 In some ways our book is actually about the low hanging fruit. Our book is about we got 10 years to halve emissions. Actually there's a big chunk of emissions. We know we have the technology. We actually know the social change and institutional change and legislative change needed to do it. So let's do it. There's absolutely no excuse to not do it. Corinne Starr and Eric Lonergan are my guests on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine sponsored by the Aloha's Regenerative Foundation. Corinne started her career at the UN working on climate change. She has been advising global business and governments on climate and sustainability for more than a decade. She is co-founder of the not-for-profit More United. Eric is a policy economist and an author with more than 20 years experience in financial markets. He is co-author with Mark Life of the International Best Seller and Greenomics. Agenda 2020 is the publishing house for that. He has written extensively on innovations and monetary policy and frequently contributes to the financial times. We are here today to talk about this hot off the press flaming book Super Charge Me. It's a wonderful book. I've read it three times, physical copy once and twice on Kindle Audible version. Charge Me is a fast-paced, clearly written manual on how to accelerate the green transition. It's really this dialogue between Eric and Corinne who really go back and forth discussing and getting into the depth and substance things, moving away from more academic or just discussion, getting into the depth of action. What can we do policy frameworks and accelerate the response in this decade of time that we have left to reach the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals? They introduce a concept of supercharging a new framework for accelerating our response to this climate change that we're facing, this climate crisis. Through a series of high impact policy hacks, Super Charge Me will embolden activists, reinvigorate and the disheartened and reframe the climate crisis as an opportunity. So I'm so excited to have you both here on the show and on the podcast. Welcome. How are you? Thanks Mark. Very well. Yeah, really good and very, very excited to be on the podcast. Really looking forward to it. I'm glad to have you here and I'm glad we could coordinate it. And that's really timely around your release and kind of promotion and going into things. Is this one of the first podcasts you've done on the book so far? We did do a live podcast for an Irish audience, which was quite the experience. It was a Saturday night over many beers. It was absolute chaos, but we did our best. Well, that's great. That's fabulous. At least it was a good environment and chaos is sometimes good. So I'm big on chaos theory. I want to jump right in to the first question. So Super Charge Me can be taken in a bunch of different ways. And I really want to hear it straight from you guys. Does it mean Super Charge Me with more taxes and policies? Does it mean Super Charge Me with tools and empowerment to address all the problems we're facing? Or is it more a systemic Super Charge? Can you kind of go into how the title came about? Sure. So it's really hopefully all of those and you'll be aware of the structure. So we are big believers that the idea of Super Charging is about actions rather than targets. Everybody now has targets. All of our nations have targets pretty much and companies are coming up with targets. But we are really interested in what we're actually going to do. And so we think there's a consensus that we're not moving fast enough. So the subtitle of the book is Net Zero Faster. So we want to Super Charge the system so that we start to reduce emissions much more rapidly. But the way we break it down is we look at the individual. We look at companies. We look at financial markets. We look at nations. And then we look at the world. And we're trying to give you a policy hack or a framework at each one of those levels to Super Charge, i.e. to have big impact and to make really rapid change. I was just going to build on that actions not targets idea because it's come to me a lot over the last seven, eight weeks whilst we've been witnessing the terrible Ukraine war. We were inspired on this actions not targets piece by an essay written by Thomas Shelling. Written in 1993. I actually can't quite remember the name of it, but it's about climate and global warming. Very prescient. And he was as early in the movement of UN climate action and climate commitments. And he made the parallel with NATO. And he said the success of NATO has been they have committed to actions not targets. So countries will commit to mobilizing X number of troops and placing them in this location. And he said there's a risk that the climate journey is going too far down the routes of targets which don't translate necessarily into success. And it's been coming to me a lot over the last eight weeks because of course NATO has been in front of mind. And actually Shelling's known as a big nuclear strategist. So I keep seeing him being quoted on Twitter as people kind of debate nuclear kind of game theory. So really what supercharging is about is what works? What do we know works? Because we don't have time. We have to halve emissions between 2020 and 2030 to stay kind of anywhere roughly close to the Paris goals. And that's not to say we shouldn't have massively ambitious system change thinking, but we also need to make sure we're learning from what can deliver very, very fast change. So that's kind of the heart of supercharge me is what works. You've opened up the can of worms already. You've really already said so we're we're going to get into the question what does a world work for everyone look like for you and I want to hear each of your individual answers, hopefully they're aligned. But if they're not, that's okay, because most of my guesses are not that's a little bit down the road. But you've just opened up a plethora of new rabbit holes that we're going to go down. And I kind of want to toggle it between both of you back and forth on how we do this because you both come with your own specialty. You both have TED talks, you both given these TEDx talks. I watched them both. They're really good. I like yours the most career and I have to say because you're really talking about having big balls as a woman and pissing with your brothers over the fence or over some kind of a hell. So it's fabulous. It's entertaining. And she I'm sorry she beats you out, Eric. She's got more views. She's got more views than you're talking and you're talking in some respects about the same thing but on different things and your experiences. So your talk was really about something totally different than than hers and it was more on this economics and policy and things on the talk. Is that just not resonating enough with people or do you think there's some other social metrics that are underlying that are missing out? So I realized when we talk to people about economics or what model that they're living in or who's guiding the policy and even though we have Targus that Corinne talked about that are out there, if you were to ask the majority of the common man, the common person, they wouldn't know what the model is. They wouldn't know what the economic model that they're living is if it's hedonistic, if it's capitalistic, if it's extractive, if it's circular or donut economics, they're like, what? Who? What model am I living? I mean, I've got to be honest with you. Part of the reason behind Angry Nomics and in fact, probably the biggest debate with the title we had was, do we drop the nomics? Which was probably my instinct. Although I have to say the publisher kind of was really strong on the Angry Nomics and actually have been kind of vindicated in terms of the sort of meme status where then people started to use the term, oh that's Angry Nomics, whether it was around Black Lives Matter or whether it's around all these different protests that have been breaking out in different parts of the world, whether it's Chile or Hong Kong. But I was very attached to the ideas around anger because anger is a universal. So what's really interesting is people say, oh, you've written a book on economics, they're kind of presuppositions that's going to be dull. You start talking to them about, have you ever thought why people go to football matches and get angry? Then they're like, you've already got one half of the population is interested. Then you talk about, has anger affected you in your personal life? What's going on? Is it a good thing? We have all this pop psychology about releasing anger. Is that right or is that a bad thing? Or is that a good thing? What does it tell you? Then you have a really interesting conversation. And the economics can be a kind of afterthought. So I found that was a means to make it a lot more accessible. But I got to say, I also personally think anger is a fascinating topic on which we are highly inarticulate. But we can come back and talk about it. It does come back to supercharge me later in the day because that framing is still very relevant to me. Well, I mean, that's why I bring it up is because I really think, what I'm trying to go with this is that this isn't your first rodeo. You guys have been here before you've been doing stuff. You're working in the area and those things have shaped and framed kind of this new emerging story and what you're seeing as a response in supercharge me. So how we can get some policy established, get into action and make a transition. In the book, you guys refer a lot to Bill Gates book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster a couple of times. And he says a couple of things about food there. And I know Corinne used to do things about food. There is some strong policy on the EU level that has really emerged. Now, I don't know how that affects the United Kingdom where you guys are at now that Brexit has come out. Maybe that's a great way to get out of all these these regulations and things that are happening or if the United Kingdom has set the bar higher. But in the EU, the July 12th last year, the EU ESG taxonomy came out the entire taxonomy. And it's created a major ripple effect. And just to caveat, in my opinion, they've set the bar about as low as they can set it. I think that all businesses and organizations just strive for the higher standard and shoot above the bare minimum that they need to meet and quit trying to catch up to reporting and standards just to appease the European Union or whatever organization or country for that. What people don't know is there's other things coming down the line, which is the CSRD is coming out at the end, I believe it's September or October. It's already been approved and we'll start to roll out September, October, and we'll go into full force next year, which is basically corporate sustainable reporting directive. And it is even higher standards beyond ESG about companies of 500 employees or higher are starting to report. And so I think you're well placed in the organization that you're in, Corinne, because that's the future of how can we make sure to hold organizations feet to the fire, do good investing. And you guys tickle upon that in the book as well. And so that's kind of where I first, before we go back to policy, that's where I really want to dive into is there's quite a substantial conversation between the two of you about ESG and about that it could be a better business model, and that there's some some benefits as a better model for return and profitability compared to conventional counterparts. But I want to dive deeper into that because you also caveat it in the book and you say, but that could maybe be misleading. And so I want you either you whoever wants to fight each other over answering that, you know, I think Corinne will win, but it's up to you both of you. It's a, it's a very nuanced topic. And I think well, well worth diving into a few thoughts just to start. And one is, and we do emphasize this in the book, we've both experienced a great source of optimism in the cultural change in the business and finance sector over the last two, three years, at least in Europe. That shift is happening in other regions, but it's most accentuated in Europe right now. You know, when I started out my career, you were in the private sector, if you were a sustainability professional, you were a weirdo, you know, you were not going to bring in any revenue. You were kind of agit, you were like a kind of hippie agitator, you know, and now you are kind of on the board and CEO's top agenda, you know, the talent market for folks with really good climate and sustainability understanding is off the charts. This is there's a cultural shift has happened where I think everyone's seen the writing on the wall, they recognize you are not going to have a resilient business that withstands consumer behavior change, investor preferences, regular behavior changes, unless you are moving in line with what's required to at least to hit climate goals and then broader biodiversity nature, and social resilience. And the regulation point is interesting, because I agree with you that the risk with these regulations is they start out lowest common denominator because of lobbying and just the process of what it takes to actually get these through the relevant bodies, but it does change behavior. And I've seen this first hand that disclosure is super powerful. So you said, you know, okay, corporate's already disclosing because of their investors want to even before the new directive comes in. And both in public markets and private markets, investors are expecting quite a comprehensive level of non financial metrics. So what do we mean by that? We mean emissions, we mean waste, we mean diversity. We mean what initiatives are you setting to try and improve all of these? How are you resourcing them? Do you actually have good governance on your climate impacts within your organization? All of these details. And what's interesting, and I've seen this in many different contexts is once you start reporting on it, they say, Oh, wait, why am I, why am I in the bottom quartile? And like, the competitive juices get going. These guys, they're competitive and it is mainly guys, I'm afraid. And they think, wait, I don't want to be, people care about this stuff and I don't want to be in the bottom quarter. So I'm going to do what it takes to get into the top quarter. So it's just that act of having the data and looking at it and benchmarking against other companies is super powerful. And it gets in people's worldview, these business leaders and these investors, and that's how they start to see what it means to be successful. And that's why we have been, that's why there's an optimistic tone to the book as well, which wouldn't have been the case we've written the book five years ago, because it still felt like you were fighting the fight, you were trying to persuade, trying to desperately persuade everyone that this was in the interests of your financial interest as a business, because that was the only kind of mindset they recognize. Now it feels like in Europe, we're over that hump. And now it's about execution. Now it's about, okay, time is tight. That's not to say that we don't need to continue to raise the bar on regulation. We absolutely do. Because there will always be free riders, many, many free riders. And that's not to say that we shouldn't encourage massive holding corporates to accountability. Sorry, I'm not phrasing that right, accountability. Because that is one of, that's another thing we go into in the book. That's actually one of the most powerful things individuals can do in terms of climate action or kind of broader global goals, action, business, corporate world. Actually, the bigger players are super, super sensitive to their reputation, and to kind of their perception on these things. And we as individuals have never been more powerful with social media. So that's not to say, oh, great, it's solved, you know, businesses on the path, not at all, we have to keep agitating, and we have to keep driving the regulation up. But we're in a very different place where there's a lot more cause for optimism. My question had about five sub-questions in it, Eric. And you can jump on any of them or all of them if you'd like to give us your angle as well. Yeah, maybe just a couple of really quick points. So one of the themes that runs through the book is that we're a movement without a manifesto at the moment. So the example I always give is if Greta Thunberg was in power, what would she actually do? So what would her first week of legislation be? And that's kind of my frustration. When I look at an awful lot of the literature here, I don't know what the answer to that question is. You know, you mentioned the Bill Gates book, there's a couple of things in there, but there actually, there ain't much. And that's what we've tried to provide. So the first thing I always do, you know, my day job, I spend a lot of time in ESG meetings. For people who aren't aware, this is this kind of acronym that's come up in financial markets of environmental and social and governance. So people are trying to measure these criteria and weight these criteria in their investment decision making. Well, the first question you've got to ask yourself is what are we actually trying to achieve? I mean, beyond, you know, the reduction of emissions at a practical level, what is the consequence of all of this environmental social governance scoring? What does it do at a system level? You know, not just that as an individual asset manager or private equity fund or whoever you are or individual fund, what's it going to do systematically? And so that's one of the things we try and address. And then I'll try and observe on what's happening. And what I would say is I would say part of our kind of thesis is that the real challenge here is one of capital expenditure. So we can't avoid a clear diagnosis of the problem. Now, I can already see a lot of people going capital expenditure, I should switch off right there. The basic point is we need to do investment primarily in electricity generation. So my simple kind of, you know, cut to the chase on this is let's make electricity sustainable. And that's let's run as much as we can off the grid, right? And if we do that, depending on whose numbers you believe, maybe we can get 70, 75% of emissions down. That's the goal. So I immediately say, I go in an ESG meeting, I say, how are you helping? Right, because I don't want just to have a good looking portfolio. I want you to be contributing to this objective. I want to know how are we going to make electricity sustainable? And how are we going to get everybody on the grid? Now, broadly speaking, I actually think ESG is contributing to that objective. But it really helps to be clear about it. And the way it's doing it really is it is, and one has to try and convey this in a way that's free of jargon, is the most important factor in determining investment decisions is the cost of capital. You could think of it like an interest rate. What we really want is the carbon industry to be paying really high interest rates so they don't make any investments. So if you're Greta and you want to cut off all new oil and gas investments, let's make it incredibly expensive through interest rates on those activities. And then if it's really positive activities, let's say it's offshore wind and soda panels, let's make them have an incredibly low interest rate so that we encourage a huge acceleration in those investments. And I would say what I observe in financial markets is that's kind of what's happening. That's interesting because if mostly in the western world that were to occur as far as energy are the carbon emitters and what we're also talking about is the scope one, two and three emissions and where they lie as an organization but also an investment portfolio and how they're addressed. But then don't those organizations just find a workaround and they just head on over to someplace in India or Africa or somewhere off of Montenegro, Croatia and just build another coal power plant or an offshore drilling or something like that to kind of go around these higher rules and regulations and they kind of prey on those countries that have this resource curse or are in desperate need of jobs and monies or whatever to forego those. Or do you see this more as an international or global type of a policy or standard? If I could just some very quick observation on that. So what I kind of described and I think both of our experience on the disclosures in the ESG is broadly positive but we have a section which is beware the three hyphens. And the three hyphens are greenwashing which is broadly where yeah I make my own portfolio look very good but really it's not having much significant impact whatsoever. The other one is miss selling which is the idea that's popular that you can have fantastic returns and also feel good about yourself and be impacting the planet which may or may not be the case but one doesn't want to state that as some kind of universal law because it really isn't and if anything the evidence, if there is evidence it would probably point in the opposite direction. And then the third point is free writing and I think that's what you've exactly alluded to and we are acutely aware of that and I think that's a live problem. My hope though however is that how do we tackle this? I think it's being tackled because this movement is just broadening out so the scope for effectively bad actors here being a bad actor is incredibly high risk. I mean we've already seen big financial institutions where the regulator has identified greenwashing this is huge reputational risk and you know both of us work at big financial institutions leadership shareholders are acutely aware of this because you know I don't know whether it was Warren Buffett who said you know it takes 50 years to build a reputation you can lose it in an hour. So that's a profound point and then maybe the other dimension on the global point is we have this idea of a green Bretton Woods which you've kind of alluded to which is you're absolutely right we divide the world into who's capital constrained and who isn't and this is a who has financial resources and who doesn't and the key has to be when we look at a country like India or South Africa they are financially constrained if we want to have an impact we have to loosen that financial constraint and actually we're a lot more powerful than people realize and I would just add on you know it's not it's not the multi-nationals who are disclosing and setting corporate targets who are then building coal power plants in Montenegro say it is the kind of the bad actors say who for whatever reason are not part of a system maybe they're not listed or they're in a sector where maybe there's less scrutiny or or they're willing to take that risk but this is the why are the why are the big companies not doing it when there might be a return on it well this is the genius of the scopes framework the GHG reporting protocol which it's so funny even yesterday you hear time and time again people like I don't understand it's double counting you know it doesn't make sense people struggle with it but it's the reality is it's absolute genius because it forces companies or institutions to take a systems view it's forces them to think about their wider network of decision making and suppliers and customers and and and so you know once a company is disclosing publicly across the scopes there's no room to do some building you know procuring from a coal power plant without being punished for it um so to be clear the scopes mean that you're not just as a business if you do scopes you're not just responsible for your own direct emissions but also those in your supply chain and those in your customers the emissions of anywhere in your border network any products you're buying or services you're buying and any emissions of your products down in their use life even if you've already sold them yeah most most organizations are still that you're you're speaking a different language to them you're from outer space so the scope one two and three is upstream and downstream emissions scope i believe that scope one is upstream scope three is downstream or is it scope one is direct emissions and then the other two are upstream and downstream so supply chain where does your product or services go after you know it's it is really complex i just got done speaking to about 3000 Deloitte consultants on ESG the CSRD and going through that gave a big keynote on on environment and kind of where we're moving with models because that's that's the talk of all the organizations that they consult and the other thing is i've been doing this since really getting heavy into ESG discussion with others for the last seven years it's been on the radar and nobody's kind of been listening because the standard was and there are no ways holding their feet to the fire and now i've had clients and bankers come back to me say hey we're having to go to our customers and say we can't be your bank anymore because of the things that you're doing that's the situation that we're in so those who are doing bad who aren't compliant who aren't looking after the environment and those things they're losing their banks they're losing their support structure to continue business as usual and that's what for me is just an eye-opener it's unbelievable uh in that and i really appreciate you both kind of diving deeper into the ESG and into that model and also that it's evolving that we've got we're actually we know when the ESG taxonomy comes out we're already seven years behind because they've been working on it now if we don't get on board now and kind of set the bar higher or set our sights higher we're we're just going to be chasing after the ball the whole time and one other thing i would add you know i'm sure many of the listeners you know it's always hard to know what listeners do and don't know because i'm sure there's a broad spectrum but the listeners who work in this field will will be aware of this that there's been a when i say this field i mean sorry financial services and investment houses there's been a real shift as well in in what responsible action a responsible investing looks like from exclusion so we won't touch anything that has high emissions or you know uses plastics or to to what we call brown to green or transformation which is actually if we don't touch it they're just going to continue doing it isn't it better to bring it into our sphere of influence and try and make it better and that's in a shifting but that's complicated right because you have to really work out okay what's an appropriate pace of change you know that that you feel comfortable with and it does usually require investing without immediate returns you know often making yourself sustainable is more expensive in the near term and there are returns in the longer term but they're often not as immediate as our kind of business structure is set out to expect there are a lot of economists on my show and a lot of people who are are authors around economics so i had john elkington who wrote the green swans on the podcast and i don't know if you guys know but i'll tell you that most of the people i talked to don't know that at the 25 year mark in 2018 john elkington recalled the triple bottom line which he came up with you know 25 i think it's 20 not almost 29 years ago now he recalled it he said we're using it as an accounting principle as being greenwash has been used in the total wrong way i'm recalling it the great thing about a recall is i don't know if you've had any products or food or anything recalled before in life is they usually fix the problem and they come back and they come out with a new one or they sometimes they pull off totally and that's that's the real interesting thing with the eotaxonomy the csrd and many other things that are going on the models are already there they had existed been around for a long time so i i i don't want to give away your entire book but you really kind of in the beginning to me it came out like you're really strong on policy and so i don't know if there's something that you want to address eric or if it's karen that has involved more there or not why do you say it's policy do we have democracy can that policy help do they know what the hell they're doing tell us about it a big theme of ours is that there's there's a failure of the mind and you know we one of the sort of purposes of the book is that we should be in a situation where most informed citizens can give you the three things the government should be doing about climate change i mean there's no point in having a vote if you don't know what to do with it right and this is the major problem i have is is we have people on the streets we have extinction rebellion we have lots of protests going on but we still don't have clarity about what we need to do and that that's sort of mission number one in terms of the the book's objective and and in a sense we have an answer to that question which is we is really simple we want the green option to be cheaper everywhere that's a sort of that that is your policy go i want every single time i'm confronted with a carbon option can i or a green option the green options cheaper can i just step back and put this into context a bit because um i think we're big on policy and absolutely our perspective is uh it might sound a bit like we're sort of free marketers and we wouldn't put ourselves in an economic box like that but our perspective is this transition is not going to happen at the pace it's needed without some pretty ambitious policies and that links to our you know this thing we repeat quite often around realism so we are grounded in realism and pragmatism about what we've learned about what it takes to get people to change and businesses to change and we have this you know saying that individuals only change their behavior if an option is uh better or if their friends are doing it you know social norms companies only change their behavior if it's more profitable for it's illegal and politicians change their behavior to get elected or stay in power and that's it's a bit obviously there's a generalization obviously there are exceptions but it's a pretty good rule of thumb for behavior there's a great rule of thumb right so we try and we started with that about okay this is mass change needed on every level in the system what do we know about change and we've both studied individual behavior change and institutional behavior change in various ways over our careers now you take those principles we're not going to get when we need to go without regulation and without policy so that's like the first piece and yes this green options cheaper comes out of our study you know we started with what is supercharging supercharging taking what's worked and doing it a hundredfold when you look at what's worked in terms of um really transitioning to lower emissions technologies or really reducing emissions at a national level or a city level it tends to be these what we called epics or extreme positive incentives for change so it's an individual institution is massively incentivized essentially to transition be it from ice you know petrol cars to electric vehicles uh or be it from a gas and oil based energy system to a wind and solar based energy system and that this links you know so we kind of came at this from to from both theoretical level and the empirical level we said what's worked oh look here's a common thread it's all positive incentives and then we thought what do we know about human and institutional behavior change people are not very good at changing their behavior unless there's a there's a like a you know a carrot there um so so that that's where we come to the conclusion that we need to do what it takes at a policy level to get the low carbon or the greener option cheaper and that has to this is also where we struggle a bit with we need system change but we also need to take a sector by sector view because there's such different levers required in different sectors you know when you I think there's there's a really important point here as well which is that a lot of the policy and economics has been hijacked by a kind of carbon taxes and carbon pricing and we push back against that very aggressively and and the way we do that is around this idea of making the green option cheaper because if you want to make the green option cheaper you need to have a green option right so it automatically actually gives you the right sequencing there there is no point in putting really high taxes on things that people really need to spend their money on and they have no alternative like we always make this joke that if if a green if a carbon tax is successful it will raise no revenue right because we'll all collapse our use of whatever it is okay all these schemes like to say we're going to redistribute the funds from carbon tax revenues that would be a disaster because that means you're still emitting a whole load of carbon right so or or or emitting a whole load of emissions so we really want to focus on substitutes and but I would add this making that you know there was an economist article about this idea that slightly misunderstood opposition on carbon taxes which we don't actually go into in that much detail in the book I think we spend a few paragraphs on it just not that we're anti-carbon taxes they have a really important role to play in this it's just they are a they aren't the end goal the end goal is make the green option cheaper and more attractive and they are one tool amongst many tools to deliver that and if you just make that the end goal you're missing a whole load of other pieces you need to deliver which is making sure you're you're driving massive r&d where there aren't yet substitutes such as cement or air fuel and the full range of policy levers and the other piece that that we struggle with with carbon taxes of dominating the debate is there is a massive hearts and minds battle to be had and we get obviously we're exposed mainly to the UK policy debate but get very frustrated with how many talk TV talk shows or radio shows everyone's talking about the sacrifices that have to be made and the who's going to pay for this who's going to pay for net zero this is going to be a cost at the household level and the government level which is not what the economic shows economic history shows that people are going to be better off you know on average the only people who will lose will be the owners of the fossil fuel assets who are super concentrated you know in the 0.1% anyway so so there's also a piece around yes we need carbon taxes in some way but they shouldn't be the they shouldn't be the highlight you know the highlight message should be there's a whole range of policy tools and you're all going to benefit from this and we are really seeing firsthand in the UK there's a kind of anti-net zero brigade emerging you know there's a political war emerging over this and we need to be politically savvy about how we're fighting it well there's a bunch of things that we need to address and go even deeper in so Eric you're absolutely spot on your right greener needs to be more affordable than the non-green options the business as usual the high carbon scenario I'm totally in a line with that I want to I want to change or throw in some caveats that it needs to be cheaper I think that if we cheapen anything if we cheapen food products then we cheapen life and I think that everybody should be paid a fair value for the products and services and if we're doing it because of subsidies we're making it cheaper because of subsidies or because policy then that could potentially be a real big benefit I want to really say though the greener option the renewable option the environmentally friendly option the ESG option on any product on anything that we're talking about is not only a better business model but it's automatically more affordable let me tell you why because it's green it's renewable those high costs of a lot of things that are going on are reduced because you're generating renewable energy that's endless you're storing it in batteries you're using all these new advancements to actually reduce the cost of goods sold in your product making them more affordable to those that are high carbon products or in line with those high carbon products and one thing that most people don't know with especially around the sustainable development goals it takes us it should take us about 94 trillion us dollars to reach the sustainable development goals by 2030 but what they don't know they're like holy that's a big number that's a huge number they can't even fathom it but if we just did the high carbon scenario business as usual we're going to spend 89 trillion us dollars regardless that means when the building gets old we just tear it down and build another one when the tires are worn out we just put on new ones you know it's this this high carbon scenario of the way we do do life business that's going to cost us 89 trillion regardless it's only 14 trillion more to do it renewably to do it regeneratively to do it with a different model so that model works better so it's not only let's make it cheaper or let's make it greener more affordable it actually is because it's a better business model and what you guys have heard and i'm sure we can talk about this as well as that the high carbon products or fossil fuel products are really stranded assets they're they're a losing game you're investing against your future but they're a bad investment everywhere and the only thing comparable to that bad investment is anything to do with animal products any kind of cows or meat or stuff is really turning about the same level of bad investment that you can make and they're seeing all these regulations come in with all sorts of pressures and so i wanted to address that in the last caveat because you brought this up Corinne in the beginning about the ukrain war not only economists not only politicians but in general people are saying if we just got rid of the the reliance on fossil fuels from from russia and the the commodities of food and grain from the ukraine there wouldn't be nothing to fight about the war could yeah so i want to get your opinions and kind of talk a little bit more about that please this is a big big theme in in the book is who are the losers and again we tend to frame it in terms of this idea of stranded assets which is it is the owner the owners of polluting assets and the people employed in the polluting industries that are the losers now what's interesting is when you do the numbers because i think there's a lot of scare mongering here so people have been told oh if we uh you know if we collapse emissions your pension fund is going to be in trouble all this sort of stuff and the numbers simply do not support this i mean this this is a form of propaganda so our analysis suggests well who owns it the punchline is it's the thug accuracies we don't need to name them they're pretty obvious today who they are it's the theocracies of which there's one primary example and it's the one percent and in fact it's only a fractional one percent so you know you refer it to angrenomics which i co-authored with mark blight you know which where we go into an awful lot the whole the trends in wealth inequality one of the upsides there is if you look at the fossil fuel industry listed on the stock market you are talking about less than one percent of the market value of the entire stock market now that's what can is you know a couple of days move in the stock market it really isn't that significant and we're talking about one percent which of the assets which are owned by one percent right one percent of one percent should definitely not be holding up you know progress on climate change i mean that is that is an absolute travesty now that's just on the asset side of things so we have nothing to fear financially from frankly accelerating the depreciation of destroying the value of carbon assets now then you think okay there are people employed in that industry again the global numbers are very encouraging you're talking about less than one percent of the global labor force and again you know we can create one percent jobs in a year of the global labor force not to mention all of the industries that you're describing which are sustainable in the totality of their costs and benefits into the medium term will employ way more than one percent of the global population and yeah and then i think you know so the crux of the matter is that uh we can live in a more peaceful world and the actual prospect for us to create assets and create jobs far exceeds the potential loss can i just add this point though around around costs um and you're right the kind of the the carbon model economy cost is about the same but you know we also get frustrated with the use of the word cost in this context which is about you know the my ex-employee and the kinsy did a great report on what's it going to take to get to you know to to 1.5 and it was this 9 trillion a year cost and that freaks everyone out but it's also it's the slippery thing of it's not a cost in the pure sense it's an investment and the analogy we use in the book is the difference between spending um you know spending money on a holiday versus spending money on an extension for your house um and you know this is a bit this is a bit brute economists because there's there's of course value to a holiday but it's not financial value when you spend money on it that money's gone you know you don't you don't have an asset out of it when you spend money on an extension in your house you're adding value to the house and the money we're spending on the on on the restructuring of our economy to be sustainable it's an investment we're creating assets that have value and that's a very important reconfiguration of what we're talking about we're not just throwing money down the toilet and that's not even getting on to uh the savings uh for not having to spend huge amounts of money on adaptation and sort of disaster management down the road which of course we're already down that line it's just how bad is it going to be Mark could I come back to one of your point here because I think it's a profoundly important one about this whole point about you know make the make the green option cheaper and and you're you're absolutely right when you view holistic cost benefits that that shouldn't even be a policy objective that is inherently the case because the sustainable option is sustainable by definition and the unsustainable options are unsustainable but I want to give you a really practical though concrete example of the kind of approach we take in the book if I look at the cement industry right there is a perception which again I think is largely a perception created by vested interests or certainly vested interests are aligned with this perception which is that we don't have substitutes so that so what do we do as a policy response okay so then we get the the European Commission looks at the cement industry consults with the cement industry and says okay there aren't really any substitutes but we do need cement it's essential so we'll agree to what we think the technology will do and then we'll have a cap and some variant of a cap and trade system we'll decide this rate of decline of emissions and then we'll price it and we'll encourage the industry to transform I'm right from the outset no okay that is not the right policy if you take if you look at our book the right policy is make this make the green option cheaper so I want policy from day one to go you find me a substitute today and I want it in the open market that's substitute to be cheaper and then we can come up with fancy little cap and trade systems and work out carbon pricing because let me tell you the substitute does exist or we're going to throw billions of capital to do the r&d to get the substitute and then what we're going to do is we're going to price it cheaper and collapse the carbon intensive cement industry so you're absolutely right like cement is not a sustainable business it's destroying the planet okay but what I want to do is make the very narrow market price my market price is going to be my lever and I'm going to say right I want to attack that immediately as the objective of policy and what's interesting about that is it's a subtle switch from what economists call pricing and externality to what we talk about which is the price elasticity of demand collapsing demand but it pushes you in a completely different policy direction I love that I love that and I appreciate your explaining because we do need to get there and so I think most of our listeners are seeing that we're we're going into more depth and substance and into the understanding of what the book's about and what some of what you address I don't want I want people to go out and read it I don't want to to give them the cliff notes or the full compilation of it so that they're lazy and don't read it I want them to read it it's a nice read it's a nice dialogue between both of you another rabbit hole that we probably need to touch upon or at least scratch the surface and get your views and opinion because you've we've talked about it but we haven't gone into address it and it's also tickled in in the book as well as this net zero so there's a new book from Paul Hawkin and Andrew Winston called net positive and I am very much aligned with this way of thinking that net zero if we we strive or achieve net zero humanities dead we're basically flatlining we're made of carbon we need carbon to grow plants and for them to capture and to use as fuel and and and we're carbon based people and so if if we go net zero that's basically telling the world we're flatlining we're dead we need to go net positive and this is part of what you're talking about the green is more affordable green is a better option and this we need to capture more carbon we need to leave the planet better than we found it in our business models and the business models whether it's google or apple or panagonia or whoever you want to address that have a form of planetary services or this environmental social governance in core in the core of their business model where they're actually giving back or trying to leave the planet better than they found out we're finding out that it takes an old very old economic principle about earth overshoot or the ecological footprint and leaves it in a positive way that maybe we could go like I don't agree with this from Paul from John Elkington where he says regenerative capitalism but that we're regenerating or leaving the planet better so that we'll have resources in the future so that will have products to produce in the future so I want to kind of get your feeling on that I don't have a I mean these are very very thoughtful areas and I think the the bit where I'm optimistic here mark is that I think what's happening with solar power and with wind is a little bit like semiconductors I mean people under appreciate the fact that semiconductor it's Moore's law right is the consistent collapse in the price of semiconductors you know that has been such a fundamental driver of of the elements of human activity that have been progress over the last 40 50 years and I think you know it we can conceivably if you look at the rate of technological progress that's what happening within wind and solar we could arrive at a point where these things are extraordinarily cheap and I think the kind of creative challenge for all businesses is if we made electricity plentiful and zero carbon what are we then going to do in a productive way with that surface of capacity to do all of the regenerative activities to become you know net positive as it were that feels to me from an economics perspective in a sense what the kind of 10 20 year objective has got to be yeah and I would also add you know I mentioned this earlier but you know before we started recording I'm I'm my background's in more holistic sustainability not just climate and I'm very very alert in writing and talking about this book that we're at fault in some ways because we chose just to focus on this how do we collapse emissions in the next 10 15 years rather than thinking about the holistic systems change because it's much harder but I do also believe there's learnings right if we're tapping into what we're trying to answer is how do we radically change how change policy how business works and and deploy individual power to its maximum if we can learn from that we can then deploy it to broader kind of the broader sustainable development goals love that I really do this this you know the john elkington the we have to we do have to start incorporating net positive regenerative thinking into our system you know otherwise our great-grandchildren what are they going to be left with so so they're their contribution to this dialogue is critical and it's at a different level it's a bit less pragmatic it's a bit less clear what okay what are the things we do in the next three to five years but we need it and it will start filtering into the pragmatic yeah and it's really about so when the subtitle of the book is net zero faster which I agree because when you see this whether it's Moore's law for semiconductors or computing power or meccaf's law or whatever you see that's an exponential growth that's a doubling over time but there is an ecological phenomenon called symbiosis and regeneration that also has that exponential function there's also this divergence or awakening that neoliberalism neo darwinism really doesn't exist that it's not survival of the fittest natural selection only the strong survive severe competition that is directly the opposite the more we cooperate and collaborate on these goals on doing things to heal the planet on better business models and practices that we actually step out of incremental growth or siloed thinking and growth into this exponential curve and that's why you know when I kind of touch upon this better business model or better model in general to to move in this direction that also has that exponential function which I which when I read the book I see you know supercharge me that's what I see you know that how do we get on the exponential curve towards climate change or towards environmental action activism to solve some of these problems and and that's kind of how how you guys tie up the book as well on some firm actions and things that people can do that I think is really really important because I come from a small country you know I grew up in Ireland and you know this is something that we try to address in the book as well particularly when it comes to say the Scandinavian countries but you go to Ireland you know Ireland is a tiny tiny fraction of global emissions and so there's a natural pushback where people go why do we need a change because you know this is up to you know it depends what happens to the coal industry in India what the Chinese do right you repeatedly hear this but to your point you know exponential change in human behavior can start with a tiny tiny fraction and that's one of the really important messages that we make whether you're an individual activist you know if you look at the actual numbers you know a tiny number of activists got have created so many examples of change we use the example of Timbaland in the book with the Brazilian sourcing their leather products in Brazil that's a tiny number of people and they made a huge change and the example you know we were in Ireland recently we made exactly the same point it's like the power of example if you show what you can do you know if Ireland could become self-sufficient in wind power with in in less than a decade have the lowest electricity prices in the Eurozone you know electrify you people will copy you right and you know that is leadership but that is also as you describe it these incredibly potentially powerful examples and that's somewhere where I am genuinely very optimistic the whole planet is trying to solve this problem we have so many individuals so much creativity so much energy that if we collectively put our minds to these things and we watch and learn so another big theme in the book is let's look to anywhere in the world where there's been success and copy it right but instead of us all trying to decide we're going to have our own little national plan now forget that you know there's amazing behavioral change happening in lots of parts of the world that that we can copy and and then it what starts as a little shift becomes a tidal wave that's fabulous I absolutely love that I want to go into you you tickle this in the book a little bit but I want to kind of ask you Eric for is your expertise in economics but also you Corinne as how you see the world on on this climate angle we are as humanity are being bombarded since 2015 since even before with these new economic models and we don't even know it I mean some of us are yeah circular economy so there's donut economics there's circular economy there's planetary boundaries there ecological economics there's ecological footprint there's mission economics there's steady state economics then there's obviously extractive economics capitalism you know and and we could go on and on now we've got this you know angry economics the one I like the best and I'm teasing is is trekinomics I love trekinomics I think I don't know if you've read that book it's it's the that can economy of the future how do people have an like Star Trek work and have jobs as doctors lawyer ships captains whatever there's no money there's no monetary policy they're doing this for the good of the you know the future of space travel and and going where no man has ever gone before or something like that and and really are they all these models at once are we doing them all at once is that one model that we need to merge to how do we understand that and you know Kate Rohworth obviously says it great she says we're still learning this outdated form of economics in school and you know the other one is Tim Jackson and cuss post-growth and degrowth models he's also an ecological economist how do we make sense of this without our brains exploding without saying boy that's too complex I have no idea what we're doing let's just get up give up bury our head in the sand give us a little advice and help from your perspective and and how do we integrate supercharge me into all this other they're good models there's a lot of good models but how do we make sense and kind of move in the right direction and what are you guys doing on your website or to help people kind of sift through all that well so I'm a huge fan I mean of all of these areas of economics and and you know somebody who's been studying economics for longer than I should have been I think I got interested in it as a teenager but the I've always believed of course if you read widely enough it's always been hugely eclectic in any discipline there's a mainstream but if you look hard enough you'll find loads and loads of other ideas so I'm a huge fan of all of these developments and I actually am involved with a UK government funded program called rebuilding macroeconomics which has been exactly about trying to encourage and fund a lot of innovative thinking along the lines that you've described there's one caveat though when I look at the research program and talk to researchers I always want to ask them and I say to them all so what are we going to do differently so I want I think it's great from a pedagogic standpoint that we make the study of economics proper I mean I think the economics I was taught was not the real thing right we just left out 80% of what's incredibly important you know but once we've educated everybody let's let's get 100% or as close as we can when we're educating but but how does it translate into what we're going to do and that is where I would that's really again to me a key role of the book because I do not like the fact that when it comes down to it the people who won this debate at a practical policy level were people saying it's an externality get the get the price of it right introduce taxes have a global carbon scheme and I'm going and and unfortunately and that that to me is not good enough and it's it's not working it's not the way to transform so that's my kind of challenge to the new models yeah I would agree and I think that I would absolutely agree they are incredibly important antagonists to the current system and that's what's phenomenal you know the Kate Rayworth donor economics model it's a paradigm shift it's a completely different way of thinking about our economic activity but but we need to continue to develop those new models of thinking into action and that's why you know they're really important but they are often at this map of this high level as I mentioned earlier and that's what we really were trying to do with the book is let's get practical what are what are the actions that we need to do at all these different levels individual level corporate level financial institutions national level what are the things we need to do in the next five years and you want to be drawing on those paradigms you want to be thinking in a regenerative way you know but they don't that's the next level of impactfulness let's put it that way currently they're impactful because they're changing mindsets and as you say they're changing pedagogy but we need to bring them into that and and Kate Rayworth is doing this with the donor economics lab they've got a whole city pilot in Amsterdam you know so she's very much she's bringing it to the practical level I'm not saying they're not but that's the next level of impactfulness and you know as is always the way that the future and or the intellectually right answer will be some combination of all of them you know and we need all of them to be contributing yeah it's like I'm a big believer this is a quote from Paul Samuelson who was a much much truer to this than the one might imagine because he's sort of perceived to be a kind of mainstream neoclassical economist Paul Samuelson said I'm eclectic because nature's eclectic and I agree with that so I you know for somebody who in a different level as a kind of professional investor in financial markets has used economics I think every situation is very often a different economic model yeah so if I take a really simple point here if we want to make our electricity you know zero emissions that's the economics of regulated utilities and in fact again what inspired us to write the book is is I would go straight to the index of all of these books on on climate change and show where do you show me how to accelerate investment in regulated utilities very few people talk about that there's a really simple policy fix there and then the if you sorry just just make this one point it all you need to do to accelerate investment is providing short price support if you de-risk the electricity price you will create a huge acceleration in sustainable energy investment now that is super simple yeah and just and yet incredibly powerful and to build on that we have a whole mix of types of economics needed the economics of sustainable diets you know huge agriculture is 20% of emissions the majority of that is is meat and dairy and that's behavioral economics there you really are then focusing on how do you change individual behavior and what we know about that well individuals are hugely impacted by availability by social norms so and that's a complete solving for a completely different kind of thing to the regulated utilities point you know and then there's the economics of innovation say in the cement case so I think that's a we haven't actually talked about this explicitly even I think it's sort of there in the book but it is this idea of you need to bring in different economic lenses for different parts of the problem what's your favorite actionable takeaway from the book that somebody could go out and apply or put into practice that that you like the most at an individual level personally I've been hugely influenced by listening to Roger Hallam who's the the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion I don't know if you've had him on the show or but you know I think actually one of the things I really like up he's got a great YouTube video which is how to how to stop climate change in six months and this is really about civil resistance and it's very influenced by the work of Erica Chenoweth and others about the who've done very interesting historical analysis and the thing we talk about this in the book it is minority rule is is the reality is the people who are motivated to engineer social change starts with a very small number of people and now obviously at some level they're tapping into a universal I mean as human beings we universally care about our grandchildren care about saving the planet but it's only a small minority who are really motivated to to go out on the street and lie down in front of a car and say I'm going to go to prison until you guys sort this out okay and their point is is that if you get you know he makes the point in the UK I think if three if three thousand people go to prison you'll get legislative change because as a civilized society we just can't tolerate you know all of our best and brightest students behind bars right we're going to negotiate change the so in a way I think I'm I would almost encourage people to start there because then you go right I have power because because there is power in small numbers the thing that's missing from Roger Hallam is you know right now I'm motivated but you go so what are we actually what I want to happen and that's the part that we try to answer in the book is if you want to know what we actually at a practical level then need to do when when the government sits down at the table with the Extinction Rebellion and says okay let's draw up the legislation this is the piece of legislation you want to be fighting for. Careful, did you have something to add Corinne? Well just to the exactly you know our we were we got some feedback when we were drafting the book that it felt like we were trying to speak to too broad an audience and we were we were trying to make it super accessible to someone who had no prior knowledge of the topic and we were trying to address kind of expert climate policymakers you know so we were trying to potentially be over ambitious and many of the recommendations are directed at that you know folks running companies folks running financial institutions policymakers but the individual piece I just wanted to Is this piece correct? Yeah well I just want to add you know our conclusion on the individual power is of course we all need to strive towards individual behavior change but the most powerful thing you can do is activism but there's different sort of loci of activism and you're talking to the kind of national legislative change but there's something I've seen a lot in kind of clients in the corporate environment is the power of the employee who um employees have no idea how much power they have you know I see the other side of recruiting and companies desperately trying to work on their their brand towards employers and they don't on recruits in the market don't understand actually the power balance and I've heard uh I've heard executives say so many occasions that interviewees are asking well what are you doing on climate what's your climate action and that really that influences that alone influences change at the corporate level uh or it might be the community level so you you know everyone kind of needs to do a bit of almost influence mapping about where in your life is there a power structure that you can tap into I love that yeah thank you so much there is one last hard question that I have for you guys and then um a few others that are not so hard but this will be the hardest question I have for you and I want you to each answer it individually and I told you what it would be in the beginning I want to know from each of you what does a world that works for everyone look like for you not for policymakers not for someone else not for your organization for you what does a world that works for everyone look like for you and uh whoever wants to go first I don't want to start any flights between you too uh I mean it's it's quite to me it I actually got into climate through the humanitarian lens I came into it as a humanitarian issue you know as as we all know we're already seeing many populations suffer and it's as is always the way it's already the the more vulnerable and the disadvantaged who are impacted disproportionately uh and for me a world that works for everyone is around a fundamental level of of human dignity for everyone on the planet and that means uh that means not having to worry about the basics of feeding your family and protecting your family from violence and having opportunity for for self-fulfillment and self-expression and we're a long way from that but yeah I I fundamentally am a kind of humanitarian climate and it's not that I don't care about the environment but I was motivated to it through the humanitarian implications which are massive Kirk I mean it's such a great question um I think maybe I'm heavily influenced by this at the moment because of uh the the war that's happening in Europe which is uh so devastating I think to virtually everybody in in terms of how one sees the world and how one thinks about human progress because you you you view this as as appalling human regression that as human beings we have greater technological power than we've ever had in human history as a matter of fact and yet we are utilizing that power to do untold damage which will last for generations um so what chance do we have to oppose that dynamic where the extraordinary resources that we have are used to the betterment of the globe you know and as a human as human kind is failing currently in that objective and we only have ourselves to blame um and and I tend to think that the first way that we stand any chance of dealing with this is through the politicization of every human being you know and I think this is where we start completely at a local level and if we contribute anything it is at the margins it is to that objective so I think the objective of a policymaker or a writer or a thinker is and this is something that Kate Rayworth you mentioned with donut economics I think one of the things that's brilliant about what she does is how she makes it accessible you know and this is was really one of probably the hardest thing in the book was to make it something that that you know my youngest my daughter who's you know 16 17 at the time I want her to start reading it and not put it down until she's finished and I want her to feel empowered and to be clear about what we need to do collectively and I think this is relevant at multiple levels you know what the war is revealing is about how dictators who typically tend to be elderly men in pursuit of power are afraid of true democracy and I don't mean democracy as a Western idea I mean democracy is a human idea who dates back to the Greeks it's been there through all time it's a universal idea about knowing what's in our collective interest and being represented and fighting for what we believe is progress so that's the fight I think ultimately and and that will translate into a much more sustainable world you have the the SDG badge right there that's the goal the way to get there is that as many many parts of of humankind are politicized and know what we need to do well it's almost what you're saying it's that we have to fight for what we want kind of I love that I absolutely love it we're we're still not done I have more questions for you but before we go on to those is there anything in the book that you didn't get to tell us about that you really want to make sure we understand and and have covered here today or talk about before I go on to my last final questions for you there's just one really simple thing and again I you know I come with the massive apologies here I'm just going to be an economist for for two seconds but one of the things that made me very optimistic when I looked at this as an economics problem is that if you start with electric making electricity sustainable we do not realize it is it is insufficiently well recognized how fortunate we are for two very simple reasons one is that the lead times on sustainable electricity generation are incredibly short so you can build a wind farm that could power villages and and and a solar farm that can power millions of homes you can do that in 12 to 18 months right so this is really about determination right and it is cheaper electricity okay so you could bring down your electricity prices and you could absolutely get to at least 70 or 80 percent sustainable electricity within five-year timelines in all of the most important geographies of the world right that is just simply that that is now a widely recognized facts within expertise but that should be broadly known that's the first key point to me the second key point is that needs to be financed and developed countries across the world still have the lowest cost of financing in human history so we have a capital investment that we can do in under two years and a cost of finance that is the lowest it's ever been why can't we put those two together and transform our economies quickly absolutely love that and that's a great section in the book so there's many good sections in the book where you address really some shaking topics that we need to really grasp and think about why aren't we doing them it's not that's existed for a while we've had those great interest rates for quite some time now and and over the years it's gone up and down obviously but why aren't we doing it why aren't we doing it and I think there's lobbyists and interests and and other things to hold on to that business as usual model around to that high carbon scenario until every last drop is is out there's a great statistics 850 gigatons of carbon if we continue on our path we're already at 500 something gigatons and this is from the IPCC report that just came out that that's already pushing at us at our limit that 500 gigatons why would we want to continue with this business as usual high carbon scenario to go to 850 because the consequences are so much worse when we could in 12 to 18 months and I actually think that if we have that cooperation and that rally and get out of the incremental growth we can see it done in a lot less time probably six to eight months on some major products that would change the outlook for millions to billions of people around the world and just take the the the fuel away from the fire of what's going on in the Ukraine what's going on elsewhere in the world where we're really living some of these bad models so I love that is there anything last that you would like to add karen because I I saw I saw I heard you and saw you also put it in the cab at you have kind of a foodie you're a foodie at your core in some respects you always talk about food and that and I'm a big foodie so I'm big on global food systems reformation and I really think that is one of the biggest levers in your book you also talk about the drawdown paul hawkin is probably one of the few people in our world that says what's the quickest best most effective ways to draw down global warming and then he gives the list of action right and so that's that's what you're doing as well there are things out there we just need to do them if you ask most people that question they're like I don't know uh change our light bulbs you know and it's not that it's that really global food systems reformation empowering women and girls and then rethinking refrigeration and then renewable transition and all the things that you're talking about shifting those policies and those those those models that we're working on yeah yeah exactly yeah no nothing dad I am I'm a food systems is incredibly important it's also it's also one of the harder pockets of change it's not as simple as you know this 70% delivered through electrification there are obviously parts of the food systems we can deliver through electrification but the majority of those emissions are rice paddies cows or where they are through the farming infrastructure it's incredibly fragmented so it's much harder to actually to reach you know those small farmers say you know um so it takes this is where systems change and more ingenuity is needed in some ways our book is actually about the low-hanging fruit our book is about we got 10 years to halve emissions actually there's a big chunk of emissions we can't we know we have the technology we actually know the social change institutional change and legislative change needed to do it so let's do it there's absolutely no excuse to not do it big parts of food systems is harder it's not the low-hanging fruit it's incredibly important and the way we thought about the book was like let's make this happen and then we can focus on these harder problems we can focus on cement well we don't yet have we kind of have some of the solutions but not all of them let's focus on diets for example in agriculture um where which reach well well beyond emissions deep into kind of biodiversity issues uh so um yeah very passionate about the topic but I would say it's not something we necessarily present solutions to but make the green option cheaper yeah there might be some some learnings from the book but let's say maybe that's the next book that's okay we need tons of books we need tons of that learning with actionable takeaways if there was one message that each of you could depart to my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that has the true power to change their life what would it be even if it's two different messages we always like to come back to first principles about human behavior and uh one of the most important principles about human behavior is that we're all sheep we talk about this in the book most people are sheep we're massively influenced by what our friends and family and colleagues and folks around us think and do and one of the easiest and most powerful things you can do is just to talk about these topics just to talk about them you know down the pub or you know the work canteen or it it it makes it something that's socially normalized to care about and be engaged in so I think that's a very small action which has disproportionate uh impacts become an activist if you're not one already you probably are we can all become activists and you have more power than you can possibly think what have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the beginning from the start you know I'm actually a believer in making mistakes so um I I so I don't see things like that you know I mean there's definitely things about Younger Lonergan that I would now go back and change you know probably um you can always listen more to other people I think that is a golden rule in life there is and often the person that needs to be listened to the most isn't saying anything and they're over there in the corner and you need to go over and ask them what they gotta say yeah and sort of link to that one of the most impactful and powerful things you can do is create mutual understanding and that's hard and takes will and commitment and it comes up a lot in this topic where you know over years I've worked with organizations where there's some folks flying the sustainability flag and and they're trying to they they're trying to get a consensus you know the rest of the leadership don't really get it um uh but but really just continuing the having patience and coming at it from different angles and trying to understand where their concerns are what what they're worried about what motivates them and then finding what's that bridge between your agenda and their agenda that's when the change is then unlocked Eric Corrine thank you so much for letting us all inside of your ideas it's been a shared pleasure we could talk for hours I have thousands more questions everybody go out supercharge me get this book read it um you won't be disappointed and then also I will put the links in the show note description to your websites and blogs and where people can kind of join in and follow your progress and and also get little helps and actionable items that they can take for that's all I have for you and I really thank you for your for your time it's been a shared pleasure likewise likewise really really enjoyed it and hope to see you in London sometime thank you very much you guys have a wonderful day