 Conservation does not have to be the realm of the professional with the PhD from the Yale School of Forestry. Every act of conservation matters, whether it's me planting milkweed for monarch on my balcony in Washington DC, or somebody moving to native landscaping on their corporate campuses. Every act matters. Margaret O'Gorman is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators magazine. Margaret O'Gorman operates at the intersection of business and nature. As president of the Wildlife Habitat Council, she helps companies find value in natural resources, conservation, and mainstream biodiversity across operations. She highlights the problems of too much planning and not enough action. She is a proponent of simplifying approaches to conservation and opening the door to efforts that restore broken places, enhance existing ecosystems, and return healthy biodiversity to all places. She has spoken at business and biodiversity forum at the Convention on Biological Diversity COP 13, the Smithsonian Institute Conservation Optimism Summit, the National Business Council for Sustainable Development, CEMENT Sustainability Initiative, and Ireland's National Biodiversity Conference. Her new book, which I have right here, Strategic Corporate Conservation and Planning, a Guide to Meaningful Engagement, was published February 2020 last year, and I'm so glad to have you on the show. Margaret, welcome. Thanks so much. I'm glad to be here. It's wonderful. Our paths have kind of crossed over the years in a distant way, not only through conservation, but in speaking engagements. I've spoken at the green biz before events and written some had some different type of articles published online based on your work. Years ago, I used to be the director over health safety and environment for major energy company, rolling out some new renewable energy work and dealt a lot with conservation in the United States, making sure that organic farms, wildlife, habitats for eagles and turtles and many other species were not encroached in this energy work and followed really what you've been doing for a long time through the Wildlife Habitat Council. And it's really wonderful to have you here on the show today because you've been doing this such a long time. We've just made it through and you probably don't want to talk about it like the rest of us don't want to talk about it through this crazy time black lives matters the pandemic we're still in lockdown here in Humber, Germany and different parts of the world we're still experiencing mutations. Racism against Asian people and all sorts of other global problems. Brexits comes to along with a bull scenario the burning rain for us, the brush fires from Australia on and on the list just never seems to end. But I want to know how have you weathered all this crazy time this at least last 12 months with lockdown and that has the conservation and the models and the corporate planning that you you talk about, even you and your organization and those that you work with for resilience a better operating model to weather these hard times. And what are anything that maybe is bubbled to the surface that are aha moments or moments of learning that you could depart to us that maybe we could take away to learn from as well how to make it through these difficult times. That's a great question and that is a serious litany of global problems that you just listed there. The last 12 months has seen silver linings as well as challenges, and as an NGO executive I'm a bright side pinker so I usually focus on the silver linings rather than the challenges because they're always there. One of the things that we saw that was really heartening to us is that the conservation projects that were being done on corporate lands, continued to be managed, even when the corporate facilities had restricted access. And we believe that that's because of the relationship between the employees on the ground, and the work that they are doing that they have these great ownerships in these projects that helps them innovate and pivot to be able to maintain the projects even when they the access to the site was limited to essential workers only. We had a site, Bacardi site in Jacksonville, Florida, that moved their entire conservation project to an area of less traffic of people so that they could actually engage in a socially distanced way. We had people creating timetables to allow them to access their site so we saw this great innovation of people who really wanted to continue doing what they were doing when they really weren't supposed to be there and that's kind of a thread that goes through a lot of our work as the innovation of the employees, moving ahead with these projects despite structures around them that may have tried to stop them. Oh, I love that. That's fabulous to hear. Did you receive calls or notices or emails from people during this time corporations saying, boy, we should have listened to you guys in the past we really haven't haven't and all this craziness as we really need to double down and do more conservation efforts get more into restoration and thinking in in this different different way and kind of saying we'd like your help to to strategize with us or get some other plans of actions did you notice any more uptick or any kind of loopholes bubbling to the surface we say there's really a need for this or more more people coming to us at this time. We actually did see an uptick in people in companies reaching out to us instead of us reaching to them which has been normally what we have had to do. And I think it's really driven by a number of things one is the pause in the corporate frenzy of global travel conferences meetings. The executives who make some of these decisions, all had to pause. I have some board members who spend most of their lives in the air. And this year, they have not been on a plane for a year so allowing that space breathing space, and connecting that to how everybody at home connected better to nature I think caused this realization of the impact of nature, but then on the more kind of pragmatic business side we're seeing biodiversity now evolves as a materiality for business so at the Davos summit earlier this year, and the World Economic Forum listed biodiversity as a global economic risk that is highly likely and highly impactful, right beside climate change. And that's the fourth time they've had it in that segment of their miss risk matrix. So when we see the World Economic Forum, driving biodiversity then we also see the company so it comes from both sides the personal and the pragmatic. Yeah, there's a couple reasons I believe why we really saw that not only is this year. There's a report that came out on biodiversity but there's a biodiversity meeting this year. It's really the theme. Well, a lot of people are kind of was swept under the rug, because of the pandemic so to say as right before 2019 and into 2020. Australia was having horrible fires brush fires and you know the images we saw were usually of a koala or kangaroo and things like that. The buyer diversity that was lost there. Unfathomable just in one month 85,000 hectares were lost in one month. Overall, to date, the numbers are still coming in still going 3 billion wild animal species. 3 billion I mean fathom that number 7 billion tree species. I didn't even know 7 billion tree species existed. Lost due to the brush fires, and their normal Australia's normal emissions carbon emissions during an average years around 530 million tons annually. Overshot that 650 million tons. 650 million tons of CO2 which is about a little bit more. Okay, sorry. It's about 650 atomic bombs going off as how much, which is 1.2 billion tons of CO2 during that. And, you know, then we get into the pandemic and it's like we've forgotten about that, that on biodiversity. And yeah, it happened in Australia. But that affects the entire world and people just don't realize that I know that for you, conservation restoration biodiversity are such vital things and I really want to get into more depth on that and discuss it more. You touch on it in your book, but you also I know you're concerned about it before we go too deep. I would like to, because a lot of my my listeners, even though they're with the UN the world economic form. I'm not so sure about conservation how it works out how to understand it. If it's a tool where return on investment needs to come into play if it's a tool that can get them allowance to work in certain areas that are normally in certain areas, things like that that maybe would be considered greenwashing or bad business or whatever else and I would like to first maybe get your explanation and definitions why you wrote the book why how can we dispel some mess around the industry and and then and then I'll ask you that the next question which I which I from reading your book I think is kind of for me it would is a hard thing but I want to know how you deal with it but I'd like you to answer those other ones first. Sure, yes. And, yeah, I mean the point about the loss of biodiversity in Australia is a very is a is a thing to keep in mind and that was the same with all of the big wildfires in California. Many rare and endangered species pockets of population were deeply impacted by those so while the news stories are generally about the loss of life and the loss of income. There is another whole layer of loss that we see with respect to these basically climate driven events that are impacting our ecosystems. But to the book and the reason I wrote the book was to try to bridge a gap between traditional NGO conservation practice and traditional business practice. The conservation groups and business groups tend not to talk to each other, because they also tend to talk in different languages. So a driver for a conservation group is either a species restoration project an ecological specific ecological restoration project. It's all framed within a conservation. Story, whereas for a business it's framed within a business driver. So when we speak to businesses we try to engage them on why on the challenges and the opportunities that they see that can be addressed with conservation so I list 16 traditional business drivers in the book social license to operate regulatory compliance employee engagement. These are all things that businesses can achieve using conservation. And what I would love to see coming from this book is that conservation groups begin to understand that and instead of coming on site and saying, Okay, can you just stop making steel and instead restore these acres so that it's pop, you know, it's for an endangered species, but instead come on site and say, How can we help you to use your land better so that you can have a business, a business win and it's not a bottom line when it's not talking about monetizing biodiversity it's really talking about above the business line. And then for a company to become comfortable talking to a conservation group and not feeling immediately that they're going to be held to for having a threatened species on their lands. And for the fact that they actually make steel or make or mine copper or do all these things that the private sector does so it's really driven to bridge that gap. And when we talk about, you know, the NGO world working with the corporate world. There's a spectrum of engagement that I view one end of the spectrum, or the sea shepherds and Greenpeace and the people sitting in trees still in the Pacific Northwest in the US are essential activists they're essential as that, you know, wedge into the activism for corporations to behave better. But that spectrum moves right up to people who actually work in companies, driving companies to improve their practices for biodiversity. So companies like BP have have ecologists and biodiversity them staff, helping them to move in the right direction. And I think that spectrum is really important. If we think about the ecological concept of response diversity. So the more resilient and ecosystem has it has a diversity of responses. And if we look at our ecosystem of protecting and enhancing diversity, we also need a diversity of responses. So along that spectrum, every act is valuable, whether it's the sea shepherds, the, the advocates that are walking the halls of parliament, trying to get better biodiversity regulations, or those sitting in, you know, the sea suites at the headquarters trying to advance it. So that's really how I view that world at the moment. You see some common miss and conservation or your work with a conservation organization and working with corporates to to get them or nudge them to start moving in the right direction just from general public customer consumers and things where they say oh you know I hear this myth about this or even even advocates or the activists who are on the trees are tying themselves or changing themselves to you know pipelines or whatever type of construction projects. Do you see some general miss in there that you'd like to dispel or or that people really haven't perhaps or understood the other side of the coin. Yeah, I think that there's a lot of myths and a lot of, I guess lack of systems thinking in terms of how all of these, all of these businesses and companies are all connected together which we know it's a global marketplace it's a global economy. One of my favorites is that the extractive industries are of course the ones that have the most visible impact on the planet and have a direct impact on biodiversity, whereas the newer industries like the tech companies have seemingly lower impact on biodiversity, but it's all connected along the chain the value chain and the supply chain because the products that are taken out of the earth by the mining companies are those that are used by the tech companies and the electric car companies that pass in many ways because of their impacts. So they're not paying the impact for their, for their impact on biodiversity, but the extractives are. And because the extractives have been doing this for a long time they have one of the most sophisticated approaches towards mitigating their biodiversity impact and also restoring and rehabilitating afterwards, whereas the tech companies get a complete and absolute 100% pass. If they plant 100 trees on their campus, they're lauded as being green, yet at the same time they're feeding into the value chains that have an impact on the planet as a whole. So that kind of lack of understanding the value chain and the materiality of the impact along that value chain is something I think that we need a better understanding of. And so I'm going to go off a little bit on your book because you brought it up just now in your book you you talk about true cost natural capital. This total environmental cost, almost. Look what you're saying a lot of these extractive organizations are, are they paying that that true cost that natural capital that environmental costs in the beginning or offsetting that properly in the right way. But those organizations or corporates further down the line who maybe built the automobile or the computer from those extractive organizations that they're probably not as well, or can you give us more into that flow and what what your thoughts and feelings are on that because really, you know, I talk about this a lot we need to pay the, the true cost the total environmental costs that the, the actually almost the environmental cost as percentage of EBITDA which has kind of been left aside for many decades. Yeah, I don't think any company is paying the true cost. I believe like you that we need to incorporate the costs of the resources that not that they're extracting and the way they're extracting but the resources that are being impacted by that. But I also believe it needs to go along the entire chain. We, as a consuming society in the West, we're exporting biodiversity loss, because the majority of biodiversity losses happening in the rainforests, and around, you know, plantation agriculture that is all being produced to benefit most of consumers in the West so we're really exporting that cost and it's not fair to the rest of the world. And it's always really interesting to me when we see Western governments asking governments that have rich areas of biodiversity to protect them. We don't know which country it was but one country said okay this is what it'll cost you to protect it, and nobody ponied up the money. So we can talk about this but we need to actually pay for it. But then the other side of is, you know, as you know in the climate change world, there's scope one scope two and scope three emissions. We have a scope three emissions policy for biodiversity because we really only have scope one right now with respect to impact on biodiversity. So that's why we're seeing, you know, the equatorial lending principles and all of these things impacting the extractive sector, but not the sectors further down that are using the components and then driving them out to the general public. So we're all of us not paying the value of the biodiversity loss. I don't I don't know how you do it you you've got to receive the saint the angel award the prize for diligence because I would imagine and in your book you mentioned a few of them. Some of the corporations and organizations you work or help or you're trying to. I see them as big evils you know I mean I'd like to get just to say it nicely and I sure some of my listeners do as well so that very extractive organizations that oil, coal and gas or automotive or whatever that just a hard time sometimes saying that I had one how do you do that and I'm sure I'm mostly wrong. They're not as bad as I probably are making them out to be but I, how do you do it and what that like and why do you do it. Is there a real a method or kind of the trick and I and I know it's in your book you kind of talk about that as well there's, there's a method to why, why we need to have organizations get behind it and change and be more involved in conservation in conservation biodiversity. Sure. Yes, so at the wildlife habitat council we work with any corporation that wants to work with us. So many conservation groups have litmus tests, these litmus tests are not publicly available, we don't know what criteria are used. So many of simplicity decided okay if a company wants to do a conservation act, we want to make sure that what they're doing is the right one. And what they're doing is sustainable so let's build a framework for that and allow people with the resources to make the judgments as to whether they should be engaged or not. And we just took that's a very simple approach and I'm a big embracer of simplicity in approaches. So when we work with a company like you, before I started this to me the corporate world was this behemoth this anonymous behemoth. And that basically, you know, was responsible for all the ills in the world. But when you work with companies what you're doing is working with people. And where we work in the sides we work with, without exception, the people we are working with wants the same things that we do. Now their colleagues in government affairs who are running around DC, the last four years trying to get regulations changed are not the people we work with because we're not those we're not policy people. But when we're working with environmental health and safety vice presidents sustainability vice presidents, and increasingly you know climate people, they really want to try and do the right thing. And it's their job to try and push that rock it's a Sisyphean task to push that rock uphill within their companies. And when that rock is met by the leadership with open minds at the top, we can really see change happening on the ground. Yes, we can wish for a world where, you know, oil is not being extracted where cars are not necessary, but is that realistic. Is that realistic today if if a large industry just vanished. The repercussions right now in the way our society is structured would be quite severe across the world, and not just in the places where the consumers are missing their consumer goods but actually in the places where those consumer goods are also being made and moved. So it's a really interesting conundrum we we've built this engine that we depend on. We don't particularly like this engine very much. So our role and while I've had a Council in mind is helping companies view their impacts on the ground in a different way, but most importantly to act. And that's one of our biggest things is we are biased towards action. And all we do is we don't help companies develop complicated plans that you know they can they can shout about from the rooftops we really push them towards action on the ground. I love that and that's what I mentioned in the beginning of your biography and that I like the most not only through the book but I know from your work and in the past and where I've seen you speak as it's really important that that we get people to act and to do something. And I've spoken about this before that a lot of organizations and corporates they kind of try to see how they can put environmental health and safety, ESG or corporate social responsibility or even the sustainable development goals. They try to plug them in as an add on at the end of the year on their, their reporting or their year annual reports or whatever. But there's no action they kind of like do the year and review and say well, how can we fit this into the year that we've just done which is me has no meaning. But if you start with actions. And this is what I hear not only your book and with other things at the beginning of the year really drive people to actions, the employees that they rally around and they get excited and as you mentioned with your first story. When in a time where they're in lockdown or really not supposed to be doing it like we want to keep doing this this is really neat and and a good project and it gives you the warm fuzzies but it's also good for the world and environment. And so then they want to do it and those type of stories are much easier to report on at the end of the year as well. And that leads me to kind of this next question I saw. And I believe it was an interview. I don't know if it was for financial or not that you did on TV. But just for me was totally brazen they just come right out and say so, what's the return on investment of conservation, you know, otherwise we don't want to hear it we don't want to do it if there's no return on investment and I understand that because there is a way to get an economic model to be regenerative to be restorative to do conservation that's actually a better business model. And that's the trend that we've seen in the last five years at least more companies and organizations working towards this net positive effect more planetary services even though that's not their core business model they're like have a set fasted in the organization and system that's a planetary service leaving the planet better than they found it in some way even if they're sometimes a horrible organization. How do you deal with that what do you tell people what what what I mean I heard what you said there and you did it so eloquently but but how do you respond to that where it's all about bottom line what do I tell the board how do we do this why why should we do Convert conservation, what do you say and how do you respond to things like that. Yes, it's always a challenge when a company has a culture that is focused purely on on shareholder return. You know the the classic quote from Milton Friedman that a company's only reason reason that is to get deliver a shareholder return and that has been condemned proven wrong, and has been shown to actually impact negatively impact the companies today that are seen to go beyond an ROI and actually have an S ROI such as social return on investment are seen to be more valuable we we did a funny exercise a couple of years ago where we actually made a stock index from our members and it outperformed the main stock indexes on the New York Stock Exchange because it was a collection of companies first of all diverse companies but also companies that all go beyond compliance in their responsibilities and across a spectrum of sustainability objectives so if you want a good stock index go to our member list. And so one week when a company just wants return on investment. We talk about risk, we talk about the advantage of risk mitigation through conservation action. So, not getting your permits pulled getting your permits easier. But having a frictionless movement through the operations world will save you money, and it will reduce the risk to your operation so when you're really thinking about those hard dollars and sense, it really becomes a risk assessment exercise. And that question is becoming less and less common for us. We have seen, while I've had to counsel has been around for 30 years I've worked here for eight years. And even in eight years we have seen the conversation change from reactive. We did something wrong we need to fix it. The government's reading down our neck to proactive. To sign on to the business for nature coalition we really want to have our conservation work aligned with our SDG goals. We really need to get on board with the upcoming financial requirements for biodiversity reporting so we're seeing that mind shift and seeing it accelerate over the last few years which has been really good so the, the ROI question becomes less important. So, I figured it's also something that more media tends to focus on and then the general organizations and population. Would you say that that's the differentiating thing is one the action. Or the kind of focused on strategic planning that's involving action to drive them or is there even more than that and you said that 16 drivers. I want to tease your book a little bit I don't want to give people the clips notes or give everything away. So I, I, if you want to talk about the drivers we can but I'd also like to kind of. If you don't mind teasing a little bit what the differentiators are from this to some other approaches or past approaches. So there are a large number of commodity specific conservation approaches within forestry within agriculture, especially around palm oil and within fisheries. So moving out into say luxury goods and jewelry where they're very focused on the specific commodity tree a fish etc. So our approach is neutral on the actual operation on what the operation is doing. It's more about overlaying a blanket of conservation opportunity. And it's trying to link what happens it's also understanding that a company is not the corporate headquarters. It's actually where the stuff is made, the stuff is extracted, and the stuff is moved. The corporate headquarters the guys who go to Davos and our members of WBC SD and come back with the great ideas may drive it and may support it, but it's the guys on the ground, the EHS people the site managers who actually do it. So what we've done is create a model that connects that locally valuable work into a corporate headquarters value for reporting and storytelling. So by creating a consistent approach through a strategic conservation plan, a test track for General Motors in New Mexico, and, you know, an auto body place in Korea for General Motors. They all contribute to General Motors statement on their biodiversity action at their facilities, which then feeds into General Motors SDGs. So the really the differential for us is that whole neutrality in terms of the actual operation. So we really just figure out, you know, where are you in this world, what's your conservation context, what's your land holdings. What's your resources and what can you do for that, and then help those in corporate HQ to connect those dots to tell their story. I'm probably going to ask you to define for my listeners EHS and I told you earlier, I know what it is but I told you earlier that I used to work for renewable companies and did health safety and environment work. I worked in OSHA certified instructor and so I know I trained other other people in OSHA standards. And so that kind of ties into it but it really went kind of health safety environment it went occupational health and safety arena to compliance to corporate social responsibility to ESG now I mean, and it's kind of taken this journey over the years. And it's something what really what I think we're trying to keep up with our exponentially growing word we're trying to catch up to where our conservation, our restoration or regeneration, and really living within the safe operating spaces of our planetary boundaries but I would, I would love to kind of get a little bit more of that verbiage and have you explain that more and you know it's not not the CEOs who are, you know they might have the big vision and hopefully do they do and it's not just a lot of lip service, but it's those who are directing and leading that on different locations around the world for those organizations. Yes, yes and I apologize for using EHS as a just a term I forget sometimes but environmental health and safety is core operating principles of most companies these days. The majority of companies that we work with have basically safety goals that are higher than most safety goals structured by governments, and they really have a very, very low risk tolerance for any safety issues on their sites, which is always fascinating as a somebody coming from the NGO who actually go on to an industrial site and learn about the safety goals there. The health goals of course the same with respect to their employees and with respect to the communities in which they operate in which they've always not they've always not been the best players in that arena. And then the environmental goals which are really driven in us by EPA and of course across Europe by the various regulations from the EU. And while safety has been grabbed and ran with to an extent of safety is such like most meetings will start with a safety minute where people will talk about safety. We now have seen companies start with an environmental minute where they will start talking about environmental issues and especially conservation. So one of my goals is to get the E in EHS as important as the safety, because the safety for most companies has gone way beyond compliance, but the E has stayed within the compliance only mode. So that's one of the challenges that we have, and it really is on the ground so yeah the CEO can support it can lead it can drive it. So when we worked with General Motors for example, they established a goal back in, I think it was 2010 maybe that they would have all of their manufacturing facilities worldwide engaged in conservation action that was established from their headquarters. The ground never heard that that story didn't get to them. So no action took place, until we created a framework for action that again joined the dots from the C suite to the factory floor. And by creating that framework for action and putting the people on the ground in the story, and helping them to design the efforts, we were able to move from zero sites engaged to 75 sites worldwide, working towards conservation objectives for General Motors. So the ground is where it's so important because that's the only place it's going to happen. You know, we need to move earth we need to restore ecosystems, you can't do that from the top floor of the skyscraper in a corporate headquarters. Yeah, and in that respect it's always kind of been a really trickle down because so the, the big settings come from the government and from the corporate side and OSHA or whatever standard as EPA. And then, like you said, at most, most construction sites are most industrial areas that you used to begin really and I taught all my employees at first, you know, safety meeting at the first, you know, one to five minutes where let's have a safe day let's all go home safe with our eyes and fingers and personal protection. And then there was a little mention depending on what area or what was happening that day on okay we need to be careful that we're not taking any outside substances into this area or encroaching on this these bald eagles or we've got some species here that need to be moved or protected while we're in this area stuff like that. And, and I I've been away from it for a while but I hope it's starting to more focus on the environmental and we've realized we're going to go home with our eyes and our fingers by the end of the day but we need to make sure that our biodiversity and our species are there moving forward so that we can have a beautiful regenerative ecosystem to live in. You, you kind of mentioned in your book about bird species and climate and climate crisis and things. Why are corporations so uniquely positioned to help mitigate biodiversity loss. We cannot get to where we need to be with respect to biodiversity loss without private lands. We don't have enough public publicly protected lands and there's these drives for 30 by 30 30% of the world protected by 2030, which is getting a lot of pushback from many corners of the conservation community in terms of equity of impact. So we need the corporate sector, we need the corporate sector because they have the lands, we need the corporate sector because they have the resources, and we need the corporate sector because they also have the impacts. You know, you can enter into a conservation program in a protected area where there are no pressures on the ecosystem where the ecosystem has been restored and management is happening along a predetermined best management practice. But when you move and pivot to work with the corporate sector, and you're working with an operating steel mill to create habitat for, you know, ground nesting birds, it's a whole different approach and different way of thinking about conservation. And what makes it really interesting is the human dimension is just as important as the biodiversity outcome and the biodiversity actions. Whereas if you're thinking about a protected forest that's really all about biodiversity. So you're getting a co benefit because you're engaging people and you're giving them ownership over a result that they may never have had the opportunity to do. But without the corporate sector we cannot get to where we need to get with respect to leveling out the biodiversity declines that we're seeing at the moment. I think in some respects this is what I hear out as well. That you're almost you're connecting these corporations back to the earth back to the lands that they own but you're also their employees and connecting people back to the earth and these lands. And a lot of us are filled disconnected from this biodiversity loss you know it's happening somewhere else, but it's actually happening all around us where, through the organizations we have. We've just been kind of disconnected through the encroachment of cities and organizations and lands and things or that the production or extraction done by those organizations as somewhere else than headquarters were the majority of the people. And that connections never really made on that and so I like that because it's, I like how you describe it too because it's getting people back to that bigger picture the bigger understanding on how everything really ties together. I used to do this a lot when I was, and I do now still but in a different way. How you gauge with these local communities so corporates really back then they used to have specific people that go around months before projects or anything would occur and kind of engage with the communities. We've seen that over the year, not all over the decades and in different films with not only with farming but an energy and pipelines and different things where they're trying to convince people before they go in and but only so they could extract and then disappear and people kind of left and ruins. That has changed a lot over the years and how can failing to involve communities. Really under plans or do you also see that that's improved over the years or do we still have a lot of work to do. I think community engagement has become much more sincere than it ever has before I think the body of research and work on stakeholder engagement has helped to inform companies and how they can be more honest more authentic. When they engage, but also and most importantly that they listen that they're not just paying lip service to what the communities are saying now there's huge environmental justice issues, especially in the US and old industrial neighborhoods, where companies have had impacts since before EPA was created the environmental protection agency was created where materials management protocols didn't exist, and where what we call Superfund sites are still causing toxic issues in the communities. But what we're seeing from cleaning up Superfund sites right through to developing new operations is a whole different level of community engagement. Is it where it needs to be right now. No, it's not, but it has gotten much better. And recently we've seen coming out of the Biden administration a big focus on environmental justice, which is going to drive I think much more deep and meaningful engagement in the communities in which companies are having an impact. One of the things that we're trying to drive with the companies is if you're taking actions to mitigate your carbon your climate impact by investing in offsets in forests elsewhere. Start at home first. Take a community first approach to what you're doing. Okay, you won't get the carbon sequestration you're looking for, but why not make nature based investments in your communities before you start making them in communities elsewhere. And I think that's a real message that we can bring home to companies that are that are impacting those communities. So you're originally from Ireland you're living or working in Washington DC. I have this question that I ask everyone. How do you feel about global citizenry and a world without nations borders divisions humanity one from another. That is such a great question and it this morning before we talked I was on a call with some colleagues looking at a series of properties that a company wants us to come up with a conservation strategy for. And I was just reflecting to myself how humanity loves to draw lines where they shouldn't exist, and how these little squares of land exist in places, and borders are the same to me I mean I feel like I am a global citizen I'm, I'm a dual support holder of Ireland and the US. And I feel like, you know, why do we have nature doesn't have boundaries nature has its natural boundaries. So I certainly, I like the idea of a global citizenship and the ability of freedom to move and freedom to move from areas where your livelihood and your life is being threatened I think, you know, I think that is a good thing. I don't want to get off into Brexit but Ireland and Scotland pretty much weren't on board with with the Brexit. The reason I kind of touch upon that is, if you look at the extraction or the global touch of the United Kingdom of their footprint so to say around the world of extraction of food or energy or resources. It doesn't occur in the United Kingdom. It's all over the world and it's actually I think they they said this last in 2019 there was a footprint report they came out says it's five times the size of the United Kingdom in space and land and footprint that they use somewhere around the world, extracting resources and and we're we're all breathing the same air we're all drinking the same water we're all on this spaceship earth and, and there is no place to hide from climate change or there is no place to close our eyes to obviously lost but there's also no way to, to, to, even if we do close our borders even if we do make crazy decisions to get out of certain things. We're all sharing the same resources so I'm the same way I'm from the United States I live in Hamburg Germany, but I'm, I look at it more as like the realities of resources and you know that how, how that works and I love how how you, how you put that in that the the very probably the first global citizens that I could think of as business the way business works before that probably colonialism or something. You know how how we kind of just made sure that we were trading and working with people and doing good, bad and ugly things all over the world, but we are, we need to come up with some some better way to work or understand how the world works. We don't have that global citizenry thought or that where we're say we're all connected in one way or the other. If you look at the way business and organizations corporations work. We're actually already global citizens that's a corporations almost like a global passport to work and and do trade, and whether borders close or not that that trade somehow is always hacked and there's, they find ways to get it done anyway, you know. So thanks for answering that you know, I just always like to kind of the bigger picture of why the reason I lead in that direction is because in 2018, the entire world's international organizations kind of made this very direct shift from siloed linear approach to solving our global grand challenges human suffering global grand challenges climate issues environmental issues to this systems view of life approaches systemic approach to solving our global grand challenges. The United Nations started setting up all these systems dynamic models and how the spider web of the SDGs and the Paris agreement kind of tied to some basic pillars and transformations that the world needs go through but that they're all tied together we can't just work on one one alone. And the world economic form did did so as well they kind of set up these transformational maps on their website that if you go to them and you click on conservation or in certain industries or agriculture shows you that spider web of a system of every other facet that touches and ties to that industry and you brought this up. Just in your prior question before we got on global citizen, you said that there's the super fun sites. I don't know if my listeners know what that is but I definitely know what it is. And I want to kind of explain, explain it. So companies or organizations will go in and this kind of use a piece of land or property. So they can't use it anymore and they've created so much waste or sludge or left over of whatever they were doing whether it was extractive or they were producing some kind of a product there that the site turns actually into this unusable dangerous hazardous and then they just say okay we're gone and they leave it for someone else to clean up or sometimes not even have the responsibilities in Germany I've dealt with a couple locations for my organization where food believe it believe it or not food companies. As a matter of fact, I'm uneven to say which one Bernini a super fruit and vegetable vitamin drink company here left this this place just abandon it says we got to find some other place that's cheaper and better. This places has so much sludge from the processes of their of making their drinks that it wasn't for 15 years till anybody could move in there and use it and do it. So thinking of cradle to grave we use something until we can't use it anymore we've extracted everything we've left garbage and waste there, and then we go find some other place. That's this cradle to grave mentality but the circular economy this biodiversity this conservation of those places that we work as this net positive that that I believe that corporations and organizations need to move in and believe it's in the first part of your book. This is about Andrew Winston, and you also mentioned Unilever a little bit, but Andrew Winston, he's been on my podcast as well but he and Paul Pullman from Unilever working on a new book called net positive. And they're kind of trying to move in this direction, how can we leave as business as corporations as organizing leave the planet better than we found instead of doing the bare minimum instead of doing the OSHA regulations or the EPA regulations make sure we meet those. Why not take the higher road and go above and beyond and offer planetary services say no. We want and there's been some organizations that have done that as well Microsoft and I think it was 2020 came out in January 2020 says, since we've been in business we want to remove our historical carbon emissions and unlike that's unbelievable most people didn't understand, remove your historical carbon emissions since you've been in business. That that that's unheard of that's a step beyond in the right direction kind of trying to leave the planet better than then we found it with your strategic conservation planning the 16 steps and and everything you you talk about in your book. So I think we can set the bar how higher for organizations corporates to kind of get on that same wave like that it's not just the bare minimum that were required to do, or because there's no other way around it, but that we actually set the bar higher go to the bare minimum and leave the planet better than we found it. What what's your thinking or it kind of ties to in general what what you hope your outcomes for this book and also your thoughts would be over time because I know it has to do with a lot more restoration biodiversity and things as well. I think there. When you talk about systems approach, we need a systems approach for nature. And while we talk about Microsoft rolling back its carbon credits, Microsoft is still managing its data centers without any approach for nature. And, you know, they will say, Well, we need to stay in compliance with whatever but there's there's there's a way of talking in a way of doing so when you make these large commitments that get the headlines. Can we just dig down a little bit and actually see how you run your operations. So in my world, you know if I was king I'd be like let's let's start with your operations and then allow you to build up to making these bold global statements. So if you're living in harmony and working in harmony with nature. Yes, you can be be investing in these offsets and carbon offsets all over the world, but you're still having an impact on biodiversity because in my view we all have an impact on biodiversity every time we we consume anything every time we walk outside and drive our cars. We're having an impact on biodiversity. So companies toyota as a company that has a global goal to live in harmony with nature. And over. I can't remember what year I think it's their 2050 or 2030 goal. And I think that's a really interesting goal because it's thinking about your relationship with nature, and it's, it's beyond climate it's different climate but it's really thinking about how you go to work every day and where you work is that in harmony with nature and are your operations and harmony with nature and how are you offsetting the impact you're having for nature. So that's the shift we need but that shift needs a system change from the incentives that are allowing companies to destroy nature. And actually in some cases impelling them to destroy nature by ridiculous, you know, requirements around fence line maintenance and so something as simple as that, and through to customer expectations that the public should be crying out for companies to live in harmony with nature, as much as they cry out for other things like no GMOs or other things like that but we should all be asking for these things there should be public pressure there should be a removal of government subsidies around nature and then there should be the corporate war that wants to live in harmony with nature. And I think only then will we get to where we need to get to. Yeah, I love that. And, and really, none of these initiatives none of the things you talk about in the book they're really esoteric outcomes their reality there. They're just better operating systems they're more not only more people centered human centered humane center but also the outcomes are just better models for operating and not only tie us back to the land, wherever we're at but also tie us back to the earth as global citizens. I love, I love how you, you eloquently said those things in your book and I really believe that as the subtitle is it is a meaningful guide to the engagement that you that you really can use the tools that the 16 different business drivers really to to get into the depth and substance and to do it right. Well, not, not every one of us are working as conservations or conservationists or restoration or in the organization, but every one of us eventually is faced with some form or another to restore regenerator or to do something for our local community and we're involved with companies who, who might be, and where we can purchase our products from or where we can let our voice be known to nudge them or to help them to, to think of things a little bit differently. So I really thank you for that. I only have four more questions big questions for you. Maybe five I lied I have five more. The hardest one I'm going to give you is the burning question. And I give it to all my guests it's the burning question WTF. And most people like us the swear word. I've been saying that 1000 times during these past 12 months of lockdown, but it's not. It's what's the futures. And so, from you for you personally and for the work you do, and the organizations you work with. I would like to know what your, if you were King if you're the super one, what's, what's your vision of the futures. That's a great question. And my vision of the future is the, when you think of a cinematic dystopian universe dystopian world is the opposite of that. So, I see what I want to see is a journey where you're starting in the business district of the city. And in that business district, the skyscrapers are clad with nature that nature is incorporated into the design and the way that Singapore is doing it and other cities are by a philic cities are doing it. And as you move to the edges of the cities, the residential neighborhoods have canopy equity where there's tree canopy in the poor neighborhoods in the rich neighborhoods, where the industrial edges are managed for nature. And as you move further away from the city and into the suburbs, the corporate campuses no longer have lawns but are actually forests and supporting biodiversity. And the suburban subdivisions are no longer planted with invasive landscaping species but actually host immense amounts of biodiversity. And then as you move further out into the countryside, agriculture is regenerative mining is reduced footprint and is managed in a reclaimed way that actually enhances biodiversity. That is my future world and I would really love to see it. I believe that for a lot of cities so urban planning restrictions or requirements for our headquarters or organizations to really do that within cities is do you believe that's a hindrance or a restriction at this point that if it wasn't kind of a zoning or city restrictions that maybe more organizations would do that as well in their headquarters where there's no extractive work going on. So I believe that urban planning shorts nature. I think that urban planning or planning schools in general need to have modules on biophilic design or biodiversity in urban settings because if we're looking at an increasingly modernized world, and we want to protect nature, we can't have nature as somewhere else. It has to belong where the people are living, because that's good for health, but it's also good to understand how it all works together. And one of my favorite authors is Jose Sarah Magal from Portuguese author who's now passed away but he has this dystopian novel called the cave, where the agriculture is created in one place and where all of the people live in a shopping mall. And there is nothing in between that. And when you think about that world, it's devastating, it's a devastating world, and that's not the world that we want but I think urban planners would lean towards putting everybody in a shopping center because it's neater and it's tidier, and it's easier to do the infrastructure, but I really think planners need to kind of somehow get better with nature. I totally agree. I think it's, it's, it's all over. I mean, we're seeing some cities kind of getting up to speed with, with different planning restrictions changing their zoning changing the way they can do things within city boundaries. And one of one of my friends Ron Finley, he really had a hard time planning these sidewalk gardens and kind of did he called him that the gangster gardener, you know he was putting fruit trees and planning food right on the sidewalks and in different places and ran into some zoning and some of those things with California and Los Angeles. But, but here in Germany we see, you know people wanting to transition to regenerative agriculture or agroforestry, and there's restrictions in farming where you can't have trees mixed with farming, and it's just absurd. And a lot of these systems are these planning rules these that we have they're just outdated they're not thinking and, and a lot of these cities are creating some extreme hot zones some dead zones where it's extremely hot there's no fresh air no circulation no shade from trees and if we rethought that and kind of let, let organizations get a little creative I think boy we'd have have a big switch so I'm glad you brought that up and I hope that we can have some thought leaders and governance and that kind of help us around the world to shift shift the future of our infrastructure because that's a big the built environments a big part of infrastructure change that will help us reach the future. And the last three questions I have are really for my listeners there. Methods that kind of help them on their journeys are empower them to live better lives or to do better things. If there was one message that you could depart to my listeners that is a sustainable takeaway that has the power to change their life, what would it be your message. In mantra we have a wildlife habitat counselors, every active conservation matters. Now, we adopted this before the Black Lives Matters movement so I apologize for the similarity. But the intent of it is that conservation is does not have to be the realm of the professional with the PhD from the Yale School of Forestry. Every active conservation matters whether it's me planting milkweed for monarch on my balcony in Washington DC or somebody moving to native landscaping on their corporate campuses, every act matters and I think that's a key thinking when we're talking about nature. What would you define your your title as I mean what do you have like a besides president of your conservation group or council. What's your, what would you say are your activists are an advocate or. That's interesting. And we, we played a game recently at a staff meeting where we had to come up with our own job titles after Elon Musk changed his job title to I can't remember what it was techno king. So we decided we come up with ours and my came up with mine as environment, no cheerleader for nature. And it was just a very funny, you know, story about how that's what I do I go into corporate offices and I'm cheerleading for nature I don't have pom poms but that's what I'm trying to do. I see myself as an advocate but not in the traditional advocating to government, but I'm advocating to the private sector so my entire job is selling nature to the private sector. That's all I do. Five days a week, and I really enjoy it because you know when you're telling stories about nature there is no downside to that. So the real reason I asked that is because what what should young innovators in your field of evangelism cheerleading for nature and nature as naturalists conservationist be thinking about if they're looking for ways to make a big and real impact on our world. That's a great question because traditionally young people who moved into nature based work become wildlife biologists or ecological restorations. But there is an entire world in the private sector that brings in a suite of expertise and to advance nature and that's the type of thing that is about all about communications about being not being just focused on one species or one landscape but being able to understand nature as a whole. And I think that is an absence in the education system around environmental science because really environmental science puts people in these very narrow canals and they sell that canal both to the end of their career as a professor or somebody in a wildlife agency. But a all rounder is somebody who can really help in the world today and see the connections between climate biodiversity the SDGs and whatever it is and be able to talk about those that's where I would advise a young professional who wants to go beyond a special species to think about. That's beautiful. What have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start. Wow, I don't know I'll have to think about that. I work in a very male dominated world, and I wish I had had the confidence to speak up in that male dominated world a lot earlier than I achieved it. As a female in that world we tend to try to build up our knowledge before speaking while the opposite can be true in the male dominated world so that's something that I wish we have a saying here sometimes when we're writing our bios. Can you man up my bio so that we write them like a man would. And that's been quite an experience throughout my career is working in a field that is pretty much a male dominated field is being present and being confident as a female. You've just made me throw in another question I'm sorry. So I tell all my listeners and anyone I speak to at different events or presentation that the top three ways in my opinion and knowledge is to draw down to solve human suffering to fix our global grand challenges and environmental problems as one to globally reform food entire food systems. Secondly, and thirdly is to empower women and girls. And I totally agree with with your answer my to my kind of last question. And that's because now I've added another one. But in that respect, are you doing things in your work as president but also to empower women and girls help because that has big part of conservation throughout the world if women and girls are not sold off to marriage early if they're not working on the farms or toiling in a family business instead of going to school getting educated if they're being paid a fair wage. On and on I mean I could go into dozen other other things. They take better care of our world they take care better care of our families they feed us better. And it's a ripple effect that can benefit the world and as Paul Hawkins says and in his book draw down by the way just as a tip, you've got a new book coming out in September called regeneration, and it's the sequel to the draw down. And that is empowering women and girls 75% ability to stop human suffering and solve our global grand challenges, really to flip the switch on their world so the last little caveat maybe you could give us some words for the girls and women and for what what your thoughts and feelings are besides the question you answered. Yes. And I think there's a flip side to that question of being in a male dominated world is having a female voice makes you heard in a different way and you can deploy that voice in a different way. You can actually talk about things in a more human centered way than a traditional male kind of upbringing and socialization allows a man to do so to me it's leveraging that ability to be emotional to be passionate. Be proud of that because I think that's how you can really get messages across one of my big heroes is Mary Robinson first female president to Ireland who is so vocal on women and girls within the climate transition and how important that is and I really love what she says. We have little capacity where we work to impact some of these things, but the things that we do do are definitely share the mic. All of our conferences are we strive for gender balance, and even though we have a male dominated world and we strive for gender balance on the voices that we bring, and increasingly trying to bring in racial diversity. And so really trying to think and when we do a lot of stem education with our companies that use their conservation projects for stem education in the communities and really thinking that through gender lenses as well to make sure that the engagement is is just as appealing to girls as it is to boys. I mean, there is, there is, there's an upside to being a woman in this and that is because your voice is different and is heard in a different way, and using that and leveraging that and not being afraid of that I think is very important. I have this long curly hair, I'm not as good a voice as you are and it's always like why why is grandpa telling me about empowering women and girls but I really appreciate those wise words and I hope that through our discussion here today that you've empowered and some people to look at the world in the form of conservation and strategic corporate conservation planning. I loved your book. Thank you so much for sending it to me and taking the time to discuss when I recommend it to anyone who really wants to find 16 great tools to move forward and lots of other wonderful wisdoms. And I thank you that's all I have for you I appreciate your time. Well, thank you so much for reading my book and thank you for all of the great questions today. You're most welcome. I hope we can do it again soon. Okay, thank you. Take care. Bye bye. Bye.