Daniel Lawse: 0:03

Whether we acknowledge and name them or not, we have systems that are encouraging and incentivizing the behavior that's creating emissions. Free parking is a great example. So if, if you're not going to charge for parking, which some people can't control, then let's give the free bus passes, the free EV charging, the free bike repair, like we subsidize our employees with a wellness benefit that they can use for bike repair, for walking shoes, for raincoats as like a multimodal transportation option.

Tom Raftery: 0:30

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate Confident podcast, the number one podcast showcasing best practices in climate emission reductions and removals. And I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Don't forget to click follow on this podcast in your podcast app of choice to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hi everyone. And welcome to episode 166 of the climate confident podcast. My name is Tom Raftery. And before we kick off today's show, I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to all of this podcast's amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping the podcast going, and I'm really grateful for each and every one of you. In today's episode, I'm talking to the Verdis Group. We'll get onto that in a second. In the coming weeks, I have some fascinating episodes lined up. So keep an eye out for next week. I'll be talking to EcoVadis the week after I'll be talking to Novus about the energy landscape in the U S and the week after that, I'll be talking to Ditte from The Circular Way where we be discussing the importance of design in reducing emissions. So back to today's episode. With me on the show today, I've got my special guest Daniel. Daniel welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Daniel Lawse: 1:49

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Daniel Lawse. I'm the co founder and Chief Century Thinker at Verdis Group. We're a small sustainability and climate consultancy doing climate impact that counts by accelerating climate action through transformational change with organizations and communities. I've been doing this work for almost two decades and it stems from multiple passions of mine, mindfulness, creating, leaving the world better than I find it. And we can get into more of that later.

Tom Raftery: 2:21

And I got to ask Daniel, the job title, Chief Century Thinker. Who came up with that?

Daniel Lawse: 2:28

That was me when you're a co founder and you're your own boss, you get to make up titles. So I made that title up both because it's a great conversation starter. So thanks for taking the bait there. And because it is a reminder for me that one of the most important things that I do on a daily basis is needing to think long term. And that's what sustainability and regenerative practices are. It's thinking in generations. And so, I'm human and I recognize my humanity. And so I build systems around me to help me recenter when I get thrown off. So when I start to see myself thinking short term and somebody asks me about my title or I see it, I'm like, Oh, century thinker, century thinker. And it's great in conversations with people we're working with for transformational change, because it does help recenter on that longterm thinking, which is a key principle of sustainability and climate action.

Tom Raftery: 3:20

Nice, nice. And what was, I mean, you mentioned you're a co founder, so. What was the thing that made you decide to set the Verdis Group?

Daniel Lawse: 3:34

It was not the desire to make a bunch of money. We started without a business plan. What it was, was I lean into this definition of vocation, which means meeting the world's needs with my gifts and talents. And so I was really trying to pay attention to what does the world need. And when I started Verdis Group with my co founder, Craig Moody, the environment, climate change global warming, you know, the words have changed over time to get more accurate, is a huge global need. And I had the skillset, talent, and passion to be able to do that. And so Craig and I were sitting around my dining room table, asking ourselves that exact question. Why, why do we want to do this? And it was because we both care about our local and global community, and we wanted to have a big impact. So impact is what drives us and purpose for creating a better world is what drives me.

Tom Raftery: 4:22

Fantastic. Great. That's, you know, nice nice ambitions to have there. Great. And how are you doing that?

Daniel Lawse: 4:34

We are constantly evolving and adapting, just like nature does. We kind of put our work into two different buckets because that was what the world needed. We work with a lot of organizations. And so there's a planning approach here where it's important that we can zoom out and think about the strategy, where are we headed? What do we want to achieve? Set some goals. But then our very first client was Omaha Public School System. We gave them a plan and they're like, We don't have anybody to get this done. Do you do implementation? And as a small new business who didn't have another client lined up, we were like, absolutely we do implementation.

Tom Raftery: 5:08

been

Daniel Lawse: 5:09

And sure enough, we. Yes, yes. And so that is what we do. Exactly. Every single one of them. So planning and implementation. And it reminds me of the story of the bricklayers. Maybe you've heard this, maybe your listeners have, but this person's walking down the path and they see a person laying bricks and say, what, what are you doing? And the, the man looks up and says, I'm laying bricks. Can't you see that? So this person continues down a little bit further and there's another person laying bricks. And she asks, what are you doing? And the woman looks up, she says. Well, I'm building a wall. Can't you tell? And the traveler continues down the road and sees this third person laying bricks and asks her what she's doing. And she pauses, she looks up and she says, I'm building a cathedral. And so it's so important in our work that we know what we're building, what we're creating. That vision of the cathedral of a regenerative, a co create co creating a thriving and resilient world. That's our North Star. That's our cathedral. And we have to be really good at laying bricks, because you can't build a cathedral without the bricks laid properly. So it's a really beautiful intersection of zooming out, strategically having that vision, and knowing how to actually lay the bricks, do the work to get things done.

Tom Raftery: 6:27

Okay.

Daniel Lawse: 6:28

don't want to do plans that sit on a shelf

Tom Raftery: 6:30

No, no, no. Of course. Of course. And in this context, what do you mean by the term regenerative?

Daniel Lawse: 6:35

Hmmm, regenerative, when I think about a spectrum of how things can be in the world, there's degenerative, which is harmful. There's sustainable, which is doing no harm, and there's regenerative, which is doing more good. And I take a lot of insight and wisdom and inspiration from nature because nature has been running this innovation lab called life for 3. 8 billion years. So it's learned a few things. And I don't have that amount of time. So I'm going to learn from the lab that's been doing the re the experiments. And so, a thriving ecosystem, a stage three ecosystem is regenerative. Every organism in that system is contributing more than it's consuming. It might be contributing different things than it consumes, right? Cause we still need to consume things to be alive. We need to consume things as organizations to, to exist. But regenerative means we're designing systems that are mutually beneficial and net positive. So a really simple way to think about that is to ask myself, is what I'm doing causing harm or is it doing more good? And then bring that time horizon of Chief Century Thinker into the mix. Am I doing more good just for me right now, or am I doing more good for people for generations to come?

Tom Raftery: 7:50

Fair. Okay. Nice. Nice. And so for your clients, let's give me an idea of who your clients are and what are you solving for them?

Daniel Lawse: 8:03

We get to work with some amazing partners that are having huge impacts themselves. We like to work with large complex organizations that have big audiences. We work with healthcare facilities. We work with airports. We work with a bunch of zoos and aquariums. We work with some private sector, financial and insurance companies. And a lot of what their needs. It's been interesting to watch this evolution. Because early on, we're in the Midwest of, of the United States, Omaha, Nebraska.

Tom Raftery: 8:29

hmm.

Daniel Lawse: 8:30

And Climate Change was not the word we lead with in 2009, when we founded our company. It was energy efficiency and we'll help you save money. And then it evolved to, yeah, everybody still wants to save money and save energy and reduce their utilities, but then it got into employee engagement. It was a way to not just save money on resources, but also to engage employees in something that they cared about. And, in Omaha, I feel like we are behind the curve in adopting climate action. So it made us really good at speaking in a language that could meet people where they are, and help take them further. So now what we're seeing in the Omaha market is people are doing this because it's the right thing to do. And they want to be community leaders. And, because they see it more and more as the right thing to do, and they want to be community leaders, we get to have partnerships that extend the impact beyond their walls sometimes, not always. So, the, the partners that we work with, for example, it can be as basic as greenhouse gas inventories and accounting, but then we also do net zero emissions pathways. Cause it, it really is. Let me step back and say, like the needs they have are pretty simple. Like, where are we today?

Tom Raftery: 9:45

Mm hmm.

Daniel Lawse: 9:46

Baselining. Where do we want to go? What's the vision, but what's the right vision and what are the goals that can can be milestones on our way there? And then how do we get there? What are the strategies? How do we get shit done? GSD is kind of something we say a lot in our, on our team, because we really want to make sure that action is moving. And that's the planning side. And then the G or the, the GSD is the implementation. Once they have that vision of where they want to go and how they want to get there, then the GSD are the strategies. So. One of the things I love about our work is the impact of like zoos and aquariums. We work with the Aquarium Conservation Partnership. They have over 30 million guests a year at their 27 aquariums. So, if we can get them to lead by example, which they want to do anyway, and give them language and tools to do that, they're great with educating their members and their community leaders. Zoos and aquariums are some of the most trusted institutions in a community. They're trusted more than the local newspaper, than the local media, than universities even. They're trusted more than local government and state and regional governments. I mean, That may, might not surprise you. So it's really fun working with that group of organizations because they're so well trusted. They also have to take that trust with a huge amount of responsibility. They can't push too far sometimes because it can turn people off and they can lose trust. But, they're in the business of conservation. So when we get to help them set climate neutral goals or net zero emission goals, and then help them drive their emissions down and find ways to increase renewable energy, that is huge because they're impacting not just their organization, they're impacting their community. And when we get to work with the community of aquariums or a community of zoos, we get to impact people across the country. Airports are another thing. We work with the Minneapolis airport and they have over 30 million passengers go through their gates every year. So when they do things, even a small thing at an organization of that scale has a huge impact. And when they live by example, like integrity is really important to us. It's not greenwashing. We refuse to greenwash. So when we get people to actually live out of this value of sustainability to regenerative, Then they are transforming the hearts and minds of people around them. This isn't just a mental game of like, I have a checklist. I'm going to do these things. Like we're working on transforming the way people see the world.

Tom Raftery: 12:07

Interesting, zoos and aquariums, I can, I can get on board with reasonably easily just because as a, as a student, I worked in a, in a wildlife park in, in Ireland. so, you know, we had scimitar horned oryx, we had giraffe, we had cheetahs, we had monkeys, we had, you know, the whole gamut and, thinking about that, I'm just trying to think what would have been the largest source of emissions for, the name was Fota, Fota Wildlife Park, what would have been the largest source of emissions and I'm going to guess either the transportation, so transportation of, you know, within the park, a little train running around, moving people and, you know, it was a large park, so moving workers around the park well and or food for the animals, probably even more so, because the manufacture of the food would have, you know, required considerable greenhouse gases, but tell me if I'm wrong, I mean, looking across zoos, aquaria are different. I get it because I suspect, I suspect the largest source of emissions in an aquarium is the water, getting the water and heating the water to the right temperature again, maybe I'm wrong and moving it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Because there's an old, there's an old myth that I don't know if you heard it, but there's an old myth that's, that's known in, in Ireland and the UK. And it's that, you know, the, the, during a football match at halftime, when everybody goes up to plug in the kettle to make a cup of tea or whatever, there's a huge spike in the electricity. And of course, that's completely untrue. It's not untrue. There is a spike at half time in a game and things like that. But it's not because people are plugging in the kettle to make a cup of tea. It's because they're going to their bathroom and flushing the toilet. And to your point,

Daniel Lawse: 15:31

it's the water use.

Tom Raftery: 15:32

use and it's the movement of the water, because sure, I can flush my toilet in my house and that doesn't cost me anything in electricity, but if everyone in the neighborhood does it, the water utility has to pump that water and that's where the electricity hit, hits. So, anyway, coming back to the question to yourself in terms of wildlife parks, zoos, aquaria, where is the big hit for them typically?

Daniel Lawse: 16:02

You were pretty close and it kind of varies because some like a wildlife park might have one building and a drive around kind of safari loop, right? So not a lot of energy use in anything but transportation.

Tom Raftery: 16:13

a walk around. No

Daniel Lawse: 16:14

Or a walk around. Yeah, but there are other zoos that have indoor jungles and indoor deserts and have aquariums as part of their zoo. And so I'm going to say that it depends answer, even though you want a generalization, if it's a zoo or park that has a lot of buildings. Your buildings are probably going to have the most impact from that electricity and natural gas use for conditioning air. Moving water is a big one for sure. Heating, cooling life support systems. If you think about zoos, you're not only heating and cooling water, but you're pumping it, you're filtering it. You're making sure the conditions are right for the animals. It's always about animal wellbeing. But when you think about scope three emissions, animal food, animal feed is huge. People, food, guest food. If you've got an organization that has over a million guest visitors a year, they are purchasing a lot of food and the carbon footprint of the food can be huge. And so the other thing like I'm noticing a theme and how I'm talking today that I didn't intend, but there's been a great evolution over time from we've been doing this work for over 15 years at Verdis group or 15 years this year. I've been doing this work for 20 and it's fun to witness how far we've come. Scope three emissions were not a big topic, even five years ago, pre pandemic. They were starting to be, and in different pockets they were, but we're seeing it being asked by from almost all of our clients now, how do we address scope three because they've already done the measurements for scope one and two. They understand where those come from and they typically have a pretty clear pathway of renewables, reduce with efficiency, onsite and offsite renewables, transportation. So it's much more known and now people have been studying and diving into scope three emissions in a much bigger way. I mean, the experts have been doing this for 20 years. The common business owners and organizations are now doing this in a much larger way. And so there's a lot of peer learning from each other and the industry is evolving. So we're, we get the opportunity to work with a consortium of aquariums who made a climate commitment and because they didn't want to be top down forceful, they did much more like the Paris climate accord. And they said, every aquarium, let's make two public commitments. Commitment number one, we're going to measure our scope one and two emissions every single year. So we can report and be transparent. Step number two, we're going to commit to come up with our net zero emissions goal. But we're not going to tell you what that needs to be. You tell us what works for you. So some are at 2025, some are at 2045 and a lot in between. And that stimulated this peer learning amongst these aquariums. And now that they've gotten all their scope one and two measured there, we, we started to sample scope three to say like, you know, not all scope threes probably need to be measured. Many of them might be immaterial for an aquarium or a zoo. And then we honed down to five or six scope three emissions that should be measured as part of this next level of commitment. And because of this commitment, like this, this is the cascading effect. And when I talk about transformational change and impact, this is what I love. So not only are we impacting, supporting the climate commitments of these 27 aquariums, they started to give us feedback and say, well, we've got scientists on our staff. Some of us can learn how to do an inventory. We don't have to outsource that. So we're building a tool, a GHG inventory tool specific for aquariums that take some of those nuances and peculiarities. And we're giving it to them, use it, you know, decentralize this. You don't, we don't want to be doing GHG inventories for everybody. Do your own, let's talk about the action, right? We built a strategy bank by leveraging good ideas from across these aquariums throughout the U S we're, we're U S based. And I'm really excited because literally this month in March, I'm going to a conference for zoos and aquariums, there's a green summit. And it used to just be me and a couple of my colleagues going. We have seven of us going and six of us are presenting because we have the opportunity to launch this greenhouse gas inventory tool. You talked about procurement. We also simplified procurement guidelines for aquariums and zoos into this guide to help people get started because so many of them say, I know we need to do something. Procurement emissions are huge. What do we do? And then we also have to tell them it's not just carbon tunnel vision. You need to think about impacts, especially aquariums have plastic commitments because they see the plastic in the ocean, they see the impact on the wildlife they're trying to save. So it's this well rounded thing. So we're launching a procurement guide. And when I say we, it's always in partnership. These are in partnership with the aquarium conservation partnership. But our team has helped to develop these. And then the other thing when I go back to kind of that regenerative and living systems frame, living systems evolve with information and information flows through feedback loops. Humans are really good at creating long, complex feedback loops. Just think about any corporate bureaucracy or, or government and even families, right? We can overcomplicate things. Nature does short, simple feedback loops. So we ask ourselves all the time, what are some short, simple feedback loops that are missing that could help the system evolve and accelerate climate action? So these zoos and aquariums doing sustainability work have the opportunity to share how they're doing it, what their emissions are, just reporting out. So we're creating a transparent. user friendly benchmarking dashboard. So if I'm a, an aquarium in California, I can compare myself to other aquariums in California. If I'm a zoo in the Midwest, I can pull up other zoos in the Midwest and look at how I'm doing on some of the resource stuff, but also, how am I engaging my employees around sustainability? So it's more than just the data pieces. There's also qualitative stuff. So we're launching the beta version of that tool, where we have about 15 zoos and aquariums who have participated. And then we're going to have a call to action to invite more into it. So like industry wide impacts. And again, when you count the zoos, like we're talking 50 to 100 million, it's got to be over 100 million people go to zoos and aquariums in a year. And I'll, I'll name one thing because I know zoos and aquariums in the conservation space can be a bit of a touchy subject for some because of animal welfare. I'm talking about AZA accredited zoos and aquariums where they are required to go through audits to ensure that the wellbeing of their animals is the highest that it can be. They're investing in conservation, both in their local communities and around the globe. It's not your, and no offense to anybody who loves these places, but it's not the reptile garden down the road. That is a private business. These are nonprofit legitimate conservation organizations that are accredited by the AZA. And there's also a world AZA that accredits world zoos and aquariums. So it's a very high rigor and standard. So, if any of your listeners are concerned about zoos, I'd be happy to talk to them about the evolution that zoos have had over time to be even come even more and more conservation organizations. And they're, they're literally racing extinction right now and saving species from going extinct.

Tom Raftery: 23:07

yeah, yeah, yeah, they, they, the wildlife park that I worked in that I mentioned earlier Fota Wildlife Park. It is a special wildlife park dedicated to the breeding of endangered species that only has endangered species. So, when I, when I, when it opened, it opened in 82 and in, if I remember correctly, or maybe it was 83, 82, 83. The year after it opened, it was the largest cheetah breeding center outside of Africa. And for years after that, it was the largest cheetah breeding center in the world because they had a, they, they created an innovative methodology for breeding cheetahs. I'm going way off topic now, but basically cheetahs in the wild are solitary, the females in the wild are solitary. So what they did was they made sure to keep the females in the wildlife park solitary as well, and only introduced them to the males when they came into heat. And suddenly they weren't all in the same enclosure. It became a much more natural environment for the cheetahs. They came into heat naturally because they were solitary. And then when they came into heat, they came across a male, they bred, and that was it. You know, so that was just the simple trick in it becoming the largest cheetah breeding centre in the world. So fantastic. Anyway, way off topic.

Daniel Lawse: 24:58

Well, it's almost like nature knows what it's doing. And if we can replicate nature in our systems and organizations, then we can build off of that wisdom.

Tom Raftery: 25:08

and learn, as they say. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So on that, listen and learn what are some lessons that we could take from some of the wildlife parks and aquaria, you know, for other businesses, other learnings they've had that could be applied to other businesses.

Daniel Lawse: 25:27

Absolutely. When I talk about sustainability and regenerative practices, I remind us that it starts and ends with us. We're the ones making decisions on a daily basis. So whether you're working at a zoo or an airport or a private sector business, it comes down to the decisions we make. So one of the lessons learned is this beautiful we can scientifically prove it, but it is also wisdom from the mindfulness tradition that how we think informs what we say, our words, which then doesn't always, but can show up in our actions. But I guarantee you that nobody has made an action ever in their entire life that didn't start with a thought, even if it's subconscious.

Tom Raftery: 26:10

Right.

Daniel Lawse: 26:12

Our neurological system acts before we move our body. And before we speak. And so when we think about the worldviews that we hold. Then that is something that when we can shift those from a I talk about four critical shifts when you want to move towards living systems, sustainable and regenerative practices at any business. And it's because if we can change how we think, then quite honestly, you don't need us around as a consultant. In fact, I tell people all the time, I'll tell you and your listeners, I hope Verdis goes out of business. Because the world doesn't need a sustainability consultant and a climate consultant, because we've solved it.

Tom Raftery: 26:48

Yep.

Daniel Lawse: 26:49

Everybody tells me I'm going to be in business for a while, but I honestly, truly want to put myself out of business because the world doesn't need this. And I'll go figure out something else the world needs. That said, that's the approach we take of how do we get people to think differently. And so there's four critical shifts that help you notice kind of how we've done things for a long time and move them more towards quite frankly, how nature does it, how living systems do it. One is shifting from a closed system mindset to an open system mindset. A lot of organizations have made decisions based on we are a contained entity, we control everything within our business model and therefore, we can make a decision and we know that it's going to have this impact. The reality is we live in open systems, even more so. And people are recognizing that more and more, right? It's our local environment. It's the local business community. It's the relationships we have with external partners. It's literally the climate having an impact on our operations these days. It's financial markets. We're a global community, right? So we live in an open system, whether we acknowledge it or not. And so the other way to think about these critical shifts is like just starting to think about the way the world actually works. So from closed to open systems is one critical shift. A second is a lot of us think, and some of this is just default kind of human nature, but a lot of it can be learned too is separate. I like to distinguish myself from you because it gives me an identity. I like to make my business feel different and unique. And I want to set myself apart from other people on my team or my clients. Like there's kind of a natural tendency to do that. So what we want to do is move from separate thinking to interconnected. And this is recognizing that we are dependent on one another completely. And if you want to get philosophical, which I do occasionally from the mindfulness perspective, is that like we are literally stardust. We are literally the earth walking on earth. We wouldn't exist without those elements in us. And so you and I share breath. The breath that I'm inhaling right now was exhaled by somebody sometime in the past. So just fascinating to recognize like the interconnectedness, interconnected reality that we are. And I love science because it continues to prove time and time again how interconnected we are. So stop thinking about our businesses on our literally we call some organizational departments divisions. We are dividing our organization. We call our organs and systems, right? What if we called our divisions systems within the organization? So just changing how we think about how interconnected we are and kind of the typical business term of breaking down silos. It's amazing what happens when you get people talking to one another. My title, we talked about this already, that long term thinking. Another critical shift is from short term to long term. From a biological standpoint, life, nature is constantly creating conditions conducive to more life. Otherwise life stops, right? And our genetic code, what, from whatever species is designed to carry itself on and adapt to those conditions. Have you heard this phrase? Stronger, faster, fitter is the way for survival. That's Darwin, right?

Tom Raftery: 29:53

Yeah, no. Is it?

Daniel Lawse: 29:55

No, it is.

Tom Raftery: 29:56

Nah.

Daniel Lawse: 29:57

That's what he's attributed to saying it, but he didn't actually say stronger and faster is like the natural selection. He said best fit and he gets misquoted all the time. Best fit doesn't mean I force my way through. I have to be the strongest or the fastest. It means I have to be the most in tune with my local conditions and fit in the best way. Which sometimes means being really fast, so I can outrun the predator chasing me. Sometimes it means being mycelium in the forest floor that connects trees together for communication and resource sharing and collaboration. More often than not, when we look to nature's examples, it's collaboration that leads to the best fit. So, sorry, that was a long way that looped back into interconnected. I can't even tell you these four critical shifts without bouncing around because they're interconnected, but from short term thinking to long term thinking the genetic code wants to continue on. So let's think long term and you've heard the seventh generation principle, where, what happens if we had our corporate corporate leaders not thinking quarterly profits. What if we had our elected officials not think on the next election cycle and what am I going to do to get reelected? But what if they thought in seven generations? That alone would change everything And then the the last one is from an inert like static We think systems are static, but they aren't they're dynamic. So shifting from a static to a dynamic way of thinking and that's really like. I even joke with the people we work with plans are just lies committed to paper, and yet half of our work is planning. So, I'm, I'm full of paradox, but we need to have direction. But because of that, when we shifted our thinking from the early days of like we're writing plans to this dynamic way of plans are living documents. It changed what our plans look like. They're not as long as they used to be. They're much more flexible. We used to tell people, you know, short, medium and long term goals. Now we give 12 to 24 month work plans that are really specific and actionable. And we have a North star of the direction we're heading and you need to have annual processes in place to be able to sense the external and internal environments and adapt to, to, to move towards those goals because it's going to change.

Tom Raftery: 32:09

Yeah. yeah, yeah.

Daniel Lawse: 32:11

So those are like, sometimes I get too philosophical, but I also recognize the importance of how we think. And so when you asked me what's relevant to other business models, it's these four critical shifts. If we can get that to happen, quite honestly, you don't need me around to tell you what to do, because you'll figure it out, which is awesome. We need more people figuring out how to live a regenerative regenerative life and do regenerative business.

Tom Raftery: 32:35

Nice, nice, nice. And I'm curious, you mentioned that there is an uptick in interest in the last roughly five years in scope three emissions. What do you think triggered that? And is that just for Zoos and Aquaria or is that for other businesses as well?

Daniel Lawse: 32:52

It is across the board. What triggered it? I think there's a couple of things. One, I mentioned people are understanding scope one and two. That's actually like pretty mechanistically simple. We know what to do. The solutions are out there. We have to choose to invest in them. And it does require some change of business practices. Scope three. So once we feel like we've accomplished that, something that's nice about the human spirit is that we like challenges and we like to keep progressing. So then it became, well, what more can we do? And so there was a demand from at least some of those leading edge businesses. Saying how do we do more? How do we measure more? So that takes me to measurement. We have gotten so much better at measuring these upstream impacts of procurement, life cycle assessments. 20 years ago, I don't know if a life cycle assessment had ever been conducted or if there had been very few and they were hard to find. And now there's databases of tens of thousands of life cycle assessments for common products and processes. We've looked at the carbon emissions of like the, the extraction process of different things and the manufacturing process of different things. And so now a basic business like an airport who's buying concrete can understand the impacts of that concrete and make better choices. So I know that information doesn't necessarily lead to better choices because I can ignore information or I might not have access to it, but when it is there, it creates the possibility to make a better, more informed choice. So I think information and measurement has increased a lot and demand has increased because we're getting more sophisticated in how we think and recognizing, honestly, those critical shifts are starting to happen. We're more interconnected. We don't see ourselves as separate. Scope one and two is kind of separate thinking. It's what I literally directly control. Scope three is saying I'm part of an open system and I'm interconnected to it. So how can I influence the, the world with my values of fighting climate change through my procurement decisions?

Tom Raftery: 34:47

Very good. How are your partners slash clients getting on in measuring and reporting their scope three emissions, because to your point, scope one and two, relatively straightforward, scope three, given that you're talking about actually getting the emissions of other organizations, got to be more challenging, right?

Daniel Lawse: 35:14

Yeah. Challenging and fun. So this is like scope one and two were maybe 10 years ago. People are asking, how do we do it? And they're building internal systems to be able to do it more efficiently. Creating shorter and simpler feedback loops. And I'm trying to give an example. We just developed the sustainable procurement guide. And one of the things, and this was for the Consortium of Aquariums, they're going to open it up to the zoos. Cause there's a lot of similarities. A lot of those folks buy their animal feed from the same one or two suppliers.

Tom Raftery: 35:44

Okay.

Daniel Lawse: 35:45

So if they come together with collective action and instead of 230 accredited zoos and aquariums sending a survey to them, and they have to fill out 230 of these, what if the zoo and aquarium group sent one survey, got this supplier to divulge their emissions and then use that as a data point based on their purchasing? We're not there yet, but those are the possibilities that exist. And the efficiencies that will be gained once people, enough people start to do this work. So it is this evolution. And I think that the internal mechanisms, like there's a drive and a desire to do it. And in that process or in that, that, in that drive, they will figure out the ways to do that. And we're doing that alongside of them. Some folks have great internal reporting on their financials for like business travel. Other people like. I don't know. We submit reimbursements for financial amounts, but we have no idea how many airline miles were traveled. And there are also, like, the tech industry is coming up with tech solutions to measure some of these things more automatically. Again, so that it can simplify the reporting. I don't want to spend my time reporting. I want to spend my time using information to make choices, to have an impact. And most of our organizations do too. So it's, it's driving towards that using information, getting the information into a usable state, and then making decisions on it. That's how you accelerate

Tom Raftery: 37:06

And, and given, given the, the, the lack of maturity in the space and not just for yourself and your clients, but in general, in the scope three space, how much of it, how much of the data they're getting is primary data versus how much of it is, you know, kind of licking your finger and sticking it up in the air and saying 42.

Daniel Lawse: 37:26

I don't know what the breakdown is. I know that there are in the, in the U S there are government databases that universities are populating. And so that's going to be a more trusted, but they're also relying on data from industry folks. So there's, there's going to be a mixture of that. Then there's going to be like the, the database that our team and I'm not the expert on this. So I'm, I'm tiptoeing into dangerous territory of not knowing. There's a database of scope three emissions based on procurement categories. So most people have a financial statement that says we do consulting, we do advertising, those big buckets of accounting. And then there's a translation over here. If you spend 2 million in accounting or in advertising, it's going to be estimated at this average emissions per dollar. So that's one level where it's a little bit more finger in the wind. It's based on some, some data and averages, but then if an organization wants to get really specific and some of our partners are. They would ask their direct marketing suppliers, like how much paper do you print? How much cloud space or storage do you use for us as a client? And you can get down to that next level. And so that's the other thing that data in the emissions and sustainability space kind of starts at a high level. And over time it gets more and more refined and more sophisticated.

Tom Raftery: 38:44

yeah, yeah, because

Daniel Lawse: 38:45

And the aquariums now are also now getting their emissions inventory. So they can share them with their partners if they're ever asked, but you can't share that if you've never been asked or if you're not measuring it yourself.

Tom Raftery: 38:56

Exactly. I mean, it's your scope 1 and 2 emissions are your customers' scope 3 emissions. So if you're measuring your 1 and 2, you know, and, and vice versa, obviously. So as more and more organizations are required to measure and report their 1 and 2, then the scope 3 becomes more primary data as opposed to industry averages. And then it becomes more real, more verifiable, more auditable. So, which is where we want to get to.

Daniel Lawse: 39:26

Yeah. A really specific example real quick is employee commutes.

Tom Raftery: 39:30

Oh, yeah.

Daniel Lawse: 39:30

As an employer, I don't control how my people get to work. I control where my business is located and I control if I offer incentives. If we have free parking at our building, then people are going to drive more, but I could nor I could neutralize that by offering free bus passes or free bike parking. And so it goes back to that systems thinking,

Tom Raftery: 39:52

free EV chargers.

Daniel Lawse: 39:55

yeah, we could do that too. There's a whole nother side conversation there about if, if EVs are completely clean energy and a relatively affordable to fuel, does that contribute to sprawl? Because now I can live really far away and not have an environmental impact from my single occupancy vehicle commute. And then if they get to be the autonomous cars, I can take a nap for an hour so I can live an hour away from work and create even more sprawl and land use. Patterns that might not be as conducive. So yes, but there, there are fun ways to think about how do you influence and support the systems. Because whether we acknowledge and name them or not, we have systems that are encouraging and incentivizing the behavior that's creating emissions. Free parking is a great example. So if, if you're not going to charge for parking, which some people can't control, then let's give the free bus passes, the free EV charging, the free bike repair, like we subsidize our employees with a wellness benefit that they can use for bike repair, for walking shoes, for raincoats as like a multimodal transportation option. Anyway, that's just a fun thing to like a very specific way of how do we think about those behaviors and actions of our partners or employees that we can influence, but we don't have direct control over.

Tom Raftery: 41:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Daniel. Is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I did or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

Daniel Lawse: 41:22

Yeah. Thanks for asking that. There's one thing that I just want to touch on. It could be a whole nother conversation, but for me, I was asking myself is sustainability enough and what's beyond sustainability, many years ago, because I realized that sustainability became this doing no harm, which is great. It's way better than doing harm, but it led me to realize that there was something beyond and that's how I got to regenerative. I mean, would you like a sustainable relationship with your loved one? I do. But would I prefer a thriving relationship with them? Absolutely. And it was my practice of mindfulness, meditation, looking at different ancient texts around mindfulness and the current brain science, which is fascinating, that to me, like the intersection of mindfulness and sustainability becomes regeneration. And that, that was kind of my pathway. And so there's a ton of stuff that I draw forward in our work that comes from mindfulness and brain science and human psychology and how we work and how do we become more mindful beings on this planet. Interacting and being in relationship with one another and not just one another as humans, but one another with all beings, plant beings, animal beings. So there's some beautiful connections that I'd encourage people to explore with mindfulness and sustainability. And if I were to recommend one book, it would be Thich Nhat Hanh's Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. He wrote that just before he died, and he's a world famous Buddhist monk who is just so thoughtful. And that one just spoke to my soul as I read through that.

Tom Raftery: 42:56

Cool. I'll, I'll look that up and leave a link in the, in the show notes for that. And speaking of links and show notes and et cetera. If people would like to know more, Daniel, about yourself or any of the topics we discussed in the podcast, where would you have me direct them?

Daniel Lawse: 43:11

yeah, our website is great. www. Verdisgroup. com. And if you want to set up a short call with me, you can do our website backslash let's connect and pop a time on my calendar. I'd be happy to meet you.

Tom Raftery: 43:25

Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Great. Daniel, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Daniel Lawse: 43:31

Thank you so much, Tom. Have a wonderful day.

Tom Raftery: 43:34

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.