and they're going to have to bring that down to 250 megawatts. Now that does take time, it's going to be an assessment of different projects, but those developers really do merit to understand early on have they been successful, or do they need to think about moving on to another project. I do feel always for the small scale, sort of the early developers. I have a real strong allegiance with them, because obviously I was one of them in the biogas sector. But I do feel they've done an enormous amount for the biogas sector, the wind and solar sector, that we have today. So, the large companies like Centrica perhaps can stomach a certain amount of sort of development costs and waiting for government. But actually it's also just making sure that government is able to work with even the smaller scale developers. And I think that bringing forward those announcements is going to be key. Joe Davis [00:10:25] Yeah, some very interesting points there actually. And I totally agree regarding the point around confidence levels and not leaving industry waiting. I mean, this is such an early emerging business, or industry rather, that all of these developers, big or small, are all working on the assumption that government policy will continue to be supportive and aligned to what they're trying to achieve. And announcing targets and then falling short, or announcing delivery dates and then delaying, all of that stuff would only ever increase uncertainty and make investors less likely to commit. So I think it's a really important point and it can't be expressed enough. I'd be curious to understand your views on how the international policy landscape sits or looks. We hear a lot of noise around the different support regimes and incentive mechanisms announced internationally, from the IRA in the US, to the various mechanisms of EU and EU country level. For Foresight, we generally consider this to be the most important factor before we consider investing, particularly in hydrogen, in the fact it's such an emerging industry. Do you feel like the UK government is on the right track, do you think it's competitive with these other countries? Will Mezzullo [00:11:37] Yes, it's a good question. I mean, this is, what you've said I think is really valid as a message to government, is actually any credible infrastructure investor investing in a sector like this will follow where the strongest policy and the strongest government commitments are. And that's not through greed, or it's not for, it's just simply because this is such an emerging and new technology and new market, and gluing bits of other sectors together to decarbonise energy. For investors who I have to say have done an enormous amount to help decarbonise where we are today. If it wasn't for investors, we wouldn't have the levels of cost of capital of renewables that we have today. And so, the signals that are coming from different governments, I share the same view with you, which are very critical. Your question was where do we stand as a UK compared to the international perspective? I suppose the unique thing about Centrica is, one of the things is we're very technology agnostic. And so again, when we look at sort of the colours of hydrogen, which are, we're, I'm actively trying to move away, as we all are, but nevertheless we do always stumble on, it sounds a lot easier to say than the low carbon hydrogen standard that its emits. So we're agnostic on, as long as it's low carbon, we're agnostic on colour, but we're also agnostic on where the hydrogen's come from. So we have a Global LNG, Liquefied Natural Gas, team that is actively looking at the global seaborne ammonia shipping. And that, for us, is very exciting. When we see strong stimulations from governments such as in the US with the IRA, and in Europe, where we can start seeing, well actually we can start bringing effectively the wind and the sun from different parts of the world, where the resources might be greater or their policy mechanisms may be more widely developed. And we can help facilitate decarbonisation in this country. Equally, we also see, we have a team in the company called Centrica Energy Assets that is rolling out one gigawatt of solar and batteries and acres. We also see the really strong synergy with that team around building out small scale, or relatively small scale green hydrogen production. So the answer is I still believe we're a sector as a country, which is from an investor appetite perspective, attractive. You know, we set out, I say we, the government, set out an ambitious hydrogen strategy. Doubled then its commitments through the energy security strategy. And let's be honest, has fulfilled its commitments to say it's rolled out the hydrogen business model, it's rolled out the low carbon hydrogen standards to get full transparency. And then the third one, I can't quite remember, if it's rolled out the net zero hydrogen fund. So it's doing everything it said. I think what's happened in between that, is we've had a change of leadership in government, the energy bill, which has gone slower than a lot of the investors in the sector really would have wanted. And that really doesn't help investor confidence. So I think there are areas that we are falling behind, and I think the 30th March announcements, I hope, and I think gave investors good comfort. But I think when you then look at actually the energy bill is still going through the processes and that underpins the levy, there's still a few things that need to be sewn up and get the sector going to sort of keep the momentum going. But I think it's also recognising the scale at which the UK and the ambitions of hydrogen in the UK versus sort of US and other international players. The scale is quite significant. The difference between it. But I think the UK is really, you know, from its £20 billion announcement that it did on the 30th March, really does show that its commitment is very strong. Joe Davis [00:15:10] Yeah, I think I would again agree with much of what you said there, it's, I think the UK Government has built a very credible foundation in terms of its hydrogen strategy and wider industrial decarbonisation strategy. I would agree that it's, by and large, delivered on what it said it would do under its timelines that were set out as part of that strategy. I think the rest of the world has moved at its own pace as well, and it's really critical now that in a competitive global landscape, each country moves kind of as fast and as ambitious as it can do. But my own area I've been thinking about a lot at the moment is expected realignment of industrial capacity. So a movement away from the cheap energy of the past and towards the cheap energy of the future. I see companies such as the H2 Green Steel Project in northern Sweden as being a really great example of what the future looks like. With large scale industrial capacity moving to areas where there's cheap renewable energy. And for me it just really underlines the importance of countries getting their energy transition policy right, as otherwise there's just going to be a deindustrialisation, a move to countries or locations that have the better policy and the better natural resources. And I think the UK has got fantastic resources, the North Sea and the offshore wind track record that's been built up over the last decade or two. I think the hydrogen policy is credible and generally in the right lines, but I think the Government really has to recognise that it's a very dynamic, very competitive global landscape. And if you don't move fast enough and strong enough, there's a danger that this once in a generation shift of industrial capacity can just move in a way that's not favourable for you. Will Mezzullo [00:16:52] Yeah, I agree. And you've touched on something which is really quite interesting, which is, at the moment when I suppose UK government is looking at sort of hydrogen and, I think as an industry we should recognise the effort the government is putting into trying to make hydrogen happen. But we look at hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogen transport and then hydrogen use, dare I say, I still think in quite siloed fashion. So when we look at, for example, how do I make the most of my resource, renewable resource. Like as an example, last year the country, we curtailed four terawatt hours of renewables. Most of that renewables was in Scotland and in the north. So, if you were sort of just looking at it from a production focus, you'd say, well, let me focus my production of green hydrogen just in the north. Then you'd say, What am I going to do with that hydrogen? Let me try and get the industry come up north. And we've challenge this as well. And we're working really closely with National Gas Transmission, the owners of our great transmission infrastructure system. And we are doing a whole systems analysis to actually show, well, actually, what about if we did overlay their plans of a hydrogen backbone across the country? Imagine if that did happen, what would our hydrogen landscape look like in the future? So say, for example, if you had a hydrogen pipe that ran from Scotland all the way down to Cornwall, you could still take that curtailed power and you can convert that into hydrogen. And you can move that energy, that excess energy in the form of a molecule, and actually you can then bring it at different parts of the country to go and meet those industrial customers. And that's a good way of sort of linking hydrogen production, transportation and use. But then you think well, actually, what about if I connect that backbone to really large storage, like salt caverns and rough? Well, that allows me to build more renewables where actually a renewable resource is really abundant, allow it to be converted into hydrogen, stored, and then we can use that hydrogen at times of the year when the wind's not blowing, the sun's shining. I have a, being an ex-renewable energy developer, I have a real issue when I get told saying "I want you to stick a renewable energy facility where there is less renewable resource but the greater demand". And I'm thinking, I was always built in my brain to maximise the renewable resource. That was the best thing. And so I do think when you look at hydrogen together in these four areas - production, storage, transportation and use - when you bring them together, I think you can actually start saying ok, I can start seeing how that cluster can be decarbonised with that offshore wind, and how that storage can help, and how actually blue hydrogen has a real role to play of sort of bang for your buck, quick decarbonisation of clusters. But yeah, yeah, it's a really, really important point of how do you link industry to production. Joe Davis [00:19:31] Yeah, I think it just shows the importance of that whole system of thinking, doesn't it. The simple buckets of the past where you've got an electricity system with generation, and transmission, and distribution, and you've got a gas system with production, transmission, and distribution, and the two generally don't necessarily move in tandem. That's going to be increasingly less the case. And joining up the whole system in a way that's going to drive the lowest cost and the simplest, quickest transition is just going to be so important. On a related note, I was wanting to ask you a bit about hydrogen blending. This is a pretty big topic at the moment with pretty strong views from many people across the industry. We've seen in recent weeks a number of high profile reports and letters that have argued against it. I think there is a paper, or there was a paper, a letter issued by a think tank a few weeks ago arguing strongly against it. At the same time, Jane Toogood, the hydrogen champion for government, has issued a report that is largely supportive of it. I was really interested in Centrica's view on the topic. I do know from previous discussions, with you Will, that you're pretty strongly supportive of blending, but I was wondering if you could perhaps talk to a bit why that is, and your views on how you think it could be done cost effectively for the end user? Will Mezzullo [00:20:45] Yeah, sure. Blending is a funny one. It's my pet favourite subject, I actually, I was a massive fan of hydrogen blending even before I joined Centrica, so it's one of these things that actually I've champion internally, sort of explained the rationale, and really, because again Centrica being technology agnostic, I had my own fair share of internal "explain to me how this makes sense and how this creates value for money". So I, hands down, I'm a huge believer of that hydrogen blending will help facilitate. Now the interesting thing is when we speak to the critics or when they at least are willing to have a chat with us about it, the main concern is, is this good value for money? And if you look at the concept, I'm going to take this valuable, high pressure, sort of niche product gas and I'm going to waste it into the gas grid. And that just makes absolutely no sense. That's sort of really the way they start. I suppose where I start is, and again, I'm going back to my renewable energy development days, and I look at a project trying to start in hydrogen. We want to see hydrogen projects start so we can get the levelized cost of hydrogen down. So the more projects that we have, the more electrolyser operating experience there is, the more the investor market gets comfortable with the risks, the more it de-risks, and the lower the cost of capital having to enter these markets. When I look at that and I look at the first projects that are happening. So, you know, you've got a green hydrogen development opportunity, an offtaker, or two offtakers. The way the mechanisms are set up in the UK is that you potentially, if your project is eligible, you potentially might receive government support, called the hydrogen business model, which will allow you to cover your operating costs and make a return on investment. Now, if you have a hydrogen producer and you are relying on one offtaker or two offtakers, your project effectively is at a higher risk of that, it's effectively based on the operating profile of that offtaker. If you're not able to sort of have a secondary offtaker or another way to sell your hydrogen, it adds an element of risk onto the project. Which if you were allowed to blend that hydrogen into the grid, it would de-risk that project. From first hand experience. So I did a biogas project many years ago and I sent the biogas to a Centre Parcs village. And that village, we supplied them heat and power. When that Centre Parcs village was down, we made sure that we had a grid connection, that we could export electricity. If that grid connection wasn't there, that project risk profile would have been significantly higher. Which would have meant that our investor risk return would have been a lot higher. Now, if that is the case, and the way the mechanism works now for supporting these projects, it means that the subsidy that you're looking for from the government is actually higher. Because you're having to accommodate this higher risk cost of capital. And so if you were trying to find a way, how do I de-risk these projects? How do I get good operating hours under my belt of an electrolyser. And how do I get the market to advance quickly? Blending really has, can offer a lot of that support. I guess it's a little bit like if 15 years ago the government said, Yeah, you can roll out wind, and you can roll out solar, and we can give you a support mechanism. But you have to private wire those renewables to the customer and you're not allowed to connect to the grid. If that mechanism was there, which is basically what people are trying to say, how hydrogen should start now, I just don't think we would have got to where we are in terms of the risk profile of wind and solar. So I look at it from a completely different approach, which is actually I want to bring value for money pretty quickly, and I want to get these projects de-risked. I want people to say, Oh, Electrolysers, Yeah, they've been operating for thousands and thousands of operating hours, different scales and it's been totally fine. And that then allows really quite cost competitive cost of capital. So that's really my rationale for it. Joe Davis [00:24:25] Yeah, that's really interesting. I guess you could almost argue that you don't even need to actually blend any hydrogen into the system, but just having that as a option reduces the cost of capital and that directly impacts the level of support, reduces the level of support required from government and therefore makes it cheaper. So just the sheer fact that it's an option can have a positive impact. Will Mezzullo [00:24:48] Absolutely. I mean, a great example we see on biomethane sites is - biogas is a really interesting technology, albeit small, but it's gone through a lot of the learning curves and actually a lot of biomethane, a lot of AD, anaerobic digestion plants, started life in the UK, making a biogas and then burning that biogas to make electricity. And then over time, government and industry quickly realised, actually, I've got a better use for that stuff. Let me convert it and inject it to the grid. But now we're seeing more and more biomethane plants that are injected in the grid, but actually more of that gas is actually being diverted for refuelling purposes. And in fact I think Foresight are linked to CNG fuels and decarbonising the heavy goods sector. Now that sector, the heavy goods sector, wouldn't have access to green biomethane if it wasn't for the market stimulation mechanisms earlier on to allow biomethane to be injected into the grid, to allow that industry to start. So where we start a sector may not end up where we want it to go. Or it may end up being better. But I do find that in the hydrogen sector, the critics sort of try and foresee what we're going to look like as a hydrogen sector in ten years time. And you think, Well, we never did that in renewables. I'm not sure what we're going to gain from this. So, yeah, it's a challenge, but I'm positive we're going to overcome it. Joe Davis [00:26:01] Yeah, my sense is that there's, the growth of the hydrogen sector is already complex enough. There's already enough moving parts and emerging bits of the value chain that need to be brought together to make a successful project work, and to make the industry as a whole work. What we should be doing is bringing down barriers as much as possible, and then allowing the market to organise itself in a way that results in the lowest, you know, an efficient market and therefore the lowest cost to the end user. To me, including additional barriers one way or another, is only ever going to drive up the cost. So, to use your example of wind and solar 15 years ago only being allowed to private wire, if we introduced that as a restriction on hydrogen, then we're basically saying every project has to find its specific offtaker. There's no market or there's no room for shippers and so on. And the market as a whole can't take on a kind of national look. Everything is bespoke and bilateral, and that's just inherently going to be less efficient. So yeah, I completely agree with you. I think cost wise, undoubtedly you can put together a good case as to why in certain circumstances direct electrification is more efficient. But I think to me that's focusing on a specific use case and not seeing the wider, holistic benefits that efficient markets and reduced barriers to entry can have to the sector as a whole system. One final question for you, Will, in the few minutes we've got left, just a bit of an open ended one, but I'd be interested to hear about something that you've learned recently, that's really exciting you about the hydrogen sector. A new technology, a new project, a new piece of better regulation, anything really. Will Mezzullo [00:27:40] Yeah, and it's a good question. I think technology is something that I've always been really interested in and in hydrogen, the technology, I suppose innovation cycle is really still happening quite abundantly. So, which is, makes the market quite challenging. Because you're trying to deploy a project, you're trying to build a project, but actually you know that some of the technology you might use for that may not be the sort of best in kind or the best available technology later on in two years down the line. But that's the price you pay sort of being a first mover. When we look at, I suppose I'm not going to pinpoint a segment, but the ones that really get me excited are the technologies that are coming through driving the efficiency of electrolysers, and I think that's still got a long way to go. But actually the progress that's happened even with a market that really hasn't sort of deployed in anger, certainly in the UK, the development cycle of electrolytic production technologies is making real progress and particularly around also not just the efficiency but around the use of seawater, around the use of sort of, there's another technology that actually even an electrolyser technology that uses sewage sludge, which actually uses some of the organic material inside the sludge to help convert the electrolytic hydrogen and use less electricity, but actually use the cellulose in the sewage. So those kind of technologies, I think, crikey, that's really quite exciting. And actually, crikey, we really need it. Some of them, in other renewables. When you think, ok, I've got the technology, and I've got to a level, and now I've just got to deploy it. And there's still a bit of a technology drive, but then you think actually, what's the cost benefit analysis of that, yeah, for other technologies, the sector's so developed, I might as well just adopt, I can probably squeeze a bit more efficiency and maybe squeeze it, but it's just not, I'm happy where I am. But hydrogen is different, isn't it, hydrogen still has this enormous technology drive and efficiency across the whole sort of supply chain and value chain of sort of hydrogen, even derivatives is still got some way to go. And I think as long as people recognise that, and I think governments recognise that that's a role to play, there's probably a role for government to play in that as well, around innovation, funding and that sort of stuff. But those kind of technologies really do get me quite excited. Joe Davis [00:29:46] Yeah, it's an amazingly untapped world of potential researcher, isn't it. I mean hydrogen is more or less everywhere, you know, a huge proportion of the objects and materials we see in everyday life, hydrocarbons, water and everything else. So the fact that it's never been an important focus in the past, or at least at a scale which it currently is. This means there's so much potential opportunity for exploring production techniques. Will Mezzullo [00:30:10] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Joe Davis [00:30:11] Excellent. Cool. Well, thank you very much Will, it's been great chatting to you. I appreciate you taking the time. Will Mezzullo [00:30:16] Thank you. Yeah, it's, likewise. Thank you. Joe Davis [00:30:19] Look forward to the next time.
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Accelerating resource consumption, biodiversity loss and climate change are damaging the planet's ability to support life. In order to secure a sustainable future, we must adopt new ways of thinking and addressing complex problems. System thinking represents one of society’s best bets for making real progress towards the sustainability transition by viewing all natural and human systems as interdependent. In this episode, Sophie Warren, Sustainability Manager at Foresight Group and Lola Bushnell, Sustainable Futures Strategist at Arup, discuss what is meant by system thinking, and how the Earth's natural and built systems can be designed in a way to co-exist and co-evolve to benefit society and the environment. Key Takeaways include: Understanding what systems thinking is and how can it help us to achieve a sustainable future Understanding how well systems thinking principles are currently integrated within industry Identifying what policies are driving systems thinking Understanding what is meant by regenerative design and the benefit of it Addressing the main barriers to achieving true regenerative design in infrastructure Lola is a Sustainable Futures Strategist at the global design and engineering firm, Arup. Lola sits in the Foresight team, Arup's internal think tank, and is focused on influencing the wider industry toward nature-led, regenerative design practices and systemic decarbonisation strategies that produce net positive outcomes for people and the planet. The podcast is for information purposes only and without limitation, does not constitute an offer, an invitation to offer or a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. Listeners should not construe the content of this podcast as investment advice and no reliance may be placed upon the content. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of their respective companies. Foresight Group LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 198020). Foresight’s registered office is at The Shard, 32 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9SG. {TRANSCRIPT} Sophie Warren [00:00:04] Welcome to Foresight's sustainability podcast, a series that explores sustainability themes that will play a crucial part in shaping our world in the current period of accelerated change. In this series, we will be sitting down with industry experts to explore some of the major developments in sustainability related fields, and consider the challenges facing businesses in a new decade of climate action. With these sessions, we aim to inform and promote dialogue around the mainstreaming of sustainability. I'm your host, Sophie Warren. I'm the Sustainability Portfolio Manager at Foresight in the Infrastructure Department. And today I'm joined by Lola Bushnell. Lola is a Sustainable Future Strategist, at Arup. Welcome Lola, would you like to begin by introducing yourself? Lola Bushnell [00:00:42] Hi Sophie, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so I'm coming from Arup, which is a global design firm made up of a breadth of technical specialists working to solve some of the world's most challenging problems. And we range from ecologists to structural engineers to urban planners. And I sit within Foresight, which is essentially our internal think tank, which is focussed on supporting the long term transformation and adaptation of our firm, and that includes the future market opportunities, emerging risks, future skill requirements and the wider transformational needs of our firm. And we have framed the firm around being a sustainable development focussed company. So much of the work that we do is exploring how we can actually build a better world. Sophie Warren [00:01:33] Brilliant, thanks for the intro Lola. So today we're going to look at about systems thinking and how that relates to regenerative design, which the Foresight team at Arup look at. So we're going to go through a number of questions. Firstly, looking at systems thinking, and then heading into more of a regenerative design context. So first of all, I was wondering if you could give us a high level overview of what systems thinking is, and how systems thinking can help us to achieve sustainable future. Lola Bushnell [00:02:03] Yeah, so systems thinking is really about breaking down the silos in our thinking. So looking at the interdependencies within our systems, be those within nature or within the infrastructure and buildings in our cities, essentially to ensure that our design interventions are having the greatest outcome for multiple of beneficiaries and are not causing unintended harm. Sophie Warren [00:02:27] So it's looking at the interrelations of all systems in the global wider context. Lola Bushnell [00:02:34] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So one way to look at systems thinking is with the Planetary Boundaries framework, which is a framework developed by leading earth systems scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and it's essentially looking at nine key earth system processes that have tipping points within them, that if past cause runaway consequences. And these systems are related to each other. So that includes the climate system, so CO2, but also the biosphere, the natural capacity to respond to shocks in the system, but also our water systems. So, say if we're looking at our forests, which are sequestering carbon, but they're also releasing water vapour through evapotranspiration, driving our global water cycles, these systems are interdependent. So effectively we need to be looking at them simultaneously, not narrowly, just at carbon or just at water systems. Sophie Warren [00:03:31] Brilliant. And how do you think systems thinking principles is currently integrated into industry and solution-based businesses? Lola Bushnell [00:03:39] Yeah. So the challenge with systems thinking is identifying beneficiaries and specifically quantifying the value that they're getting from a particular intervention. So say with a nature based solution, carbon may be one outcome. You may have someone paying for carbon storage, but if you're planting trees, you're also providing some water regulating services. So say you're mitigating flood risk through the catchment. So identifying who's actually benefiting from that flood risk mitigation can be quite challenging and complex. So for those reasons, we haven't gotten very good at paying for kind of the multiple benefits, or understanding what the best intervention is for the greatest number of beneficiaries. Sophie Warren [00:04:28] And in terms of applying systems thinking principles, it's still quite early stage then I guess. Lola Bushnell [00:04:34] Yes, definitely. Although novel technologies like remote sensing and AI are in the early stages of being able to help us actually model and understand these interactions. Sophie Warren [00:04:46] Yeah, pushing out that knowledge step forward as well, with massive data driven solutions. So the Foresight team at Arup look at integrating systems thinking into the built environment through regenerative design. Can you first start off with telling me what regenerative design is? Lola Bushnell [00:05:03] Yeah. So before that, I think it's helpful to get a bit of a framing of where humans are within our wider earth system. So if you were to put earth's history on a calendar year, first life comes around in March, dinosaurs come around in December and disappeared by Christmas, and humanoids first came around on the 21st of December. And in the last 2 seconds we have become a geophysical force emitting half a trillion tonnes of CO2. And in the last third of a second, around 70% of animal biomass has been extinguished. And then what that means is effectively in the next tenth of a second, what we do will dictate the future of humanity. So that's all to say, we as humans are part of nature, yet we've become very unusual. We've become this really significant geophysical force. And the question then becomes, how can we better participate in this living system that we depend on and that we are a part of? So regenerative design takes a holistic approach in which the built in natural systems are designed to co-exist and co-evolve over time. And that means that they're delivering net positive environmental and social outcomes and ensuring both human and planetary health. Sophie Warren [00:06:23] Brilliant. And what are the key principles of regenerative design that you apply at the Foresight Group? Lola Bushnell [00:06:30] Yeah, so at Foresight, we've kind of simplified things down into these three key elements. The first is nature led design for planetary health, which is about participating and co-evolving as part of nature. And that really is resting on the fact that life has had 3.8 billion years of research and development. And we can look to those solutions to solve some of our challenges. The second is circularity for and with nature, and that's really around ensuring that our human made systems are actually mimicking the circularity that we see in nature. And third is nurturing a just space for humanity, which really focuses on shifting away from narrow economic growth, framing toward planetary health and maximising well-being through progressive targets and environmental justice, and really enabling design that's deeply rooted in the local context for local communities. Sophie Warren [00:07:33] I guess the just transition isn't something that has been well executed thus far in any sort of sustainability solutions. Lola Bushnell [00:07:41] Yeah, that's definitely been a challenge. And something to really emphasise here with regenerative design is that it's not new. We've been doing this for generations. Traditional cultures and indigenous peoples have been living in harmony with nature's cycles for many, many years and we need to listen to how local land is being managed, and learn from and work with people who are the real custodians of their land. Sophie Warren [00:08:12] So it's learning from traditional ways of doing things. Lola Bushnell [00:08:16] Absolutely. Sophie Warren [00:08:17] And what are the main benefits of integrating regenerative design in infrastructure? Lola Bushnell [00:08:22] Yeah, it really comes down to resilience. So effectively, product design, buildings, manufacturing processes, agriculture, all of human activity will function best and be more in harmony with ecological processes when nature is used as the model and guide. So we can kind of think of this as an ecosystems based approach. And that's really not to recreate the pre-development ecosystem, but it's instead to understand how all of our infrastructure, buildings and spaces can actually perform the functions and processes that those earlier ecosystems provided. And again, we can look to an ecosystem to say, like just as each organism within an ecosystem has a role to play in its wider functioning and health, each component within the built system should give to and receive from its neighbours and actually participate in nature cycles from the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nutrient cycle, in a reinforcing rather than damaging way. And in that way we're well integrated. We can withstand and absorb the shocks and the variability that we do sometimes see in nature and continue to close resource loops so that we can continue to flourish and thrive. Sophie Warren [00:09:47] And the resilience piece is going to be more and more important going forward in the fight for net zero by 2050 and designing for the future as well, and becoming a major player in the strength of the economy going forward, right? Lola Bushnell [00:10:01] Absolutely. Yeah. And that's where we need to really re-learn what nature already provides us in terms of resilient services. What a forested, healthy catchment does to store and purifiy our water and reduce flood risk, how healthy mangroves provide habitat for the fisheries that we depend on and protect against storm surge. So it's really about deeply understanding how we're already depending on these natural systems, but also how we can restore them and how we can enhance them through our infrastructure. Sophie Warren [00:10:39] Brilliant. And then in terms of Arup doing this work with stakeholders, how does Foresight team influence the infrastructure industry to proceed with innovative regenerative design approach? Lola Bushnell [00:10:52] Yeah, so the role of Foresight is really to explore what's on the cutting edge of our industry. And Arup is a sustainable development focussed firm. So really most of what we're doing is in that space. And much of this is just really about reimagining how we can do things. We get very stuck in the status quo and it's about giving the space to explore what a built system could be, what humans evolving with nature could look like. So a lot of this is just creating frameworks, but also really reconnecting with nature and reconnecting with what it can provide us. Local plants and animals and ecologies have evolved to thrive in specific climatic conditions and resource constraints. And we can learn from their unique adaptations and we can design built systems that are well integrated with the natural environment. But that requires kind of reframing the way we set our objectives in terms of what is success. Sophie Warren [00:11:58] And there's a form of sort of selling the long term benefits of such design integration. So whether upfront sort of regenerative design is taken on board in infrastructure or whether later down the line, a certain amount of retrofitting would have to happen for a building, in order to integrate technologies that policies are driving as well. So is that something that you look at as well, the economics benefits of regenerative design at an early stage? Lola Bushnell [00:12:25] Yeah, absolutely. Our project teams who are implementing this work on the ground are absolutely doing these kind of more complex and quantitative assessments of the long term benefits. Much of what we do as the Foresight team is really to tell the story of that future and to demonstrate the wider benefits, and the continued business resilience for our clients. So say if we're looking at how the task force on nature related financial disclosures might affect a client's long term ability to actually perform their business operations. And kind of how things are shifting within the industry and how a regenerative approach will actually support their long term viability. Sophie Warren [00:13:13] Yeah, and a lot of the time there is a major focus on carbon reduction through infrastructure design, and many other impacts of infrastructure such as those on the biosphere are missed. Can you tell me how many other factors are considered in the regenerative design process? Lola Bushnell [00:13:29] Yeah, absolutely. So we're looking really at scale, at system scale. So looking at the water cycle. So where is water being stored in healthy soils, and in the biomass of plants in a catchment, but also looking at nutrient loops. So as we're accumulating nutrients through our food systems and so on, how can we bring those nutrients back to the catchment, back to our farmlands. And of course carbon cycles. But really looking at all of these earth system processes and how they relate to each other as well. Sophie Warren [00:14:06] So it seems to be that the regenerative design approach is actually a bit more forward thinking than what policy is dictating at the moment in terms of design. And getting ahead of the curve. Lola Bushnell [00:14:17] Yeah, absolutely. And a key distinction between regenerative design and sustainability is sustainability is really focussed on harm reduction, while regenerative design is looking at how can we actually repair the damage that's been done, how can we reconnect cycles that we've disrupted and actually participate in nature's cycles rather than seeing ourselves as outside of them? Sophie Warren [00:14:45] Can you give us an example of how you reconnect natural cycles? Lola Bushnell [00:14:49] Yeah. So there's this great example in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that is using bioremediation to treat their wastewater, and it's a great example of designing for and with nature. So it's designing for nature because this is a very arid climate. And the urban system had been diverting these waterways and sending out polluted water that was degrading the natural wetland downstream. And rather than investing in this really costly thermal wastewater treatment plant, the city is doing so naturally by using biomimicry, basically introducing natural species that attenuate the nutrients in the wastewater. So that's things like plants, and fish, and microbes that break down waste. And they also have these natural oxygenation weirs that are mimicking a rocky stream and actually oxygenating the water and breaking down coliform. And this natural bioremediation facility then feeds directly into the wetland area, restoring the wetland and cooling the area as well, providing a really comfortable place for people to hang out and walk around. It's this great public benefit. So reconnecting this water cycle by leveraging the species that are evolved to carry out the task that humans are looking to engineer. Sophie Warren [00:16:25] There's a massive benefit from different sort of area types and different stakeholders as well. That's really useful case study. Thanks, Lola. And the likes of the nutrient loops that you mentioned and the biosphere sort of designs can be then analysed against the planetary boundaries that you discussed earlier as well. Lola Bushnell [00:16:43] Yeah, absolutely. Setting science based targets is super key here. So targets can be set and regulated against. We can say we need to have X percent of stormwater actually stored through green infrastructure within our urban systems, so that we're replenishing the aquifer, the groundwater, but also mitigating flood risk and you can actually create markets within that. So there's this great case in Washington D.C. that off the back of the Clean Water Act, Washington D.C., was told by the Environmental Protection Agency that they had to mitigate their surface water flooding. And the city responded by going directly to property developers and mandating that they manage their stormwater onsite. What they could not manage would actually be, they could buy credits for that stormwater management, which basically opened up a market for developers to create green infrastructure for water storage rather than redoing their entire sewage system. Now they have all this green infrastructure. What made that work is the city guaranteed a price floor for those credits so that if they weren't bought in the market, the city would buy them. And that becomes a really good way for the city to spend its money rather than investing directly in creating an entirely new sewage system. Sophie Warren [00:18:17] That's really interesting, actually. I've not heard of a water credit market in any nation or region, so that's a very interesting case. In terms of regenerative design, obviously is focussed towards a certain geography looking at just transition in a certain context for example. How can these regenerative design solutions be scaled up? And is there any examples you can give us of that as well? Lola Bushnell [00:18:42] Yeah. So again, moving toward technology here is really key. We can look back to traditional civilisations and they're working more closely with nature's cycles. But the reality is our urban agglomerations today have enormous resource flows moving through them and we're not going to be working super closely with the cycles of nature at every application. So super key here is having a very well quantified and well modelled view of the resource flows moving through the city. So urban metabolism is a really great framing for that which actually sees a city like an animal's metabolism process, and is all about seeing how our systems interact and we can actually digitise that. So the Centre for Digital Built Britain is creating this tool called the Connected Digital Twin, which is basically creating the infrastructure to share digital representations of physical assets. And what that means is once you have that systems view, you can actually see how shocks ripple through an infrastructure system. And that allows for designers to identify areas for resilience interventions that have the greatest effect for the system, but it also allows for resource sharing. So if there's excess heat in part of the system that can then be used to heat a building, say, but it's really just looking at these interdependencies and seeing how we can maximise systemic efficiency but also reconnect with nature cycles. So understanding our reliance on nature resources first and then modelling to identify interventions that are beneficial for the wider system, that's really how we can get these things to scale. Sophie Warren [00:20:47] And in terms of implementation of true regenerative design at scale, what are the main barriers to achieving that? Lola Bushnell [00:20:56] Yeah, so this really comes back again to this beneficiaries question, of being able to say, okay, so these are the carbon benefits of this landscape restoration, these are the flood risk mitigation benefits, this is the social value. Right now, we don't really have off-the-shelf financial products for institutional investors to go for the wider benefits. So we end up going for this very narrow gains. Say if we're investing in carbon, we may end up investing in something that isn't so good for the wider system health. You may have a tree that's non-native and isn't supporting the wider ecosystem. So it's really this, how do we look at wider system health in our investments and how can we kind of reframe the problem? Sophie Warren [00:21:50] And I think there's been a couple of articles out recently about skills gap in this area. Is there anything that you've seen that we could do with upskilling, sort of wider sustainability professionals or engineering professionals on bridging that gap and understanding how do we actually achieve regenerative design through a specific sort of skill set? Lola Bushnell [00:22:09] Yeah, I mean, at a high level, it's really in nature's literacy. There's so much to learn from our local species that have evolved in these resource constraints that we're existing within. This whole field of biomimicry. It would be so great to see that more integrated into the design world, but also into our economic thinking. And then to get a bit more technical within that, in terms of our areas of quantification and target setting. Soil is slowly starting to pick up steam, but that's really where things come down to, when we're talking about carbon, when we're talking about water storage. So much of that is really about soil health. And across the industries that are working in this space, literacy is still quite low. So that's an area that we're really hoping to see gain some momentum, which it is starting to which is really promising. Sophie Warren [00:23:07] Brilliant. Are there any particular projects that your team and you've worked on that you could share some interesting details and some sort of successful outcomes of? Lola Bushnell [00:23:16] Yeah. So one that's really looking at the scale of the city and reconnecting flows where we disrupt them is this tool that Arup has developed called the Sponge City Snapshot, which essentially takes, uses satellite imagery and machine learning and AI to classify land types within urban areas and kind of set a baseline of where cities already are in terms of the absorbency of their green spaces. And then it also gives recommendations on how existing open spaces and underutilised green spaces can actually be improved to maximise water retention. So that's a case of, you know, just increasing the knowledge of where we are today so that we can understand what we need to do to get where we know we need to be with these science based targets. Sophie Warren [00:24:12] Has that been adopted, any sort of solutions from that been adopted, do you know, from any particular cities or? Lola Bushnell [00:24:19] Yes. So it was first rolled out in Shanghai and is also now in Seoul, and Auckland, and Nairobi, and a number of other cities. And our water teams are working with those municipalities to actually implement this green infrastructure on the ground. So working first, quite at a high level on an urban strategy, but then actually going on to implement this green infrastructure with these localised projects. Sophie Warren [00:24:51] So as we say about scaling up, that is definitely one sort of solution that is sounds like it is being scaled up at a global level. Lola Bushnell [00:24:58] Absolutely. Absolutely. Sophie Warren [00:25:01] Okay. So what are the main challenges in investing in nature? Lola Bushnell [00:25:04] Yeah. So this comes back to the variability and permanence of nature. We have a pretty low tolerance in our financial sector for this uncertainty and variability. So say if we're investing in carbon capture and storage, there is still this really strong preference toward more engineered industrial scale things like direct air capture and carbon storage in geological forms over, say, restoring peatland or reforestation. And that comes down to, you know, the uncertainty and the long term permanence of that healthy ecosystem. If there's a drought or if there's disease and that carbon is lost. We see a similar thing in resilience. We tend to go for the really easily quantifiable benefits of great infrastructure for stormwater management. Say, you know, canalysing rivers or having a storm surge barrier. We have a tendency to invest in that over, say, restoring a catchment to reduce flood risk upstream. And a lot of that has to do with this variability. It can be quite challenging to model these things at scale in nature. But also the uncertainty, you know, if that ecosystem does decline. But so much of that has to do with the fact that we're investing very narrowly just in this carbon storage or just in this resilience, sometimes stacking a couple of benefits, but typically not more than two. And also this low tolerance for variability and complexity. So there's a bit of a reframe that's needed in what is our tolerance for risk and how can we actually design that into our approaches? And again, how can we design in these multiple beneficiaries? Sophie Warren [00:26:55] Yeah, definitely. It's something that there's going to be a lot of work on going forward in the next couple of years, obviously driven by sometimes policies that are coming in, such as the Environmental Act, which has multiple targets in different areas, which I think is going to require the likes of regenerative design to achieve. That was a really interesting conversation. I've certainly learned a lot. Thanks, Lola, for sharing your ideas and your thoughts on systems thinking and regenerative design and what Arup do and the Foresight team. So thank you very much. Lola Bushnell [00:27:25] Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. It was great to have a conversation with you. Sophie Warren [00:27:29] Thanks. Bye.
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Soil is the foundation upon which life is built. Soil puts food on the table, purifies our water, stores vast amounts of the worlds carbon, and protects us against floods and droughts. We are intrinsically linked; when soil’s health is at risk, so is our own. In this episode, Lily Billings, Head of Group Sustainability at Foresight Group discusses why soil is so essential to life, and what needs to be done to protect it with Mark Nason, head of professional practice at the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. Key Takeaways include: Understanding what soil actually is and why it’s so essential to life Understanding the different ecosystem services that soil provides Addressing some of the key threats facing soil health Understanding what we can do to improve the health of soil Mark Nason is Head of Professional Practice at the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM), and has over 25 years of experience in environmental research and education. The podcast is for information purposes only and without limitation, does not constitute an offer, an invitation to offer or a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. Listeners should not construe the content of this podcast as investment advice and no reliance may be placed upon the content. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of their respective companies. Foresight Group LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 198020). Foresight’s registered office is at The Shard, 32 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9SG. {TRANSCRIPT} Lily Billings [00:00:04] Welcome to Foresight Sustainability Podcast, a series that explores the sustainability themes that will play a crucial part in shaping our world in the current period of accelerated change. In this series, we will be sitting down with industry experts to explore some of the major developments in sustainability related fields, and consider the challenges facing businesses in a new decade of climate action. With these sessions, we aim to inform and promote dialogue around the mainstreaming of sustainability. I'm your host, Lily Billings, and I'm the Head of Sustainability at Foresight Group. I'm responsible for the corporate sustainability strategy, and everything from emissions reporting down to nature recovery and social responsibility. I'm joined today by Mark Mason. Mark is a soil expert and he's here today to talk to us about all things to do with soil and how it relates to carbon and nature recovery as well. So welcome, Mark. Would you like to introduce yourself? Mark Mason [00:01:01] Hello. Yeah, thanks, Lily. So I, well, I've worked in environmental research and education in some shape or form for my whole career, and that's involved lots of teaching, writing new degrees and apprenticeships, and doing research into soils and ecology. And so this month I started a new job as Head of Professional Practice at the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. And so in that role, I'm really excited about it. I'm basically here to support and challenge people working in ecology and environmental management, to be ambitious for themselves and for nature. Lily Billings [00:01:40] Brilliant. Well, we're really happy to have you here today because I think so many of us are starting to realise just how important soil is when we're thinking about how we might tackle climate change and also the impact that nature has experienced over the last few hundred years, really. So is it possible for you to tell us a little bit more about your day to day job? Obviously you've moved recently, but how you get involved with what you do around soils. It would be really interesting to hear what's a normal day look like for you. Mark Mason [00:02:11] Yeah, well, I'm not entirely sure yet, but so basically I'm responsible for helping to evolve the training programme for CIEEM. So we've got about 7000 members who work in ecology and environmental management. So it's a significant responsibility and the world is changing so quickly and we need more people to know more about the environment and to know more about soil. So I'm responsible for thinking about the types of training programmes we need, thinking about the competency frameworks and accreditation so that when people do things there is, we know that they're doing them to a certain standard best practice. And one thing that I'm also really excited about is that I get to carry on working on projects as I have been for a number of years, to try and support new people into the profession. So getting people into good jobs in environmental management and also helping to make sure that it's a rewarding and inclusive environment to work within. Lily Billings [00:03:11] Brilliant. Thank you for explaining some more. And I actually have a question then. So how did it all start? I mean, what first got you interested into the world of soil? Soil is obviously quite a niche subject area, albeit we now realise it's much more important than we ever really realised before. So yeah. What got you interested? Mark Mason [00:03:28] Yeah. So I don't think I started off being that interested in soil, if I'm honest. I've always been really interested in nature and in fact I tell people that one of my earliest memories is playing in the garden with my friends aged three or four, and I have a distinct memory of telling them off because they were getting spiders confused with red spider mites. And that really offended me on some level. I think my interest in soil came a little bit later, so I did an ecology degree and that allowed me to keep my interest quite broad. So I studied everything from fish migration to fern classification, and a small amount of soil science. And then after my degree, I worked briefly as a quality assurance analyst in a lab. So I was looking at testing the equipment that hospitals use to measure levels of drugs in patients blood and urine. And it wasn't really for me. I enjoy lab work, but I wanted to be outside a little bit more. So I applied to work as a technician on a European Union funded project at Bangor University that was looking at experimenting with ways of creating woodland and heather moorland at post-industrial sites, especially on slate quarry waste in Snowdonia. And I was really lucky through that to have the opportunity to register for a PhD alongside my day job. And because the main constraint to establishing biodiverse habitats under those conditions tended to be a lack of soil, I chose to study how soil forms and particularly the relationship between the inputs of plant litter. So for example, when trees dropped their leaves in the autumn, and the formation of the organic matter in the soil, that then happens over time. Lily Billings [00:05:04] Great. I mean, I can see how that would get you hooked, actually. There's a lot yet to understand, I think, for many of us about soil. So I've got a bit of an obscure question for you, which is, so what actually is soil? You know, we've all got an idea of what we think it is, you know, what we can see it. But how do you describe it when you've been teaching students about soil. Mark Mason [00:05:26] It's such a great question because it often flummoxes quite a few people and it's one that I start almost every module or professional training course with just to check where people are at. So bear with me. So soils form over time, and they form from rocks weathering or the movement of sediments from one place to another. And then as life gets a foothold and gets going, we then get an accumulation of organic materials in the soil. And so there's a huge amount of variation in soils in age, determined by the geology and the climate, how much we interfere with them and the biology. And that gives rise to a fantastic diversity of different soils. And we can describe them and classify them, using keys in the same way that we might classify species of grasses. So an average soil, if there's any such thing, is about 50% empty space. And that often surprises people that the biggest single component of soil is actually the space between the stuff and that might contain air or it might contain water, a mixture of the two, and that varies throughout the year. Then you get about 45%, which is the mineral material. And if anyone's ever looked at a soil texture triangle, we often classify that in terms of different sizes of particles like sand, silt and clay. And then the smallest slice of the pie. And this is another thing that really surprises people is the organic matter. So the living organisms and the remains of organisms and stuff that's in the process of decaying can vary quite a lot. But if there's any such thing as an average so that it might be around 5%, but we'd expect that to be lower in a really young soil or degraded agricultural soil, and a lot higher in an older soil, and particularly in peat soils. And I think lots of people who teach soil science, including me, have quite a good way of describing what soil is, and that's to compare it to a good cake or a chocolate brownie. So you've got the sugar, the flour, and the cocoa, and they're a bit like the mineral component of soil. And the very fine silky cocoa is quite analogous to the clay fraction in soil. And in fact, one way of identifying what type of soil you have is to see how silky or gritty it feels, even against your teeth. But that would just be geology though, without the organic matter. So just like in a cake or a brownie, you need something to stick everything together, like the butter or the eggs. And to give that cake a nice crumbly feel. So soil is really similar to that. Just a final progress from that is I like to think of soil as a biological structure. There's a really, really good description of soil in George Monbiots book, Regenesis, talking about how the structure and properties of soil are so transformed by the influence of the organisms that live in and on it, that really it is kind of like a coral reef and that that structure is formed by the biology. Lily Billings [00:08:19] Great, I mean, it is fascinating. I mean, yeah, like I said, so many of us are starting only now to really learn about soils and their importance. And obviously you've been looking into this particular topic for quite some time now. So how would you say that our understanding of soil has changed and would you say, would you recognise as well that actually that understanding has changed quite a lot in recent years? Mark Mason [00:08:42] Yeah, definitely. I think I've seen some big changes in the nearly 20 years, I think now since I did my Ph.D., which is a bit scary and there are plenty of live debates at the moment too. So one way to think about it is to think about the models that we use to predict the weather and to predict how the climate is going to change over time. Because if we know enough about soil, then we can produce models that attempt to predict how soil will form over time. And actually, that's really, really important because climate and soil formation are really strongly linked. So it's important for us to understand how soils will influence the climate and how the climate will influence soils. So when I first started learning about soil, I think there was often a big focus on how the chemical composition of the plant material that goes into soil, like again, the leaves that fall in the autumn and the roots below ground, there's a big focus on how that composition affects how long the materials last for in soil. So we know, for example, that some substances like simple sugars and proteins are really tasty to the micro-organisms in soil, so they'll be eaten quite quickly. If you've ever put a big load of grass clippings in your compost heap and it's heated up really quickly within the first week, that's because of all of that biological activity of the bugs eating all of those really available substances. Lily Billings [00:10:03] I always wondered what was going on there. Fascinating how hot the bin gets. Mark Mason [00:10:07] Yeah, no, it's fascinating. But then we thought that the bigger and more complicated bits of plants might last a bit longer or the things that decompose from them might last longer. So think about lignin, which is the substance that makes wood, woody. So there's quite an emphasis on thinking about the chemical composition of the materials that go into soil and how that might influence the rate of formation of the organic matter in soil. And all of that is still relevant. But I think what I have seen shifting, and the models that we use to predict how soil forms have been revised to reflect this, is our understanding of how important living plant roots are, and particularly the relationship that they can form with organisms in the soil, like the mycorrhizal fungi that live on the ground. I think it's that bit of soil science that really excites me because it's dynamic, like studying the physiology of the processes within an organism rather than just where the organs are located. So we know the plant roots and the organisms that they communicate with and form relationships with produce a huge range of different compounds for lots of different purposes, like physical protection and guarding against disease, competing with each other and even mining nutrient elements to make them more available. And I think the newer models of soil formation consider those substances to be really important in determining the structure and properties of soil. But there are plenty of interesting research questions that remain. So which of those substances are particularly important and is the plant more in control of the process than the microorganisms? And how does that relationship work? And so, for example, Isabella Tree popularised in her book Wilding, a particular compound called glomalin, which is kind of a bit tricksy to pin down exactly what it is. But we know that these glomalin-like substances are produced by certain fungi and that they're particularly important or may be particularly important in gluing mineral components together to give the structure of soil. Lily Billings [00:12:04] Okay. So that actually leads me onto my next question. So obviously, we know that soil is a great way to sequester carbon, it's great kind of carbon sink. Could you explain really what carbon stabilisation in soil really means? I mean, that would be quite useful term, because we're, it's something that we're looking at the moment because many people will know that we've invested in forest assets. So we own quite a number of forests now and afforestation projects, which is great. But we are also going through a process where we starting to better improve our emissions reporting. And so one of the things we've been looking at is soil disturbance. Whilst we obviously plant these new trees, and trying to better understand that and obviously carbon stabilisation is part of that. Yeah, if you could explain that to us, that would be helpful. Mark Mason [00:12:56] Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of interesting research in this area because there are questions that we haven't quite answered yet because carbon is an element and about 60% on average of the organic material in soil is made of carbon. And it's really important that we understand how soils can hold on to carbon, how they could sequester it, which means accumulating more. But I think even more importantly, how we can keep what's already in the ground protected and avoid releasing it unless it's completely unavoidable. So one reason the plants and the fungi so important is because those substances that they produce help to glue the mineral particles together, like those crumbs in the cake, and we call those aggregates. And that relationship between the organic and the mineral parts of the soil seems to be particularly important for holding onto it and keeping it in the soil. So you can see this in your back garden. You know, if you pull up a plant in the garden and you look at the roots, you can see how there are these little crumbs, these aggregates forming on the roots of plants. And I kind of think they're almost like glaciers or icebergs that calve off a glacier into the soil. And one of the central problems that we face is that we too often manage our soils in such a way that disturbs that process, either by physically disrupting the soil and breaking up the aggregates or by removing the plants and the fungi from the system, providing that glue that's helping to stick everything together. Lily Billings [00:14:30] Okay. Thank you for explaining that to us. So I think it would be great as well if we can talk a little bit about just how important is soil. So we're now touching on the carbon element of soil, but also the fact that it can support ecosystems and actually good quality soil can lead to really great biodiversity just as much as great carbon sequestration. So yeah, it's quite an open ended question. But to you Mark, just how important do you think soil is? Mark Mason [00:15:03] I'm hopelessly biased obviously, but it's fundamentally important to our existence. You know, there's no life, there's no food, there's no biodiversity without soil. It's effectively a non-renewable resource, and we don't tend to treat it in that way. It varies depending on the environment, how long it takes for soil to form. But typically we think that an inch of topsoil might take 500 years to form and seconds to destroy. So we also now know that soil contains more carbon than there is in the atmosphere as greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. So there's no way that we can fix climate change if we don't protect soils and manage them in such a way that they are accumulating carbon rather than releasing it. Imagine we disturbed all of the soils and released all of that carbon that's contained within them that would kill us as a species and as a planet. And yet many of the practices that we adopt in in agriculture and construction, are meaning that our soils are releasing more carbon than they are sequestering it. So I think that's almost the elephant in the room. We talk about carbon sequestration and there are things that we can do to promote that and it's really important to do so. But we have to be really mindful that we protect the carbon that is already stored in our soils because it takes a long time to measure changes in carbon accumulation in soil. And I think our new understanding of how soil forms is really important for that. So for example, if we realise that soil fungi are important and that they help glue everything together and stabilised some of those carbon compounds in soil, then what effect will using fungicides in agriculture have on the ability of soil to hold on to carbon? Perhaps there's a a different angle there that we need to be considering our use of some of those chemicals. Lily Billings [00:16:55] Yeah, completely. And it's definitely something we've been looking at about reducing chemicals in our business processes because we're setting ourselves targets to improve biodiversity and obviously reduce our emissions. And the only way really we can do that effectively in certain parts of our business is by heavily reducing chemicals that have been just traditionally used as standard, completely lawfully. And we're starting to now challenge that status quo and look for other ways of managing land. So yeah, that's really interesting. That leads me on to ask then, so what would you say a healthy soil looks like? I mean, you said about how, you know, some of these top soils can take, you know, 500 years to get to the quality that they are. But what does that look like? What does a healthy soil like? And is it possible for us in a shorter space of time to make soil more healthy, whether that be in one of our forestry sites, for example, or even just at home in our gardens? Mark Mason [00:18:00] Yeah, definitely. So there's about four questions there. Lily Billings [00:18:03] Sorry. Mark Mason [00:18:05] I mean, the million dollar one there, is what does soil health mean and whats a healthy soil look like. And it's been a surprisingly contentious debate, actually, because there are a wide variety of different soils and we expect soil to do lots of different things for us. It's only actually in the last couple of years, believe it or not, that we've come up with shared definitions of healthy soil. So we have one that was proposed by the UN, and that is that healthy soil has the ability to sustain productivity, diversity and environmental services in terrestrial ecosystems. So if you want to determine whether you soil is healthy, then you're going to need some things to measure, some indicators. And there's no one indicator because they might be different in different systems. So for example, the fertility of soil or the availability of nutrients is one factor that determines how diverse a plant community is above ground. And in agriculture and horticulture, we might want more available nutrients to support the productivity that we need for crops, and we rely on the soils to produce those crops. But, in natural systems to maintain biodiversity in a grassland or a heathland for example, then actually we need lower fertility. So we can come up with different things that we can measure. We need to acknowledge that it depends on what we want from that soil, but we definitely agree that living soil is more likely to be healthy. So we're interested in how we can measure the activity and the diversity of the organisms that live within the soil, particularly because they're so important for doing a whole load of things we talked about, you know, the formation of aggregates, the stabilisation of organic matter with the carbon in it, but they're also essential for recycling nutrients in the soil, for providing natural disease suppression and making sure that the plants get the water and the nutrients that they need. So I think techniques that we can use to measure the activity of organisms within soil, and the diversity of organisms within soil, are quite good indicators of the health of soil. Lily Billings [00:20:06] It's an interesting point you raised that she and I associated notice, but you kind of forget. So the fact is certain species of plant and animal thrive in different areas, and therefore soil quality will be completely different. So, you know, you often had wild flowers, for example, actually quite like low quality soil. And so if you want an immediate quick fix when it comes to biodiversity, often people lean on wildflowers because, you know, they can be quite hardy and they can grow almost anywhere. So it's actually still important to have a spectrum then of different quality soils. Mark Mason [00:20:43] Yeah, absolutely. Lily Billings [00:20:45] Obviously, you mentioned as well around construction being a particular activity and agriculture, that are a threat to soil in the way that we're managing those two activities. What would you say are some other threats to soil? We touched on chemicals as well, obviously. Yeah. What would you say are some major threats to soil and therefore major threats to climate change and nature recovery as well. Mark Mason [00:21:11] Yes. So, and there's a really good book actually by Richard Bardgett called Earth Matters that I recommend. And he summarises some of the threats to soil in there. And so we talked a little bit like disturbance and that disturbance can be when we plough a field or when we excavate soil in construction. And we know that that releases carbon from the soil. We know that there's a whole range of different contaminants and metals, organic pollutants, microplastics and even the depleted uranium that is used in weapons. And I guess the other one that is of particular concern is soil sealing. So that's where we cover the ground with something impermeable like concrete or tarmac. And the reason that that's bad, is that it's removing the plants from the system and all of the substances that they can produce through photosynthesis, through taking carbon from the atmosphere. And then another thing that we've learnt relatively recently is, is that quite a high proportion of that carbon that they suck up from the atmosphere is then pumped below ground and a lot of that is used for all of the purposes that we've been talking about and to maintain those relationships with other organisms in the soil. So when we put something impermeable down on top of the soil, then that area of land is not taking up any more carbon from the atmosphere. It's not fixing any more carbon. And so whilst there might be a certain amount of carbon that's protected in the soil, one of the first things that will happen is that the microbes in the soil are going to be hungry, so they're going to start breaking down some of the carbon containing compounds, the ones that they can get to and release that carbon back from the atmosphere too. So I think there is what we call an opportunity cost for sealing soil and that you're taking that land out of being able to have plants in it and therefore there's no carbon being put back into the soil in that area. Lily Billings [00:22:58] Okay. So I was thinking, if you're looking off soil and essentially you'd be protecting it, the carbon from not being released, but actually it can have the opposite effect, which is quite interesting. Mark Mason [00:23:09] Yeah, you know, it might be that there might be carbon in the soil that is stored, but it can't sequester anymore. It can accumulate anymore because you've stopped those, because you know you need living organisms in the system for more carbon to be put into it. Lily Billings [00:23:24] Yes. Recently, Mark, you visited one of our UK solar sites. And so I wondered just as a quick one, what were your thoughts on how a bog standard solar site, for example, could improve soil quality and how? I mean, the fact is this would be different in different locations. So focusing on the UK and what we know of the UK. What would you suggest are your thoughts on how we can improve that? Mark Mason [00:23:47] I think solar farms are a great opportunity actually. I think they're really interesting. It takes a while to be able to measure changes in the total carbon content of soil, although we can look at specific pools and how they change more quickly. But what we do know, and it's quite logical really, is that the diversity of plants that you have above ground is linked to the diversity of organisms that you have below ground. So as a general rule, if you've got more diversity in the species of plants, you know, in a meadow compared to a monoculture in a pasture or in arable system or something, then you've got more compounds being put into the soil, you've got different rooting depths, and that is going to give you more biodiversity below ground too. And the other general rule that we know is that more biodiverse environments are likely to be more resilient to a changing environment. So how on earth does that relate to solar farms? I think one of the opportunities for solar farmd is that alternating pattern of shade and light that's provided by the panels. It's definitely important when we install the panels to disturb the soil as little as possible. Once they are installed, you're then going to get a different microclimate beneath the panels. And that's what I saw in Sandridge. You know, it's slightly cooler, and slightly drier underneath the panels. And different plant species are adapted to different environmental conditions. So if you've got more of a range in the soil conditions on the site, then that will support more biodiversity in the plants too. And the other reason that's relevant is that solar farms are often put onto former agricultural land. So a constraint to establishing biodiverse habitats is often that those lands have been enriched with fertiliser over time or other chemicals have been used. So over time, some of those things will work their way out of the system. But where you have these slightly barer patches, this slightly different microclimate underneath the panels. I think there's quite a good opportunity for putting some interesting native species in there to provide some islands of biodiversity, which then gives you more food sources, for example, for pollinators. And even it might be possible to put species like yellow rattle in there, which we know is called a meadow maker, because it helps to parasitised the ryegrass that you would have in pastures and reduce its dominance. And then that helps us to create more biodiverse habitats too. So I talked quite a lot about plants. I think that's because healthy soil is a biodiverse soil and if you've got a biodiverse habitat and that range of compounds, then you're keeping the soil healthy and you're maintaining those those carbon inputs there too. Lily Billings [00:26:26] Of course. I mean it makes sense that the more biodiverse the plants are, the better it is, and also therefore the more resilient soil on the plants can be just through being more diverse. So, conscious of time. I'm wondering actually whether it's worth thinking about, you know, you've talked about business, you've talked about solar and what we could do potentially to improve a solar site. What could people just do at home? What are some easy, quick wins that you'd suggest that anyone could do in their garden, perhaps starting to improve their soil? Mark Mason [00:27:00] Yeah. So I think just acknowledging that healthy soil is alive and that means that ideally it will be covered and it will be fed and it can be fed by having living plants in it. Or we might think about how we produce our own compost or spread clippings as mulch that help to keep the soil protected and keep those inputs. And I think we can encourage more biodiversity above ground. So for example, by sowing wildflowers in our gardens and then that will help us to improve diversity below ground too. If we are growing veg, then we can think about where we can work the soil less. And I think, thinking about that problem of soil sealing, I think we have an opportunity to reflect on on whether or not we need the paving and the decking and where it might even be possible to remove some of that and put plants back into the system to restore some of those inputs of carbon into the soil. Lily Billings [00:27:57] Yeah, I've actually been quite interested in a new phenomenon. Or maybe not so new, I'm not sure. But of moss lawns. So rather than having, you know, your traditional lawn, if you really must have one, the carbon sequestration properties of moss are pretty impressive. And yeah, I've just got this dream one day of having a moss lawn. Yeah. So a quick question there on that one. So obviously every location will have different species that will thrive better in those locations. So would you also suggest that it's important to make yourself aware of species that are native to your location? And not just to mean country, because it can be more specific than that. Like lots of local authorities, for example, who have a biodiversity action plan and will suggest that if you want to proactively try and improve nature in your area and therefore soil quality and biodiversity, it's important to plant things that are known to thrive in your particular area. Mark Mason [00:28:58] Yeah, so I think it's interesting because we talk about restoration and habitat creation as being from the ground up. So in nature, soils will co-evolved with the community of plants and animals that are supported by them. So they influence what will grow there, but they're also altered by the plants that grow there. So if we, for example, want to create habitat on a site that's been used for something else, then we need to think about whether the properties of the soil are appropriate for the target species. So we'd want to at least measure things like the acidity, the pH, the water holding capacity. We've already talked about the fertility and the levels of nutrients. And then we can identify a habitat type that might be most appropriate. And in all cases, we then need to monitor how that develops over time to determine whether it will ever approach being fully self-sustaining or whether we need to manage it and enhance it by our own actions, like cutting and grazing of a meadow. And there's lots of guidance on that that's produced by organisations like the Woodland Trust for woodland creation, and Magnificent Meadows for meadows. But I think we also need to keep a close eye on how things change over time, particularly where the soil we started with might have been used very differently for the decades before we attempt to create a habitat on it. Lily Billings [00:30:22] So am I right in thinking, you know, you mentioned about finding out the acidity levels of the soil. That's something that is actually quite easy for, you know, the general person to do. You can quite easily pick up like, you know, little kits can't you, so that you can test your own soil at home. Mark Mason [00:30:36] Yeah, absolutely. So you can get pH test kits from most garden centres. And then you can find online, you know, most providers of seed mixes will indicate the type of acidity that they will most likely be successful under. Lily Billings [00:30:51] Great. That's really good to know. It's probably worth asking you then. It's been a really interesting discussion with so many kind of offshoots of this conversation that we could go down because, you know, the topic of soil links with so many other important topics. And, you know, you mentioned fungi earlier as well. I mean, that's a whole new world that we're learning in the mainstream about. You know, you just have to go into Netflix and see how many documentaries there are about it, and so many books as well. So I think it would be, you know, where you are such an expert in this particular field. What's one thing that you'd like our listeners of this podcast to walk away with today? Mark Mason [00:31:31] I think an awareness the soil is a dynamic and living system, so it responds when we poke it basically. So anything you do to soil will have an impact. But there are simple things that we can do to protect it and improve it. And I think that particularly means keeping plants growing in it. Lily Billings [00:31:52] Thank you. Yeah, I really thank you so much for your time today. I think if you've got any suggestions, Mark, of where people can go to get more information on this, yeah, please do say so now. Mark Mason [00:32:03] Yeah, no, I will, because there are some really good resources out there and and it also gives me an opportunity to plug the CIEEM spring conference. That's being held in March. And we've got some fantastic ecologists and soil scientists talking about the role of soils in nature recovery. So check out the CIEEM website for details of the spring conference. And then there's also a load of really good resources provided by the British Society for Soil Science. From experiments for kids, up to policy and science notes for for decision makers. So definitely check out the CIEEM and the BS-cubed, as we call it, websites. And then for information from a more global perspective. You can find lots of resources on the on the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation around soils. And there's lots out there. I mean, also check out the Soil Association. Lily Billings [00:32:53] Great. Well, thank you so much Mark. It's been a fascinating discussion. Yeah. We really appreciate your time today coming to talk to us on this podcast. Thanks very much. And thanks to our listeners as well. Mark Mason [00:33:03] No problem. Thank you.
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In this episode, Molly Galloway, Sustainable Investment Associate at Foresight Group discusses the importance of engaging, enabling and empowering people and organisations to work together in the pursuit of social, economic and environmental wellbeing with Guy Battle, CEO of Social Value Portal. Key Takeaways include: Understanding what social value is, and how this differs from the ‘S’ in ESG Addressing the controversial shelving of the EU’s proposed Social Taxonomy Understanding why quantifying social value in financial terms will accelerate capital toward sustainable outcomes Guy Battle is the Chief Executive of Social Value Portal – an online solution that allows organisations to measure and manage the contribution that their organisation and supply chain makes to society. The podcast is for information purposes only and without limitation, does not constitute an offer, an invitation to offer or a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. Listeners should not construe the content of this podcast as investment advice and no reliance may be placed upon the content. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of their respective companies. Foresight Group LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 198020). Foresight’s registered office is at The Shard, 32 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9SG. {TRANSCRIPT} Molly [00:00:04] Welcome to Foresight Sustainability Podcast, a series that explores the sustainability themes that will play a crucial part in shaping our world in the current period of accelerated change. In this series, we will be sitting down with industry experts to explore some of the major developments in sustainability-related fields and consider the challenges facing businesses in a new decade of climate action. With these sessions, we aim to inform and promote dialogue around the mainstreaming of sustainability. I'm your host, Molly Galloway, I'm a Sustainable Investment Associate in the infrastructure team at Foresight Group, an Infrastructure and Private Equity Investment Manager. Today I'm joined by Guy Battle. Guy is the Chief Executive of the Social Value Portal, an online solution that allows organisations to measure and manage the contribution that their organisation and supply chain makes to society. Welcome Guy, would you like to begin by introducing yourself? Guy [00:00:57] Good afternoon, everybody. Or good morning. My name is Guy Battle, I am the Chief Executive of the Social Value Portal. Molly [00:01:05] Great. Thank you for that. Let's jump right into it then with our first question. So the topic of this podcast is social value, but what do we actually mean by the term social value and what's the difference between social value and the social aspect of ESG, which stands for environmental, social and governance, or sustainability? Guy [00:01:26] There's a lot of jargon, alphabet soup of terms and terminologies and acronyms. So, you got ESG, as you mentioned, environmental, social governance, we've got sustainability, we've got social value, we've got social impact, we've got CSR, which stands for corporate social responsibility. There's so much jargon in this space, but I will try and explain where social value sits in it in simple terms. So if you imagine sustainability as being the overarching definition, overarching term, and that kind of comes from the Brundtland report way back in 1987, that defined sustainability as the social, economic and environmental well-being or impact, if you like. So the first takeaway from all of this is that social value and everything else is all about three elements - social, economic and environment. Within that, you've then got ESG, and ESG grew from a sort of investor analyst, and really ESG is all about risk analysis. What risk sits in your supply chain or in a business you might be investing in with respect to environmental, social and the governance side of things? Next to that, we have social values. So if ESG is about the risk or the downside, social value is all about the upside. So what value does a organisation create or an asset create in terms of social, environmental and economic value created? And that's where social value sits. Now we have the other term, which is social impact, and that is more about the long-term impact. So we have the value created over the short term and then we have the impact created over the longer term by an asset or by a business for society. And within all of that, we've got CSR, corporate social responsibility, which is a kind of subset of social value. So a business that is embracing social value as a way of doing its business will have a CSR program. It'll be thinking about what additional activities can it deliver to the communities that deliver sort of value locally. Molly [00:03:29] Great. Thank you for that. I think within the sustainability space, there are so many different terms and acronyms that get thrown around, so it's really useful just to clarify the differences there. And I think the key point that I took away was that ESG is sort of more about risk mitigation, whereas social value is specifically about the additional value created in terms of social, economic and environmental impacts. Guy [00:03:50] Yeah, that is correct. And it's probably worth just noting, Molly, that there is a piece of legislation because what you might some of your listeners might ask is how come we're all talking about social value? It seems to have come from nowhere. And I would agree it sort of has sort of emerged from nowhere. And the reason is that out of all the terms that I've mentioned, the only term that has a piece of legislation sitting behind it is social value and it's called the Public Services Social Value Act, and it was published in 2012. It became law, if you like, implementable in January 2013. And it is a piece of legislation that's specifically aimed at the public sector and requires them to consider social value in all of their procurement decision making. And as a result of that over the past ten years, it's ten years old now. That term social value has sort of started out in the public sector, but leeched into the private sector where they want to win work with local government and central government. And so they're having to address it now in sort of meaningful terms. Molly [00:04:53] Thank you. That's really interesting. And as the Chief Executive of the Social Value Portal, could you tell us a bit more about what the Social Value Portal is and what its purpose is, and how the Social Value Act sort of plays into that as well. Guy [00:05:07] Yes. So we were set up on the back of the Social Value Act and specifically we've developed an online platform that helps organisations measure their social value. So when you go to an organisation, you ask it, you know, what's your purpose? And prove to me the social good that you do? Well, that's what our business does. We can help measure that. But what's important about the measurement framework that we developed is that it also allows organisations to put a pound sign on it. So we talk about the wider social, environmental and economic benefits, but then we say it is worth X pounds to society. And so that's the big step that we've moved or developed as a business. And if the business is, or the platform is all about helping organisations measure, manage and also report social value. But within that the platform is also used extensively by both government and also private sector organisations to manage their supply chains, so in procurement . So we help manage the procurement process and so people bid through our platform for work or an organisation wanting to maximise the value created by its supply chain might manage its supply chain through the portal as well. And that kind of cuts to our purpose. So our purpose is to maximise social value through all the customers that we are working with, and taking that number, I've set the business a big audacious goal. Call it our bag, big, audacious goal. And it's to unlock £100 billion worth of social value by the end of 2025. We've so far, Molly, delivered £14.5 billion. We are - we've still got a long way to go, but we have started, which is great. Molly [00:06:47] Wow, some big goals there, but I'm sure achievable. So could you tell us a little bit more about, I assume you're talking about the national comms framework there. Could you tell us a little bit more about it perhaps, and sort of how you maybe might expect it to be used in practice? Maybe an example and you mentioned sort of public and private. Which sort of industry does it apply to? Guy [00:07:10] So, yeah, the National TOMs. So we developed the framework, the National Social Value Measurement framework, and it's called the National TOMs because it's structured around a series of themes, outcomes and measures. And there were five themes, the five themes being jobs and skills or creating jobs and skills, the second theme being support for regional or local business. The third theme being supporting our communities, the fourth theme being protecting, regenerating our environment, and the fifth theme being promoting social innovation. Within those themes, we have a series of outcomes. So for instance, outcomes might be more jobs for those who are disadvantaged, or it might be action taken on climate change, or it might be more support for communities. So those are kind of objectives, outcomes. And then of course, what we're trying to do is we need to measure it and put a value to it. So following that more jobs theme for disadvantaged people, different cohorts might be given new opportunities. So long term unemployed people, young people coming out of care, could also be offenders who want to rehabilitate, so we'll count the number of offenders, for instance. And then we will put a value to that to society. So we pick up the fiscal saving to government and the economic benefit. The fact that this individual is no longer committing an offence, they are no longer a burden on our courts and our prison system and they have money to spend in the community. So we then put a value to that in sort of pounds, shillings and pence, and all of that creates this National TOMs. And so an organisation use the National TOMs almost like a menu. So it looks down the list and it's a prescribed list and it says, okay, what are we doing? And then it counts what they're doing and then you put a value to it and all that sort of is logged into the portal. Now that framework then, the National TOMs, is used in many different ways, it's integrated into the portal, so you can use it for procurement. So the public sector in the first instance will say we've got a contract award that's £1,000,000 and we want to award it for waste management, let's say. And so you'll get four organisations bidding for waste management, they'll bid their price in, they'll bid their technical approach in, then they have to by law, submit a social value statement and that's worth a minimum of 10%, in some cases 20% of the overall score. And so they use the TOMs and say we'll do five of those, ten of them, twenty of those, whatever it is, and that will form part of the score. And then that is used as part of the way of assessing which organisation to employ. And so from a procurement perspective, Molly, we are agnostic in terms of industry. We are just trying to get the maximum out of the bidders, if you like, and so yes, we've done waste management contracts, we've done buildings. We've even done grave digging, believe it or not. I mean we are just, we don't mind. So, what additional value can the grave digger bring? And it might be around their environmental credentials, for instance, or they might be doing an apprenticeship. So any business can do that. And so that started with the public sector and it's agnostic to sector. But now, of course, it's being picked up by the private sector who are saying, look, we want to maximise the value we're creating for society and they might be doing that because they're trying to bid for work with the public sector, but they might just be doing it because it's the right thing to do and proves their purpose. And so we're seeing that a lot of large organisations are now embedding it into their own decision making. So for instance, we're working with Roche, who one of our sort of big customers and how do we help them in their supply chain, deliver more social value through the jobs they create in local, or perhaps they're using local businesses to deliver some of the services, You know, in some of those local businesses might be social enterprises or voluntary organisations or do that people volunteer in the community or do they provide expert time to the community? And so we pick up all these elements and put a value to it so we can then measure that social value. Now the additional thing that's important about the National TOMs is that it's been endorsed by government, in particular local government, and is probably the most widely used framework that's out there, certainly in the UK. Molly [00:11:17] That's fantastic. I think lots of the challenges sort of surrounding social value and the integration of it are probably data related. You know, how do we connect and measure, how do we know which data to sort of focus on. And that's why having a framework like the National TOMs that sort of allows you to actually quantify your social value add, in a way that people can sort of put into context and actually understand as well is sort of so important. And it gives those people making the decisions, the tools that they actually, they need to decide how to allocate resources in a more sustainable and impactful way. So I think it's a really fantastic resource. Guy [00:11:55] Yeah, that's right. I mean, it has such great success and and what's important about it is that it is repeatable. And what I mean by that is that you can compare what one organisation is doing against another organisations against another organisation. So that means we can create benchmarks. So we have a benchmarking tool. So we've probably measured something like 6,000 or 7,000 individual projects that are being delivered by companies at the moment, and we've got 250, 300 members on the portal. And so we can compare how they're performing against each other by sector, and by year, and by project. And so what this really means is that if you can measure something, you can manage it, and then you can improve what you're doing. And that I think, it cuts to the core of what we're all about in our business. Molly [00:12:43] Absolutely. And quite often we think of social value being sort of most relevant at the local community level. So sort of local employees, local suppliers. In your opinion, do you think this is true or is it equally as important at regional and national levels as well? Guy [00:13:01] So I think it's really important to recognise or remember where social value is delivered and lands. So, ultimately, social value is all about people, and so it is always in a place and that place is always local to someone, right? So it's always, you know, whether it's in Dundee or it's in Cleethorpes or it's all the way down in St Austell, in Cornwall. You know, there might be a regional strategy for Cornwall that's being dictated by Cornwall County Council, but it is always delivered in a place and there might be likewise a national approach. So for instance, HS2, national piece of infrastructure, we've done some work for them on social value and whilst it's national money paying for a piece of national infrastructure, it is delivering social value and jobs for people all the way up. It's the length of it. And so I think that it's always important to remember that social value's about people and it lands somewhere and whilst you can have a national strategy for it, you always have to focus on how to maximise it for communities. And what's really important is two words we must remember that we do with are not do to. And what I mean by that, it's fine saying, look, we want to support communities, but don't tell me I'm going to do to communities. I'm just going to give them some social value. Let's ask them what they want and make sure that we maximise the benefit and make sure it's something that is real and needed in that place. Molly [00:14:26] Yeah, that makes complete sense. And thinking about at the broader level, the EU has recently shelved that proposed social taxonomy, which was the planned classification of economic activities that contribute to the EU's social goals. And its aim was to provide guidelines for investors, businesses and regulators about what is and is not sustainable from a social perspective. Could you tell us your thoughts on why it's been paused, any sort of implications that might arise from this and whether you think it potentially could be picked back up again at some point in the future? Guy [00:15:02] So it's disappointing it's been paused, without a shadow of a doubt. And if you read around it, then they're saying it's been paused because they think measuring it's too complex. And all I can say is I wish they'd spoken to us first, because that's what we do. We measure it. And it is true that the S in ESG has the reputation of being difficult to measure and complex. But, you know, we've been doing it now since 2015 and we have rafts and rafts of data. And so we know that it's not complex and that it can be done and you can break it down. And I think probably they just tackled it at the wrong level. And what is difficult around the social piece is to measure impact and remember the, right up front of this conversation, I spoke the difference between value and impact. So value is what's delivered there and then, it's hard numbers, it's fiscal saving, it's economic benefit, it's the additional money someone might have in their pocket to spend or the value money you spend with the charity or whatever. If you then want to understand the longer term impact of investing in that charity over three, four, five years time, then that is harder to do. It takes time. So I think probably what they did is just try and expand their envelope of measurement just into, with time, to too long, they should have just kept it more to the inputs and the outputs that can be created rather than the long term benefit, because that just makes it much more difficult and I can understand why they retreated from it. Does it matter? Well, yes, it does sort of matter to investment community, because I think the key reason for these taxonomies was to avoid the greenwashing or the, you know, just the investors pretending they were to do this stuff, but not really following through. So it does actually matter. And I do think that investors shouldn't be claiming social impact unless they have a proper way of measuring it and reporting it and improving performance over a period of time. And I think that's fundamental. And if that is not done, then there's a real chance, unfortunate chance of the whole investment community around ESG and impact being undermined. So we must get there. Having said all of that, what's interesting is that there is EU procurement regulation that exists already that effectively covers social value, otherwise the Social Value act in this country couldn't have been delivered because when it was done, we were part of the European Union. And so that does exist. It just doesn't cover investment. So there are frameworks, or there is a knowledge out that we can use. So I do think it's going to come back. It just seems inevitable. We're doing the green stuff. Let's not forget people. I mean, it's really important. Molly [00:17:42] Absolutely. And it's great to hear that there are sort of potential other sort of initiatives or regulations that will help to promote and sort of drive forward social considerations. And over the last few years, we've sort of seen ESG as a whole shift from being something that, you know, just a few are aware of to being sort of very much mainstream. And historically, the focus has tended to be purely on the environmental side. But is the sort of social aspect, or the S in ESG, becoming sort of more prevalent? I think I already know the answer to this, but I guess more more to the point, is it at the point that it needs to be or is there more to be done? Guy [00:18:16] Yeah. So what's interesting is I don't know if any of your listeners picked this up, but at Davos, Larry Fink, some of you will know Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, and he, for the past few years, he's been putting this environmental message out there. And I understand and read a little bit of it, is that he was given a really, really hard time at Davos over this. And because, you know, everyone's saying you can't go for net zero, it's going to be too costly. There's a whole sort of issue around investment. And funny enough, I think the S avoids all of that because the S is all about people. And so even if you were to go to some of the most sceptical places in America and you were to say, look, let's not call it ESG, let's just call it, why don't we call it America first? Why don't we say we're going to focus on businesses that are local, that are creating local jobs, that are supporting local businesses? How about that? Is that a problem? And they'll go no, that's what MAGA's all about, isn't it? So, you know, I think what's really interesting that everyone's got really, this whole climate thing, is everyone sees numbers and cost associated. But the people piece, I think is, I think it's a relatively simple thing to do. We just have to get on and do it. So I think it is important to your question, Molly, I think we've got momentum going and let's really, you know, whilst everyone has their eyes on the climate bit and arguing over that, let's get people into the equation. Let's get all our investors, let's get any business, let's get all the buyers thinking about the S in ESG and really making that happen. And, you know, obviously the TOMs is one way. There are other options out there to do the measurement, of course. But the TOMs we know, are a really good way of understanding and measuring. And it's simple. And what's important is not, does it cost money? And I think what a lot of businesses will be surprised about is that they're probably doing a lot of this stuff anyway. They're probably thinking about apprenticeships or graduate schemes. And I bet, you know, most businesses they're volunteering time, dedicate it, allowed for their people. You know, so it's just a matter of just putting this into practice and measuring it and doing more. Molly [00:20:25] Yeah, absolutely. And like you say, it's exactly why the National TOMs was created. And how do you think awareness and sort of the importance of creating and measuring social value can be driven forward? Because it seems like sort of that's the next big thing that needs to happen. It needs to continue to be really put at the forefront of considerations. Speaker 2 [00:20:42] Yeah, so I think it's all about the money. So money needs to be more demanding. And so let's think who has the money? So the simple one that's already happening is public sector money. So that's our taxes, right? So any public sector organisation spending money needs to demand more from their supply chain, and that's happening through the Social Value Act, right? We then have investors who are putting money into businesses or infrastructure or whatever it might be. They should be asking for a social report. Tell us what the social impact is. Tell us not only the long term, but also tell us about the social value you're creating through how this money is being developed. That's not different. So obviously, when you're investing into renewables, right, you might be investing into wind generation. So the social value piece doesn't pick up the energy saving or the carbon reduction that comes out of the turbine. That's about the longer term impact. What it picks up is how are those turbines made and how are they maintained? What comes out of how that investment is managed? And that's the longer term social value or the social value that I think organisations need to be thinking about and investors need to be asking about. And then it all goes all the way down to us. Most of us hopefully are thinking about pensions and we should be asking all of our pension managers, pension funds, about what good our money is doing. Yes, of course we want a rate of return, but actually we - I think we can expect and demand a social return on our investment. And if we can make social return on investment become just part of the way investors think about how their money's being used, then we can begin to shift this dramatically. Won't happen overnight, but that then will bring the S in ESG right to the forefront. And so ultimately we'll be able to judge investments, not only on their financial return on investment, but also their social return on investment, which is the place we need to get to. Molly [00:22:46] Absolutely. I completely agree with you there. And there have been instances where the roll out of sustainability initiatives in other countries have sort of failed or not gone as well as hoped because they haven't been culturally sensitive. And we know that obviously different cultures and different demographics will have a big impact on how social value is defined and measured. So, with this in mind, are there equivalent international organisations building similar frameworks to the National TOMs, which is, to my understanding, sort of more UK focussed? Guy [00:23:20] Soon to be global, Molly. So yes, the National TOMs, at the moment are UK focussed. We ought to be calling the UK TOMs. This year, we're developing the Global TOMs, so we are developing a framework that will allow any organisation anywhere in the world to measure the social value they are creating in any territory, in any region. Now what's interesting about this is that we are discovering that there are some universal outcomes, that it doesn't matter where you are in the world that remain constant. So for instance, back to what I mentioned earlier, jobs for those who are furthest from the job market, disadvantaged. Okay. Now I don't care where you are in the world, if you're a business and you're operating responsibly, you're going to be interested in that issue. How can I help an organisation? How can I help my community do that? Now, it happens in the UK. We define that as disabled people, ex-offenders, children coming out of care, and long term unemployed, and mothers coming back to work after a period of time out. If you were to go to Canada, they would be talking about, yes, ex-offenders, but actually they'll be talking about indigenous people. If you went to Australia, they'd be talking about Aboriginal people. But the definition of disadvantaged people is the same. It's just defined as a measure slightly differently. And so I think this is where the culture needs to come in. And so the Global TOMs is all about developing a sort of overarching framework made up of universal outcomes that can be interpreted in different territories and in different places within each territory, because we must reflect the cultural differences. And indeed the different needs of each area. We kind of get this anyway in the UK, in as much that what's useful and needed in London, in Southwark, actually is quite different to what's useful and needed in Manchester. And so whilst the language is the same, the needs need to be nuanced to reflect, also the measures need to be nuanced, to reflect the needs. I think it's a bit more the nuancing as you go global, but I do think there's a way of doing this and as far as I'm aware, I don't think anyone else - this is where the UK's leading. I think there's nowhere else that has the social value act. And you know, we are one of those leading organisations who've got the framework out there. So I think we've got a real opportunity, as you know, UK, to go out there and set the standard. Molly [00:25:47] And is the aspiration for the National TOMs then within the UK to sort of go that one step further and produce a value separately for Manchester and London, for example. Guy [00:25:58] We already have that in the UK. And so it's interesting, let's take - I've mentioned offenders quite a few times. So when we look at the value created, the fiscal saving, you have to take into account the probability that that individual will not re-offend, because that's part of the value, because you can't just take an average, you've got to take probability because plainly some people will re-offend. So you can't just take the full saving to the courts, for instance, or the police because some people go back to re-offend. The percentage probability of re-offending is different in Newcastle, Manchester and London. And so we already take that into account as it happens. As you start going globally, then those will change again. So we need to find a way of having proxies or values that reflect local conditions. Molly [00:26:49] That make sense. And there's absolutely no doubt that having one global standardised framework will sort of be incredibly helpful for those looking to benchmark and for those looking to sort of develop their overall approach to social value. And I think that probably draws us about to a close. Thank you for such an interesting and educational conversation. It's been fantastic having you on the podcast Guy. Guy [00:27:11] My pleasure Molly. Thank you.
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As corporations set net zero targets, they must demonstrate credible science-based strategies to reduce the carbon footprint of their activities. To do this, many companies are buying carbon credits to offset unavoidable and residual emissions on their decarbonisation journeys. As interim emission reduction targets are approaching, corporate demand for carbon credits is increasing. In response to this, the London Stock Exchange launched the Voluntary Carbon Market (“VCM”) in October 2022 to facilitate financing at scale into projects that mitigate climate change and generate carbon credits. The VCM designation will be applied to funds or operating companies that are admitted to the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market or AIM and which are intent on investing into climate change mitigation projects that are expected to yield voluntary carbon credits. In this episode Managing Director of Foresight Group LLP (“Foresight”) and Co-Lead of Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company Plc, Richard Kelly, discusses the climate challenge we face and the VCM with the CEO of the London Stock Exchange, Julia Hoggett. Key Takeaways include: Understanding what the VCM is and who it is for Addressing the controversial history of carbon credits and the reputational challenges Determining what a quality carbon credit looks like Understanding the future demand and supply issues The podcast is for information purposes only and without limitation, does not constitute an offer, an invitation to offer or a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. Listeners should not construe the content of this podcast as investment advice and no reliance may be placed upon the content. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of their respective companies. Foresight Group LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 198020). Foresight’s registered office is at The Shard, 32 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9SG. {TRANSCRIPT} Richard: [00:00:05] Hello and welcome to Foresight Sustainability Podcast, a series that explores the sustainability themes that will play a crucial part in shaping our world in the current period of accelerated change. In this series, we will be sitting down with industry experts to explore some of the major developments in sustainability-related fields and consider the challenges facing businesses in a new decade of climate change. With these sessions, we aim to inform and promote dialogue around the mainstreaming of sustainability. My name is Richard Kelly and I'm the host for this episode. I'm a managing director at Foresight Group and I'm also the co-lead and co-founder of Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company, a listed investment company on the London Stock Exchange, FSF The Ticker. We are the first and only listed investment company focused on natural capital. We are also the first and only listed investment company to have received the London Stock Exchanges’ voluntary carbon market designation. Today I'm joined by Julia Hoggett. Julia is the CEO of the London Stock Exchange. A warm welcome to you, Julia. Perhaps before we begin with you, perhaps like to give a brief introduction to yourself. Julia: [00:01:18] Yes, thank you. Well, firstly, thank you for having me. It's a delight to be here. So, my background is a varied one. And I would say I am an African development sociologist who had a career in the last 25 years in finance and still hasn't quite figured out what I want to do when I grow up. But I've worked in the capital markets all my career, first as an investment banker, then I ran a funding program for bank, then ran a bank and back to being an investment banker, and then my role before I came to the stock exchange was as a supervisor and a regulator at the Financial Conduct Authority, and most recently I was director of Market Oversight at the FCA before I came to the LSE. Richard: [00:01:50] Fantastic, fantastic journey. Okay, well I have a few questions for you about climate change and perhaps we'll just kick off with - what is your view on the scale of the climate challenge that we currently face? Julia: [00:02:01] It's huge, and I think it's a really important thing to, in a sense be able to say that out loud and to recognise the scale of the challenge, but to use that as a trigger for action rather than inertia. Sometimes I think one of the challenges with the climate crisis is that it feels so big and amorphous and the approaches that we need to take are so vast that it can almost be easier to not think about it. I actually think it's the responsibility of all CEOs of companies to think about it both in terms of directly addressing climate change, but also thinking about what they need to do and can do to be good stewards of their institutions to manage it. But it is an enormous challenge. But I think the nature of the challenge also correlates with the nature of the responsibility we have at the LSE. I always say that our job is as a convenor of capital, it’s to bring together those who have capital with those who need capital in service of an objective. And I can't think of a more important objective than the just transition to net zero. And so I think the onus is actually on us to make sure that our pipes and plumbing work in service of doing everything we can to direct capital into the investments that need to take place to achieve the transition that we will have to achieve. Richard: [00:03:09] Absolutely. And in the spirit of that, it's exciting to see that the London Stock Exchange has recently launched the voluntary carbon market, or ‘VCM’ as it's known. What is the VCM? Who's it for and how is it different? Julia: [00:03:22] Right. How long have you got? This is a bit of a passion project of mine, so I'll try and make the explanation as quick as I can. So, the voluntary carbon markets are the loose term for the markets that generate voluntary carbon credits, and that’s actually the thing that’s most important. Voluntary carbon credits are credits that represent tonnes of carbon either removed or reduced from the atmosphere as a consequence of the activity taking place. That activity has to be genuinely additive and not economically viable in its own right, and that therefore is something that has been hugely important in the construct of what we've been seeking to do. We have always described the carbon market challenge as a chicken and egg problem, which is that because the value from the investment comes from the value of the credits, then how do people have the confidence to invest in projects that generate voluntary carbon credits unless there is a deep and liquid market for voluntary carbon credits? How do you get a deep liquid market for voluntary carbon credits unless you have an active supply of credits? And an awful lot of exchanges have focused on trading voluntary carbon credits, whereas we have very much focused on how you solve that chicken and egg problem and how you do everything you can to direct capital into investments that will give rise to a voluntary carbon credit. And it is very much designed as a mechanism by which individuals, institutions and corporates that are on their own journey to net zero can have an asset that they can invest in that gives them that ability to get to net zero. And that is one of the remarkable things actually about really engaging with the transition. Value is changing. Understanding of value is changing. You could say it's a proxy ultimately for a carbon price because in some regards it is. But as people commit to science-based targets to get to net zero, then the ability actually to be able to invest in the things that will facilitate you getting there becomes more and more critical. And I think that's where pipes and plumbing and responsibility that we have as a venue comes in, in order to make sure that we've facilitated the mechanism to do that. Richard: [00:05:26] So the key difference I was picking up there was that the LSE focuses on the flow of capital to projects that are creating carbon credits, whereas many others are focused on the trading of credits created. And that seems to be the key difference. Julia: [00:05:40] It is absolutely. It's founded on a philosophical difference, which is the most important thing that we can possibly do is generate a rigorous flow and scale flow of capital into projects that reduce the amount of carbon that is in the atmosphere. That is what gets us to net zero. The trading is a by-product of having done that, but it isn't doing that in its own right. And I have always been fundamentally focused on the fact that stock exchange is doing a real-world job. The capital that is raised every day is in scales and volumes that most people think of as outside of their sense of understanding. But at the end of the day, it goes to building factories, it goes to investments in research, it goes to forestation in your case, that has a direct real-world impact and it produces jobs, employment, wages and livelihoods. And this is just another illustration of a market deliberately focusing on doing that thing. Richard: [00:06:36] I just to pick out another point you made around connecting retail investors, financial institutions and corporates with investment companies who are creating these carbon credits. The last of those buckets - Corporates haven't traditionally invested in investment trusts much today. Do you see a big opportunity there. Julia: [00:06:53] I do. And it is a transition in both sectors, both in terms of the transition to net zero and the psychological and investment transition for these corporates. Let me take a step back. One of the other things that I thought was so important about the structure that we've created, the designation for a voluntary carbon market, for a fund or an operating company that is meeting the requirements and genuinely investing in voluntary carbon credits, is that we also wrap the rest of the structures around it and capital markets are brilliant at investing at scale, but they also produce rules and regulations and standardisation and disclosure that produces transparency for the market and transparency for investors. And the voluntary carbon market at the moment is pretty small in terms of the total amount of carbon credits that are out there. That in itself is a problem compared to the future demands of these credits. But it's also not as transparent because there isn't standardised expectations of disclosure and it doesn't fit within the existing disclosure regimes that we have, for example, for UK capital markets. By creating a designation for existing listed funds or operating companies, what we have done is basically bring the entire voluntary carbon market within scope of listing regime, transparency regime and indeed the market abuse regime to increase the level of scrutiny, discipline and disclosure that happens around that market. And I hope that also gives investors of all types of institutional retail corporates even more confidence to invest in these projects because they are receiving the scrutiny and the discipline and the transparency that they would from any other investment that they make in the capital markets. And that, I think, is a critical piece of it. The next piece for corporates is how they think about this in the round. And let me tell you the reason why we have the confidence to generate the voluntary carbon market in the UK at this time. Even prior to COP26, the UK had made mandatory the use of TCFD for UK-listed companies. So you already had to disclose according to TCFC stance in terms of how you're thinking about climate change risk, how you’re thinking about governance, etc.. When you layer on that we're increasingly moving towards a world in the UK where companies will also have to publish their transition plans, then how they are going to meet the science-based targets that they commit to externally has a level of scrutiny and disclosure and discipline around it, actually, to be honest, doesn't exist in other parts of the world. The challenge for the voluntary carbon markets and the criticism that they've received from a range of different parties has been that they are a substitute for companies doing the hard yards of the direct investment in their supply chain and their production processes to decarbonize those. And our view has always been – no, this is a complementary piece of the puzzle. Companies, of course, need to make sure they are decarbonising their supply chains in their production processes. But when it gets to scope one, scope to scope three, depending on how they have identified their science-based target, there are and will be challenges that they cannot address yet. Either the technology doesn't exist or there are things that they cannot yet take out of the production processes. Or there are things that are outside of their control, depending on how they've articulated the scope that they want to apply. And voluntary carbon credits are a brilliant mechanism of companies being able to invest today in that piece of the puzzle that they can't resolve directly themselves and therefore on a net basis, getting to net zero but with the level of scrutiny and disclosure that they wouldn't have in any other form of route to get to that point. But it is because in the UK we have that complete package together that I hope you generate the most credible way of having a voluntary carbon market that you could. Richard: [00:10:20] It really feels like a breakthrough, a massive step forward in terms of scaling the voluntary carbon market in one go. What is your ambition for the voluntary carbon market? Julia: [00:10:31] My first ambition is that it works and it's used. I am a massive fan of real-world KPIs and that applies whether it's in the number of jobs or the new products that get created by capital that is raised on the market or the capacity that a company has to have the right access to working capital in the middle of Covid, which is one of the critical things that the LSE did during COVID. In this case, to me the key measure of success is how many tonnes of carbon have actually been removed or reduced from the atmosphere as a consequence of this market. That's its final, most enduring KPI, and the thing that I hope when we look back in many years to come, and it will be many years because an awful lot of the lead time in these things is serious time. But if we can see the amount of capital that’s going in today, then we can see the value of the incremental investments in reducing carbon from the atmosphere that is facilitated through this market. That to me is the most fundamental KPI achievement. Richard: [00:11:25] So could you perhaps just explain how the scheme can help investors and corporates to actually meet their decarbonisation ambitions. Julia: [00:11:34] So I touched on it a bit, but if you have made a science-based target, then there will be direct work you need to do. But in terms of reaching the rest of that, then investing in a voluntary carbon market asset today will give you the potential for a future flow of carbon credits that will go to the total amount that you have offset. And that fundamentally is the mechanism that corporates can use to get that. One of the tricks that unlocks this in our initial thinking about it was the idea that we would facilitate these funds paying a dividend either in cash, but most importantly a dividend in specie as a voluntary carbon credit so that the companies would actually know they had this forward flow of anticipated voluntary carbon credits that they could set against the other targets that they had set themselves and be able to demonstrate to the market who will increasingly be holding them accountable for them for how they’re meeting their transition plan, that they have actually made those investments to achieve that outcome. And the structure around the funds and the operating companies that requires the disclosure of the anticipation of the voluntary carbon credits that will be released and disclosure around the discipline of that, is part of contributing to that ecosystem and enabling people to be able to see the tangible impact that their investments are making today on their own science-based mechanism to get to net zero. Richard: [00:12:52] So companies can invest today, elect to receive and in specie carbon credits dividend in the future and then they can because these funds and investment companies are traded on the LSE, they can presumably buy and sell more or less shares in order to adjust that due to yield requirements. And that's important, as companies don't have a crystal ball understanding exactly how much they're going to be able to decarbonise by and when. Julia: [00:13:18] Exactly, and I think making it, in a sense, much closer to a classic treasury asset, when you spoke to a lot of companies about voluntary carbon credits, they sort of didn't quite know how to account to them and where to account for them. And this is an illustration of something that is classically in the space of a treasury asset or another asset on your books. It has a mark to market, it has a value, and exactly as you say, if you suddenly find that your route to the target that you've set yourself, you're falling short on, this is a mechanism of also investing incrementally to enable yourself to get there. And crystal ball piece is entirely right. And I think that is the other thing we feel quite strongly about as an exchange. It's actually our duty to advocate for the complexity of this. Many conversations, including around climate change get reduced to very binary things. This is complicated. If the transition to net zero was easy, we would have done it right. And the simple reality is we will learn a lot about what is most effective and what works as we make direct and the greater level of direct investments into this approach, and therefore recognising that the system will iterate and learn and that this is also a mechanism for potentially exploring technologies etc, is a really important part of the market. Richard: [00:14:28] The carbon credits have had a somewhat controversial history and they're not particularly new assets or thing. How is the voluntary carbon market addressing some of those sort of historic reputational challenges? Julia: [00:14:42] And this goes back to the thing I was saying about the sort of brickbats that they receive from civil society. And I understand that because it is important that actually we all take accountability, whether personally or from an institutional point of view, on our direct impact on the planet, because that's ultimately how you get to net zero and stay there fundamentally. But I think it has been badged as kind of, you can keep doing this bad stuff over here and offset it by doing this nice stuff over here. And therefore, it's a bit of a fudge at best, I think is probably a polite way of paraphrasing some of the bad stuff. And that's why I said what I said about the importance of the UK framework. When you have the foundation of TCFD disclosure, you then layer onto it transition plans. You have an increasing number of corporates who are setting science-based targets. Then exactly where the voluntary carbon credit fits within that transition is absolutely transparent. So that I think addresses quite a lot of the ‘it's a polluters’ kind of option to pay off, as it were. That is one piece of it. The other piece is that this produces as I said, the market disciplines around disclosure and scrutiny that give confidence to the quality of the credit. And one of the things I'll be honest, I worried about when seeing lots of different exchanges set up trading of voluntary carbon credits, is the risk is that you seek to kind of win market share on price? To be blunt, we're trying to set the market standard on quality such that actually it becomes harder for people to justify buying voluntary carbon credits that don't have the level of scrutiny that our market will produce. Because that level of scrutiny is the confidence that that activity is genuinely offsetting activity. Money is genuinely going where it needs to go, and the companies that are interacting in this market have the right credibility, the right controls, the right disclosure disciplines in order to fulfil that requirement. Because again, it's all in service of one thing, just taking carbon out of the atmosphere. And that to me is why we've started from this route, because the London market is a great market for standards and discipline and regulation. And in this case it's an incredibly powerful thing that this month that the carbon market needs. Richard: [00:16:58] So the VCM is looking to sort of facilitate a market in the creation of high-quality voluntary carbon credits. And what does the LSC think are high-quality carbon credits? Julia: [00:17:08] Well, we've set standards around the standards bodies that we would accept, and that was part of the process that we took around developing the market in the first place. We took a reasonably unusual step, actually, which was rather than just saying, here's a new market, we're opening it today. We announced that we intended to open the new market, which was a relatively unusual thing for the LSE to do. And the reason for doing that was to then engage with market participants on how best to structure it, and that some of that discussion was on the standards bodies that we would approach. And we've used a company to set some of the initial standards. But obviously, we will get to a point where we have the legacy of the task force on the scale of the voluntary carbon markets, setting core carbon principles. It's now the Integrity Council and the voluntary carbon market and we can increasingly, as those standards articulate and evolve, we can incorporate those by reference into our rule set as well. The intention is make it very clear what standards any listed entity is applying, the accounting methodology that they're using and that they've audited it as well. So it's making sure that the rules that set some of those expectations out so that it's very clear. What we didn't want to be was to be too didactic and say it has to be this set of rules and none other, because you actually want people to be able to determine the one that is best for the nature of the activity they're doing, but make it crystal clear that it's of sufficient standard and that they’re disclosing to those standards. Richard: [00:18:31] So we've seen corporates increasingly making net zero pledges and science-based targets. Net zero pledges are almost on an exponential rise, they've more than doubled in number to over 4000 companies making a science base pledge in the last year. How do you see that translating into the future demand for voluntary carbon credits and also the pricing of them? Julia: [00:18:53] There are lots of studies on what the price could be or should be. I haven't seen one that says it goes down if I'm honest. The way I frame it is in quite simple terms, which is that if you have set a net zero target of 2050, then if you start thinking about voluntary carbon credits you need to invest in 2040, A it'll be too late and B it will be really difficult to find them because the lead time to generate credible, legitimate credits is not insignificant. Therefore, fundamentally, unless we address the supply problem, we will have a massive demand problem. And I don't think even at the rate that we feel we can grow a market, we'll be addressing the supply problem as quickly as we need to existentially. And therefore, the upward pricing pressure on carbon credits I think will only increase and my instinct is that we'll see both demand and price go up. I think we are at a bit of a turning point and I do think that implementing transition plans is one of the pivot points for that, because that's where the kind of final accounting of the pathway really is where the rubber hits the road. Increasingly, investors will demand evidence from the people that the companies are investing in to show me your glide path to get there. Show me all the steps you're going to take. And what is your unknown bit right now that you haven't solved? And that will become increasingly tangible and cogent as a challenge for certain issuers with the corporates and make the need to engage and invest in the voluntary carbon market increase. I don't think we should also underestimate the retail problem. So one of the challenges that you quite often see from retail point of view is that retail absolute demand and desire to focus and invest in assets which have a really direct kind of transition benefit - but also additive. And one of the challenges often is, is this activity that would have been happening anyway or is this activity that is genuinely new and additive to the sum total of direction of travel that we're taking? And if you think our risks are that our current pathway is at least 2.6, 2.7 degrees and nowhere near one and a half degrees, then the need for additive activity is crystal clear. This is one of those markets that absolutely does that thing in a way more than almost any other green asset because of the nature of what a voluntary carbon credit is in and of itself. So, I hope that increasingly that dynamic will become part of people's focus as well. But if I'm blunt, I can only see demand and price going up with the current dynamics we have with the market. It's one of the reasons why the quality of the credit is so important. Because in those circumstances you don't want low quality, actually not delivering credits to flood the market. You want a steady stream of capital flowing to high quality credits. Richard: [00:21:36] It's all about high-integrity credits. The London Stock Exchange launched the voluntary carbon markets at the beginning of October. How do you see it progressing and evolving? Julia: [00:21:46] Well, as I said, I think we have been thrilled by the pace at which it's actually evolved. We’ve been thrilled by the engagement we had with the community across capital markets to develop the standards in the first place. It's been great to see the first funds, first company come to market and get the designation. It's wonderful to see. It was a very joyous day in the exchange I think, the day that that happened. And I do see more coming. I mean we see fund managers looking at this interestingly, we see sovereigns looking at this because they're sitting on a lot of these assets and thinking about how to make sure that they, in a sense, use them to benefit future generations. So it is one of those unusual markets where, given the direction of travel and the absolute need and commitment to get there and the need to re-engineer pipes, so that capital can flow in service of that objective, you can see a growing emphasis and energy behind it. So I can only see it going from strength to strength. But then I, I operate on the basis that you need to be kind of ruthlessly frank in terms of your - I describe it's a scrupulously honest mark to market about the problem. And I think we have to be when it comes to climate change, but intensely optimistic about our capacity to resolve it once we're pragmatic about the understanding of the problem. And I think there is a level of focus and momentum now around addressing it and making sure that the capital markets play their part in addressing it, that I hope that we've hit the right point to harness and accelerate the focus. Richard: [00:23:11] Yeah, it feels like the market has hit something of an inflexion point and it's a sort of an inevitable drive whether we'll get to one and a half degrees exactly. But it feels that there is sufficient momentum now with corporates, governments behind this. Well Julia, thank you so much for joining us on this sustainability podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on this and many thanks. And congratulations on the voluntary carbon market. It really does feel like a breakthrough in the UK's fight against climate change. Julia: [00:23:39] Well, thank you and congratulations to you as well for being a first recipient of the designation. I think it's a testament to the focus and the nature of the work that you do. But also, I hope that we can both look back in years to come to say that that was the starting point against which thousands of tonnes of carbon was offset, and we got closer to one and a half degrees and that wouldn't be a bad way to look back on the future of work in the capital markets. Richard: [00:24:05] Yeah, absolutely. Julia, thank you so much.
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As demand for ESG investing spreads across geographies and investor types, the role of the investment manager and their ability to drive change for the future of the planet is in the spotlight now more than ever. In this episode, Hugi Clarke, Partner at Foresight, talks with Simon Holman, Partner at , an employee-owned investment and financial advisory group, with a focus on ethical and sustainable investments. The pair discuss the key questions arising around sustainable investment today, and how advisers can be best equipped to help their clients invest with impact, without compromising financial returns. Key Takeaways include: Understanding what ESG means in investment How investors can deliver a greener, fairer future without compromising on financial returns Navigating the risks of greenwashing Addressing some of the issues in the sector including regulation, jargon and reporting The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of the company.
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In this episode, Natasha Frost, Investment Manager at Foresight, is joined by Rachael Nutter, Director of Nature-Based Solutions at ClimateCare, to explore some of the latest developments in carbon markets, and to provide an introduction for those looking to get to grips with this exciting new field for the first time. ClimateCare is a leading B-Corp which finances and delivers a wide variety of carbon reduction projects across the globe. Today, voluntary carbon markets are experiencing a boom as the wider private sector embarks on a net-zero journey. In this episode, the pair consider carbon credits, the distinction between different carbon markets, and potential challenges and opportunities to future carbon market development. Key Takeaways: What the carbon market is and how it functions A distinction between Voluntary Carbon Markets and the Compliance Market The investment case for carbon credits How the mainstreaming of carbon credits will drive trends in the different carbon markets Some of the risks to the carbon markets The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of the company.
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Dan Wells, Foresight Infrastructure Partner, talks to social entrepreneur and writer Jeremy Leggett, about the global climate challenge, evolving climate policy in 2021 and his work championing sustainability and more recently rewilding. Jeremy is a leading figure in the global climate movement. He founded Solarcentury and founded and Chairs SolarAid, a charity that builds solar lighting markets in Africa. Jeremy has also written five books that address the energy transition and the pathways to decarbonisation. Jeremy will be joining us at our inaugural Foresight Sustainability Week, hosted in partnership with the Goodwood Estate, later in the year. This episode was recorded in the days leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of the company.
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Andrew Norris, the Founder of The Alpha Adviser, a recruiter of leaders in energy and infrastructure, joins the podcast to explore the concept of a 'just transition'. With over 20 years of experience recruiting, he has witnessed the sustainability transition and its impact on working lives close up and gathering pace. What you can expect in this episode: Insight into the often overlooked human impacts of the energy transition, on both labour supply and demand as the market evolves An overview of what it takes to be an active job searcher looking to enter a career in sustainability The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of the company.
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Julia Dreblow, Founding Director of SRI Services and Fund EcoMarket, joins us to discuss developments within responsible investing, as the movement gains momentum, and explore the rise of greenwashing. What you can expect in this episode: An overview of 'greenwash' and ESG ratings Advice for investors wanting to play an active role in managing their finances and avoid greenwashing We discuss regulation and who is responsible for driving greener standards as the investment landscape evolves The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of the company.
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Simon Whistler, a Senior Specialist from the Principles for Responsible Investment, joins us to discuss the global uptake in ESG investing and explore some of the factors that are affecting the pace with which ESG is being embraced by the investment world’s international community. What you can expect in this episode: An in-depth overview of the uptake of ESG investing explored regionally and in terms of drivers and barriers We explore leadership in this space and consider how advanced investor practices are driving regulatory reform We discuss what movement is taking place in emerging markets and how this is reshaping the conversation around responsible investing The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of the company.
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Dan Wells, Infrastructure Partner at Foresight Group articulates what is meant by ‘sustainability’ and shares his views on some of the trends that are set to shape both businesses and, more broadly, society over the course of the coming years. What you can expect in this episode: Language is a key barrier to the wider integration of sustainability considerations into business; we set out key industry terms We explore the role sustainability has played in shaping business agendas We consider the significance of ‘sustainability’ when addressing grand challenges like climate change, poverty and health equity, that threaten systems and demand cross-sector engagement The on-going health crisis has highlighted the need to approach grand challenges holistically. To ensure long-term industry resilience, sustainability and ESG considerations will need to be mainstreamed into business strategies. The opinions of speakers are their personal opinions and not necessarily those of the company.
