Climate Confident
Climate Confident is your go-to podcast for the latest in climate innovation and sustainable solutions. Hosted by Tom Raftery, this weekly series explores the cutting-edge strategies and success stories driving our global journey toward a cooler planet.
Every Wednesday at 7 AM CET, Tom engages with industry leaders, climate scientists, and sustainability pioneers to uncover actionable insights and transformative approaches to reducing emissions and revitalizing our environment. Whether you're a business leader, policy maker, or simply passionate about climate action, Climate Confident provides the inspiration and knowledge you need to make a real difference.
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Climate Confident
Decarbonisation Dialogues: Navigating the EcoVadis Network for Climate Impact
In this week’s episode, I had the privilege of talking to Julia Salant from EcoVadis, where we tackled the increasingly essential role of technology in scaling up sustainable practices within supply chains. Julia elucidated EcoVadis' digital solutions, designed to assess and improve the sustainability performance of their vast network of companies.
We dived into the specifics of their three main offerings: the Sustainability Business Rating solution, the iQ Plus tool for regulatory risk scanning, and the Carbon Action Manager for suppliers’ climate action. Julia highlighted the simplicity of sharing sustainability and carbon scorecards within their network, a system that empowers companies to meet growing regulatory demands efficiently.
We also grappled with the trajectory of emissions reporting and the shift from voluntary to mandatory regulations, including the potential future need for audited scope three emissions. Julia presented a candid perspective on the catalysts for genuine change, emphasising the power of investor demands and the buyer-supplier relationship over regulatory measures.
An insightful segment of our chat focused on strategies for engaging suppliers in sustainability reporting and how established customer-supplier dynamics foster commitment to decarbonisation. Julia shared success stories, underscoring the practical steps companies can take to initiate or advance their sustainability journeys.
Tune in for a thorough dissection of the sustainability challenges faced by businesses today and how technology, coupled with targeted strategies, can enhance our collective effort to mitigate climate change.
And don't forget to check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.
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Credits
Music credits - Intro by Joseph McDade, and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna Juniper
in addition to price, on time delivery, and quality, we're seeing sustainability as a 4th dimension of a relationship between buyer and supplier. And for us taking sustainability data and bringing it to where our business decisions are made. This is what makes a difference in terms of, you know, keeping a supplier or potentially giving a supplier a notice saying you have 12 months to improve or else
Tom Raftery: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. Welcome to episode 167 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 gratitude to all of this podcast's amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping this podcast going. And I'm really grateful for each and every one of you. On the podcast today, I'll be talking to EcoVadis about emissions, measuring reporting, et cetera. In the next few weeks, I have some excellent episodes coming up. Next week for example, I'd be talking to Emily Easley from Novus about the US energy system. The week after I'll be talking to Ditte Lysgaard Vind, from The Circular Way, and we'll be talking about the importance of design in making systems more sustainable. The week after that, I'll be talking to Professor Dana R Fisher who was recently featured in the New York times. And we'd be talking about, for example, the new expression she's coined "apocalyptic optimism". An intriguing one. Can't wait for you to hear it. So. With that out of the way without further ado with me on the show today, I've my special guest, Julia. Julia. Welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?
Julia Salant:Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Tom. It's such a pleasure to be here with you today. I'm Julia Salant. I'm the General Manager for Carbon at EcoVadis, a global sustainability, network of over 150,000 companies that are engaging on a range of ESG and compliance issues, and that really help. We really help our customers with technology to drive, and help them meet the corporate sustainability goals and drive impact at scale by guiding all companies on their sustainability journey.
Tom Raftery:Okay. That's quite broad guiding customers on their sustainability journey. Let's dig into it a little in, in more practical terms. What is it you guys are doing for your customers?
Julia Salant:Absolutely. So we have 3 main solutions that we deliver to our customers through a digital platform. Our 1st solution is our flagship solution that has been around for the last 16 years since the launch of EcoVadis and it is the Sustainability Business Rating solution. Our customers are big global businesses that engage their suppliers in sustainability. They want to understand their sustainability performance and they want to be able to make informed purchasing decisions based on sustainability performance of their customers. This is what we do with the support of a digital platform that helps us and helps our customers reach a huge scale. Today within this network, we have close to 1200 big global brands like L'Oreal and Unilever who are engaging thousands and thousands of their suppliers on the sustainability journey with scorecards that are easily exchangeable and build based on a methodology that is relying on global sustainability standards, such as ISO 26,000, ISO 14,000. So, really a a scalable and customizable approach that can help suppliers to respond once to 1 sustainability questionnaire, and then share it with all of their customers that are purchasing from them and want to understand their sustainability performance. So this is the our flagship solution. In addition to that, we have 2 newer solutions that were added to our product suite in the last 4 to 5 years. First and foremost is the our iQ Plus solution. It helps our customers that are faced with a some of the regulatory risk to to scan their very long tails without actually engaging suppliers in in any type of rating or assessment. So it's an outside in view on how the suppliers are performing based on sustainability. And this is something that has been quite welcome, given the, some of the new due diligence regulations that requiring companies to take a closer look at their supplier base, really, end to end. And then the latest addition to our product suite is our Carbon Action Manager. This is the solution that I manage and I drive forward. This is an opportunity for our customers, 300 or so customers to engage their suppliers and climate action at scale. And the solution helps suppliers that are just getting started on their decarbonization journey. Those who haven't done a lot of work yet. Those who are just learning about it. We really bring them onto the platform and provide them tools that meet their needs where they are on their journey. So, for example, we have some carbon calculation tools, some carbon scorecards, some ability to share carbon metrics between buyers and suppliers that really helps this dialogue started and help this engagement started. All right. With that, our customers drive their their suppliers maturity through an engagement process that is quite structured and powered by technology.
Tom Raftery:Okay. And you say you have over 150,000 companies on your platform right now. I'm curious if I'm a company on your platform and I'm doing business with another company that happens to be on your platform, does that make things easier for both of us in terms of sustainability reporting?
Julia Salant:Yes, in terms of sustainability reporting. Absolutely. Because if you're doing business with a company that is already in the EcoVadis network, all you need to do is just ask for a scorecard sharing. This can be a sustainability scorecard sharing. This can be a carbon scorecard sharing. This can be also some quantitative data sharing. Everything that is already available for our existing network can be shared at a click of a button. And the best thing about it is that suppliers, they own their data, they decide to share or not share with other participants. So this is how we manage this. And this is what basically the main value actually, that our users find in using EcoVadis is that they go through the response process once and then they can share as much as they need with their within their network.
Tom Raftery:Okay, and can they share it outside because obviously EcoVadis is a big player, but there are other players out there as well and other organizations. So if I am on a, I don't know, a competitor's network and I want to get data from someone who's in EcoVadis, how, how does that work?
Julia Salant:This is a, this is an excellent question. There are a few ways that our, our users approach this 1st and foremost, actually, EcoVadis for higher performers, we have established a a medals approach. So those who are at the top percentiles in their groups can have publicly available medals shared. And we actually see it a lot on LinkedIn. If you search for EcoVadis medals on LinkedIn, you will find a lot of companies sharing the good news of their high performance. Now, that's 1 thing in which our users are sharing publicly. Now responding to other frameworks and reporting and reporting requirements. Actually, there is a lot of exchange companies that report to EcoVadis often bring their proof of EcoVadis rating into other systems and vice versa as well. We accept evidence of reporting. And certification that are coming from basically a lot of different frameworks. So we create this we create this interoperability in a sense for now through suppliers, but in the future there are opportunities for technology as well.
Tom Raftery:Okay, nice. And I'm assuming you do scope one, scope two and scope three.
Julia Salant:So we are enabling our, we're focusing on, of course, all 3 scopes of corporate footprint, because our customers want to understand what their suppliers are doing on all 3, because they want to make sure that they're covering the entire footprint of their suppliers. So, what we have in terms of the methodology with which we approach rating the maturity of suppliers on scope, 1, 2 and 3, we actually asking questions about targets on scope, 1, 2, 3. Actions that are taking on scope 1, 2, 3, to reduce their emissions as well as monitoring practices and reporting practices. And in addition to that, we're also asking suppliers to report their scope 1, 2, 3 emissions and even break it down by upstream and downstream emissions. In addition to that, for those suppliers, as I mentioned before, there are suppliers that are just getting started, their decarbonization journey. They're learning about it. They know that their customers are interested in it. They know it's in the news. So what they're, what we're actually offering to those who are brand new to this process, we're offering a very simple scope one and two calculator that is available within our network so they can kick start their journey with something that is meeting their needs.
Tom Raftery:Okay. And scope three isn't mandated anywhere yet that I'm aware of. I mean, California have rules saying you have to start reporting scope three in 27. I think is when that kicks off. The EU regulations still don't require it. So what, what is the, the, real need to measure and report scope three.
Julia Salant:Indeed. So, look, scope three can be viewed as you know, one of your cost centers as a company. If we talk about, if we take carbon accounting to to our regular accounting, would you have a full picture of what your company is doing if you're missing? some business units, some cost centers, some part of your expenses. No, you're going to have a partial view. And this partial view is quite important for investors that are looking at investing in companies. And it's especially important for companies who have a vast majority of their scope three in the supply chain, which means that these are companies, like, think about very big brands, like Unilever other fast moving consumer goods companies. They have a majority of their footprint in the supply chain, which means that what they don't know, they cannot really manage. They cannot properly report on their risks. So this is this creates this hyper focus on scope 3 because it's needed, but it's hard. It's challenging. It's not easy to find data on. So this, you know, combination of something that is quite risky and something that is not easily available. It really creates a lot of attention and focus on scope 3. Now, with regards to regulation, CSRD requires reporting on scope 3 as part of their requirements. This is 1 of the bigger this is, this is 1 of the newer regulations that we hear a lot about. On the other hand, in the U. S. as you've pointed out, the California rule will also require reporting on scope 3 and this is for companies that are doing business in California with with over a billion of revenue, which means that these are companies that need some time to prepare if they haven't been doing it before. They need to really organize their own operations and prepare for reporting. So this is one of the reasons why we see some phase out rules in a lot of these regulations. And then last, but not least, I really view scope 3 as an opportunity because companies who are, who have a quite a heavy scope 3 and have a lot of suppliers associated with it. This creates an opportunity to engage and create value and co innovate on certain processes on certain products and on certain ways of doing business together, because when you're looking at when you're looking outside of your four walls, and you start working together within the network in which within your value chain, there are, you start identifying some, new opportunities that you haven't seen before. And this is something that is quite exciting for me about scope three.
Tom Raftery:Okay. And obviously with the vast majority of scope three generally coming from the suppliers, do you get your suppliers to accurately measure and report? Because it's fine if they're all within your organization. You can just, you know, require them to give it to you. But when they're in an, an outside organization, that's got to be a lot more challenging, right?
Julia Salant:You're absolutely right, and I often have this discussion with with my customer base that have and the, the 1st and foremost thing that we go back to is that scope 3 measurement reporting generally carbon emission management is a journey. You can't start today and expect to be at a university level. First, if it's your first year reporting, then the focus should be on the baseline, really getting the data in house in order and understanding what could be a longer term plan the next two, three year plan in which you can improve the granularity and the quality of your reporting. It is not companies that are asking their suppliers today to report their carbon emissions. These are larger companies. There is a publicly traded companies that have been on this journey for decades. So now getting SMEs engaged in this journey really requires a different approach and approach that is based on supplier maturity because supply chains are not homogeneous, both from profiles perspective, but also from a readiness to report and take action perspective. As a result, what we do at EcoVadis to help really tailor this approach based on supplier maturity is we, we rate suppliers and help our customers quickly segment, which are the beginners, which are more advanced, and what would be the right ask of a certain group of supplier. If you're a beginner, if it's your 1st year reporting, you should be asking for a baseline. If you're already been on this journey for 3, 4, 5 years, if you have all 3 scopes measured, then maybe the next step for you is to start your science based targets journey. So, these are some of the things that our customers are dealing with on daily basis with their supplier decarbonization programs. And this is what we're supporting them with more information on what the maturity is, how to engage suppliers and bringing the right level of tools to the suppliers to take first steps and advance on a decarbonization journey.
Tom Raftery:And what, what are some of the more successful strategies in getting suppliers to start reporting to you? Because I'm sure they have lots of other priorities and your requirement for their reporting carbon is not going to be one of the higher ones.
Julia Salant:You're absolutely right. And I wish I could take any credit for this. The ultimately the business relationship between buyers and suppliers is one of the biggest drivers of, you know, willingness to engage and take on first steps on a decarbonization journey and on a reporting journey. Our customers are supported by us. But with the tools, but ultimately the supplier buyer relationship is something that is quite meaningful to continue working together and look at the end of the day our customers, which are big brands, they've gone through this. They're sharing the learnings with their suppliers as well. So this is something that can be quite motivational is when the ask comes from a customer that understands that it's not easy and simple. It creates the empathy and the willingness to learn and to report and to progress on the journey together.
Tom Raftery:Okay. And do you have any success stories you can speak to?
Julia Salant:Absolutely. Customers that I see succeed the most with this are start small, scale fast and and continue. They start small. They really start with outside in look at their supplier base, understanding where the higher carbon emission risks lie. What we call hotspot mapping really no inputs from suppliers, but understanding where they're located and where, what their activities are to identify those who pose the highest carbon risk to their programs. So identifying those who are in the higher risk area and then engaging them with a very concrete ask. What I see, and this is really related to the start small. The customers that I see that are the most successful are inviting suppliers to be rated by EcoVadis, to get a carbon rating. So they can inform next year decisions. But during this rating, they're asking to report their 1st baseline. Reporting of the 1st baseline will be the right ask whether or not you're high maturity or low maturity. And with this baseline, it really starts to become an input for the 2nd and 3rd year ask. So looking at the smaller subset of suppliers, getting the data from from them and really informing the strategy for the next years is so and the next, you know, the next groups of suppliers that you're going to engage based on the results that you've gotten from the 1st group is really helping to scale the programs in a relatively quick manner, because you need to get some results back. See what you can do with them, see whether they're matching what your expectations were, and then scale the programs.
Tom Raftery:Okay. And in terms of regulations, I mean, we, we mentioned the California regulations and CSRD, when will emissions reporting be mandatory globally out to scope three and required to be audited? Because if we look at regulations in this space, you know, We started off with none and then we had a little and you, you got to think that the tendency and the trend is going to be that they will be required out to scope three and it will be required to be audited the same way financial reporting is now. So how long between now and then do you think?
Julia Salant:Look, we need to be realistic and based on everything that we know today and, and the trends that we're seeing in the regulatory space, this is a journey of probably three to five years. And to tell you the truth, I don't think that we have three to five years, 1st and 2nd, I actually, I'm not as excited about regulation as a lot of my colleagues that are working in a broader sustainability space. In the supply chain decarbonization space, I think the voluntary standards, such as science based targets and the buyer supplier relationship and the ask from the investors, I think are a much stronger catalyst for change for building of the programs that are longer term that are not purely focused on reporting. Reporting for the sake of reporting is one thing, but when you're using data to really improve performance, to report and adjust your emissions based on your suppliers performance improvement. This is exciting for me. This is real impact. Just putting up the data up in some portal, I think, is not enough of a, you know, an impact story for me. Another thing I would say is that like with everything else, there is a need for audited and granular carbon emissions data to really better inform decisions of our customers. This means that there is an ask. It's not that the ask doesn't exist between, for example, buyer suppliers and the current regulatory requirements that are already out there. Companies tend to be quite conservative with what they report, which means that even if there is no requirement to have third party audited, companies create the right controls internally to, to have better understanding of the data. It's a risk management strategy ultimately, right? So, so a few of these things kind of coming together, it's regulation is one of the forces, the need for auditing and right level of granularity is going to continue being a journey. Our customers are asking for it of their suppliers. We anticipate the need for 3rd party verification and the accessibility of 3rd party verification of carbon data to grow over the years and then in addition to that, we really need to look at a broader context. What do these requests really generate? Do they generate real impact? Do they generate a real engagement between buyers and suppliers? And do they create the level of innovation that we're looking for to decrease emissions substantially? So, so these are some of the thoughts around this topic.
Tom Raftery:I'm curious seeing as you mentioned it, are you seeing these things make a significant difference, as in are you seeing customers looking down through their supply base and going, Hmm, this particular supplier might be a bit troublesome, need to have a conversation with them or need to change them. In other words, are the results organizations are seeing now, are they changing their business decisions based on some of that data?
Julia Salant:Absolutely, and this is 1 of the reasons we have prioritized at EcoVadis to bring in EcoVadis data into procurement systems, because not only in our network and on our platform that our customers can consume the EcoVadis ratings data, the EcoVadis carbon rating data, but rather in their own procurement systems and their own ERP systems when they have quarterly reviews with their suppliers, they're looking at sustainability and carbon as 1 of the 4 dimensions based on which they have a relationship with the supplier. So, in addition to price, on time delivery, and quality, we're seeing sustainability as a 4th dimension of a relationship between buyer and supplier. And for us pushing this into the taking sustainability data and bringing it to where our business decisions are made. This is what makes a difference in terms of, you know, keeping a supplier or potentially giving a supplier a notice saying you have 12 months to improve or else. In addition to that, our customers actually set quite a lot of RFP requirements related to both sustainability and carbons. Some of our customers wants to make sure that their suppliers have a minimum EcoVadis score before they do business with them. Others would say I will only do business with suppliers that can report their scope 1, 2, 3 emissions to me, because without that, I'm unable to really manage my scope three. And this is starting to become business as usual, actually, including specific RFP requirements relating to sustainability within our customer base. And the third, you know, and the third thing that our customers do on an ongoing basis is that they set thresholds of scores within their existing supplier base because they want to take everyone to a minimum level that is acceptable to them and then from that level to grow supplier maturity year over year over year. So, in a sense, I do see changes that are happening within our network and actually also outside of our network because EcoVadis is not the only solution that helps our customers to bring sustainability data into their business decisions. But the fact that it's happening is something that is quite exciting, and it indicates that we're going beyond just reporting on it, but rather working with it and embedding it at the core of our businesses.
Tom Raftery:Okay. And where does technology fit into all this? Where, how is it helping?
Julia Salant:Well, this is exactly the question that I've been looking forward to. Imagine managing 3,000 suppliers, imagine managing 30,000 suppliers on behalf of your fortune 500 company, you cannot engage with 30,000 suppliers in a scalable manner without technology. This is where 1st and foremost the technology benefit begins begins is the scale of engaging with suppliers, getting their data and bringing it back into your business systems. Another aspect of it is is really about the fact that sustainability starts to evolve quite quickly. You know, if we were to have this conversation three years ago, we wouldn't have been talking about CSRD. We wouldn't have been talking about the California rule or about about the SEC rule. So there is quite a quick evolution on this. And when you already have established a relationship when you already established the cadence of data collection and scoring, for example, of your suppliers, and there is a change that is happening. There is something new that is going on, technology partners are usually the first to implement the changes to align with new regulatory requirements or with the new market evolution to make sure that you have the most up to date data in a format and the structure that is required by certain regulations.
Tom Raftery:Fair, fair. If you are talking to companies that are just starting out in the space, so anyone listening to this who is just starting on the journey, what would be your advice to them?
Julia Salant:My advice to them?
Tom Raftery:before you, before you answer, maybe take it from two perspectives, the advice of someone who has been asked to provide their carbon footprint for the first time, and the advice of somebody who is having to go out to their supplier base for the first time and ask.
Julia Salant:Mm hmm. Indeed, so let's start with those who are being asked to provide their footprint for the first time. There are, there are plenty of resources that are free and available in the public domain. Starting from the GHG protocol that gives the framework and a very simple spreadsheet that can help you calculate the baseline for the 1st time, to the more sophisticated tools that are out there that are much more industry specific. In addition to that, of course, I will encourage you to check out the resources that we have available on our on our website. But the idea is that you don't have to go very sophisticated right away to identify your own inventories and start this journey internally. You can leverage publicly available resources to get started? Another thing that I will encourage to do is not to do it by yourself. Connect with peers, connect with your teams internally, because if you have been tasked with calculating your carbon footprint, it is very likely that a lot of your peers have done that as well. There are a lot of industry specific groups and peer groups that are out there that are working on exactly the same topics that you are. So tap into your network. And the last thing is. It's really the expectation management. There are this is going to be a journey and this is not a 1 time exercise. So, whatever you do right now, you need to figure out how to make it repeatable. So together with your leadership team, it is something that you're going to have an education, an educational role to play within your organization, because if you're tasked with it, it means that it's important. The ask is coming from outside, but now you're going to have to build allies and partners within your own organization. So educating your internal teams on why this is important, how you're, how it's going to benefit your business and, what opportunities it will create for you and your teams is really important. So these are the 3 things that I would that I would recommend. And again, starting small and scaling fast also applies here. What I will say to someone who's starting to engage their suppliers for the first time and want to want to shift from, you know, industry averages into a primary supplier data for their scope three calculation, I would say, first and foremost, patience. This is again going to be a journey. It is likely what I see within our network that only 20 percent of your suppliers will have any type of carbon data off the bat, the other 80, are going to have to start this journey and this journey can take for SMEs 12, 18 months. For a large organization, it can take it can take longer. It can take 2 years. Think about setting up really robust processes internally. It can take time to get approval, engagement, and real and real traction. So, so for that, you need to manage your expectations and use whatever is available right now to build for the future. Another thing that I wanted to highlight is also for the companies that are engaging their suppliers in climate action and are interested in scope 3 decarbonization again, peer groups. EcoVadis have been part of Pact, W. B. C. S. D. pact. It's an initiative that brings in companies across all industries that are particularly interested in creating the foundation for scope 3 decarbonization for supply chain decarbonization through product carbon footprint data that is granular enough and useful for exactly the purpose of improving your own scope three calculations. So joining peer groups is absolutely critical because we're all facing with similar challenges. There is a lot of knowledge to be shared, and there is a lot of opportunities to learn from each other on the things that work, the things that don't work and when, you know, a joint pressure is needed, this is really an excellent way to get momentum when you're facing challenges together with the group. I think this is, I think this is all I wanted to say.
Tom Raftery:no problem. And where to next, both for EcoVadis and for the space in general?
Julia Salant:Look, I think we’ve been in in this kind of transition from voluntary to more structured approaches in the last five years, particularly on carbon. We're seeing over 4000 companies globally already setting science based targets. This number has doubled in last year. This is very exciting. This means that despite the global economic difficulties, companies are still doubling down on the need to decarbonize and to engage their entire value chain and decarbonization, not only doing it within their four walls, which means that for me, this is really exciting time where opportunities will come to do things faster and do things in a more structured manner. So a lot of our customers up until this moment have experimented with different approaches. But now they're already on their 2nd and 3rd year of their decarbonization journeys, and we're starting to see the results of suppliers starting to report more data, of suppliers improving their performance, starting to set targets. So, really maintaining this momentum is going to be important in the next couple of years to keep the conversation going between the suppliers, to keep the engagement going, and continue to scale the programs. Another thing that I wanted to share is that I think we're seeing more and more companies taking ambitious first steps when there don't have all the that all the data when they don't have all the all their plans figured out. And I think this is very courageous. And I think this is a good example for the, for the broader industry. Very rarely we know what we're going to do exactly to reach a, you know, a 10 year corporate goal, but without an actual commitment and creation of structures around it and accountability around it, we will definitely not reach this goal, whatever ambitious or not ambitious, it could have been. As a result, we're seeing companies that are starting to set their targets and they're telling me, look, I don't know how I'm going to get there, but without actually creating a target, I know for a fact that I'm not going to reach it. So with that, we're actually starting to see carbon accounting, supply chain, decarbonization and a general focus in in in climate change mitigation is going outside of the carbon teams, outside of the sustainability teams, and more into the general management, the leadership, and the board of companies. And with more knowledge that we have outside of the expert teams, the easier it becomes to implement, the easier it becomes to influence and the easier it becomes to really set the right level of ambition and traction.
Tom Raftery:Great, Julia, we're coming towards the end of the podcast. Now, is there any question I didn't ask that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't focused on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?
Julia Salant:Absolutely, I often get asked, what do I do if I don't have supplier data, if I don't have the right engagement from my teams, where can I get started? And one of the things that we have done as a company as well is through the science based targets process. And that is the process that is is quite rigorous. It is not for everyone, but knowing what is expected can really help you structure your own programs. I have customers that don't yet have science based targets, but they're envisioning to have that in the coming years. I think this is one of the good common denominators, common goals, common frameworks that can help you structure your programs. But after that, you need to go to your suppliers and when you go to your suppliers, you need to be simple. You can't expect to have everything right at the day that you start your engagement program. So, managing expectations and really understanding what is reasonable can be really helpful.
Tom Raftery:Cool. If people are interested, I did an earlier episode of this podcast with Luis Amaral, the CEO of the science based targets initiative. Probably about a year ago at this point, but if anyone wants to dig that out or get in touch with me and ask for a link to that, I'll be happy to send it on. So Julia, that's been really interesting. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we mentioned on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?
Julia Salant:Our public website EcoVadis dot com, we have a full section dedicated to carbon, our carbon solution, the value with that we bring to our customers that are starting to engage their suppliers on climate action. In addition to that, you can, of course, follow me on LinkedIn. I try to post the latest knowledge and the latest insights from my engagement with customers and other public appearances. So happy and you can follow me there as well.
Tom Raftery:Tremendous, tremendous. Julia, that's been great, thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.
Julia Salant:Thank you, Tom. It's been my absolute pleasure.
Tom Raftery: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.