 Have you been disheartened or confused by the way that COVID-19 will affect our future green meetings and sustainable events? I was sad too, my friends. I thought we were reverting to the days before green initiatives, but that was until I sat down with Natalie Lowe and Candice Telseeram of the Sustainable Events Forum. They have changed the way that I view green meetings and I want you to hear this full-length video. Stick around. Hey friends, it's Leanne, and when COVID-19 hit, venues almost immediately reverted back to using single-use items to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Great health and safety protocol on their part, right? But for us green meetings people, it meant that we were going back to single-use plastics, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place. And I was really disheartened to see all these practices and all this good work go to waste. That was until I decided to connect with Natalie and Candice over at the Sustainable Events Forum. And I was going to interview them for five or ten minutes about a quick checklist item that they could give to event planners about how to continue making their events sustainable. Well, what happened next was unknown to me and created this amazing opportunity that I could now pass on to you. Forty minutes of gold and insight from the founders of the Sustainable Events Forum about how to view green meetings and of course how to partner with your venues on continuing to create green meetings and sustainable events. I cannot wait for you to hear their insights. It will change the way you view green meetings. Candice and Natalie also kindly shared a checklist with me that you can use when communicating with your venue. You can find it over at www.conferencesource.net forward slash sustainable events. Again, that's www.conferencesource.net forward slash sustainable events. Before we get to the interview, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and click on that little bell to be notified of new videos. We're creating content each and every week for our meeting planner and meeting supplier friends and I don't want you to miss a thing. And so without further ado, Natalie Lowe and Candice Tulsiarum with the Sustainable Events Forum. Enjoy. Hey, everyone, it's Leanne. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm joined today by two of my favorite event professionals in the meetings industry. Today I'm joined by the co-founders of the Sustainable Events Forum, Candice Tulsiarum and Natalie Lowe. Thank you both for joining us today. Excellent. Thank you. Thanks for inviting us, Leanne. Nice to be here. Thanks. Yeah, no problem. So glad to have you here. And there's a compelling reason why I wanted to chat with you ladies today. When COVID-19 hit, we started to see a lot of shifts in how people responded to sustainable initiatives and green practices. And as founders of the Sustainable Events Forum, you're obviously seeing this. And I'd love to dive into what we're seeing out there and especially what your advice is for not only event professionals but just for us as we're going through this time. So if you're comfortable, I'm just going to launch into a few questions that I've had on my mind about sustainability and hoping that I can get some insights for you and insights that we can share to the meetings community. And one of the things we're really seeing is the return of single-use items, which is something the industry worked so hard to eradicate when it came to our meetings and conferences. What can you share about this return to single-use items? Absolutely. Candice, you want to take that one first? Sure. I'll dive in. I mean, it is an unfortunate side effect of this pandemic that we're seeing right now. It's basically, there's a huge pro single-use plastic agenda that's happening as we've seen and heard on the news and all the blogs that we've been reading. And it's sort of overshadowed all the progress that we've made as an industry to move away from those plastics. But I think what we need to remember is that we really need to vet the information that we're reading and rely on the science behind why plastics are not good for the environment. So let's not bring back the plastic water bottles and the straws and the plastic cutlery. It wasn't good for the environment before the pandemic, and it's definitely not good even after this. So Natalie and I interviewed the plastics manager from Environmental Defense this week, and she said something really interesting, as I'm sure most of you have read, that the latest studies have actually shown that plastics survives up to two to three days longer on plastics, sorry, the virus survives up to two to three days longer on plastics versus something like cardboard. So with that fact alone, it's been vetted by the medical industry. Why are we pushing these plastics at our, or having it at our events again, right? It's not the safer option. Yeah. Yeah. And I just want to add in there. I mean, you know, doing what we do, obviously the plastic water bottles were the first things to really be targeted. And one of the things that when we were talking to Ashley was that you, when you touch that plastic piece, unless it says sterile, and it's in a medical or laboratory condition, it's not sterile. You don't know who touched that before it got to you. And it kind of reminds me, do you remember a few years ago when we found out that those airplane blankets maybe weren't as clean as we thought they were? Yeah. We wanted to do the germ scans and we realized, you know, where we should be careful in hotel rooms and where we shouldn't. And so we've created this false equivalency where we think, oh, if it's wrapped in plastic, it must be cleaner than if it went through that industrial dishwasher. And so one of the things that I would ask people to think about is, where do you want to drink your water from that plastic bottle that's been touched all the way from the plant to the loading dock to the service table that you're picking it up from? Or do you want to use that glassware that's been through an industrial dishwasher at, you know, however many degrees out of a tap or out of a dispenser that would have no human contact? And so we fall prey to sort of these false equivalencies, plastic wrapped equals sterile. Thanks. Yeah. And I think we're going to have to rely on our industry partners, you know, our venues, our convention centers, our food and beverage partners and trust that they are implementing new processes and policies to sanitize and really think about the hygiene aspects. You know, they may have been doing a good job before, but I bet you post-event, event world, they are going to be ramping up those initiatives. So we really need to trust that our partners are doing the right thing and looking after the health of you and your attendees when you book space at their venues or convention centers. I appreciate that, but I'm going to repeat a very old Latin term, caveat emptor. I think at the end of the day, you are going to have to ask the right questions. You really are. Like I wish it was easier. I wish we could just say, okay, let's just assume, but you know. Well, maybe it's a check. It's part of your checklist now in planning your events, right, where before you checked on Wi-Fi connections, great, you know, accessibility, et cetera. It's now going to be on your checklist as a planner, I think, the health and safety aspects. You know, are they certified in certain health codes now post COVID? So planners now have to have to add that to their list of questions when they're doing site visits and sending out RFPs. There's now going to be a huge chunk in their RFPs around sustainability practices, green initiatives, and also health and safety. Well, and I think one of the things that we need to be aware of is that food is not considered an overly high risk area. It's more surfaces, right? And, you know, I had asked for Canadians. There was a great documentary show on CBC GEM, and it talks about, I can't remember the name of it, but it talks about if your house is ready for COVID. And they looked at how to properly clean things. And they said, like, we're using all of these fancy things. They went through with a microbiologist and said, at the end of the day, you want to use soap and water or you want to use bleach and water. They said not even to combine the bleach with the soap and that that would kill the virus. And so it's not so much what you're putting into your mouth because we know that our digestive tract kills the virus. It's what we touch. And then, right? So it's the door handles, the bathroom, the... And I don't think we need to plastic wrap those. I'm just... Yeah. Well, how? How do you plastic wrap them for each and every use? And to your point, we're seeing a lot of hotels come out with their new cleanliness practices. In fact, I feel like it's all I've done this week is receive that information and put it in a nice package for my clients to use when planning their events. But you're right. The brand standard is getting back to Candice's point and yours as well, Natalie, about planners still being responsible for those things. Those practices are coming from a brand level. And so until we can see each property create and document their own practices separate from a brand level practice, the planners are going to have to do their checks and balances each and every time. Yeah. And maybe we're going to get to that point in an industry where it's standardized, right, where it's not just up to that brand hotel venue. It's just a standard in our industry because I hate to be the Debbie Downer here, but this... We will have another pandemic, right? Whether it's in five, 10, 15, 20 years. So setting those standards now, unless we learn from what we're going through now is super important. Well, and that's why you ladies are here today is I'm hopeful that after today and already you've given planners so much to think about that they're in a position now to create more accountability on their own part for their events. So on that note, I'd love to ask you another question that I have because it is right now about the safety camp versus the sustainability camp and how the two can come together. And as planners, we want a cohesive message between those two counts. What advice do you have for planners when creating either a communication strategy or a logistics strategy around both sustainability and safety? Right, right. I think what we need to do is we need to stop separating health and safety from the environment. And I think in many ways we've sort of learned that, right? We understand now that there's a direct correlation to the severity of the disease in populations with the level of air pollution. And so Candice and I kind of like to say, green is clean. There's nothing dirty about soap and water and it's great for the environment. You use that soap and water and you're good. I think we have been overly focused on the health sort of area and the economic area. And what we need to understand is within that Venn diagram, we have to include the environment and that, you know, access to clean water and interestingly enough, one of the best things that you can do is ensure that the workforce in your destination is well paid and has health care benefits, right? And it goes back to part of the United Nations sustainable development goals is that we're starting to see that through COVID-19 is that this is going to be in some ways the great equalizer because you can't expect a resort or hotel to be clean and well run and functioning properly if the staff is not healthy and happy. And so I think we need to sort of start to balance some of those systems. I think in a lot of cases, the environment can really help with the economy, right? Nobody wants to go to a dirty destination. What's on our wish list? We want those beautiful areas. And so that really needs to be included in sort of part of what we're doing. I think the other thing is that we need to recognize that our individual actions are great, but they're a gateway drug. We stopping the use of straws or plastic coverings is such a tiny part of it with the entire country or the entire world, the planet on lockdown. We've only reduced emissions by 5%. And people would say, well, why is that? Because look at how our electricity is generated. So if you go to a destination that has wind or solar energy versus a destination that's burning coal. So right now, even though the world's on lockdown, we're still at 95% of emissions. We've still got carbon in the air because we're all using our laptops and turning on our lights. So one of the things that we need to start doing is systems thinking. And that is, you'll hear the term circular economy. And Candice, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the circular economy and how that affects us as planners. So a circular economy perspective really takes into account when hello to the puppy dog is going. Really takes into account the life cycle of the products that we use. So for example, your grandmother or our grandparents would have had a seed. They would have planted the seed. They would have eaten the vegetable. They would have canned or frozen or somehow processed the leftovers. And then the next year, they would have reused the seeds from that original crop. So it's a cradle to cradle is what they call it. So there's no waste built into the system. We, especially in the events industry, we're a throwaway culture. We use it. We toss it out. We go on to the next event. So we are going to have to start thinking in those systems. And that's where the environmental systems will start to become part of our health and safety. We'll start to become part of our economics. Yeah. Wow. That's, yeah. Yeah, Candice. There's a lot of great information in there. Leanne's head, I can see her head spinning, Leanne. Wow. Well, what it's done now, it's, you're right. I mean, everything obviously you've said is right. And that's why you needed to deliver this message and not someone like me as an advocate for the... We're going to convert you though. Yeah, well, it's, but it's a lot, it's a lot to process for a planner. And so for the planners listening to this recording, and they are on board, they are on team Natalie and Candice. But what are some very tactical things they can do to start moving the needle towards that systems way of thinking? I think not, obviously it's overwhelming to hear all that information, right? But being realistic about your goals is the first thing. And setting Natalie, you mentioned the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There's 17 of those goals. We're not saying that everyone needs to go out and check the box and say that you've met all of those criteria. No, it's impossible, right? Choose three for your next major event. And to me, the easiest one as a planner when choosing to go the sustainability route is aligning with destinations, as Natalie mentioned, that are clean and really aligning with the correct venues that have already all the policies and procedures in place. You know, they're LEED certified, they're green key certified. Look at those venues. That's an easy win by going with a venue that's already on board with sustainability. You've already checked a lot off that list. Absolutely. And what I wanna, you should be a little overwhelmed. What we're about to go into is gonna be overwhelming. It's gonna be that way for a little while until we gain expertise in thinking this way. And so what you're seeing is a bit of a shift in the marketplace where responsibility for some of that skill set rested with the destination and with the hotel. And what we're going to be seeing is a sharing of that responsibility, a more balanced approach, really. And so it was interesting, I belong to the Sustainable Events Alliance and they did this hackathon. And during the hackathon, I learned from some of the people that worked on the EIC green guidelines. They sent out a big survey and said, why aren't more people doing green? And all the planners came back and said, we wish the suppliers would be offering us green options. We just don't see that we're offered a lot of green options. And all the suppliers came back and said, we really wish the planners would ask us, right? And so we got this chicken and egg. And so what we have to do is we have to say, okay, stop the chicken, stop the egg. You have to look at the whole enchilada, which has nothing to do with eggs, but there you go. And we need to start saying, okay, let's take a broader view of where our events fit into a business plan or a business purpose at a broader scale. And so we need to step back and say, okay, how are we going to accomplish that? What are the values that are going to sort of drive that forward? And if you bring it back, Kandace is absolutely right. You're not going to be able to do it all, but every day your awareness is going to grow. And it's just being aware that there's a bigger picture out there, being aware of that how the electricity is generated is actually the biggest source. And when we did the sustainable events farm, we were very lucky to work with Robert Thompson and his team and they did everything off the grid with solar generators, but they had never done it before because nobody had ever asked them to. Right. Ask, ask. Yeah, yeah. And also I think part that what goes hand in hand with asking is when you find out, share information. A lot of the times people have all this great knowledge about suppliers that are doing great things, whether they're producing, are they upcycling and reusing old banners and signage and billboards? Well, who are those people? I want to align with them and work with them. So share your list, your supplier list. I wish we had almost a directory in our industry of those eco-friendly suppliers and maybe it's something we can build out together as an industry to share information and let's show our industry that we do care, right? It's part of how we should be doing business. But in fairness, I know sometimes I blow Candice's brain because I want to go big. We will give you a couple of quick and easy things. First thing, when we talked to the plastics expert, Ashley, and we said, talk to us about greenwashing. He said, do you want an example of greenwashing? Bio-degradable and compostable plastics. So you're being sold the dream, but servicing it is a nightmare, right? So an old hospitality term. So what happens is when you see this great compostable plastic, the problem is how your plastics are recycled happens at the municipal level. So what Candice is talking about is almost a two-fold system. One, we have to understand the products, but not every municipality or jurisdiction can handle waste in the same way. So you might go to Toronto, great, no problem, they compost all over the place, but if you're in another city, they may not have the capability. And so all that hard work and good effort sort of goes to waste. And it's one of the things that Candice and I are working on is sort of helping people define it is climate action and climate sort of sustainable action is really, really local. It does not happen on a local scale. It is tiny little things. And the other thing that I thought that was really interesting that she talked to us about when she actually said plastic bottles were the easiest thing to recycle, but she told us that little recycling symbol on the bottom, the loop, doesn't mean it's recyclable. It means it could be, not that it will be. It's the number inside the loop and Leanne is totally going, whoa. So there's a number inside that recycling. It's one or two, if it's recyclable or not. So I'm willing to bet a lot of our industry folks don't even know when they toss something in the garbage they're assuming, yeah, I've done my part. Woohoo, I'm a good human. I've recycled something, but that does not necessarily mean it's going to be recycled at me and either be incinerated or end up in a landfill. So it's again that knowledge, right? That education that's required. So now you understand why I'm so adamant that we think about that whole system because again, you do all that work. You know, you source the bio degradable, you get it all lined up, but you don't have the system at the other side of it to actually process it, right? So it's just like a salesperson who oversells and then operations is not to kind of figure out how to do it, right? On your delivery, yeah. So I apologize, but then I need to get back to what you think a planner, even what a planner's first few questions should be when moving into a venue and now again, keeping in COVID guidelines. What should a few of their very first questions be to the venue? Ask to see their sustainability plan. They'll show you right now, they're going to be handing you their COVID cleanliness plan and just ask where's your sustainability plan along with it. Yeah, again, it goes back to asking those questions when you start the conversation, right? And engagement pre-planning, that should be first and foremost on your RFPs when you do your site visit. Some of them will take you behind the scenes. I know we did an event at the Hilton Meadowvale and the GM took our guests after the event for a behind the scenes operational look at how things are done. So they're not just tooting their horn and saying, we're a four green key certified property, can't not show you how we do it. So perhaps from a planner perspective, it's during your site visit, not being shy about asking to see how that's done. And it's going to, I bet you it's gonna open up a door of just amazing questions that you may not have thought about from a site selection perspective, right? Yeah, no, very fair. Now, Leanne, do both planners and suppliers watch your video blog? They do, yes. So then for suppliers, what I would say is start offering things and start taking, you know, we're going to be forced to live our values a little bit and that's what's showing. So if a company is valuing the profit over the planet, they're gonna give you those cheaper alternatives. If they're going to put the planet as a priority. So as a supplier, I simply tell people, no, we don't offer that option. It's just not on the menu. Yeah, and you know, it's akin to planners having a conversation with clients, let's say, and saying to your clients, so here's what we don't do at our events, you know, with my company 360 events, if I'm having a prospecting client discovery meeting, I will say to them, well, here's what I don't do at my events, so single use plastics. I really don't support it and here's why. And it might be that they never even thought about that. They're like, oh, you know, just a small meeting. No, but it's something you should. So you're almost planting seed when you're talking to your clients and whether or not they end up doing business with me or not, I've now started that conversation and I've made them maybe think about their next meeting, not having single use plastics and asking about green policies at the venues that they go to and with their suppliers. So just having a conversation. Well, and what concerns me is that those stakeholders, our clients, whoever it is that we're creating these events for, my concern is that they will move away from the sustainability conversation because they have to focus so much on the safety and the health conversation. So women like you are able to marry the two and ensure that planners are thinking about both. But that's what other planners need to feel empowered to do as well, is that they're not singular conversations that they do go hand in hand with one another and that the sustainability conversation is continuing. Even though we've been, I guess, challenged with other considerations, the sustainability conversation is still happening and it needs to continue to happen. Yeah, I just think it's, sorry not. Yeah, sorry. I just wanted to say information is power and the biggest frustration that I have with planners who are friends or clients is that they don't ask enough questions sometimes about what does that mean or what do you mean? And it's twofold. One is it might have just escaped their notice, right? There are so many details that you have as a planner or sometimes they just don't have time. And so what I would say is that if you are planning your event, the number one best thing that you can do is make sure that you get the best sustainability information that you can for your destination. So that would be, skip over it because the UK has incredible information on sustainability that doesn't apply here in North America. And then you will start to see those correlations between the COVID guidelines that are coming out and the sustainability guidelines. And that's where we start to see issues like the plastic wrapping where you can just start to challenge it. Yeah, I was just gonna add that prior to this pandemic in the late 20, in late 2019 and early 2020 we've all attended these conferences where at least one of their panels on the agenda was about sustainability and meeting trends of the future. And when we mentioned meeting trends of the future sustainability came up as the number one trend. And that was just November of last year. So I just, I really urge planners to not forget that that just a few months ago we were all on board the sustainability train. So once this pandemic is behind us, my hope is that it remains important in the minds of planners. And we've done a really good job as an industry recognizing that we need to make change and we need to move that needle. And I think our attendees are now coming to our events expecting sustainability to be one of the core pillars of our event. And if you are not on board with that, then that's just not, you're not doing good business in my book. But I understand what you mean, Leanne, about sort of combining them. I have nurses in my family and they do default. Like they'll throw it out before they'll clean it. Yeah. And it's sort of that mindset of, well, just in case. And there's a larger part of this is that there's an expense to throwing those things out. And that's one of the things that we are going to struggle with is that educating ourselves, there is so much information out there. But the reality is that as we degrade our environment, it's actually harder to keep things clean. It's not easier, right? And that's a big picture thought. But when you're talking to stakeholders, what I've found is the information is power. I've never had a client come back to me and say, we don't want that sustainable option, we're more comfortable with this. But you've got to know your facts. And that's why, talking to the local sustainable people or finding a resource that sort of digs into that local will help you balance those two issues. Since that is the recurring message and the recurring advice for planners is start local, talk to your venue, talk to the venue's municipality, get yourself as knowledgeable as you can about those practices in place and ask questions at that micro level rather than looking at the larger enchilada as you put it. And we'll help you. We've got all kinds of resources on the questions to ask. And what you'll find is the municipalities around the world are, in fact, in Canada, almost every municipality has a climate change coordinator because as these structural changes come down, it's actually the cities and the towns that are really being affected, right? It's roads, it's sewers, right? Things that we don't think about, flash flooding in your destination, right? Think about the issues that we've had in Calgary and Montreal, across Canada, Kelowna, your forest fires, right? And so those are very municipally located. And so the Canadian Federation of Municipalities gave grants to all the cities and towns and they have climate change coordinators. Incredible source of knowledge. Okay, okay. So let's get these planners to tap into those resources. So ladies, I have one, well, two final questions for you and then I will leave you. This one might be a little bit controversial, but now that we're not meeting and everything is done virtually, you may have alluded to this already because you mentioned that our emissions aren't down that much, but is us doing all these Zoom meetings, is this helping the environment by staying away from the larger conventions at this time? I definitely think it has. If anything, I think our pandemic that we're going through right now, it's been a bit of a catalyst in developing our understanding of how to produce virtual events and no one is gonna say it's gonna replace face-to-face. That's never gonna happen, right? We're human, we crave that connection, we crave that sense of community, which is sometimes why we go to events, right? So I think as an industry, we are learning a lot and we're seeing an evolution. They're referring to this as a great pause and that's what it is. The earth hasn't magically cleansed and healed itself, right? We're beyond that point right now, but the great pause is meant to sure let it breathe, but it should also be a realization for planners and our suppliers and partners that we know how to do better and now we should be doing better. So I think I see the future of our industry where virtual events, hybrid events actually are now going to be huge part of people's business models and they're planning for events. And I think we will come back stronger as an industry as we always do, but the focus is gonna be really heavy on attendee health and sustainability. And like we've been saying throughout this conversation, those two go hand in hand. So utilizing what we've learned through the pandemic is key. I'm gonna disagree. I, you know, all of the Zoom meetings, and I guess I'm going to agree and disagree because I think it's great that we're doing these Zoom meetings. I think we do miss having that personal connection, but the reality is we haven't dropped emissions enough and that is because what we do personally and at our meetings, Kenes and I never started the TSEF thinking that we were going to create a solution to climate change. What we're really trying to do is we want to be your climate junkies, really. Like we want to be your climate dealers, right? It's a gateway action because at the end of the day, if we do not have systemic change, the world is not on a good path, right? So think of it this way, if you're on a diet and you eat one healthy meal and then you gorge all evening before dinner or after dinner, you're not doing. So right now we have to understand that our systems, the way that they're put together, our food system, 58% of the food in Canada is wasted. So that means the field was plowed, it was planted, it was harvested, it was shipped for naught to go into a landfill somewhere. So our entry level is food waste, 58% of food in Canada is wasted, right? So we've got to attack food waste. And what people don't understand is that not every municipality can compost so it's going into the garbage. Even in municipalities, I've had wineries here in Niagara who for years have been throwing their food waste into the garbage, huge volumes. When food waste goes into the landfill, it creates methane. If it goes into the compost, those nutrients can be regenerated. So we go back again to that circular economy, to that systems thinking. And I know everyone's gonna say, my head hurts, but unfortunately, it's calculus time and high school, like we're going to have. So we know that our food system, our energy system and our materials systems need massive overhaul. And what Candace and I have always said is that event planners sit in this unique amazing spot where we can influence hundreds of people at a time by the choices that we make at our events. And so that's what I want people to be thinking about is how can I show a better way? We've all come back from a conference and said, hey, I saw this great new thing or I tried this cool new thing and we need to use social norming in order to claw back. We are at a point now where we've got irreparable harm to do here. That's just where we're at. But while you are taking the great pause and I'm taking the great pause and Leanne is taking the great pause the people that are de-foresting the Amazon have taken no paths and we have to remember that. I'm glad you mentioned food Natalie because I think going back to previous comments Leanne made about the easy wins that planners can take. The food part of it is one of those easy wins. And what I think obviously post COVID buffets may be a thing of the past unless they said buffets were the source at large conferences, many events or food ways. So in a way, it's a bit of a silver lining I think where we're now doing away with those buffets and now it's individual portions, box lunches, you know. And there's a bit less waste, but we need to remember asking again the question, composting or not. I don't understand this thing about buffets and I mean, food is not sort of one of their high but you know, I mean, that's again where I think we need to be really careful. There is so much information out there that's just wrong. So you have to check your sources. You have to be careful about what you believe and you know, there are some great climate scientists and I think, you know, let's talk about planet of the humans for a minute, right? There is this amazing filmmaker who has this reputation for accountability and fact-checking and he put out a movie that is just not true, right? He's using old data, seven million people apparently have watched this movie and now believe that green energy is not efficient while he's using stats from 20 years ago, right? Which movie is that? It's The Planet of the Humans by Michael Moore. Yeah, so my husband watched that so I can't wait to tell him this. I kind of listened in from the kitchen while he was watching it but that's very interesting to hear you as a sustainable advocate say that there's some inaccuracies in that particular product. Well, and I thought it was a really interesting perspective. You know, you kind of go into it with an open mind. You know, I think many of us have enjoyed his films in the past and you go into it with an open mind and some of the things, so I have a science background so I, you know, when it comes to sustainability, being a nerd kind of helps me, right? We went and looked at this test that he used where he was charging a cellular phone using some solar panels and I looked at that and I'm like, nobody's used that in like years, right? Like, you know, and so you look at and you say, well, what does that actually mean if you delve into the math? And actually environmental defense did a fantastic webinar and they had a green energy specialist from Australia come in and he was explaining the math behind how you get the efficiencies. And you just think if everyone could have a solar panel on their house that charged their car, I mean, that's the Tesla model, right? Why wouldn't you? You know, I mean, I would love to plug my car into my solar panel on the side of my house and never have to. And we have to understand that for years there are people who have huge business interests who don't want this change. And Simon Sinek did a fantastic video that's actually out and I'll send you the link to it. He talked about accepting change and moving towards change. And he made the comment, he said, Uber didn't put the taxi companies out of business, the taxi companies refused to change. So as planners, we can look at this and go, how much change can we do? Those of us who are adaptable, right? Darwin never said it was survival of the fittest. He said it was survival of the adaptable. So let's embrace that change and go for it. There's my complete read. No, you know what? That is such a great way to wrap up this chat because you are right. The planners that you're seeing still moving forward are the ones who are adapting and changing and whether that's changing their events to virtual or whatever that product is for them and they're creating something new out of the chaos. So I 100% am on board with that. I love that philosophy. And so to wrap up, I would like to... So go ahead. Yeah, you can see we play good cop, bad cop. This is always the good cop. Hey, listen, but then you get all perspectives, right? And to your point, even going back to the movie, that's one perspective. But the great thing about the partnership that you guys have created is you bring a number of different filters to the table and that's such a great benefit to the industry. And so to wrap up, I'd love to know how are the two of you moving forward and adapting at this time? Absolutely. Well, I've been at home with two toddlers, two rambunctious toddlers. So when I'm not chasing them around the house, Nali and I have really sort of put our heads down and we really wanna continue sharing as much information as we can. We were slated to have an event in Toronto in June, which is obviously now not happening live. And yes, I'm gonna say the word, we have pivoted to putting our brains together and we have such great conversations and sometimes we wish we recorded them for other people to hear. So now we have decided to launch our podcast. We will be launching a podcast in June. It's called Planners for the Planet. And we are busy right now interviewing some amazing people doing some great things in sustainability from different sectors. As Nali mentioned, it's great to talk to others outside of our industry so that we gain you perspective that we can then share with our listeners and readers. So that's what we're busy doing right now. Absolutely, absolutely. I don't know how Candice does it. Actually Candice and I were part of, I hosted the Earth Day celebration that we did for CanSpec. We had so much fun doing it. We had panels of suppliers and planners discussing some of these issues sort of in a post COVID world. And we're gonna do it again. Meeting Planners International is gonna be posting a webinar on sustainability that we'll be doing. And so it has really taken on a virtual aspect. And I think Candice is correct. It is the great pause. It might not be the pause for the environment but it is the pause for us. And one of the things that I really, really believe is we can choose to live our values going forward. And I think there were times when we sacrificed our values for the sake of business. And I think we're all rethinking that. And you can see it in our political activism right now, in our support of frontline workers. You know, I hear people saying, I don't wanna support XYZ because their workers aren't being taken care of. I never heard people say that before. And so I think we're at home more, we're starting to see everybody's talking about, I have no idea how much recycling I'm doing. And so we're starting to pay attention to those things. And if we're going to have the great reopening after the great pause, we know as business women that in order for us to achieve something, we're gonna sit down and plan it out. So we want a safe, healthy, prosperous, sustainable future. We'll get it. If we don't put that into the plan, it won't happen. Well, and I think that's why all of us need to start doing this work now. Cause it's going to take some time to get that ready for when we do reopen. So let's get to work. And I am so excited about the podcast. So thank you both for joining me today and sharing your thoughts about what it is that you guys do so well in such a strange and uncertain time. And so friends, watch for the Planners for the Planet podcast. That's a tongue twister, Planners for the Planet podcast. It is coming out in June with these beautiful hosts, Natalie and Candice of the Sustainable Events Forum. Ladies, thank you so much for your time. And I will see you over on the podcast. And that sounds great. Okay, thanks again. Bye.