 and mixing up papers, that's all they are all numbered that's right so good evening welcome to King's College and to the Chief of the Air Staff's Freeman Air and Space Institute inaugural annual lecture my name is John Geerson I'm Professor of National Security Studies here at King's and I'm Director of the Freeman Institute or FASI as we call it and alongside me is our Executive Director Dr. David Jordan who will be helping with the Q&A later on housekeeping can I just direct you to fire exits which are here at the bottom and there are similar doors where you came in at the top if there is an alarm it's not a drill and please follow the green signs to leave the building the session tonight is being recorded and both the remarks by the Chief of the Air Staff and the Q&A will be on the record as we move forward just briefly by way of introduction to FASI this is an initiative of the School of Security Studies here at King's College London where we provide independence and we hope original knowledge and understanding of air and space issues thanks to the support of the Royal Air Force and through their partners DSTL the Defence Science Technology Laboratory we're named after Sir Wilford Freeman Air Chief Marshall from the 1930s and during the Second World War who played a central role in the development of various successful aircraft which many of you know here will know such as the Spitfire and the Mosquito but more importantly in a way for the strategic level was the central planner of the war time aircraft economy one of the largest state-sponsored industrial ventures in British history we are focused on identifying developing and cultivating the next generation of air and space thinkers in academia but also in the practical contexts and as part of that we're delighted that we have our first three FASI funded PhD students with us tonight the first time they've actually met each other thanks to COVID but they're here in the hall and we're delighted to be actually able to fund that sort of long-term approach to to original thinking as we move forward but we also have ambitious plans to support far more students on air and space matters in the coming years to diversify the sector and encourage new entrants and there'll be more about that in the future. Our online events and now thankfully in-person events have already attracted a lot of attention which we're pleased about and we followed that of course with our publication schedule with over 20 papers already published and our latest one in a few days I believe will be on information power by Wing Commander Keith Slack. Turning to tonight's theme then in advance of COP26 FASI supported the REF in a number of facilitating events drilling into the ambitious if I may say so chief of staff net zero 2040 targets in early October we held a dedicated round table event with the REF's chief of staff capability and Marshall Link Taylor who I think is with us this evening and that brought together those leading on the delivery of net zero 2040 for the REF with industrial and commercial partners debating the challenges of getting a military Air Force to net zero and then later in October we also facilitate the first meeting of the global air chief's climate change collaboration which was hosted by Air Marshal Andy Turner deputy commander capability and that saw 40 air forces from around the globe come together virtually and some in person with representatives here at King's to discuss initiatives such as fuels training infrastructure and resilience. So we're delighted on the basis of that work so far to have tonight's speaker the chief of the air staff Sir Mike Wigston building on those discussions in his presentation on net zero 2040 the challenge for the world Air Force. I'm going to hand over to Dr. Sophie Entremus our research associate here at FASI who will introduce Sir Mike. Good evening everybody and thank you so much for coming out on this chilly night. It's absolute pleasure and delight of mine to be the person who's introducing Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston to an evening of firsts the first in person event FASI's ever held because of COVID and the first annual lecture and we hope there'll be many more. It's absolutely lovely to have you here Sir Mike. A little bit about Sir Mike's background. I'm going to read out your entire biography because we will need to listen to you not me. Sir Mike joined the Air Force in 1986 on Oxford University Air Squadron became a tornado pilot in 1992. Some highlights of his command tools included commander of OC 12 Squadron. He was also the boss of 903 expeditionary air wing ambassador and commander of British forces Cyprus. He was also assistant chief of the air staff at the time around the time of the 100th anniversary of the RAF and was very much involved in that I know. Personally one important thing that Sir Mike has done for me and for other people in the armed forces or ex-unforces was his investigation into inappropriate behaviors in the armed forces and that since now that report is now known as the Wigston report and a very important and fine piece of work it was. Thank you. That was just prior to being pointed as chief of the air staff in the summer of 2019 and John Professor Gerson has mentioned the ambitious targets that Sir Mike has set for the Air Force. They are ambitious in diversity and inclusion terms as well which I know is very important to you in terms of improving the number of women and ethnic minorities in the Royal Air Force but here we're going to be talking about a specific ambitious target net zero 2040. It is such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for giving us your time. Thank you for that. Thank you Sophie and thank you John for that introduction and I will when we get to Q&A I am doing them on the record. That means that I'm prepared to take a sort of wide ranging view. I'm here to talk about net zero but I'm happy to talk about anything which is in my area of responsibility and sort of recognizing that we are sort of limited on time but I'm happy to take the questions wherever you would like to go but I'm absolutely delighted to be here for this inaugural Freeman Air and Space Institute event and this important Royal Air Force net zero 2040 event. Thank you to the Freeman Institute for hosting and facilitating and I hope by the end of this evening's discussion you will understand why I'm and how I'm pushing for that ambitious as you've heard Royal Air Force target of a net zero Air Force by 2040. Some of you will have heard me speak at July's Global Air Chiefs Conference and some of you will also have heard me acknowledge that I could be seen as crazy as an Air and Space Chief talking about sustainability and five years ago I would probably have agreed but now the imperative for change could not be clearer. Our politicians demanded of us, our public demands of us and the young people in the Royal Air Force today, the next generation Royal Air Force demanded of the leadership team and me. In the words of this year's integrated review, climate change is a transnational challenge that threatens global resilience and our shared security and prosperity. Significant action to decarbonize the global economy is required urgently to prevent climate change from accelerating rapidly and possibly irreversibly. We know that our armed forces are responsible for a high level of emissions and within that our Air and Space Activity represents a significant proportion. Aviation fuel burn especially so. In the UK current government legislation requires greenhouse gas emissions to be net zero by 2050. But I've set the Royal Air Force the ambitious challenge of being climate change resilient and net zero by 2040 because everything I see and hear tells me that we need to get ahead of this now. The way we power our aircraft, the way we power our bases and the way we hold to account our supply chain and our industrial suppliers about their own carbon and sustainable practices are the things that we're going to have to tackle. We also need to understand how our people, equipment, critical resources and supply chains will need to adapt to operate in a climate change future environment. We're aiming for our first net zero air base by 2025, a net zero estate by 2030 and a carbon net balanced Air Force by 2040. None of this will be easy. There are complex and wicked challenges ahead of us as an organisation and I'm conscious that this is not something that the Royal Air Force can achieve in isolation. It will take decades. It will require collaboration. It needs ambition and we need to start now. Our net zero 2040 strategy comprises three principal strands, net zero aviation, net zero estates and net zero business as usual. I'll start with net zero aviation because aircraft fuel burn is by far and away the greatest challenge that Air Forces will face to get to net zero. The same is true for airlines and the commercial aviation sector. We estimate it accounts for up to three quarters of the RF's carbon footprint, which in turn is just under half of the Ministry of Defence's carbon footprint, which in turn is just under half of the government's carbon footprint. My jet fuel challenge is Defence's challenge and it's the government's challenge. A lot of what we do, what we will do will be on the back of the commercial aviation sector and the UK has taken a world leading position in that regard. I sit on the jet zero council, which brings together leaders from across UK aerospace and aviation under the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We will continue to push for increased effort commercialising sustainable aviation fuel production. That's fuel that's made from feedstock such as ethanol or recycled waste oil and making sure it's cost effective, affordable and readily available. Our Royal Air Force platforms are already able to operate on a 50% blend of sustainable aviation fuel or SAF. And for some platforms we're pushing with industry for 100% SAF flight and SAF flight as early as next year. Some of you will have seen that we flew their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall to Jordan on the first leg of their current Royal Tour in our Vespina VIP aircraft with a sustainable aviation fuel blend. So this is already happening. If there was an assured affordable supply now we would use it. But the challenge in the short to medium term is insufficient capacity in the global production and supply chains. To put that into context, global jet fuel consumption is around 320 million metric tons in any normal year. The entire global production of SAF is currently 100,000 metric tons with little immediate prospect or ability to scale it upwards and its spot price remains steadfastly around 10 times that of conventional kerosene. Some commentators have already started to express a view that sustainable aviation fuel in its current guise is not economically viable. But we must at least try to understand the challenges and the opportunities. And there is an exciting alternative in synthetic rather than sustainable aviation fuel. The Royal Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office is leading our synthetic fuel production projects, including groundbreaking advances in electric fuels. Electric fuels are not new. The process was first trialled in the early 20th century, but the technology available at that time meant that it was never in competition with refined natural crude. Today, that no longer holds true. New technology and different techniques have shifted that balance and synthetic fuels offer increasing promise. The new approaches to synthetic fuel production are environmentally friendly and sustainable. They offer sovereign security of supply and the chemically pure fuel we are producing indicates that we will have cleaner engines that result in lower maintenance, longer equipment life, lower noise, heat and visual signatures such as contrails. The RAF Rapid Capabilities Office has two separate synthetic fuel projects, both of which are making exciting progress. Last week, you may have seen that the Royal Air Force and our industry partner, Zero Petroleum, won a Guinness World Record for one of those projects for the world's first successful flight using only synthetic fuel. Zero Petroleum's synthetic petrol is manufactured by extracting hydrogen from water and carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Using energy generated from renewable sources like wind or solar, the hydrogen and carbon are combined under heat and pressure with metal catalysts to create the synthetic fuel. Yes, we are making fuel from air and water. It is alchemy and the Royal Air Force and Zero Petroleum have proved it can be done. This world record achievement was a result of collaboration with brilliant scientists, engineers, designers and small and medium enterprises across the length and breadth of the UK. As well as a glimpse of the future for fuels, it points to how we will crack the net zero challenge as a national and international endeavour and the leading role that UK science and technology can play in that. I have spoken about sustainable and synthetic fuels but there are other alternatives to petrol and jet engines such as electric or hydrogen propulsion, particularly for our smaller, lighter aircraft like training aircraft. We aim to have our first zero emission aircraft operational by the end of this decade and I think it is entirely appropriate that this aircraft will be for our air cadets, our university cadets and the very first stages of flying training. If we achieve that, it will be the first military registered and certified zero carbon aircraft in the world. The second strand of our strategy is net zero bases. Our pilot project is Royal Air Force Leaming in Yorkshire and we are aiming for it to be our first net zero air base by 2025. It will require alternative power sources such as solar, geothermal and hydrogen and we will make the most of the large land area our bases cover. We are looking at how our runway maintenance program could be modified to include ground source heat pump technology or how we install photovoltaic cells on our hangar roofs. We are using RAF Leaming to understand how we do this. We will prove the technology and test the results there and roll it out across the remainder of the Royal Air Force by the end of the decade. With our bases currently responsible for around 25% of RAF emissions, achieving a net zero estate by 2030 and then beyond that moving to a net negative and offsetting our aviation emissions is a critical element of the RAF strategy and achieving that net zero 2040 ambition. From an operational perspective, that independence from the national grid and from energy supply makes us much more resilient too. Better posture to defend our skies and space into the future. I also recognize the obligation on the Royal Air Force to support other national initiatives to hit the UK's ambitious climate change goals. The UK's offshore wind industry is set to generate 40 gigawatts of power by 2030 but the relationship with the Ministry of Defence hasn't always been easy. These offshore wind farms act as complex spinning radar reflectors, confusing our ability to maintain a clear radar picture that we need to monitor and keep our skies safe. Historically we've objected to such developments but in recent years the MOD led by Air Vice Marshal Link Taylor sits on a joint board with the offshore wind industry council with each partner determined to find a way that air defence radars can operate effectively alongside even the largest of wind farms. Our net zero ambition is a great ambition but there will be risks and trip hazards along the way. We are a fighting force that must continue to protect our nation, something that we cannot compromise on our way to net zero. I know that there will be difficult prioritization decisions in the years and decades ahead but if we're thinking about them now we will be able to better navigate our way through at pace. It's not a zero sum game either. I can already point to significant operational benefits of a more sustainable force structure, whether that's operating from a home base or deployed. Renewable power generation like solar or small hydrogen power units removes the requirement for a massive fuel and logistics supply tail and the vulnerability and headaches that that attracts. Taking it one step further, just imagine if the synthetic fuel plant I described earlier could be deployable too and we were able to make our own jet fuel at a deployed operating base or at sea as part of HMS Queen Elizabeth's carrier strike group. I'm conscious that our net zero ambitions are not something that the Royal Air Force or any organisation can achieve in isolation and we're already working with the rest of government, with industry, scientists, academia, think tanks and other air and space forces around the globe, drawing on the power of our collective resources to address this pressing challenge. Earlier this year we launched the Global Air Chiefs Climate Change Initiative inviting my international counterparts to explore the opportunities for our air forces to collaborate on a global basis, sharing ideas and intent. Air and space forces from over 41 countries are already participating with eight work strands underway. I'm confident our net zero ambition and the strategy to take us there will reduce our impact on the environment. It has the potential to make us more resilient too, both in terms of supply chain dependencies and in terms of how our people, equipment and infrastructure adapt to a climate change future environment. It will not be easy. We will have to make some extraordinary leaps in fuel, aircraft and propulsion technology. We will have to transform our air bases and the buildings on them. It will require collaboration with many different partners and I know it will require significant investment and commitment to achieve. It will take decades and I tell my next generation of leaders that it will largely fall to them deliver to deliver so they must get their heads around it now. I am proud of the leading role that the Royal Air Force has already taken in this nationally and internationally and I mean no doubt we will continue to lead the way as we have done throughout our history. We are but a small part of a much bigger societal and global effort, but it is critical to all of our futures and I am excited that the Royal Air Force is a part of it. So thank you for listening and I look forward to hearing your questions. Mike, thank you very much and we are inviting questions from our participants who are on Zoom as well as from the world. So if anybody wants to kick off with a question and we will also bring them on like this piece. Like you mentioned, it is not just the fuel, but how many have been about making arms production community whilst I would say social and ethical. Some might say I want to kind of say that our production is going to be green, but if it is not actually responsible, what is the point? So it just seems we can attempt to greenwash it if I must. So I understand the question and I did hear the first part. I think the microphone is just for the online audience. So for me, my role is to deliver air and space power to protect our nation and our lives. And we accept that the world is not the way we wish it to be. There are organizations, countries, crime organizations who would do us harm and we need to be ready and prepared to protect our people around the world. Then there is a need for an air force or a need for armed forces. We could have a philosophical debate about that. We can do that and be blind to the requirement of being socially responsible and we can be blind to the requirement to be socially responsible in all sorts of different ways. But I don't think that our taxpayers who ultimately fund what we do as a Royal Air Force or as an Armed Force would accept that because ultimately I need that license to operate. I need our parliamentarians, I need our public to say the Royal Air Force, it might not be the organization that I would choose to join. I might not choose to bear arms but I recognize the role that they're playing defending our nation. And for us to have that license to operate with our public, we need to be socially responsible and environmentally responsible is absolutely a key part of that in the future. But there are all sorts of other things and some of them have been in her introductory remarks. Going to your point, I think by taking an aggressive lead in this as a service, we're already having demanding conversations with our industrial supply chain about what are their plans to be net zero, what are their plans to make their equipment delivery sustainable. And I'm really pleased to see that even in recent weeks a number of the prime industry, aerospace industry companies have made those declarations. And so there is a leadership role for the Royal Air Force in this to keep driving that point and keep making that point. Because just the same as if you like my shareholders are the British public well all of these companies, their shareholders their shareholders, their workforce are demanding the same of them as well. And I do, you know, I I sort of recognize why I could be accused of greenwashing, but I absolutely am doing this for fundamental reasons of this is what our society expects of us, even for an organization that is there to defend the society against enemies. Yes, thank you. First of all, could I just ask that the roving mic would make sure it's switched off because apparently some echo you're going through which is causing some confusion on Zoom. And a question from Tom Pashby who asks what can the Royal Air Force do to ensure their own accountability in a pathway to net zero such as having independent environmental successes please. Yeah, that's a really good point and in some respects it goes back to that same point about credibility and not just this just not being symbolic tokenistic statements and a lot of the work that we're putting into it over the next couple of years is actually understanding what our footprint is and understanding and putting in the measures and getting it sort of recognized by a you know by a sort of statutory bodies that are out there. So this will absolutely be transparent in terms of the credibility with how we go about this and I don't have any qualms about doing that. We're serious about doing this and actually having that independent adjudication is actually a really important part of this or the independent know-how of how you measure it correctly. Lisa? In Visage, a future perhaps quite a near future where you might have to trade off if you like considerations of lethality and operation effectiveness in order to put more precedence on sustainability. I mean I sense from the Ministry of Defense's publications and particularly Richard Newge's reports come months ago sort of unwillingness to cross that Rubicon but I think personally I think you might have to. So the relentless optimist in me says that we will find a way that we can have both and we can have it both ways where by taking the right steps now when you get to those kind of difficult forks in the road where we've got to make those decisions we'll have the options to do it without compromising our operational lethality ultimately. There are some things that we can do with there are compromises that we'll be able to make even in the early stages around things like the training aircraft I spoke about. I mean the chances are that even this decade now I might be pleasantly surprised but the chances are this decade that we won't necessarily get the endurance with an electric powered aircraft that we had from a petrol powered aircraft. So I think that we will have to make a choice for making that leap when we come to it now that's a sort of realistic chance in the next few years I think further down the road I would like to think that actually we won't necessarily have to make those choices in terms of the actual capability where we will have to make a choice Peter is around the price premium we're prepared to pay even though I'm spending taxpayers money the very clear signal from this government means that actually we can have a conversation around something that is more expensive than another piece of equipment but there is value of itself in the piece of equipment that is more expensive because it contributes to that journey to net zero we've got clear political leadership in that regard and policy direction but that I think is where the challenge is going to be where we're going to be paying a premium and a very good example of that at the moment is sustainable aviation fuel we're going to be paying a premium for that and that will mean that our money doesn't go as far and I think that's where the real choice will be I don't think we're going to compromise on our operational effectiveness we can't that's not something that I would you know a legacy that I can leave for my successes Following on from this Mr Bill Jassett Direct question which is you made the remark that you know this is going to be involve significant resources being expended now the Ministry of Defence is in quite a good place at the moment having had a very successful integrated review and a very good settlement out of last year's spending review so kind of the department is as flush as I can recall it at you know any time in my career but but it ain't necessarily going to stay that way so I guess my question would be even given the levels of political commitment that you were describing there how confident are you that you're going to be able to you know stay on this journey you and your fellow service chiefs when resources potentially get a bit tighter you know how much of this do you think survives and sustains against some of the higher priorities that you know you know are likely to come along including you know additional operational commitments and the like so kind of how sustainable is the sustainability Yep got it so I completely agree and you know we can't you know with any certainty say what is around the corner what you know where our political leadership where the sort of you know where the necessity of circumstances in the future take us but right now everything I tell you know everything I see everything I read tells me that we've got a consensus amongst our public and increasing consensus amongst our parliamentarians and absolute agreement between our political leadership current political leadership that this is the journey that we're on and going back to that that resources question that resources point and again it's you know for those of you that don't have the pleasure of working inside a government department the obligation around spending taxpayers money you know it is you know it is something that I carry you know carry on my shoulders and you know and there is a significant responsibility for me to be a careful custodian of taxpayers money and to seek value for money doesn't mean the cheapest and value for money that value can be in an environmental or in a social value sense and that's something that I am very very persistent in sort of drumming through I'm in no doubt that there will be resource challenges around this but but what I don't want to do you know I want to start paying that premium now and smoothing it over 20 years so that my successor in 2035 or 2045 isn't cursing me for not having done anything about it and then having an almighty burden to deal with you know over a much shorter space of time okay I'm looking I'm just going to go back online there are a range of questions off net zero we're going to stay with the net zero questions first of all leave on this side as well to come in right in a minute we're going online thank you John question I'll combine two one from Tim Croydon who says in terms of the metrics how do you intend to measure environmental gains is there an industry standard you're working towards to meet your aspirations and one from someone who I suspect isn't in real life called an ominous attendee who asks whether you calculate as part of this whether you consider the RF's degree of responsibility for instance defence systems that are shared with the frontline commands when calculating your responsibility for carbon emissions right well if either of those two questions are looking for a job that's exactly the sort of questions I need to be asking because these are very early days but in the first instance there's already a number of you know benchmarking whether it's the carbon trust or any other sort of certified ways of measuring what your footprint is and this is exactly what we're going through over the next couple of years just to understand what our footprint is today and then there is that challenge of course there's that challenge of how we measure our activity how we measure the equipment that we bring into service how we measure everything we do when we're sharing so much with Navy the Army with other international forces but it's complex but I can't help but think that there's a way through this and it certainly should be something that puts us off it's just something else that we've got to get our heads around and my senior leaders have to get their heads around and my junior leaders have to get their heads around because they're going to be the ones that are carrying this for the next two decades let's go to the lady in the back row please this will mean that there's going to be an acceleration of the adoption of drone at technology which would have a smaller carbon footprint whether forces are prepared for the unknown psychological effects of this I would turn the drone question on its head slightly and see that there is undoubted utility of autonomous or remotely crewed platforms in a future battle space a future operating environment that is where technology is taking us anyway and that enormous utility is something that we are taking advantage of and I see the force, the mix of the ratio of piloted to autonomous aircraft that we operate and the Royal Air Force operates over the next 20, 30 years I see that ratio just inexorably shifting along as a greater proportion of our fleet is autonomous or remotely crewed and in that of course there is a net zero dividend but it's not the driver the driver actually is the technology that allows us to protect our skies and protect our space even better using what technology allows us to do and technology has, there are other advantages around technology around synthetic training I see a future where the activity that the Royal Air Force does in the real world the operations or strategic signaling on behalf of the government or our allies that continues in the real world but all of the training that we do preparing for that is done in a synthetic environment and of course that of course changes the amount of our carbon footprint when it comes to training and building up the forces and building up the squadrons that we're going to use Well thank you very much and it's very refreshing to see that the defence almost in 8 months has gone from proclaiming to be a fast follower to actually setting a pace not all of defence but led by the Air Force however you're very rightly going along with your colleagues in civil aviation in terms of decarbonisation if Covid is taught as anything we need to plan for the odd black swan event and the black swan in sustainable aviation may be that the fact that net zero fuels are still emitting carbon at altitude becomes unacceptable socially faster than the ability of the industry to come up with a true zero emission fuel but in aviation they kind of have a plan B which is they are already planning for the most difficult aircraft to decarbonise the long haul ones to be hydrogen to beat that need they'd need to bring those forward I don't see the same in our programmes the most difficult aircraft to decarbonise are our combat aircraft I don't see a zero emission combat aircraft anywhere in our research programmes at the moment beyond potentially concepts is that something we should be addressing now so there is a lot of potential in hydrogen the challenge with hydrogen is at the moment we haven't been able to compress the storage so even a large wide-bodied airliner that's powered by hydrogen looks like a bloated guppy when you sort of see computer simulations of it and clearly that's not going to work for a high performance agile combat aircraft but actually if we can there is certainly something and there's certainly interesting technologies around hydrogen but I go back to synthetic fuels and I'm not betting the whole farm on synthetic fuels and we've got a long way to go but there's some amazing technology involved in that and some of the things I was exposed to in the run-up to our Guinness World Record flight where we flew an aircraft around the Cotswolds a couple of weeks ago the exciting nature of the chemistry in that and what the potential is and actually the realistic potential for scaling up that tells me that we shouldn't give up on the good old kerosene-burning gas turbine just yet and so there's a number of strands and as I said to achieve this we are going to need some massive leaps in technology and aircraft design and propulsion but I also freely admit that quite a lot of what the Air Force achieves will be done on the back of what the commercial sector has to do for exactly the reasons you described I think we had a question here Sir, good evening thanks so much for your talk kind of following on from the question you just had really is about developing and upscaling our people as you mentioned already we have some people in the room that already have that knowledge do you foresee us forming a sustainability branch perhaps under the professions review that will see us put the people and be resourced into leading the net zero charge another question a couple of questions that goes on here yes please we'll take this one and one other just to cover the ground thank you hello I just want to say it's really great to see your level of ambition it's very ambitious ambition and that's really great to see but my question is how do you see offsetting might end up being part of your strategy and could that be something like a certified scheme or would that be something more along the lines of investing in your own land and a state that you've already got okay and there was one up here John's giving me a late evening memory test now I just wanted to ask about in regards to something that has been said previously you spoke about contracting in the future but what about the ongoing contracts and projects so will those be obviously not cancelled I hope not but with the equipment that you receive will you be upgrading that to adapt it to the net zero strategy or not and then also in regards to sort of space for example rocket launches and you know satellite launches how will you be able to sort of make that net zero because we know that rockets are very very polluting one of the greatest polluters could we foresee I don't know who you guys use for the rocket launches but could we see a collab with other rocket technologies so so in terms of existing contracts it's really difficult to break contracts it's difficult to break them and you've got to have a good cause and wanting to insert a net zero element to it but actually some of our contractors are coming forward and saying even if it's not part of the contract we want to be part of this and we want you to hold us to this so it's a very early conversation but we'll be able to sweep up more and more of this as under that sort of business as usual and it will certainly become rules under our sort of commercial process in future in terms of space I'm in the fortunate position of Royal Air Force is not responsible for space launch the UK space agency another which works for another government department for space launch but I say that is in terms of I don't have to worry about that now but I absolutely recognise your point and there is going to be something we're going to have to get our heads around with that in the future it looks like a really really wicked challenge but right now it's not something that I need to factor into a net zero ambitious ambition for 2040 going to the point about the offsetting the investment in our estate is so important as you can imagine I have an awful lot of acreage on our bases and actually turning those into net generators of renewable energy is something that I see as a very important element of offsetting so actually getting our bases to zero by the end of this decade and then moving into a net deficit because we are producing renewable energy which we may use to make synthetic fuel but that net deficit is something that will be an important element I predict of the calculations when we have got to that point of an accredited way of calculating what our footprint is but using that real estate in different ways whether it's ground source heating or the vegetation that we put on it, what we do with that land becomes a really important part of it and that gives us a choice and that final point about a first question about a sustainability branch I don't think we need a specific sustainability branch it's going to become a really important part of our infrastructure role, it's going to become a really important part of our capability area and frankly it already is an important part of our capability area and the leadership it originally came from our capability area people looking at our future equipment and thinking about where the societal trends were taking us and being nervous about bringing equipment into service that we would reject in 20 years time because it was too much of a carbon footprint those were the sort of far sighted profits of our organisation and they were the people that first started talking about it so I do see it as across the whole organisation that we have that responsibility but there will be specific areas that will have a greater role but I don't see a standalone branch but it's going to be important so we're going to have to pull stumps up at this stage and I'd like to invite Julia Baum our first PhD studentship holder to give the vote of thanks Julia. Hello everyone and I'll wrap up quickly it's a real honour to give a vote of thanks tonight it's quite satisfying to watch the institute grow through events like this especially in person thank you to the ear chief Marshall Simmler-Clickston for an insightful lecture it was particularly interesting to hear insight into the ambitious net zero target by 2040 but especially the part on how it's not a zero sum game noting the benefits of renewables and synthetics including making fuel with air and water was particularly interesting tonight has given me hope for the ways we use technology to both protect and benefit Earth and I'm excited for the continued growth of green military agendas and finally a thanks is due to the audience members here tonight both in person and also online thanks for dedicating your Tuesday evening with lively discussion and thanks to those in the Q&A contributing thoughtful and provoking questions tonight so have a great evening everyone let's give a final round of applause for Cubs