 All right, I've been given the green light. So hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the UPU Sustainability Roundtable, Host for Planet. Before we begin, there are just a few housekeeping details that I'd like to share with you. First, we have interpretation in French, Spanish and English. So please select your language of choice by clicking on the world icon at the bottom of your screen. When we reach the question and answer portion of the program, we will not be using the chat function. So please type any questions you would like to ask in the Q and A function, which stands for question and answer. So I'm Susan Alexander, the Sustainability Services Program Manager at the UPU International Bureau. And I'm honored to present a very robust panel on energy reliability and climate funding. Before we begin with our guests today, I would like to invite the Deputy Director General of the UPU, Mr. Marian Oswald, to deliver his words of welcome. Mr. Oswald, please. Thank you, Susan, dear colleagues. It's my sincere pleasure to welcome you all at this virtual event, which is a part of our celebration of World Post Day. Actually, it's World Post Week here in Bern. The team for 2022 is Post for Planet and the subject of this round table, the transition to green energy is of course very topical. Energy is in the news right now for many reasons. On the one hand, we have an energy crisis and on the other, we have a climate crisis. It is the responsibility of international organizations such as UPU to respond to such challenges. Both of these crisis have immediate and practical implications for the postal sector. Any threats to the supply of affordability of energy should be considered as a threat to the postal system itself. Energy is central to our core postal business and to the modernization of the sector through the digitalization and diversification. Similarly, climate change is a threat to the integrity and quality of our postal networks and is changing the way posts do business. Hardly a week passes without a major heatway or storm that scientists confirm has been strengthened by the global emission of greenhouse gases. What matters is how we respond to these threats. Our postal infrastructure needs to be resilient to these disruptions. We need to invest in infrastructure that can adapt to a new reality and recover quickly from extreme events. We also need to be part of the climate solution reducing our energy demands and greening our operations so that we are in the delivery partner of choice for increasingly climate aware customers. Today we have convened several experts to give their perspective on the transition to renewables, a solution for the postal sector that can improve its climate and energy resilience. I would like to extend my gratitude to our speakers and I encourage participants to full advantage of their knowledge during the question and answer period. In this increasingly connected world, we cannot solve big problems in isolation. It is vital that we build synergies between our energy security and our climate solutions. I thank you for being here to listen, to learn more about how we can work together in the pursuit of greener energy pathways for the postal sector. Thank you very much. Thank you for those words of welcome. And now I would like to first introduce our first panelist which is Mr. Siva Somasundram. He's the Director of Policy, Regulation and Markets here at the UPU. Siva, if you would go ahead, please, we'd be happy to start and get going. Thanks very much, Susan and good day, ladies and gentlemen. It is, I've tended to use the words good day because it's a lot easier than having to say good morning, good afternoon and good evening, depending on which part of the world you're joining us from. But it's really very exciting to be here on this webinar with you given the critical importance and topicality of the issues we will be discussing today. As the Deputy Director General indicated, energy security, the climate crisis and business resilience in the face of crisis are topics that are frequently in the headlines and there are no surprises here, given everything that's happening in the world. But I do think that there is a nexus between energy security agenda and the climate action agenda that policy makers are grappling with and which don't always attract a lot of attention. And I think this webinar gives us a timely opportunity to delve deeper into these synergies from the perspective of the postal sector in particular. So let me, and I'm fully respectful of the fact that we may have participants today who aren't necessarily postal sector representatives. We may have representatives from other areas of industry. And so bear with me as I sort of try and articulate the sort of important role that energy plays in the postal sector, because in understanding that role, we understand why energy security is important. And then that allows me to sort of also talk a bit about how it's connected to climate action and the climate agenda. Now, I think it's pretty obvious that transporting letters and parcels is the core of the postal business. And to do that, you need delivery and freight vehicles. And a lot of this is actually powered using fossil fuels. And so transportation remains the most energy hungry part of the postal business. Yet it's not just the vehicles. I think it's also important to recognize that in the postal sector, there is a drive, a constant drive to improve quality, the diversity of services that postal operators offer. And this has caused postal operators across the world to invest a considerable amount in automation and digitization. Items are sorted, tracked, and using systems that actually need a lot of power. And as we push towards the digitization of postal services, these energy demands are going to increase for sure. Now, on top of all of that, I think it's also important to recognize that the postal sector is a major employer. And postal workers have the right to be comfortable in their working conditions, which means that sorting centers, offices, they all need to be well-networked, well-lit, heated or cooled as required. And this, again, points to the energy demand that arises out of postal operations. And ultimately, in many ways, the actual business of postal services in terms of packaging the use of materials, all of this is actually energy high in its demand. And when we have such a dependency on energy, disruptions to energy supply or increases in energy costs can have a huge bearing on the viability of many posts. And when we talk about energy security, this is really about the uninterrupted access to sufficient energy at affordable prices. But as we've seen with recent events in Europe, we cannot take that security for granted. The supply network for fossil fuels and even for electricity are vulnerable to a whole range of factors, economic and social factors, conflict and even natural disasters exacerbated by climate change. And in some cases, energy security for the postal sector can be compromised by the exact moment when we actually need it. So if you take, for example, some of the more recent news events around hurricanes and so on, when these destroy fuel depots or a heat wave causes the energy grid to crash, postal operators being often that the first service providers on the ground, their sources of energy are critical in order for them to be actually able to deliver on those essential services. So it's clear at least for us in the UPU that there needs to be solutions to the immediate and future energy crisis that may come around the corner. And we need to build a longer-term resilience to ensuring our energy supply. And this brings me to the climate action agenda and its nexus with energy security. Now, it's true to say, I increasingly engaged in responding to the climate crisis. Now, the UPU has recognized this, the member states have recognized this as being a core policy and business issue. And in that sense, there's also a need to deal with the climate crisis through resilient energy supplies because when you have a clear direction on climate action and how you deal with the climate impacts of your operations, you could also in some ways have an impact on your energy demands. What is it becoming evident is that there is this nexus. If we can find ways by which we can reduce energy demand, this through energy efficiency use, this could actually result in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. So while the total energy needs can be, in some ways, adjusted to respond to crisis, for example, the energy security crisis, that too has an impact on our climate agenda. So the electrification of vehicles, purchasing electricity from local renewable sources, all of this can together help increase the energy security of the postal system. I think that later on today, we will hear the experience of some of our postal operators on mapping out green and secure energy pathways. And this has been quite an exciting journey for them and how they've actually gone about funding this transition. Just to wrap up quickly, Susan, I think it's important to sort of also bring to the attention of the audience some of the work that the UPU has started on in this space. At the UPU Abhijan Congress in 2021, Member States adopted Congress Resolution C17. Now, this was very importantly adopted unanimously by Member States and it was a clear signal to everyone that the postal sector takes climate action as a critical piece of the future that we need to deal with. And so there's a commitment to looking and working towards voluntary targets in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. There is a commitment to looking at ways in which we can share our experience, our knowledge and also to support the development of postal infrastructure that is going to have a lesser carbon footprint as it were. So as part of this journey which has started, I think what we're going to hear today and in the months ahead is the work that needs to be undertaken in order to set some baselines around this to fill the gaps in our knowledge and to get Member States talking to each other and with obviously with civil society and the private sector in finding ways in which the postal sector can make a significant contribution to the global efforts to dealing with climate action and the climate agenda. But the basic point around all of this is that while at this point in time we might be quite concerned about where we're getting our electricity in order to run our vehicles or electricity to run our equipment and so on, it is also strategically important to think through how as we look to alternative supplies of energy that this could also be done in a way that has a positive and beneficial impact on the climate. So with that, Susan, I hand over the floor to you. Thank you. Thanks very much for that introduction to the subject and to what we will be discussing later on in this hour and a half. Ladies and gentlemen, next, I am very pleased to introduce Dr. Rabiya Feruqi. She is the Director of the Knowledge, Policy and Finance Center at the International Renewable Energy Agency, better known as IRENA, and she's here today to tell us some more about her organization. Rabiya. Thank you so much, Susan. Thank you, Mr. Oswald, for the introduction and Shiva for the very nice presentation. It's really a pleasure for me to be here today and thank you for the invitation. So I'll be very brief in the five minutes that I have. I'll quickly go through what IRENA does and highlight some of the broader issues around the energy transition and then I'm available for questions, of course. So as many of you might know, IRENA is the leading global intergovernmental organization working on the energy transition and it has about 165 member countries engaged in this process. So beyond the technical assistance, let's say in the capacity building efforts to countries and regions, what IRENA also undertakes is a wide range of analytical work and tools on the different dimensions of the energy transition. So just in a nutshell, our flagship publication on shaping, let's say, a resilient energy system is called the World Energy Transition Outlook and what makes the report unique and informs IRENA's work as a whole is that not only it provides a technological pathway to 2050, but also translate the pathway and those technology solutions into socioeconomic variables. So this offers decision makers a deeper understanding of the opportunities but also the challenges on the road ahead. I was asked to explain why a transition to renewable energy is important and let me start with the global picture which is characterized by a number of different challenges. One obviously is the COVID-19 pandemic which has had a large impact on global energy demands and supply dynamics, which had had the Ukraine crisis as just mentioned by Shiva which has obviously heightened our concern over energy security in many European countries though I would like to note that the energy security and it has been a challenge by the great majority of humanity on a daily basis so we can have a discussion on that. And then the climate emergency obviously which will impact both us and future generation if we don't manage to adapt and to mitigate climate change. So these challenges come in addition to the imperative to close the energy access gap in developing countries and enable sustainable development globally because while some of us are over consuming many of us are others because that's not in my case thankfully are under consuming. So arena's outlook, world energy transition outlook shows that ramping up renewables together with an aggressive energy efficiency strategies for Shiva I completely agree with you. Energy efficiency is our first duty is really the most realistic path towards halving the emission by 2030 as recommended by the IPCC. And a transition to a renewables based energy system will be critical for enhancing the energy security for the security of supply that you discussed but also to address energy poverty, et cetera. So the key actions that we outline and really I'm being very, I really provide just highlights is a resolute replacement of coal with renewables that's number one. A stop of subsidizing fossil fuels and investing in new fossil fuels supply, in new, sorry, renewables supply. The pace of renewables deployment actually must triple according to our estimates. So three times more annual addition of renewable energy by 2030. The efficient use of energy across all sector as mentioned but that must increase through innovation and the mindset and management, et cetera. The decarbonization of end-user sector through electrification. So electrification is really important. That's why speaking about electric vehicle, the transport that you mentioned for UPU is very important. Green hydrogen is becoming a big solution right now and the direct use of renewables that those three should be really prioritized. And finally, a really comprehensive set of policies is needed to achieve the necessary levels of deployment by 2030. And by comprehensive, I mean, not only renewables deployment and other energy policies, energy efficiency for example, but also enabling policies to maximize the benefits and address the challenges that a transition can bring with it. So that means industrial policy, labor policy, social policies, et cetera. Now significant investments will be required in the coming years to have a fighting chance to stay on track for the 1.5 in 2050. And by 2030 we find that globally we must mobilize investments of about 5.7 trillion per year. And plan investment will have to be redirected on top of that from fossil fuels towards the energy transition technologies. And so to that we need to of course, attach a price tag on the price or on the investment needed for policy related to other energy sector, but beyond that, that are very often taken for granted. The skills that you spoke about digitalization, that means skilling, reskilling, educating, et cetera. All of that enabling environment is essential for the transition. And I have one more point and I'll finish, I promise Suzanne, is the fact that the success of the energy transition really hinges on the socioeconomic and climate gains that are necessary for society basically to embrace and have political support. And there's no alternative. It's only if we invest in time into efficient, sustainable, resilient and equitable energy system, including the supply chains. And we can speak about supply chain disruptions through COVID. We can we achieve our goal of powering a future socioeconomic development. Thank you very much for the time you're giving me. Rabia, thank you so much. We are all very aware of the situation, but to hear it from you is truly a wake up call. It's very important and we appreciate you taking the time to tell us. I do have a follow up question for you. Of course, the posts are in various states of government organizations or quasi-governmental or partially privatized. And this is something that we are working with within the postal world. And so we think that it's rather important for posts and governments to coordinate at national level, on access for investment in renewable projects. How do you think that designated operators could best work with their national governments on this green energy pathway? What are your thoughts on how that can happen? So our constitution governments at Darina, right? So, and the stakeholders are many different kind of stakeholders, what we always try, obviously our first clients or constituency are governments and we work for them. But what we really try to do is try to find this synergy that she was speaking about between the different types of stakeholders, private sector NGOs, civil society, academics, et cetera. And we have within Irina and it has worked really well. It's under my division, a coalition for action that brings all types of stakeholders together to address some of the issues and try to see what are their demands and what are the offers on the other side. And I mean, I can go into a few examples, but we have a sustainable jobs platform where we listen to governments and their needs. We listen to private sector, we listen to trade unions and then the other stakeholders as well, civil servants and civil society and NGOs. And I think that discussion, that exchange is extremely important because you realize what the challenges are and what the solutions could be also, as was mentioned earlier, best practice, exchange of best practice is extremely important, trying to also provide policy advice that we do in terms of targets, in terms of auctions, procuring as was mentioned, renewable electricity, et cetera. So I think the most important is to have that dialogue between the different stakeholders in order to try to find what the best solutions are for a specific context and specific. I mean, you have this problem in the post postal services, but every country almost or the number of countries that start from different conditions is also quite challenging. So you have to adapt to those specific conditions of countries in order to promote renewables or energy efficiency, et cetera. Plus you have also dependencies. I mean, you have a lot of historically entrenched dependencies in energy, especially with energy flows and trade, et cetera, that you have to address. You cannot simply come and say, okay, you need to simply change your whole system, energy system and plug in renewables. It's a bit more complicated than that. So I think that that discussion is very important. The dialogue between the different stakeholders is essential. Thank you. Siva, how are we doing in the UPU so far as we're beginning to implement the climate action resolution that was passed at our Congress last year? Susan, thank you for that question. And I just wanted to pick up on a couple of points that Rabia made, which I think is sort of relevant to what we're doing in the UPU as well. Rabia is absolutely spot on when she says that this is, the issues around climate action and energy security is broader than the postal sector, which means that we should be part of a dialogue and potentially a whole of government approach to dealing with these things. The post traditionally because of its role in connecting citizens and traditionally because of its ownership status, typically a government department, in many countries it has a unique rule, a unique status and it puts itself in quite an important position in the eyes of governments when it comes to dealing with public policy issues. And if you treat climate action and the impact on the climate as such an issue, then there is a question around what can the postal sector do to contribute to dealing with this public policy problem. And it could extend from simple things like if we were to degrade the post, that would of course result in a smaller carbon footprint. But it could also involve ideas around smart cities and the role that the post could play in promoting the use of technology and innovation in the context of making cities and the communication channels between citizens a lot more climate neutral. So that's the first point. My second point and a point that Rabia also made is the need to think about this in some ways from the perspective of all stakeholders and which means that for most posts they are commercial enterprises as well. And there is a need to make sure that you cover your costs and you're meeting the needs of your customers. And the demands of civil society is increasingly heading towards a greater focus on products and services that are climate neutral or at least contribute to a better climate impact. And so there is a unique opportunity in some ways for posts to sort of go ahead and corner this particular niche around greener products and services that citizens are demanding. And so we just need to sort of think outside of the box and try and meet those growing demands. And how all of this connected to the UPU? Well, as you know, the UPU is the Intergovernmental Forum where governments talk to each other about the postal sector and how we can cooperate in relation to the postal services. There is clearly a commitment to it trying to establish some baseline measurements around the impact of the postal sector on the climate in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and a willingness to look at how those greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced. So, there is that push towards recognizing that the postal sector as a element of the logistics, the broader logistics sector is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and how do we tackle that? But also more broadly, I think there is a commitment around best practice and sharing of experiences because, as Rabia says, there is huge disparities in levels of development, understanding, and technology access. And we do have some very leading lights in postal operators who are doing excellent work when it comes to climate action. And there is a lot to be learned in which can be replicated. And so having a common platform such as UPU to allow for that information exchange and knowledge sharing, I think it's essentially a public good that we can provide for. And finally, all of this needs money. And there is money out there. And the question is, how do we actually go about creating the channels by which the supply meets demand? And again, I think there is a role for the UPU as an intergovernmental firm to allow for exactly that. And so it's these sort of three main dimensions that I think the UPU is trying to get its act together on. We've started the journey. We do have a long way to go, but I'm very confident we'll get there. And I'm sorry, I took a long time on that, but it was important to sort of set the scene on this one. Yes, thank you very much for that. Thank you both for setting the scene here. And now we're going to ask our two postal operators who will be able to give us a bit more in detail what they have done so far. And then of course, you'll stay with us so that we can have more questions directed to you after we've had their presentations. So thank you. And now I would like to introduce Ms. Margo Meininger. And she is the head of European Corporate Social Responsibility Affairs for La Poste France. And Margo, without further ado, we would love to hear your presentation, please. Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Great experience from Dublin, where I am from Post-Europe General Assembly. Should I share my presentation, Susan? Yes, I'll try to do it. Let me see how I can do it. I think I'm not sure, I know how to do it. Sorry for that. Is there any way you could... Yes, thanks. Yes, Margo, Kayla has put it up for you. Thanks, so je vais continuer ma présentation en français. So I'm going to continue my presentation in French. So I'm going to speak to you from the post-prospective in France and our green and sustainable bonds. I'm going to present a few facts first and then I will set the scene and then speak about green bonds. So the post has issued two different types of bonds. In 2018, we issued our very first green bond for a value of €500 million. And this enabled us to fund 11 projects, 71% for green buildings and 29% for green transport. These are the two main approaches to green the postal services. In 2018, when we issued our first green bond, the post said that we would release a new bond and we did that in 2022. Just a month ago, would you believe, on the 7th of September, we issued a new sustainable bond. This is a green bond with social issues included as well. So this goes one step further because it enables us to fund green and social aspects. This bond is worth €1.2 billion and it was oversubscribed by 2.4 times with 130 investors. If we look at categories in more detail, particularly the green ones that are of interest to us today, we mainly focus on green buildings, clean transport, but we also increase the scope to include renewable energy. We also included energy efficiency and the circular economy. So five green assets. The new aspect to this bond were the social assets, including youth integration and socioeconomic development. On the next slide, I would like to speak to you a bit about assets for green buildings. What we understand about green buildings are green buildings that use renewable energy, where they are self-sustainable. And they are buildings that are designed in a green way. They are urban logistic hubs. They are decarbonised, specifically for the first and last mile processes. So these are green buildings and their aim is to really transform the first and last mile processes into a more greener process. So those are a few examples of what we did and now why did we issue green and sustainable bonds? Why did the post-borrow of Rala from the private market? Well, firstly, because as a business, we need cash to finance our external growth. In order to finance our growth, we wanted to diversify our sources of funding. In order to do that, we needed to either self-finance ourselves or to obtain debt, which is this example of a greener sustainable bond. So why did we want to borrow specifically for a greener sustainable bond? Well, in 2018, the idea of greening was clear because at the time, and this trend has continued, that investors want to invest in this type of project. Greening or other bonds are one of the main way of greening our economy and it is one of the measures of the European Commission with a green tax. They want to encourage investors to invest in green activities and this is why investors really look for this type of product because they have to show that they are investing in green economies. So they are creating green and sustainable bonds that are attractive to their own clients. There are three main concrete advantages of green and sustainable bonds. The first being that because these are attractive assets, this means that they have interesting rates that are often more interesting than market rates for other types of bonds. The second reason is that it enabled us to diversify our investor base compared to classic bonds. There is a Norwegian sovereign fund who joined us who had never been involved with us before, which also enabled us to reach international investors. 60% of our investors were in fact international investors and we also saw investors from Asia because this is interesting because the post is developing over there as well. And the third advantage, which is last but not least, enables us to add value to our corporate social responsibility and of course investors are interested in CSR as well. And this is particularly important when we go to trade shows or road shows where we will have to present our projects and when we do so, we need to highlight our priorities for sustainable development. This worked effectively because in 2018 the green bond was oversubscribed by roughly four times and in 2022 it was oversubscribed by over two times. So it was a great success both times. These assets are future focused and that is why it was such a good success. So this is the heart of our bond and I'm open to all questions on this fascinating subject. Thank you. Thank you very much, Margo. Unfortunately, Rebiya needs to leave but I thought perhaps, Rebiya, you would like quickly to say your farewells. Yeah, thank you very much for the invitation and it's really enlightening for me to see other sectors that I'm not used to look at and I hope we can stay in touch and see what we might be able to do together. So thanks a lot for the invitation. Absolutely, Rebiya. Thank you so much for being able to for us being able to connect with your sector as well. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye. Now, I think we can go to Latin American now to Costa Rica and hear about a different experience from another post and, ladies and gentlemen, after that, we will be opening up for questions for all of the panelists. And also, I would like just to quickly remind you that we do have interpretation as our next speaker will also be speaking in in Spanish after we've we've heard in French. So I would like now to introduce Mr. Verney Alexander Rodriguez Martinez, who is the coordinator of Environmental Management Commission in Korea's Costa Rica. Verney, we'd like to hear from you. Good day, everyone. And thank you. On behalf of Costa Rica, we are extremely honoured to be here and would like to thank you, you both, for giving us this opportunity to present with you today. I'm going to share my presentation with you to start then regarding sustainable development in Costa Rica. We would like to say that one of the key points right now is environmental cooperative programmes. We have an implementation plan uses the Oscar tool, which is an international tool to measure CO2. We also focus on sustainability, sustainable mobility and use international cooperative agreements. And we are working on a plan regarding environmental policy in Costa Rica. We have an economic model that enables us to bring in environmental policies and green our systems and enables us to and green our supply chains regarding our environmental policy. The aim is to reduce the consumption of water, fuel and other supplies to achieve carbon neutrality for car to achieve carbon neutrality. We also imagine reducing waste. Then we also have a green building aspect as well for social responsibility. We look at health, security, promotion of diversity, gender and gender neutrality. We have an ethical code in the post and we have close collaboration with our clients and institutional alliances regarding the plan of implementation. We have an internal and external plans for our clients and collaborators. One of our themes is collaboration action. This is done through fireside chats and negotiations regarding the environmental policy for our environmental plan. We have activities you to develop KPIs and achieve them. Bernie, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I do believe perhaps the presentation is frozen and that perhaps we should try and correct this. If you can just wait for just a moment, maybe Kayla, once again, you could jump in and save us. Apologies, everyone, just a moment, please. Bernie, if you would please stop sharing and if you will just ask our technicians just to move to the next, then I think I think we'll be so can I ask someone if if we're back? Are we back to Bernie if you can stop sharing the screen? Well, perhaps, yes. OK, Bernie, is this the correct screen for you? Is this the correct slide? Could I ask the Spanish interpreter to ask if this is the correct slide for Mr. Rodriguez? It is correct, but it's in English. Yes, it's correct, but it's in English. Can we proceed with the English? Will that work for you? I do believe we have the Spanish I can share it again. Let's try again for you to share. All right, I'm sorry. If you would please continue, please forgive the interruption and we'll see if the slides will change when you are speaking. Listo, bueno, voy a con. OK, I'm going to continue regarding best procurement practices for sustainability. It's important that it's to note that we have incorporated criteria of environmental sustainability regarding buying goods and services. And one of those aspects is buying electronic equipment where we demand good energy practices. We ask our suppliers to use recycled or recycled materials for packaging and for their materials. It's important to also note that at the end of electronic equipment, life cycle of an object that it should be reused or recycled. We also provide as our providers to present a program for the waste generated by their activities. We also have a program institutional environmental management program. This program enables us to carry out studies of CO2 emissions and we can also study greenhouse gas emissions. This generates reports on water, electricity, fuel and paper consumption and on waste generated. In this case, it is audited by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy in Costa Rica. And so far we have received four three reports. And the fourth is going to be handed in on the 20th of October this year. This is one of the examples of why the posters received four environmental excellence awards. Regarding the Oscar report, this tool, which is very useful. This has enabled us to measure and carry out studies regarding transport and the amount of emissions created by transport, building electricity, travel, procurement of goods and services and professional travel and missions. In 2020, there were four thousand four hundred ninety six tons of CO2 in regarding electric vehicles. Costa Rica is involved in a pilot plan to turn its whole fleet of vehicles into green vehicles. So far we have forty nine electric motorcycles which have several benefits. Of course, they reduce the carbon footprint. They reduce the fossil fuel consumption. They reduce maintenance costs. And there is an incentive on behalf of the government in that there is that these vehicles are exempt from taxation. Costa Rica Post is also encouraged to deliver eco-delivery innovative services. We are currently working on a convention for the Green Climate Fund from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration Cabet. The aim is to obtain more green vehicles to substitute vehicles by tricycles and quadricycles. We are also investing in solar panels. That will be added on to our buildings. And this will all come to a total credit of three point seven million dollars. This is the end of Costa Rica's presentation. I would like to thank you very much and for you, Susan, for the organization and for this opportunity. And I would like to thank all the representatives that are here on behalf of all of the post-sign available for any questions that you would like to ask me. Thank you once again. Very good. Thank you, Verne, for that presentation. And now we'd like to open up questions to Verne and Margo and to Siva. And also, if you would like to ask each other questions as well, that's also allowed. We'd be very happy. And I see that Siva would love to ask the first question. Please, Siva, please go ahead. Thanks very much, Susan, and I couldn't help with some pride when Verne talked about how important OSCA has been in the journey of couriers in getting itself onto a journey towards sustainability. I was wanting to understand and perhaps Verne can talk to it. From our perspective, there are really two benefits that come out of OSCA. First and foremost, obviously, it actually gets you to start measuring your energy consumption and looking at it at a granular level where you're actually making use of your main sources of energy. And that then results in understanding the carbon footprint. And it's only through understanding your energy usage and its impact on carbon output that you actually can then begin to start putting in place mitigation measures. That's really the benefit of OSCA, but maybe Verne can talk a bit more about this because it's one of the things that we're very keen to promote and that is to have designated operators across the world adopt OSCA because it then allows us to get to a stage where we can baseline emissions in a more constructive and clear manner. Yes, of course. Thank you for the question. In this case, we applied this tool to Costa Rica Post for several years now. It's been a very useful tool and we noticed that in Costa Rica, 99% of energy in Costa Rica is renewable. OSCA enabled us to look at the consumption of each of our services. We were able to look at each collaborator, how many emissions they produce regarding our carbon footprint. It enabled us to also look at our fleet of vehicles, create a baseline and establish how many vehicles we have compared to the levels of energy consumption. And then it meant that we could make this decision to migrate to electric vehicles to reduce our carbon footprint. In Costa Rica, we are in touch with our government because they really support us on the environmental aspect from the Ministry of Environment and Energy. We are currently approving a new law, which will be called the Law of Government Procurement and it will have points about our providers. And this will incorporate principles about energy and sustainability. This means that Costa Rica Post is committed to environmental policies and this tool is a huge help. It helps us to make decisions to look at what type of investment we can use. It helps us to look for international aid like the tool from the Inter-American Central Bank. And OSCA was the base that helped us to present our need to renovate our fleet of vehicles from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles. And I would like to remind you that 99% of our energy in Costa Rica is renewable energy. So we're also working on the solar panel project. We're putting up solar panels in our own buildings. So we ourselves generate our own energy. Thank you. Thank you very much, Verne. Mr. Oswald, the Deputy Director General has a question. Please. Thank you, Susan. I just wanted to compliment Margo. Hello, Margo. And regards to post euro friends in Dublin. Actually La Post was always very instrumental when it comes to different solutions. And I was wondering, was French government sort of supported towards your initiative? Was French government in any way involved or not at all? And the second question is, are bonds also available to the private person or only to the, I don't know, institutions and meaning businesses? Thank you very much. Thanks, Marianne, for the question. So as regards the involvement of government, I mean, we are a private company which is state owned. So our main shareholder is called Kesde Depot. So it's basically it's an investor, public investor. So indeed the Kesde Depot was supportive of what we were doing in terms of getting bonds. And as regards the process of getting bonds, I mean, I'm not a financial expert, but my understanding is that we are doing that as a private company. So really what we are doing is that we are borrowing on the private market. So this is something that any other private company could do. This is just specific because it takes the form of a green or sustainable bond. And in that sense, it has a lot of specificities to follow. I mean, the process is quite long. I could go through that if there is interest. But really we are doing this as a private company that we are borrowing on the private market. Thank you, Margot. And maybe to mention, in terms of also benchmark. So in the in the post office sector, from what I know, there is only one other company which is Post NL, which has done a green bond. But I believe this La Post and Post NL are the only two cases in the postal sector, which I've done that. While in other sectors, it's much more widespread. I mean, especially in 2021, there has been like a surge in green bonds in the private market. So this is really something which is a very important trend in other sectors. Thank you very much. Margot, we have a question from Marcella Maron from Argentina. It's to you, but I think perhaps Verne, you could also comment on this because the question is how can this be, how can this model be replayed in Latin America. So maybe first Margot and then Verne if you would like also to speak after Margot. So I think this is also linked to my answer to Marian. I think the first condition depends on your status. So it means that probably for public administration, so private, sorry, public owned companies, this is not possible. So you have to be able as a company to borrow money on the private market. This is for me the first criteria. The second one, as I was mentioning is the specificities of the green bond, because you could go on the market and borrow any type of, let's say, classic bonds. But a green bond, you have to have all your assets gone through an evaluation by an external auditor, so that the auditor can say whether the asset is eligible to be considered as green. And this is really a very long process. Some of our assets were not considered to be eligible. And so this is the second condition. And then the third condition or the third way, the third step in the process is that you have to do a roadshow. So the roadshow basically is going to be investors to present your bond, to present the details of your bonds and to try to convince them of first that your company as such is a good one to invest in. And secondly, because this is a green bond, you also have to be persuasive enough about your overall sustainability strategy. Thank you, Margo. Verne, do you have any comments on this idea, how it could translate to Latin America? Yes, of course. And thank you for the questions, Susan. As Margo stated, much like Margo stated, the Costa Rica Post has a company that has, it's the same structure, it's a private company supported, sorry, partly state owned, so we're supported by the state. And all private companies, sorry, like us, supported by the state have to respect and abide by carbon footprint rules. In Costa Rica, we are the country in our region that has the largest percentage of renewable energy production. That's the first thing. Secondly, I think it's very important. This is in response to our colleague from Argentina, but also the others. We feel it's important to share information about legislation, our legislation, and exchange that amongst ourselves to see how we can use this tool. Oscar is an important tool. How can we present the projects that we're establishing and seek in order to seek funding based on the reduction of the carbon footprint? So, first, the first step is focusing on carbon goods and services that are environmentally friendly. That's very important. And as I indicated during my presentation, there are conditions that are compulsory for all of our providers, all our vendors, for example, the end of the life cycle of the products and services that we purchase and procure. So there are programs that need to be presented and this is one of the obligations on the vendors. We think communication is very important and Carlos de Costa Rica would be very happy to disseminate our information so that we can perhaps establish some best practices together. It would be a great pleasure for me to make this information available to you so that you can pass it on. We can show you how we develop our projects and that way you can see how they could perhaps be a best practice, become a best practice in another country. So that will be my answer for now. Thank you. Thank you very much, Verne and thank you very much for your generous offer. I see that Marco would like to follow up and then Siva. Yes, actually it was a question to address to Verne. My question was about the charging first infrastructure, because you presented the fact that you have a fleet of alternative vehicles so in particular electric vehicles. So I was wondering what about the infrastructure, whether this is something that you have developed on your own as a company or whether there is sufficient public infrastructure, because in Europe. Obviously this is a big issue that there is not enough infrastructure, which is publicly available. So I know that was we had to develop our own infrastructure. So I was wondering what is the situation in Costa Rica. Well, as I may have mentioned, in Costa Rica we're very fortunate in that we receive support from the state. So we can work with institutions such as the electric, the main electrical company in Costa Rica. Their experts can help us with assessments with respect to the project I mentioned the green part of it the Cabe, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration in its funding process. Also carries out evaluations. We also have an engineering department, which works on this with us. So we did a lot of work on solar panels to become energy self sufficient to the evaluations are sent to the engineering department. And all of this is done in concert with Cabe and our engineers with respect to the electric vehicles you mentioned now. We have a transport directorate or department, which is constantly increasing its abilities, its capacities and it has given us a great deal of help. We also received a lot of help from Spain where there's a huge number of electric vehicles. We asked them to help us and they gave us guidance and the necessary information which enabled us to develop our own capacity in running and maintaining electric vehicles. And it enabled us to set the parameters for speed, the distance, range, power for these electric vehicles. Of course, all of those values are lower than a combustion engine. So we got the technical information from posts in other countries who had experience in this area. And that really helped us with our migration from combustion vehicles to electric vehicles. We launched a pilot project. If the pilot project is successful, then we're going to take it to scale and gradually migrate all our vehicles. I hope I answered your question. I don't know if there's any other information you'd like. Thank you, Bernie. Siva, just before you jump in, I'd like to remind everyone that under this format, we can only take your questions if you write them in the Q&A space because we don't have microphone ability for you. Please, Siva, go ahead. Thanks very much, Susan. I have a couple of questions for Margot. Margot, thank you very much for your very interesting presentation because, as you know, the financing of structural change is a critical piece in this journey towards sustainability. You made a very important point around the fact that the postal operators, at least in the case of Post-Tanel and La Poste France, you are effectively publicly listed companies and you are treated as commercial enterprises. The question then becomes, is there a different way of doing things in terms of bond financing for postal operators who are either government departments or government-owned, wholly-owned and treated as statutory bodies? And I'm thinking here loudly because I don't have the expert knowledge on this, but it seems to me that governments across the world, when they do often issue bonds and raise finances for public infrastructure spending, is there scope for some governments, for example, to support their postal operators by issuing green bonds specifically aimed at raising funds to support infrastructure spending in the postal sector to make it more sustainable? Have you seen any examples of that or is there something that could potentially be a way forward? That's my first question. And the second question is, are the bonds, the green bonds that were issued by La Poste France, are they traded in the market? And by which I mean, you've issued the bonds, the bondholders, can they go on to sell it to someone else? And does that have a bearing on the returns on the bond and the impacts on future bond-raising opportunities? Thank you, Margot. So, Shiva, I don't think I'll be able to answer all your questions because I'm not a finance expert, but I'll do my best. Thank you. About bonds issued by the public sector, sorry, the government and public institutions, so I think, I mean, one of the, let's say, traditional ways is the status of the company, like for what I was mentioning, is that for La Poste, our main shareholder is Kezde Depo, which is a search and investor. And one of the reasons why it became our main shareholder is that because we needed more investment. So this is one of, let's say, the easiest way that your shareholder would put money and will finance your development. Yeah, this was one, as I mentioned, I'm repeating myself, but that was one of the main reasons why Kezde Depo became our main shareholder, while before, like two, three years ago, it used to be the French state. And then I see another example. I think maybe this, this is quite close what Costa Rica presented, but there is the case of the country where in so in in Ireland and post as as issued bond or as done a bond in the European investment bank. So this is something that they have done to green their green their fleet and to digitalize their post offices. So there are some examples of postal companies using public investment with the European investment bank that I can think of. Yes, and about how it works the bond. I'm not sure I can answer that. Maybe what I can mention in terms of process is about the rate. So I think what is interesting is in the process. So on the day when we issued our sustainable and green bond, because we saw that there was over subscription of our bond, we were able to lower our interest rates during that day. So this is something very challenging because you had to see which was the best rates, I mean, to be able to decrease the interest rate, but not too much in order to make sure that you would not scare some investors. So this was, I mean, this really worked like a very classical typical bond that you have to find the the best rate which is adapted to the market. You also have to see whether the I mean, this was launched on a Wednesday. On Monday Tuesday, my colleagues followed very much with the support of the auditor what was going on on the on the market. And they really decided on Wednesday morning. Yes, this is the day where we have to go because this is, let's say, the best or the less situation if you take into account what is the the overall global situation. So yes, this really in that sense, this really works like a traditional bond on the private markets. Okay, thank you. At this point, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to bring in our UPU sustainability expert, Dr. James Hale, who's going to give us an update on climate funding and what the International Bureau will be putting in place to assist governments and DOS in this area. James, please. Thanks, Susan. Hello, Ron. So I'm going to talk a little bit more about about funding and Susan introduced a broader approach. So the UPU is scaling up its support for large scale transitions to low emission postal operations. And as part of this, we are starting to review how postal operators are already funding this work and we've heard today some great examples. And also we're trying to understand what other options might be available that they haven't yet explored. So it's still early days, but our initial impression is that most postal operators are still seeking to fund this investment internally through their annual budgeting processes. The posts have established green bonds and they are securing significant funding, significant levels of funding for immediate investment. But that's not necessarily a model that works for everyone. So there's different approaches. One of them is to look towards development banks who issue grants and low cost loans for climate action, amongst other things. But we've had some initial discussions with development banks and one of the key messages that we have from them is that essentially they're looking for well-developed infrastructure investment project proposals. And I'll explain what that means in a second. But in addition to that, they want climate projects that also have broader social and economic benefits. So they want to obviously maximise the climate impact, but they want to try and make sure that they have as broader impact from a social perspective as well. So these banks tend to have dedicated funds for climate projects and their messages, they're very open for applications from the postal sector. I would also like to flag up the importance of national governments, energy ministries and cities as potential sources of funding or source of investment because these national governments and regions and cities need to hit their climate targets too. So they could be willing to invest in postal infrastructure as part of this process that helps them to reach their targets. And I think that reinforces the points made by Rabia and Siva earlier about stakeholders and partnerships. So our initial message is really to start to kind of look more broadly than the postal sector itself and look for partnerships and funding from outside of our sector. And what's common across these different funding sources is the need to demonstrate climate impact. So it's really important that proposals for investments are supported by a good analysis of the baseline emissions of the organisation so that can be done using tools such as Oscar. And also credible estimates for how much that project will reduce the emissions, because this is really a key performance indicator of the projects they want to know how much impact this is going to have on emissions of the post. So that was just a quick overview but I hope it was useful and I'm now going to hang back over to Susan and I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thanks James. It looks like we're getting close to the hour. I would like to ask our speakers who are still here with us. Perhaps first Bernie, then Margo and then I'll leave the last word to the director in charge of sustainability here at the I be Siva. If the three of you would would like to give us some last remarks please. First Bernie. Okay, well, I guess I could say that as a concluding remark. I would simply like to thank you. Thank you Susan. Thank the UPU and all of you who've given me this opportunity to speak about Costa Rica post. Margo mentioned the bonds that La Post is involved in in our particular case in Costa Rica. When we carry out an analysis, whether it be financial or administrative that's how we analyze how what the actual energy costs are and what savings can be made. And then, of course, the interest rate has to be attractive. So I think their best practices are useful for us as well as you. I would be happy to once again to share the information on our projects and see how best practices we can perhaps come up with best practices together. I would like to ask if the rest of you would be interested in such an exchange of information. We personally would be very happy to pass on our information from Costa Rica. Thank you. Thank you, Bernie and we will be opening a UPU portal of shared information and knowledge a platform. And so we do look forward to contacting you very soon to follow up on that. Margo, do you have some quick final thoughts? On my side, I have two, two main conclusions, I would say or two important messages to me. So first, I think, and this was mentioned also by James, I think what is very important indeed is to be able to report, to be able to follow the carbon footprint and to be able to have the data available. At the end, all is about data and the proofs you are able to give being it's to the investors being, even if they're private or public, but all is about data and your capacity to report and to be able to follow your carbon emissions. This is my first message. And my second message, I mean, we discussed a lot about funding opportunities, because indeed sustainability requires heavy investments. But I think what you have also to consider is the long term gains that you can get out of your investments. And I think this should really be the driver that you have to think long term, and that your investments you may today will bring you savings in the long term. Thanks, Margo. And Siva. Thanks very much, Susan. And let me first thank Margo and Bernie for their presentations and taking the time to be here with us and Rabia for sure was not with us at the moment. I sort of took away three key points from our discussions. One is exactly the point that Margo just made. Actually measuring our energy consumption and its impact on the climate is critical. And so getting the tools for that is absolutely important in place. And the UPU is here. And it does have a tool called Oscar. You've heard of how it's been deployed in Costa Rica. And this is true of other designated operators. So I would invite others who are thinking about this to contact the team here on Oscar deployment. We'd be more than happy to assist with that. The second point, which was a point that Bernie raised, how important it is for knowledge sharing and best practice sharing. And this webinar is a testimony to this. We had at the start of it approximately 141 participants. We've now got 128. It goes to show how much interest there is out there on a very important and critical matter. And people are thirsty for understanding what's happening out there in the world and to see whether that can be replicated. And so at the UPU, Susan spoke about us creating a knowledge portal. This very fact of creating an environment where we can share knowledge and best practices is critical in having that portal be would be an important milestone in the right direction. And my final point is this, and it comes back to this, the simple issue of the fact that the postal sector is a key component of the logistics sector, and we do have a significant carbon footprint. And we do have a very important role to play in terms of how countries help mitigate and adapt to climate climate change. And it's time that we actually did seek to address this at a concerted level. And I'm really pleased that, you know, at the Abhijan Congress last year, we adopted Congress Resolution C17 unanimously with a commitment to working towards voluntary targets on this. And the UPU is absolutely the platform within which this can take place, recognizing that there are different levels of development across our member states. So I think we're on the right direction. There's a lot of work to be done. But there is certainly interest. And I think there's certainly there is a call to action, which is in play. And I'm really excited about this journey myself. Thank you, Susan. Thank you very much, Siva. And thank you for your participation today. And as you have already thanked the speakers that we've had on our panel, it is left to me to thank the interpreters. And to wish you all a very good morning, evening or afternoon. And thank you for joining us. Goodbye, everyone.