 changes all about human relationships, collaboration and trust building between people. So you can park all the digital tools to the side and that's the first thing you have to focus in on is how do we create connections between people, relationships and trust and how do we then begin to collaborate at a global scale. I think that's the first and most important challenge we have to overcome if we're ever going to solve the SDGs. David Jensen is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. David is coordinator of the UNEP Digital Transformation Task Force and program at the UN Environmental Program and a champion of the Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability or acronym codes. He is also the head of the Environmental Peace Building Program at the UN Environment and has been involved with the United Nations for going on over 21 years now. He has done fabulous things around the world and has been a leader in global efforts to establish a new multidisciplinary field of environmental peace building and many, many more things over his long time. He's had a TED Talk that's got numerous views, a couple TED Talks and is also a founding board member of the Environmental Peace Building Association. David, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much Mark. It's a real pleasure to be here. I'm glad you let me kind of shorten your bio because you've been doing this for a while and I could really go on about how you've kind of started out on this journey and has developed over the years. One thing I left off is that you're part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the SDG Academy and have a wonderful MOOC course there that has very successful, has been watched quite a bunch of times and it's also has highest enrollments and we kind of got to know each other through the Resilience Program in Bonn and that's where we first met live and had some exchanges before that time. You're also kind of an alumni and founding driver of Resilience Frontiers which is still kind of in the metamorphosis process of how it's going as a future of emerging technologies, pioneering technologies and how that really gets involved and where we're going after 2030 to 2050 and how does that resilience look like that we need to build. And then we've worked on many different things in collaboration. You're really spearhead, you're a connector, a maker, a doer, in many respects during the pandemic you did the Earth School which was with TEDx and many other organizations or not TEDx, TED Education Program which is really these quests for kids and who are at home. They were kind of being educated by their parents and I mean I could go on and flagship papers and discussions that you've done but that's kind of how we met and I really have been stalking you so to say. I've been watching what you do, listened to your talks, we just I believe both went through the digital summer school, the digital for our planet, summer school through Connect University and the European Union and you're involved in so many things and most people and I am as well most people would say boy Mark's all over the place and he's doing this and this. I think you take this very digital and systems view of life and in order to solve our global ground challenges I think you'd like to be on all these transformations because you know it's not a linear or siloed approach to solving them that you're kind of involved in all these things because they have to tie to the bigger picture. I may be wrong but that leads me to my first question for you is really how have you weathered this crazy time, the pandemic, black lives matters, Asian racism, the inauguration, climate change and all these things that have gone on since the beginning of 2020, 15 going on 18 months now and all that experience you had before were they learning lessons for better operating systems or ways of living that have helped you and your family weather the storm? Yeah that's a great question and I think as you said most people during the pandemic you know we were locked down in our homes, I've got four kids and I really tried to use it as kind of an opportunity to be the parent I had never been before right so I had the chance on a daily basis to sit with my kids and sort of provide them the kind of environmental education I had hoped they were getting in school that wasn't entirely certain if they were and it certainly wasn't coming through me right and so this was for me a phenomenal opportunity to sit down and really take them through kind of an environmental education journey and we were discovering at the time we were using whatever materials I could find so a lot of it was Bill Nye the science guy we were pulling in some materials from WWF we're pulling in National Geographic and we would sort of watch the material and then go out and try to apply it in practice right we go to local forest and and collect plants and try to grow them or you know whatever it was we were trying to do some kind of experiment and that's kind of that was the first sort of survival mechanism was wasn't really survival it was more exploration of of you know how I can teach my kids about environmental issues in a really practical way and and use that as kind of the basis for weathering the storm as you said and it kind of occurred to me that if if we're doing this in my family there are other families doing exactly the same thing and there are other professionals that you know are doing the same thing and why don't we connect and collaborate and build this platform called Earth School so that we could really offer something a bit more professional to the kids during covid so we brought together about 70 volunteers from around the world and we created this this six week this six week challenge where every every day there would be a video and then there would be a set of curated lessons and tasks and the whole idea was really just give the kids some really top quality environmental education some some lessons and and to use that as as a way for their you know maintaining connection to nature and also sort of as a mental health management tool right we've really felt lockdown was so difficult mentally that that nature was an opportunity to really kind of manage that mental health get back out and to kind of experience you know the wonder and beauty of nature so it was both an activity as well as kind of a mental health management tool and I mean with all the the 21 plus going on 21 plus years now with the UN and the things you've done in the Middle East and then the Balkans and many other places around the world you you've seen a lot of things but you've seen different operating manuals you've seen siloed approaches you've seen other approaches and what works what doesn't work and you've also said yeah in your TED talk you know you said the United Nations isn't united type of a thing and we've seen since Antonio Guterres has come in a big discussion about reformation of the entire UN and coming together and systems and kind of how can we work more effectively and better but specifically with with what you experienced during these crazy times which they were crazy before but now we're dealt with working for more more digital technologies you know the zoom and Skype calls and and and this really need for more advanced home offices digital solutions and things that you've been working on before matter of fact there was this wonderful project and I believe it's still going on I don't project's not the right term transformation digital ecosystem for the earth and things that you've been involved there are some papers that have come out and how it can get us on on the right path were there any other learning lessons aha moments where we're saying boy we've we've heard to talk about the digital transformation but we're just not a hundred percent there yet or we're in the process or had we done this that boy would have put in us in a better place at now I mean what were some of the learning lessons in some even more journeys that maybe we're enlightened during this time where you can say boy these are better models that really helped progress this time or it brought more people to the table asking questions where are these solutions and where do we need to go yeah that's a great question I think the first lesson would just be if we park digital to the side for a moment and just ask you know how do we be effective in progressing global change fundamentally we have to invest in human relationships number one most important thing change is all about human relationships collaboration and trust building between people so you can you can park all the digital tools to the side and that's the first thing you have to focus in on is how do we create connections between people relationships and trust and how do we then begin to collaborate at a global scale I think that's the first and most important challenge we have to overcome if we're ever going to solve the SDGs is that human relationship trust building and collaboration at scale issue now I think digital technologies can really help with that issue I mean that's and that's what the lockdown taught me anyway and you know when we started locking down MS teams was just coming online and it turned out to be you know a survival mechanism for collaboration across UNAP and it turned out that I became more connected with my colleagues through MS teams than I had ever been before because of that digital backbone we had and because of the ease of using all the tools inside teams and the cloud collaboration everything else I actually built many more relationships during during COVID than I ever had prior previous to it and that was underpinned by MS teams and zoom and all these all these technologies so I really found in terms of collaboration that it was fundamental and it you can build good relationships and you can build trust through through their digital tools and techniques I think the I think the challenge right now is you've got all these pockets of innovation happening and all of this explosion of digital technology for the environment and what's not really happening is that a lot of these are kind of siloed still and we're not kind of building this ecosystem of of projects and we're not yet figuring out how to digitally connect all these initiatives so they're kind of interoperable and synergistic and I think that's that's the next big challenge so we need to start connecting these these pilots connecting the different projects and really then build relationships across the people who are involved in each of them and I think you know that remains the the biggest single challenge is that you know solving climate change achieving the SDGs is all about collaboration at a global scale and that's kind of the lesson that that COVID also taught us is that we're not quite there yet right like achieving global collaboration for us for existential risk is still difficult and we and social media and digital technology are also part of the problem they kind of undermine that collaboration especially through the propagation of fake news and misinformation so if we're going to achieve the SDGs and we're going to achieve climate change using digital tools we also have to look at that at that downside right we have to be managing and preventing the amplification of misinformation and fake news because that fundamentally divides us and prevents that kind of global scale collaboration that we're going to have to achieve. The pause I can't speak for you but the pause for me the the COVID the the time not traveling and that was probably the most effective I've ever been in my life to some extent instead of eating more watching more TV or stuff I doubled down on books and on courses and really setting a part on on what knowledge did I need to learn about the tools the UN about systems that are out there how those systems work and things and during this time I've seen you you're everywhere you're just involved in so many things because digital is everywhere and it's not it hasn't come together as this ecosystem yet there these siloed or individual players all doing fabulous amazing things they're not really speaking or collaborating together there's not a spot one single spot to kind of get all that cumulative information and and remove the bias and the misinformation and the issues that we we've seen as you speak about fake news and and other things and during this time we've seen the social dilemma on and on with that that in mind you I don't I don't know if you're working on a book but you're also started codes and you're you're working on this task force for digital transformation tell us a little bit more about some of these projects maybe the book and if that has a lot to do with digital or not and and kind of take us on on where things have done during your pause and and where are they going now moving forward sure thanks mark I think one of the big UN initiatives that came out in 2019 with was the Secretary General's digital cooperation roadmap it's kind of a big vision big global vision on how we're going to use digital tools to achieve the SDGs and when that roadmap came out one of the gaps in that roadmap was that sort of environment and climate action were they weren't missing but they weren't amplified and so my executive director Inger Anderson sort of offered to start looking at that question in more detail like how can we make sure that that digital transformation is is being used to accelerate environmental sustainability and that conversation eventually led to the creation of this network as you say called codes so this is the coalition for digital environmental sustainability this is meant to be a new part of the the digital cooperation roadmap focusing exactly on that question of how do we bridge the digital transformation and environmental sustainability areas and as you said the one of the fundamental needs is to offer this kind of docking station like how do we offer a docking station and a coordination platform for all these initiatives that are out there that are working on one part of this broader picture but they aren't totally connected so we're trying to identify sort of the five or six areas where we can really help bring actors together and we're looking at sort of the question of data planetary data and data standards we're looking at digital infrastructure and making sure that infrastructure is green and sustainable we're looking at finance we're looking at consumers and livelihoods and we're looking at energy and then governance so these are the areas that we're trying to rally around and the real idea is for each of those six areas coming up with a big you know like moonshot what's the moonshot for data what's the moonshot for digital infrastructure and how can we begin to rally that ecosystem or those those those stakeholders around that moonshot to really begin to accelerate this idea of a digital planet for sustainability so that's certainly one of the areas that that I've been focusing on so that's the codes issue the other one is a book that I actually started writing through resilience frontiers I met a colleague there named Catherine Ciprocina she's from the private sector I'm from the public sector and we started talking about like you know what are these big forces of digital transformation that are going to really accelerate environmental sustainability globally so we started talking about it and we sort of decided well why don't we write a book about it and we start looking at cases of best practice and we start sort of really taking a systems approach as you mentioned at the outset like what are the key operating systems of the human civilization that are blocking or or you know preventing environmental sustainability from scaling so if we look at each of these operating systems can we identify a key barrier and can digital technologies help to remove that barrier so it can scale and so we identified sort of five of these key operating systems and you know the first one is really the operating system inside our head right the sort of the human cognitive system what is it about human cognition that is preventing environmental sustainability from scaling we from human cognition we went to then sort of the social system right how our ideas in the social system sort of transformed into behaviors and norms we went from there we went to the economic system and then the governance system and then the technology system so for each of these systems we're looking at the barriers and then we're trying to identify digital technologies that can really address those barriers and enable the systems to better you know interoperate and to basically begin to embed environmental sustainability into the code of each of those operating systems and that's the whole kind of mantra of my work is is looking at this the fact that you know global economy is now dictated by code and algorithms primarily and all of our economic and social transactions are being mediated through those codes and algorithms and if we're going to achieve global sustainability we have to begin to embed environmental sustainability data norms and metrics at the code level right so the algorithms need to start optimizing for sustainability and begin to look at this combination of of people profit and planet right so that's where we're really moving and we're trying to then identify where are the big algorithms we need to be focusing in on and how can we use those algorithms to achieve sort of three main things the first is how can we begin to nudge consumer behaviors right towards sustainability the second is looking at supply chains right how can we help supply chains monitor their impact and disclose their environment and climate performance and the third area is looking at finance how can we start to connect finance and sustainability through like fintech applications and other other channels so how do we begin to use digital tech to really influence consumers supply chains finance and the fourth area we're looking at is procurement public procurement how can govern governments procure with purpose and begin to sort of influence the economy through their procurement preferences so that's those are the areas we're trying to we're really trying to influence with digital technologies and that's what we unpack in both codes and in this book that i'm writing with Catherine wow that's absolutely amazing i i can't wait to get a copy and i can't wait for it to come out i know it's probably still a work in progress it really brings up a couple other questions so you have been working in the digital sphere with environment for a long time so you came up with or were the co-founder co-director of mac and a map x platform that helps stakeholders map and monitor natural resources in the environmental change using you know the best available planetary data satellites front-peering technologies and then also software x as well and then there was one other one bio it was a biodiversity one as well but you've been doing this for a long time tied to the environment and i'm sure in that process you've seen these siloed approaches now when you just spoke not only about codes and and the book a lot of terms are a lot of mentioning of systems and or the un really i mean everyone you you hear speaks about the limits to growth growth which is systems dynamic modeling systems thinking that some even call it the meadows report you know and the reason i bring that up is kind of that was almost the beginning of systems thinking within the un but it really wasn't until about 2018 from from my outside view that the un made this full transformation says no we're we're going to stop the siloed linear approach to solving our grand challenges or we're going to start implementing systems and systems dynamic modeling and that's where you know even with the sdgs they're all tied together as a system that you can't work on one without working on the others but the other thing is they started to come up with these these systems maps and diagrams and almost like a mind maps using systems thinking and dynamic modeling for the sdgs and some of the other things and other programs within the united nations at that same time the world economic form came out with transformational maps on on their website and it was also pre discussed in claus schrupp's book the fourth industrial revolution and then finally in 2018 before the the davos meeting he came out with those on the website the transformational maps and we've even seen the progress and evolution of those to how corporations cities countries can use that those tools to kind of figure out where the feedback loops are where the bottlenecks are where the problems are in our thinking and how we can truly solve global grand challenges and so one i want to know did the transformation happen a little bit before 2018 how have you seen that transformation and and what are some of the new tools that you're seeing not only with codes and the others and where you truly want to go where where you're giving others and a platform or a source to have an ecosystem open source decentralized or how however a structure of a systemic view of all those tools connected instead of going out to a thousand different users to get that data and have a lot of other complications in the process and i kind of want to dive a little bit deeper into your knowledge and your thoughts and how your experiences have been with that yeah thanks marcus as you this is a great question as you said a lot of these ideas have been around frankly have been around since the 70s and 80s right whether it's systems thinking or whether it's circular economy these these are these are quite old ideas and what i think happened is the idea was sound but we actually lacked the data the metrics the analytical tools to kind of take it forward and this is where i think digital technology has really been transformative i think for the first time we have the tools in place where we can begin to design a circular sort of economy and regenerative thinking and i think the same thing goes for system dynamics we now have sort of the computers and the processing power at a planetary scale where we can begin to take those ideas you know into into reality so i think 2018 um yeah that sounds about right maybe a year or two earlier but generally speaking i think it became much more mainstream once we had the data and the processing power in place and before before then we simply i mean we couldn't really you know if we're talking about monitoring global change in in real time uh we really didn't have the tools to do it or you know we may have had the tools but it was just too expensive but with cloud processing and AI i mean we've really the the costs have just plummeted uh it's practically i mean it's not free but it's practically free to be able to do that now and digital to be frank digital technology companies have really been played a major part in that they've provided a lot of support to the UN in order to enable this kind of global level analysis so i think digital technologies have been one of the one of the reasons why we've seen that shift and i think from if you ask me what's the most important technology right now that will really underpin kind of the idea of a circular economy for me the most important thing on the horizon right now is this idea of a digital product passport the idea that every product or service in the economy will will have kind of a data pod associated with it and you will be able to see its origin its provenance its environmental footprint its carbon footprint its recycling pathway disposal pathway the chemical footprint you'll be able to you know attain information about the entire life cycle of that product all the risks as well as the performance of that product in environmental and climate terms and that will be fundamental as I said for influencing consumer behaviors larynx for influencing procurement of public actors procurement of private actors and really to disclose that information to the financial sector as part of environment social and governance frameworks so i see that as transformative because that data can then drive decision making by multiple actors in the economy and really begin to underpin this idea of circular economy because we can begin to track and trace where the different inputs to that particular product came from we can track where they are in their life cycle and we can begin to recover them more systematically as part of the circular economy framework so i think the digital product passport is where we need to be focusing our efforts on fundamentally i know the european commission as part of the green deal is investing in the digital product passport concept in the european space but obviously if it's going to be transformative we need to think about a global view on that that'll affect global supply chains there'll be global data that feeds into it so we really need to be thinking about you know how do we develop the international standards now that'll underpin that digital product passport for every single product and service in the global economy that's what we want to get to the commission is starting to look at batteries sort of you know circular batteries as a first use case and then they'll be expanding out to other sectors but if you really think about the amount of data that will be captured in this digital product passport it's it's truly mind boggling you think about all the the parts of a supply chain and all the different businesses that'll need to feed data into that it'll be collecting data on consumption it'll be collecting data on sort of the regulatory framework there'll be all kinds of inputs to that digital product passport and so we need to figure out you know how do we create that kind of that data ecosystem and those standards now so it can not only receive that data but for really importantly like we need to think through what are the use cases for that data and what behaviors do we want to drive with that data so we build something that's fit for purpose to drive the behaviors we want to see in the marketplace there and I don't want to get controversial or anything but I want I kind of want to touch upon it so we're talking that we're still making that shift we're still moving there it's coming together we can see a pathway in the beginnings of this transformation let's take for example Edward Snowden big controversial bit you know all sorts of drama around that but even in the documentary or even in speaking with him about some of the tools that are available for government or or that to use out there pretty advanced pretty much looking and listening and seeing tons of things but it's not like and this is also a term you use digital with purpose digital for good digital for discovery in that and and I think sometimes it's more of a security thing than it is a good for the environment a planet or a humane technology I mean the center for humane technology from Tristran Harris and and the social dilemma and all those things have brought up a lot of those things do we really kind of have some of those things already and we just need to make them decentralized and open for everybody or how do we understand that and is that something that maybe you could tickle on does that play a factor or really we're creating the wheel from scratch again without the help of the governments or how do we understand that that's a good question I think as you say you know the whole idea of a surveillance capitalism where companies begin to systematically collect data on our consumption preferences and then use that to manipulate our preferences and drive further consumption that's a huge risk that is a massive massive risk in fact I'd say that's the massive downside risk of digitalization is that it actually amplifies consumption and it micro targets us to consume more and I think that's probably what you're seeing already you know you know in terms of the digital economy in terms of what it's being used for you know the top the top eight companies in the US top eight digital companies in the US have a combined market capitalization of around eight trillion dollars which is worth more than 156 the GDP of 156 countries right the imbalance is crazy in terms of their market power and their dominance and their potential to collect and share data on what we on our preferences so I think that's that is a major issue that we need to we need to address and the other side of the spectrum that Snowden talks about is sort of government surveillance right state surveillance and the states use it to basically monitor who's who's against the state and to basically you know arrest those that are you know that are that are protesting and that have counter views that's certainly another massive risk and we see that happening as well I think I think the the best solution there the only solution frankly and I think Snowden talks about this as well is says transparency right we need full transparency in what data is being collected what's it being used for we need the algorithms that are that are collecting and optimizing to be disclosed we need some information about what those what those algorithms are optimizing for we need to really understand who what kind of data is being collected and what it's being used for so I think I think transparency is absolutely fundamental and that's the only way we're going to have sort of a trust in this system right now I would say the trust levels are very low in terms of trusting that the digital the digital companies to do what's in the public interest it's funny I watched a movie over the weekend with my kids called Mitchell's versus the robots which is basically all about can we trust big tech to do what's in the interest of humanity and you know I think I think the the jury is it's a bit mixed right now I think some big tech firms are doing some amazing things as I said Google is is really doing some incredible things with Google Earth Engine for example so is Microsoft and so is Amazon so they have their sort of four good parts of the companies and and they're tremendous but they're also amplifying and accelerating like you know consumption and perpetuating fake news and doing you know other things that are not leading to sustainability so again it's it's about it's about using these technologies for good using them to ensure they accelerate the right kind of behaviors and not the wrong ones if you if you look at Reed Hoffman the founder of LinkedIn he says that to be a successful social media platform you have to amplify at least one of the seven deadly sins right and and that's just not what we want at a global scale driving you know sustainability right so we really need to kind of pick apart what are the values that these that these algorithms are accelerating and are they the right ones and if they're not we really have to reconfigure that thinking to get them to move much more to sustainability to privacy to security to regeneration all the values we want to amplify we need to see those values encoded into these platforms and algorithms so yeah it's a big challenge but definitely I think the transparency card is the is the one we need we need to play to to try to manage it I and I need your clarification on this as well so you talked about the passport and and I see in some respects there's a certain amount of it's a trustless system and there's also something of that transparency and openness and decentralize in there but it's a form of sovereignty not just that now in today's day and age we have digital diplomats emerging to kind of represent the governance of of the digital realm maybe even digital digital or countries of sovereignty but to have a passport like that also gives you something that cannot be taken by someone else or manipulated if it's done in the right way and it's something that you know you you can get a full transparency and a ledger of where things are connecting and going and but on the flip side also gives you that sovereignty I think as far as a global citizen or you know someone who who has that I don't know if I'm right on that that's kind of what I hear out in some respects well I see that I see them as two very distinct you know ideas the digital product passport for for products and services I fully agree that I think the end goal there is is full transparency of its performance across the supply chain I couldn't agree with you more and I think if we can achieve that I mean that would be that would be just transformative if we could achieve it and if we could create those global standards that would be great the the problem of course is that a lot of there are a lot of interests that don't want that level of transparency right they want to keep their performance hidden they don't want it in the public view because they know it's it's it's bad for the reputations so we'll need to figure out you know how do we counter the interests that want to maintain the current you know the current status quo and that'll be that will be difficult that will be a difficult political process but again it'll be fundamentally if we're going to achieve this sort of planetary scale sustainability now a digital passport for individuals that's obviously also on the horizon I think that's where we're also going to see kind of a proliferation of ideas like a learning passport for example a health passport all of these kind of thematic things that go with your identity that's also going to be transformative clearly transformative but I think in that context the the the need for privacy and security and management of all that data is obviously going to be imperative and I think the first time there is a there is a breach of that trust and that privacy you know there's going to be some shake there's going to be some some some immediate fallout so I see them as as two as two kind of two parallel ideas both with transformative absolutely transformative potential but I think on the on the individual side that's also where digital technologies can really help us I think if you look at some of the latest statistics about 65 percent of people they do want to procure and purchase sustainable products so they do want to have sustainable lifestyles but only about 23 percent actually do so right so there's this gap between our attitude and our behavior and I'm hoping that digital technologies can really help close that gap and make sustainability kind of as simple and seamless and easy as possible so that's where again this idea of the digital product passport or the individual passport you can begin to then have kind of full transparency on all your behavior on all your purchases over the course of a year and and start to understand where could you make the biggest improvements in your in your lifestyle right and you know an AI algorithm could really analyze you know your full history of purchasing and help you identify here are the main areas where you could make some improvements here are the main behaviors you could adopt and really help people sort of take on a much more sustainable lifestyles so I think we need to make it as easy and simple and seamless as possible to be sustainable and that really has to become kind of the default mode it really frankly it shouldn't really be optional it should kind of be the default of every platform and if you choose not to be sustainable you can opt out right you can sort of find a non-sustainable option but ultimately the the search results and all the kind of comparability metrics should really be driving us towards sustainability there's a couple interesting things I want to touch upon so the ESG has become a big environmental social governance has become a big term since the pandemic and it's gotten even more it was kind of in the beginnings but it's actually pretty old just like we said the limits to growth and systems thinking is pretty old secretary general at the time Kofi Annan it was actually the one who first coined the term environmental social governance and and has kind of had a whole movement between health safety environment to compliance to corporate social responsibility to environmental social governance and has taken that path but we're seeing that it's it's a better model for efficiency to increase profits it's outprevent outperforming ESG and sustainable index funds are outperforming conventional non-sustainable index funds hands down and it wasn't just in 2020 it's moving into 2021 and it's here to stay but there's one thing that you kind of tickled upon of where we're going we're actually going beyond ESG to regenerative capitalism or to regenerative platforms and that's what is what kind of where I want to go and tie into to the digital transformations and codes and the things that you're working on because when people hear regenerative platform models or platform business models they all I think hardware software coding it something but that's actually platforms and infrastructure it's a sustainable infrastructure it's one that's regenerative that will work forever and so I want to kind of hear your views on that but I also I'm tying back to one other thing that you that you mentioned you talked about the three peas people planted a profit and that's kind of where you're going with on the book in some respects and I believe it was 2019 or 2020 John Elkington who actually coined the term over 24 years ago or 20 years ago the the triple peas he actually rescinded in his book the green swans and he said I take that back because we need to go and this is probably where you got regenerative capitalism he says we need to go to regenerative capitalism and it's actually even a step beyond that it's this regenerative economies and regenerative platform models and so I want to see how that's tying into what you're working on and what your thoughts on how we're slowly getting on the bandwagon has taken us a long time to see that some of these models that have been out there for a while are not just good for investments they're good for business organizational structures they are resilient in times of all those organizations that had ESG and grain in their business model kept going during the pandemic delivered essential services their profits grew there they didn't have to lay people off there's a form of resilience because it's that platform that infrastructure that can make it through tough times and gives it that resilience and that's kind of I'm trying to kind of lead you if you can see in some respects on how we're going to get into resilience and into those true models that we need to be into in the future that are autonomous or that just work and that are better systems that are human minds can't can't handle that complexity or that chaos or that system's thinking thanks that's fantastic question again and and within the ESG space I would just make a couple of comments first the first is that yes as you say ESG is coming on strong but if you look at the overall amount of funds that are kind of ESG funds it's about two trillion dollars out of 97 trillion in the global stock market so it's still only about two percent of global capital markets so it's it's a small amount it's rising it doubled last year already but it is it is still small relative to you know the overall market so there's still a lot of room to go as my point I think the second thing on ESG that's really important is that we still you know despite the fact that it's growing we still need more standardized metrics on how to actually calculate it I think there's a lot of ESG claims which aren't necessarily backed up by you know by authoritative data and I think we really need to get sort of global ESG standards in place so we can make sure that those claims are validated I think the world of spatial finance is certainly moving in that direction this is again using all of the tools out there in the digital world like earth observation and AI to really calculate the ESG performance objectively and to sort of compare that with what the companies are reporting so that's the first point is is we really do need to expand ESG make sure we have the metrics in place but your point is is exactly a good one we actually need kind of ESG 2.0 ESG right now is kind of mitigating impact it's not thinking about sort of what's the overarching purpose you can contribute to with your company and so we need to look at kind of the impact mitigation side but also the purpose side and the mission side and how companies can contribute systematically to that to the positive achievement of the SDGs so certainly that's that's where the ESG space needs to move now if you look at some of the really interesting work that's out there right now I think there's a there's a company or sort of an initiative called digital with purpose movement so this is basically the idea that ICT companies want to be able to express in the marketplace both their their ESG performance as well as their positive SDG contributions and they're coming up with this sort of this mark which which is a which is a which is a metric on how they're doing on both fronts and for me the digital with purpose movement is is is exactly the right way to to sort of progress this model where we begin to look at both the positive and the negative we quantify it and we put it into some kind of mark or some kind of metric so that consumers can really understand you know what's the performance and I think what's good about digital with purpose is yes you know at a very simple level you get a single score and a mark you can then unpack that and you can begin to see in more detail where each company is moving on different fronts right is it how is it on the environmental front versus the human rights front versus the the governance front and begin to kind of get a much more nuanced perspective so I definitely think there's a lot of interesting movement in the ESG space and the digital technologies can fundamentally amplify that but there's work to do still especially on the metrics and on the as you as you point out on on ensuring that we have much more of a positive contribution and moving much more to the circular economy and as you say the whole the whole space of regeneration that's not yet as far as I can see that's not really being captured yet in that world. No there's I mean there's not a lot of books out on it there is a movement on the platform modeling where they've really gone into regenerative ecosystem business model so platform design and how they can help companies transition that the other push I totally agree with you it's your spot on on the percentage of the market on the percentage of what we're currently addressing with ESG the thing humanity's always struggled with though is this we don't understand the exponential curve and how quickly things happen and come about and how quickly we'll reach something what's already in the pipelines have been in the pipelines for a long time is ESG EU and the European Union taxonomy is getting ready to be voted on and decided on and then also we're seeing and that comes up to 2024 at the latest we'll already have voted on it and it'll be in in the practice where everyone will have to adhere to that at least in the EU and if they're doing business internationally but a EU based company is still going to have to adhere to it and then also comments from BlackRock CEO and other things on where if these aren't there there's going to be certain types of punishments or consequences because of that inaction or that not progressing in that certain way the main thing is is we really need the digital tools and all these aspects to help support us we're talking about complexity we're talking about systems and to no matter how big your organization is it needs to be in line with government systems regulatory systems so that that whole not just reporting but also how can you stay up to date on the firmware the software update where you need to go where your business is going in an exponentially growing world that support structure really needs to be there and so I'm glad you addressed that I mean the last the last thing and we talked about green swans and John Elkington and the triple P and that it's really this this almost we should actually leapfrog into a regenerative system we'll see more more models and things emerge and more tools and hopefully they'll be tied into these digital systems that we're discussing that a book from Paul Hawkins called regeneration will come out in September and a couple other new books that are really pushing on these regenerative regeneration regenerative models that are all the core function of what we've been discussing in on resilience and resilience frontiers how do we still breathe and enjoy nature and have food and resources in that time after the hurricanes after the climate catastrophes after the digital crashes or whatever could happen how do we still function the next hour the next day with the basic resources of humanity to keep up with these planetary boundaries and during this time past 18 months we've seen and you tickled upon these as well donut economics real big push circular economy real big push on planetary boundaries from Stockholm resilience center and the Putsdam Institute of climate change and and many other mariana matzucato and others talking about these different economic models that are really all tied to our planet the planetary boundaries to the environment to this environmental social governance but more so this symbiotic earth that there's no way that we can decouple economic growth or economy from our natural systems it can be digitized it can be decentralized it can be very very transformative and a new innovative era or a new change in innovation that transport catapults us into the future but it has to be in line with that ecological aspect and um that's where i'm want to kind of go into some of the tools and that you're working with and codes and some of the other project many other projects you're working with in the connect university the EU Futurium I think is how how they call it the summer school for digital for our planet they talked about the digital twin for the earth they talked heavily about Copernicus and all the wonderful data from Copernicus I know you've worked a lot with a planet is a planet earth or planet health um or I think maybe they're just called planet that does a lot and then google earth and many other geospatial data points that are kind of compiling and partnering with each other to bring us this digital ecosystem for the earth the future of where we're going and what's going on and so I'd like to know where that's going what you're very optimistic and hopeful for and why do we need a digital twin for the earth or what does that give us what does that bring us and what do the compilation of an ecosystem of all these other tools what is that going to give us how is that going to help us sure thanks mark I think we need to again take a sort of a step back and ask you know we've adopted these stgs right we've adopted various multilateral environmental agreements but what's our capacity like to actually monitor their implementation right at a global level and our capacity is not great to be frank I mean if you look at the the environmental stgs if you look at the indicators about 58 percent of them cannot be measured globally right so we can't even assess progress globally against you know and if you look at the the Paris Agreement if you look at the biodiversity convention it's taking about three to four years to do a global stock take which is a ridiculous amount of time if you're trying to have real-time action if you're trying to create those feedback loops as you mentioned to inform system level thinking you need that in you know weekly and monthly not every four years and that's the first thing that I think that the digital ecosystem idea can really help is to bring all of this data together into a planetary scale system so we can begin to monitor in more real-time the state the status of our stg commitments of our multilateral environmental agreements and other commitments where you know we're trying to we're trying to take forward so we need that kind of planetary scale dashboard right where do we sit right now with respect to our agreements and our commitments and what's the health of the planet doing that has to be kind of the prerequisite to everything you spoke about in terms of regeneration we need we need that data first and foremost so all of these tools like the digital twin of the earth and planet labs and some of these other Copernicus some of these other big earth observation initiatives and modeling initiatives those are kind of fundamental I would say in terms of generating data but also in terms of doing that kind of system level analysis at a planetary scale and that's where they really that's really really excel the destination earth this digital twin of the planet that the commission is building that's a planetary scale model right systems level planetary scale model which can really enable us to look at the connection between kind of the environmental systems on the one hand and the social economic systems on the other and begin to understand the relationships the trends and where we can begin to intervene with policies and regulations to really start looking at some of those risk factors so I think that's that's a fundamental investment we have to make but then once we have that data and those analytics as I said we have to start streaming that into the algorithms of the digital economy right so they begin to take them into account in a real-time way and begin to optimize for sustainability and as you as we mentioned those algorithms need to be considering profit people and planet but what what's I think we have to sort of take this forward in in two steps the first thing we need to help companies understand that they can still be profitable even when they take into account people in planet so there's still profitability if you look at some of the latest weft analysis their their numbers are ranging from anywhere to between 30 to 50 trillion dollars of potential a potential profit can be can be garnered by by going sustainable right so there's a huge economic benefit from going in a sustainable direction as you mentioned ESG funds are outperforming traditional funds so that's kind of step one I think is is is just putting to rest this idea that sustainability is not profitable it's just wrong right so that's number one is sort of transitioning to those those business models where they begin to take that into account and then as you said step two once we sort of across that first chasm step two is then thinking more about regeneration and moving into circularity right so I think this is always the case where the thinking about the solutions is probably 10 years ahead of the practice in the private sector and we kind of get frustrated at the pace of change but what's what you know what's positive is we are seeing those shifts moving to those those sustainable business models and much more consideration to profit people in planet and I look at I look at companies like Amazon for example Amazon is starting now they have a new program called the the climate pledge friendly initiative where within the amazon marketplace they're beginning to show which of the products actually have some kind of environmental sustainability certification so they're looking at 19 different certifications and they're starting to inventory in a systematic way which products have those certifications so that consumers that want to go green and want to go climate friendly can do so at scale now if if that starts to scale and if amazon starts to then kind of nudge consumers towards those products and services that would have you know transformative impacts so I can see I can see positive steps being taken by companies like like amazon I can see positive steps being taken by companies like sap by microsoft by google they're moving in that direction and I think they're exploring the market and they're trying to understand you know where the demand lies and how they continue to be profitable but that's why it's really so important that we have kind of these these these pincers this sort of pincer operation where consumers start demanding more sustainable products by getting access to data and governments do the same and so when we can start to push the demand from consumers and governments towards sustainable products companies will respond to that you know naturally so yeah I completely agree but I do think it's sort of a multi-step process and I think the good news is we are seeing those transitions happening and now it's a question of how do we speed and scale them and how do we take a look at the systemic barriers and remove them with with digital tools you know that's amazing and I really believe that's what we need is the right direction that we're going in and it's so important that these tools are there to use and that we're educated and empowered with the ability to understand why we could use them why it comes about this when I speak and you've heard me speak before about the environment and the plan I always show the blue marble or earth rise and I ask kind of a it's not a trick question but it's a it's a telling question how do we have this why do we have this image and it's because of information it's because of emerging technology that we have that and so innovation and information is empowering it keeps us from being ignorant it helps us to make informed decisions and it was also a little bit of a push for the environmental movement and awareness of our planet and that it's our only home and how how to preserve and protect it now we we need to take that up another notch to really get up to speed with our exponentially digitally growing world and our environment and the climate issues that are happening so that we can make those informed decisions in that expedient amount of time weeks to months no more than a few months because then it's not real time anymore if we're not doing in that and one of the biggest in my opinion ecological economic ecological economics or models out there is the global hectare it's used by earth overshoot day and to calculate the overshoot day and this year july 29th is earth earth overshoot day it was done by professor mattis bucker-noggle who does the overshoot foundation or organization and that model has been around 35 years it's used in the scientific community it's used at the un it's used by everybody but that data i think is six years old by the time they come out so the data that they just came out with july 29th for earth overshoot day i think is you know at least four or five years old that's just not giving us an accurate picture on on our true overshoot and for us to be responsive you know we need food water and resources tomorrow the next hour not four years later and if we're miscalculating it by four years later what kind of catastrophes could happen and so this transition needs to occur much more but there's a big question on this transformation on this change and that was another thing that was really gone into depth on this connect university digital for our planet was e-waste using renewables getting off of fossil fuels for data centers for new technologies that we're not doing data or technology that's cradle to grave or creating all sorts of emissions or heat pockets creating issues in our world and so i'd like maybe if you don't mind just addressing that for a second what you've seen and what your concerns have been voiced to you as you're making this move and say really yeah you want to go digital you want to move us forward but it's just going to push forward this whole e-waste this whole emissions because now we're going to put more computing power use more fossil fuels etc if you can maybe address that or see what you've seen that would be nice yeah thanks very much let me just go back to this question of information i i i think information about sort of global environmental challenges can can inform some behaviors and can inform some actions especially for those that you know have it sort of an enlightened awareness about our planetary situation but it's not it's not a silver bullet either for the for the planet you know there are a lot of people that either are not aware of the impact or frankly are are too busy leading their their lives to sort of you know have the time to think about it and to be frank you know being a sustainable consumer is difficult it's even difficult for those who who understand the issues in detail so i don't think that information alone is enough i think we need to be actively digitally nudging and and encouraging and creating incentives towards the sustainable consumption and and i you know i don't fault people if they have the information and they don't always buy sustainably again i don't fault them either because it is complex and difficult or simply because you know they they don't know what what the options are or they don't trust the information that's being given to them so so when we need to go we need to go beyond information as the as our only tool and begin to sort of as i said actively nudging gamification all the techniques we can use to really encourage and incentivize behavioral shifts is is where we need to go but as you said right now about half the planet is disconnected we need to we need to close that digital divide very very quickly but as we do that we need to ensure that we're not creating new impacts on the environment either from the energy or from the supply chains of ICT and as you said one of the big challenges right now is e-waste if you look at the global statistics 17 17 percent of e-waste is recycled right which is virtually nothing frankly it's 53 million metric tons per year which is about the equivalent of 125 000 Boeing 747 jets which is you know larger than the number of aircraft ever produced so it's a huge amount of waste and that's exactly why the ideas of a circular economy are so are so powerful especially for the ICT world we we should be reclaiming as many of those components and metals and minerals as possible and recycling them and putting them back into circulation so e-waste is a massive issue that needs to be a fundamental priority and but as you said the second one is renewable energy we need to ensure that the digital the digital economy and the digital ecosystem is green and we need to be procuring options and really embedding energy efficiency again at the code level right the software itself and the infrastructure itself needs to be automatically you know selecting the most energy efficient ways of operating and so again we need to be thinking about that as we close that digital divide how do we ensure that we're also investing in green energy solutions and how do those how do those two come together so you know digital and green energy are a twin investment that are made as as this digital divide is closed so yeah I couldn't agree more that digital is not a panacea there are serious issues that need to be thought through I think you know in addition to the energy and e-waste issue but the other big one is what's called the the rebound effect so the more digital technologies kind of increase efficiency and reduce price the more demand there is for those products and services which basically ultimately sort of undermine any gains that are made right and digital rebound is a real issue as well especially when it comes to consumer products the cheaper they become the more they're consumed the more resources are wasted and basically you don't actually have a net benefit so I think we need to be looking at exactly at those questions as well and really having an honest conversation about you know how there are opportunities but there are risks and there are negative consequences and how do we how do we maximize one and minimize the other absolutely that spot on and and it's something that's not always addressed but I really like that to connect university and you and many others are taking this conversation up and how do we get better data centers that are using renewables and using heat efficiently and how are we thinking about the big waste and and and energy around you know cryptocurrencies or whatever else is going on it's a it's a big aspect that really needs to be addressed I want to probably ask you are the first hardest question even though probably all of the questions that we've had have been pretty hard for for most people but it is around this digital ID or digital passport or universal identification and the UN works a lot on UN ID 2020 and and many other things on how can we get the people who don't have identification identification and the basic rights micro credits and bank the unbankable many other problems around that area but I want to tie it into another question which is maybe there's a transition do you feel like you're a global citizen and how would you feel a world would work without borders nations divisions of humanity one from another and the reason I kind of say that is during this pandemic the pandemic's been a global citizen food's been a global citizen energy's been a global citizen climate change water air is all been a global citizen species have and we've found more nationalism nationalism and division from one another but is there something to be said about having global citizenship not a global globalization but global citizenship where we are interacting very similar to the digital world or very similar to our environment yeah that's a really interesting question I think you you know you've got two realities right now you've kind of got the physical reality of nation states and products and services in the real economy and you've got sort of the digital reality which is global and and the two are obviously the two are connected but the the member state sort of sovereignty reality is not going to go away anytime soon frankly I can't see of a pathway as you say to sort of dissolve borders and to come up with sort of the global citizen you know constituency overnight I think that member states are here to stay and I think clearly that needs to be managed but as you say we are global citizens and if we're going to react to any of these big existential threats we need to operate in a global way as you said and we need to really understand that and I think that's one of the things that COVID really did help us see is that we are all connected and we do face existential threats together and we need to collaborate to face those and whether that's COVID or climate change or biodiversity loss or pollution it's got to be collective action at a global scale and I think digital technologies can actually give you that sense of kind of global citizenship so somehow we need to have both where we are obviously part of countries where member states are governing sovereign territories but where we can also become global citizens in that digital channel as you rightly pointed out so yeah a future we'll have to take both of those kind of physical realities and digital realities into account. As you said though going back to this question of the moon the Apollo moon launch and sort of looking back I do think that this is where digital technologies can really help us kind of be much more immersive in that global in those global challenges because as you say these footprint analyses they've been around for 20 years and Mr. Wagonakal has been working on this for ages but they don't translate into sort of an emotive response from people there it's an intellectual exercise about how many earths are we consuming it doesn't touch you in the hard strings and I think this is where I hope this is where digital technologies can also really help us not just visualize that but feel it through an immersive experience so I've been looking at at AR and VR and trying to see can that really help me as a citizen understand that kind of planetary perspective it's certainly moving in the right direction I haven't yet found the killer app I've got a VR headset on my computer and I've downloaded just about everything I can find that would sort of give me that that experience it's not there yet but I think it's moving in that direction and I'm really hoping at some point soon there is an application that really helps you kind of understand your you know role in the world and the planetary perspective and the big you know changes and damages that humanity is is wreaking you know causing across the planet and to not just sort of help you experience that emotionally but then to help you act on it in a systematic way like what can I do as a person living in this particular country so it needs to then help connect your kind of emotional response to behaviors you can undertake and then again using that digital technology to begin to reinforce those behaviors right I think that's where we need to move so if you get inspired to take action through some kind of immersive technology then you need to ask that you know your mobile applications to then help you become a better citizen through various behaviors you can undertake so I think this is connect this is coming this is coming to fruition these connections are slowly being put in place but that that's that's sort of fully immersive VR experience that kind of transforms your mindset is not there yet but I'm hopeful that it'll it'll be coming very soon yeah I I kind of have techno lust I've had my my whole life I love technology I was one of my first degrees but I have a VR headset here as well and I've done I've done the same experiment as you have there there you know is the Apollo moon landing which is which is nice and it comes pretty close and it's a nice experience especially since I talk about a lot and I've read the book uh uh um Earthrise and Overshoot Effect and and the different the different books that are out there and kind of heard the stories I believe it's it's nice it's not there but we're we're we're edging out close there's this great book that I just got it's the Blue Marble Evaluation I don't know if you've ever heard of it it's got a glare on it but it's the Blue Marble Evaluation also moving in the direction of everything that we've been talking about today and how can we use it for purpose use it for good how can we use it as something as an assistant for humanity to really get into complexity science chaos there any systems thinking and use those to to get us on that path and keep us up to speed with the way our world is growing and in a way that uh is a world that works for everyone and that brings me to the hardest question I have for you today and that is really the burning question WTF and that is not the swear word although maybe maybe you said that during the past months it's really what's the future and it's more so the plural what's the futures I believe there's multiple futures but in your vision for you and what your work is and what you want to do with codes and and digital what's the future David where are we going what's the plan yeah the future in in my view is fundamentally going to rely obviously on this on this collaboration between public and private sectors and I think this is where the UN has not really catalyzed in the last number of decades deep collaboration between the two and in my view the private sector is absolutely fundamental to achieve the kind of changes we're talking about so we need to engage the I would say two two kinds of private sector entities the private sector obviously the you know where the where the current economic power lies so that's kind of the digital the digital technology companies they need to play their role in accelerating environmental sustainability they fundamentally each and each and every one of them have massive reach and influence at the moment that's about four billion people they're reaching two trillion consumers they can do a massive amount to really accelerate environmental sustainability and sustainable consumption so they need to do their role and finally start to incorporate what we're talking about into their algorithms for their platforms into their apps and be a part of a planetary change I think the other group is of course um entrepreneurs and small and medium size enterprises right there's a huge community of of growing companies wanting to um help find solutions for environmental sustainability challenges across all the sectors they also need to be supported to be enabled and to make sure they're not crowded out by by big tech and some of the big mature firms right so level the playing level the playing field empowering them with digital technologies and as you say helping them build these regenerative business models helping them contribute to the to the circular economy these are all going to be fundamental and the reason why I'm putting so much more emphasis on private sector actors is basically it's time question right we've got 10 years left to achieve the SDGs are less than that governments are obviously fundamental but they don't work and they don't regulate at the same speed and scale as companies do right the time lag between private sector action and public sector action is is significant and so we need to be you know accelerating action through private sector investment and private sector companies and then public sector has to becoming become much more agile in the way it governs so it needs to be it needs to start regulating more quickly and and adapting those regulations again faster in a more digitally appropriate way so we need to get to a point where laws are digital right we need to get to digitalization of laws and where those laws can begin to interact as part of the you know the codes of these private sector platforms again that's part of this sort of digital ecosystem thinking ideally we get to the point where laws are digital laws inform the codes of these platforms and then the performance of these platforms report back to the coded laws right so we can get kind of this digital ecosystem moving and we can get these different platforms talking to each other sharing information and as you say creating those essential feedback loops so that we're reinforcing the behaviors we want to see and obviously penalizing those we don't want to see. I kind of I don't want to poke fun at Peter Diamandis but I don't know if you're well aware of Singularity University Peter Diamandis said four maybe four or five years ago now he says you know we've got these rising billions coming online that will have the power computing power that took us to the moon in the palm of their hands a smartphone and and I don't think we've hit it yet I think I don't think we've had those three billion come online with their new smartphones and seen the revolutions quite like he discussed at that time but I have this underlying feeling that that it's coming is a good that it hasn't reached that yet because the apps and the systems digitally are not where it needs to be to make sure that we can swing those three billion new people coming online with smartphones so that they don't fall into this social dilemma trap or that they have the right tools to get the right information to go in the right direction so is it a positive thing or am I have those three billion rising billions come about already and nothing happened that's kind of a question of what you've seen or how you feel about that as well yeah as you say right now we're in a situation where we have about two billion consumers e-commerce consumers online with four billion people on the internet and there's still a big digital divide as you said I think you're probably right it's probably a good thing that it hasn't scaled to the at the speed that Peter had mentioned because a lot of the platforms and apps are not yet fully embedding sustainability into their business models yet so had they come online it's sort of the pace of his predictions that could have been catastrophic you know it could have accelerated consumption and basically led to further climate you know further climate change for the biodiversity loss and for the pollution and this is why this is sort of we have this moment in time right now this window where if the big tech firms could actually take into account this potential we could be transformative in terms of their impact right so they're and as I said they're moving in that direction slowly they're making sort of incremental changes and they're seeing how the market reacts and then they're sort of you know adjusting as they go but we really want to see as I said we really want to see major commitments from all the platform companies on how they're going to take into account environmental sustainability at the algorithmic level not I mean some of the companies are kind of making big commitments on climate zero or net zero by 2030 and 2050 and that's important and that's good but they're not changing their business model right and it's the business model that has to change and we need to see a different business model in how they go forward and you know a good example would be Google if we're talking about kind of you know ad-based business models they could prioritize businesses that are sustainable for advertising right they could have a two-tiered structure and those that are you know sustainable or have ESG certification could get one model and those that aren't get another right and so they could they could really incentivize in their business model sustainability and prioritize companies that are that are acting in accordance the same thing could happen in Amazon I mean there's all kinds of things they can do to really incentivize and promote sustainability and as I said they're doing it incrementally but we want to see some big commitments next year we really want them to be a part of the solution and I mean we started out our conversation about Microsoft Teams and how you really like some of the progress of Microsoft I would have to second that and and just agree especially in 2020 I was speaking at Davos and at DOD and different events for for Boma and it was just right after Microsoft to come out with their big ambitions and their fund and and and that but there was there was three main pillars of what their objectives were and one of those pillars was kind of missed by most people they didn't understand the historical precedence that that made and it really was a historical precedence because it put it raised the bar higher and it also started a catapult for other businesses and organizations like Google like Apple to say okay we need to raise our ambitions as well and that ambition that kind of fell was swept under the carpet or not fully understood is that they were going to since they've been in business they're going to remove all their historical carbon emissions and that's a step in the right direction instead of saying we're going to meet this by 2030 or we're going to reduce our emissions by 70 percent this is no no since we've been in business everything that we've done to our environment and every emission we're going to remove those historical carbon emissions one way or the other innovation capturing other offsetting whatever methods that they use and that's where we all need to be thinking that's how businesses need to think let's leave the planet better than we found it and if we do that we'll have an abundance of resources for many generations it's very sustainable in the future and to get to that regeneration of seven six eight generations into the future but also have the money and resources to continue to pay your employees produce products that are circular that are cradle to cradle in that way of thinking and so I really love that and since that time we've seen so many people embrace this re imperative which we've talked about regeneration but it's just part of this re imperative of reuse recycle repurpose you know repeat on and on it's an endless re imperative and it really goes about how do we live in a closed system or spaceship earth and do that one that that your children my children my grandchildren will enjoy and will work for us all these last three questions I have are for my listeners is kind of a a little teaser for them something that can empower them and they can take away from our discussion if there was one message that you could depart to my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that had the power to change our life what would it be your message I'd say the first and foremost is to understand your own environmental footprint and what you can do to change that so I'd say use as many tools as you can to really understand your own behavior your own impact and then systematically what you can do to mitigate that and I think the tools are out there now to enable that it's just a matter of applying them and being very curious and you know trying to trying to figure out in your personal life your professional life in terms of your home in terms of your transport in terms of your food consumption your energy consumption where are your biggest impacts and what can you do very practically to make a difference what should young innovators in your field be thinking about if they're looking for ways to make a real impact again I think you need to be looking about where where are the biggest transformational investments that are being made right now in the economy and how can you contribute to that so for the for example with this digital product passport really understanding what that would mean and where I mean that will be so transformative and that'll create so many business opportunities how can you how can you basically support that and and generate a new business idea around it that contributes to some of these bigger goals we're talking about you know business idea that contributes to regeneration sustainability informing consumers informing supply chain performance there are so many opportunities there finding one understanding where it is and driving forward with it would be great in this long life you've lived so far and hopefully much longer what have you experienced or learned and your professional journeys so far that you would have loved to know from the start I think I touched on this as we open it's really all about personal relationships and and you know trust building across people institutions support people they provide frameworks and things you know things like that but it's all about you know relations and collaboration between people and sharing you know a common vision and yeah trusting intent and and trying to align what you want to do with planetary change I I think when I started in the UN I I invested a lot in in frameworks and kind of higher level policies thinking that if we set the policy right the practice would follow and that didn't always happen there was usually a big lag between policy and practice and I think the more I've worked in the system the more I've focused much more on finding the right people collaborating with them and trying to do great things together David thank you for letting us inside of your ideas it's been a sheer pleasure you're a plethora of knowledge and wisdom and I really appreciate all you do and those amazing people you work with I know it's not just you but this would be your chance to say your last piece if there's anything we didn't get a discuss or you didn't get a mention but other than that I'm done with my questioning and like I said it's just been a sheer pleasure to to get a blinker of you inside of your ideas well thank you very much mark it's been a real pleasure I think as you as you open this conversation you talked about resilience frontiers again I just think that was such an important initiative to cross inspire people that want to dream big and work together and I know you opened the session I attended and I really loved your presentation it was inspiring but I think what's really important is that a lot of those connections in resilience frontiers have materialized into concrete collaboration and that's been great to watch and I think that was probably the intent of or part of the intent of that framework was really just connecting like-minded people try and build relationships and seeing what they did together so I really wanted to thank you for engaging in resilience frontiers I wanted to thank you sub-nasa for kicking it off and everybody that was a part of that process it's been really inspirational and real pleasure to work with all of you so thank you again you're most welcome matter of fact today our podcast will air a little bit down the road but today was the release of Youssef's podcast that that we did together and so he'll be tickled to to hear your words as well but today's a great day for him to and others to listen to a little bit more about resilience frontiers and his podcast David I really thank you please take care of your lovely wife and that beautiful family of yours and I hope we see each other very soon thanks mark thanks again for inviting me on the podcast really appreciate the conversation and I look forward to working with you I'll see you later thanks bye-bye