 I realized that there were solutions happening on the ground. There were new business models that were not only making a profit, but also positively contributing to the health of the planet and the well-being of people. That's how my commitment to climate change started. Really through the realization that the climate change challenge touches on most of the other global challenge that we're facing. Marion Verles is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Marion is the CEO of SustainCert, a mission-driven company that offers simple tech-driven solutions for verifying impacts on climate protection, supply chains, and investment products. Marion brings to SustainCert her deep knowledge of carbon markets and her passion for pioneering new approaches to financing climate and development interventions. Prior to launching SustainCert, Marion officiated as CEO of the Gold Standard Foundation, a standard that works to ensure every dollar of climate and development funding goes as far as it can. She also founded Nexus Carbon for Development, a cooperative of development organizations looking to scale their climate mitigation programs through result-based finance. Before joining the climate and development arena, Marion worked at Barclays Bank as a corporate development analyst. She holds a master's degree in European business and a master's in public administration. Marion, it is so good to have you here. Welcome to the show. How are you? Thanks, Marc. I'm really well. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for having me. I'm so excited to have you. We have tons of things to discuss. I believe we could probably go a few hours because there's a lot of burning topics that I would like to cover and go over with you today. First and foremost, though, I probably could have went on forever about your background and your biography. You've been in this arena for a little while and done some amazing things since you started at a very high level. I would like to know how that has prepared you, I hope, to weather this pandemic and how have you been through this pandemic time? Has any of that prehistory and knowledge and experience thinking about the future helped you to weather this storm a little bit better? Thanks, Marc. That's a great question and to be honest and very candid in my response, I don't think anyone was prepared for the pandemic and I don't feel that I was better prepared than anyone else. It's been quite an intense year, to be honest, and the pandemic did bring about some of the issues that I've been working on for many years now, bring those issues to the front page of the newspapers and it's also helped raise awareness on the interconnectivity between human health and planetary health. To that extent, I find that some of the outcomes of the pandemic were positive in helping people really realize how much we as human beings are connected to the well-being of the Earth. But overall, it's been a really intense and really challenging time, I think, for everyone. I imagine, is there any great stories or interesting stories that you can tell me about your partners, your clients, or things that you saw where maybe somebody came and said, yeah, we spoke before the pandemic and you were telling us, we should maybe advising us and now we're ready, now we're ready. Or any other kind of stories where you've seen this shift positive or negative in any way, just kind of give us a little more insight if possible. Yeah, it's true that the pandemic has confirmed sustainability strategies were not only a good thing to have, but really a must-have from a company perspective. I think it did contribute to making sustainability more central to the agenda of many corporates globally. However, the economic downturn that's coming in the aftermath of the pandemic is going to create sort of budget squeeze and financial pressures that may to some extent sort of slow down some of the sustainability commitments that were made previously. So whilst the awareness is increasing, we're still slightly concerned that the investment flows and the delivery side may be a little bit slowed down by the economic downturn. On the positive side, though, because I like to see the glass half full, I would say that two very concrete positive outcomes, especially in our sector, first is the fact that we now can much more easily, as a community of sustainability professionals, do work and meet virtually without feeling the need to fly all over the world. And that's a good thing. Since everyone is grounded, we have developed new ways to interact and do business together without necessarily feeling the need to jump on the flight every time there's a conference popping up. So that's great. I think the second thing that's really positive is the fact that consumer awareness has increased. Consumer awareness for the need to change towards more sustainable lifestyles or pay attention to the sustainability profile of goods has increased during the pandemic and hopefully that will strengthen the business case for sustainability strategies of all. There's definitely a few rabbit holes that we could go down with with just that. And I'd like to touch upon them later in our discussion, maybe a little bit about ESG business models, investing, divesting, what positive things we've seen by shifting your business models and doing those things are positive as well as you touched on flights and things of what we're seeing through Corsia and some other things. We'll address that later. I really would like to get into a little bit more of your background and what brought you to this point, you know, Barclays, banking industry, cell finance and that what moved you from that to where you are today. And can you tell us a little bit more about your professional history and experience and get us up to speed there on this journey you've taken? Sure. So why don't I take you on a on a journey, Mark? If that works for you, I could take you on a personal and professional journey. So my journey through climate action and sustainable development. Great. So let's do that then. What I can do, Mark, is talk a little bit about why I have dedicated my my whole career to climate action. What it is to be a woman entrepreneur in Pnampen, Cambodia or in Zurich, Switzerland. Why I believe carbon markets and carbon pricing more generally are paving the way for a system change and why climate change could be our last battle as a global society. So so starting maybe with my entrepreneurial journey in climate action, it all started during my studies. I decided to take a gap here, travel the world for nine months, researching triple bottom line business models. At the time, I guess I was pretty aware about the problems, poverty, inequalities, environmental health, biodiversity loss. And really, I was looking for solutions. And traveling, traveling for nine months allowed me to see for myself concretely on the ground how climate change was interlinked with everything. Climate change and food security, for example, small holder farmers in India losing their harvest to drought, losing everything. Climate change, for example, and women empowerment, right. We know that women are first and hardest hit by climate change, but they're also part of the solution, especially when it comes to resilience and adaptation, but also in terms of promoting more sustainable lifestyles. So so really during that journey, I realized that there were solutions happening on the ground. They were new business models that were not only making a profit, but also positively contributing to the health of the planet and the well-being of people. And that's how sort of my commitment to climate change started really through the realization that that the climate change challenge touches on most of the other global challenge that we're facing. And and and after that nine months research project in in 10 or so countries, I stayed in touch with some of the social entrepreneurs and NGOs that I had met on the ground and started developing what would become Lexus for Development years later. And really the moment that that moved me the most during that that period was this acute understanding of the nexus of climate change, energy and human health, especially when I stayed in Cambodia for a few weeks and then came back to Cambodia a few years later for a longer period of time and realized that globally and it may sound completely unbelievable, but it's true that globally there are about four billion people around the world that don't have access to safe, clean, affordable energy, cooking energy. So for you and I, when when we're hungry, we go in the kitchen, turn on the hot hot pad, the cooking tray, and then we make pasta. It's clean, it's safe, it's affordable, but we're among the happy few because there are four billion people out there that don't have access to clean and safe, affordable cooking energy and and it creates every year the premature death of about four million people, mostly women and children. And at the same time, those inefficient, expensive and safe cooking solution also drive deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. And and that that problem, that example, illustrates really powerfully how solving the climate issue could also deliver direct benefits to women and children to the health of our forests as well as create new sources of income for communities. And and and that's really this understanding and this realization that that brought me to the climate challenge. That's fabulous. Did you also then went from that before sustained cert to the Gold Standard Foundation? Was there any actions or things before that point, before you reached that point that you work on? Yeah, absolutely. And once I sort of realized that I wanted to dedicate my career to to fighting climate change, I at the same time, I'm a numbers person, so I like numbers. I after I did my business school, I worked in the financial sector in London to pay back my students loan, but also because I was genuinely interested in how the financial sector works and how investment decisions are being made. And with that background, I really got interested into carbon markets because I felt that those markets could be an extremely powerful way to drive finance to those clean cooking solutions that I was talking about earlier. If you can make that clean cooking device more affordable to a family in Cambodia, a family in India, then they will choose that solution because it's just better suited to their needs, but it needs to be affordable. And carbon markets can can help lower that price point by rewarding the carbon savings that are being generated by those solutions. And so I realized that carbon markets could be an extremely powerful lever to drive change and finance climate action and sustainable development on the ground. And that's why I went back to Cambodia in 2009 and worked with local partners there to create Nexus for Development, which really was a social enterprise dedicated to giving access to small companies and NGOs in developing countries to carbon finance on fair terms, carbon markets at the time and still now to be honest. Are dominated by developed countries organizations that are trying to maximize their share of the cake and therefore leaving very little to those doing the work on the ground. So the organizations, the SMEs that are producing those clean cooking solutions, those who are selling them and up with a tiny share of carbon revenues. And so our work with Nexus for Development was to provide better deals, better terms to those organizations on the ground and try to maximize the share of carbon finance that would go back to people doing the work on the ground. And so that's what I did with with Nexus for Development. And interestingly enough, most all of our partners and clients were developing gold standard projects. So we were extremely proud of being fully committed to the vision of the Gold Standard Foundation, which was and still is to maximize climate and sustainable development benefits. And so we were making that happen on the ground. And that was a really powerful experience for me to be on the ground working with project developers, going through the carbon certification process with them. And a few years later, when I became the Chief Executive Officer at the Gold Standard Foundation, I really understood what it meant to apply the standard on the ground and what it meant to be selling gold standard carbon credits in the market. That's big. You're really speaking to my heart, as you know, I'm a global food reformist. I love food and I'm big on drawing down and really I'm a numbers person as well. So I'm in full alignment with you as that. The only thing with being a numbers person is I really want to portray those numbers to the common man and woman on our earth and help them understand what those numbers, those big percentages, numbers and mean and mean for them and how they can digest them and not get this existential angst that they say, oh, my goodness, that is such a huge number or percentage. I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what to do with it. And so I love the fact that that you address that. And I believe you also break it down to the SMEs and to the common person to really understand what that means, how it affects them and how we can do something positive in the right direction. Not only is it my my my big thing is this drawdown, you know, so global food reform is important, empowering women, empowering girls and rethinking refrigeration, which all has to do with not only greenhouse gas emissions, carbon credits, but also food and this empowerment that really can bring us back into the safe operating spaces of our planetary boundaries, as the Stockholm Resilience Institute or Center would say as well. Do you believe through this dedication and experience these things that you've been doing that you're a global citizen and how would you feel if there was a world without nations, borders, walls, divisions? That's kind of my question. What do you feel or consider yourself to be a global citizen? How would you feel about a world in the future that was removed of borders, walls, divisions of humanity? It's a great question, Mark. And what drives me as an individual? It's it's the really strong belief that what we need is is a global language to talk about impact. And the reason why we're we're failing our children, why we're using the resources of the planet more can replenish themselves is because we fail to appreciate the full picture, the full value of the impacts that our economic activities create. And so if we can create that global language to talk about impact, if we can redefine value holistically beyond monetary value, but also look at the impact value of the activities that we undertake every day of the decisions that we make every day, either as citizens or as corporate people, as investors, as government people. Then I believe we can we can transform our societies and overcome the current challenges that we face, climate change and, as you said, planetary boundaries. And and you know, that's that's this belief that that drove me during my tenure at Gold Standard to develop and launch a next generation standard, gold standard for the global goals to quantify and maximize climate and sustainable development impacts. I'm convinced that if we can create that global language to quantify impacts, if we can create consensus on what a unit of climate impact is, what a measurable impact towards reducing biodiversity losses, if we can align on those impact metrics, then we'll have made substantial progress towards delivering against the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. What I realized, however, during my tenure at Gold Standard and after we launched this new standard, we were very proud of Gold Standard for the global goals. It was really well received back in the summer 2017 by our core group of supportive and committed stakeholders. But what we realized is that other players out there weren't really interested in the new standard. They didn't really see the need to change course to do their work differently. And so at that point in time, it became clear to me it was, you know, one of those light bulb moments. It became clear to me that something was missing in our work. There was a missing link as great as the new standard was, offering a comprehensive approach to quantify climate and sustainable development impacts as great as that was. Well, unless it became widely used by many actors out there, it wouldn't have so much of an impact, right? Exactly. If you design the most efficient electric car, but no one's using it, then it's not really reducing emissions. And so we realized that whilst the Gold Standard Foundation as a nonprofit was extremely well placed to develop high, we needed to create a separate vehicle to take those high bar standards, those best practice standards to the market and make sure they were widely used by as many users as possible. So for us to scale our impact, we had to scale our user base. And that's why SustainCert was created. It is really beautiful the way you describe that, which could take us down several rabbit holes. So my question was a little bit leading. So the reason I asked you about global citizens and those is as I'm also in full agreement, we need a way to communicate not only climate change, but a new global operating system for the world. That's kind of a unified language that we can all understand and and and grasp. But you mentioned in that that a lot of even though the Gold Standard set this wonderful vision, foundation and structure behind it and standard that a lot of the businesses didn't understand, didn't act upon it, weren't aware of it, not only from because probably communication, but just they're so used to business as usual. There's a couple rabbit holes that I cave out at the beginning of that. I'm not sure if now is the time to go into them. But the reason I asked you this global citizen question is greenhouse gas emissions are global citizen. Food is a global citizen. Species, birds, animals are global citizens. They don't adhere to borders and nations and and those divisive structures that we have in our world. And what we're talking about, not only the Gold Standard, but the global goals, the United Nations, 17 sustainable development goals, the Paris agreement, those are all global operating systems and they are not only did 197 countries come together for the first time ever and agree upon a roadmap for the future. But it is one of such that it's a brand new operating system. It's a new economy. It's a new way of equality and structure and infrastructure, sustainable infrastructure for our future to keep our planet below 1.5 degrees of warming. And so I'm hearing in your answer with communication and where we need to go that it needs to be a global way, a unified way of communicating this. But what I'm not hearing is your full answer on are you on board or how do you really feel about that? Do you do you agree or you being a little politically correct for me? So I do agree, Mark, fully that that we now have the global framework we need to get on with the work. So so the global framework, the global frameworks are there. The Paris agreement is there. It's setting a very clear set of targets that we collectively as a global society need to meet. We also have the Sustainable Development Goals, which are providing a similar framework across the 17 SDGs. So the global frameworks are there. The question now, Mark, in my view is, how do you get companies, investors to move? How do you get people to move? How do you change the way purchase decisions, investment decisions, political decisions are made? So we know what we need to do. The past is there. Now the question is, how can we accelerate progress towards the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals? What are the incentives we can create to accelerate the work and accelerate progress? So I belong to a group. It's called the Planetary Emergency Group. It's from the Club of Rome and the UN and some World Economic Forum. Some other players are involved in this. And we've written several messages to business leaders and not only because of the pandemic for bailout, but also to focus in on climate. With that and with many other things, this pandemic has really been a sobering experience for everybody and a true wake-up call. And in my past experiences with businesses, I've seen that it's always, how can we please our board? Is there a profit? Is there a bottom line? Sustainability is expensive. There's all these hesitations or reasons why we don't make that shift or that move. But I want, and I believe you know about this already, but I would like to mention it because I think it's a real important tool in this transition for SustainCert and many others in this arena to help those SMEs and those organizations finally embrace and make that shift. And that is those organizations that implemented environmental social governance, divestment or investments, and applied the sustainable development goals into their business models, creating annual reports and actionable items and these things into their business models have weathered this difficult time, not just only the pandemic, Black Lives Matters and Beirut and Hurricane Laura in the United States, Trumpocalypse and many other political things we don't want to get into have weathered the storm fairly good. Many have kind of been reactionary. They implemented personal protection equipment and reactionary measures to get through the storm, but they've realized that those are just reactionary measures. Those people who made this divestment and that change were really in a place to deliver personal protection equipment to those in need to deliver food, digital services, and they were all in a better place because they'd already made that shift to what we're talking about, that global shift and change. And what it did is it gave them a structure with a certain amount of resilience and preparedness for this time and they all weathered the storm better. But what's really important for businesses and that's what I wanted to mention and maybe as a tool that you guys can address if you're not doing so already, this discussion of the cost and it's expensive and now we've got an economic downturn and we don't have the money to do that. That is the absolute wrong way to think because alls we have to do is look to the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, the S&P 500, the Global S&P Global, the Stocks Europe 600 Benchmark, the Collar Capital, Niki Index, and you as a former banker know Goldman Sachs, HBSE and numerous, numerous others out there, they all weathered compared to their conventional counterparts much better. They all had resilience. Their profits, their returns went up. They had a form of resilience doing this and in the first, second and third quarters, sustainable index funds lost less than their conventional index funds, seven out of 10 equity funds finished in the top halves of their Morningstar categories, 24 out of 26 environmental social governance tilted index funds outweather their closest conventional counterparts. So public traded companies who take sustainability seriously, significantly outperform across all geographies of various markets because fossil fuels are stranded assets as what Goldman Sachs says. It's also, there's only one other commodity and it's the one that I'm passionate about looking as precarious as oil is livestock industry. And during this pandemic, we've seen major shutdowns and issues with the meat industries because they weren't prepared. So ESG risk factors leave companies exposed to global shocks and I don't know if you feel the same way as coming from your background and seeing that as well. But that is the proof that for many years, I don't know if you've seen as well has always been an issue, a hesitation for people to finally go through and see, now the proof is where the money is, the proof is where, regardless of the economy, that that's a better business model for your company and why not make the shift now? Sure and thanks for raising that point Mark. I'll come back to this issue of cost versus benefits in a minute. I'd like to come back to that and I'll share a couple of numbers which I find pretty telling, but let me first take a step back. SustainCert, as you know, SustainCert was created because we realized that in order to scale our impact we had to scale our user base and that there had to be an organization dedicated to take the amazing work of the gold standard and the amazing work that other base practice standards are doing. They had to be an organization dedicated to taking best practice standards and making them mainstream. And that's the world, the work of SustainCert. SustainCert was created to drive adoption of best practice impact verification standard. And so one area where we're currently focusing our work is in the context of corporate value chain emissions. What's really important is to understand what are the incentives we can pull to accelerate progress towards the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. And there's no better incentive for a corporate to take action than talk about potential future profits or potential future new market opportunities. And what's really interesting is that the 500 biggest company in the world did an assessment of climate-related risk and climate-related opportunities. And the opportunities were twice as big as the risk. So climate-related opportunities associated with new markets, new products, are worth twice the potential cost associated with climate risk. And what's even more interesting is to go a step further and look at, okay, how much would it cost for those 500 biggest corporates in the world to seize those opportunities, climate-related opportunities, estimated at $2 trillion, roughly. Well, only a fraction of that. So only a fraction of that as investment from those corporates could unlock those climate-related opportunities. And when you have those numbers available and you're on a really strong foot to engage with a corporate on a discussion about, okay, let's look at your carbon emissions and let's look at how we can help you verify your carbon footprint and reduce that footprint over time. And this is really the objective of the SustainCert Value Change Program that was initiated with the Gold Standard Foundation and partners of the Science-Based Target Initiative was really looking at value chain emissions, which represent 40% of global emissions and work with corporates to develop specific credible greenhouse gas verification solutions to help them drive down value chain emissions, incentive, provide incentives to their suppliers to reduce their emissions at the same time and get to a point where from the farm where the food is being produced, cereals are being produced or crops are being harvested from that point to the point where consumers are buying a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk that the carbon footprint is tracked, managed, reduced as much as possible and then communicated to the end consumer. Because we know that at the end of the chain, consumers are more and more willing to choose low carbon goods. So if we can make that information available to them, we provide the incentive for the entire value chain to reduce their emissions so that they can have the preference of the consumer at the end of the chain. And so the value chain program that we're working on with our partners has developed specific guidance for corporates in the agriculture sector to reduce emissions at farm level and then guidance on how to account for those emissions throughout the value chain so that everyone has an incentive to take action so that everyone at every node in the chain has an incentive to reduce their emissions and so that ultimately we can provide to the consumer at the end of the chain a credible information on the carbon footprint of the product they're buying. And through those initiatives, pre-competitive, multi-stakeholder initiatives, we can really make a difference. And I guess this is one of the uniqueness of sustainability. I would say there are two things that make us different. The first obviously is our history with the Gold Standard Foundation and our commitment to driving a race to the top in impact verification by making best practice standards like Gold Standard mainstream. So that makes us very unique. The other thing that makes us unique is our commitment to use technology to make it simple, to make it cost effective for corporates, governments and everyone to choose a credible impact verification solution. And in that context of the value chain initiative we're rolling out a new system that will allow every single player in the value chain to track their emissions and be incentivized to reduce their emissions to a point where we can credibly communicate to the customer what the real carbon footprint of the good they're buying is. And that's a real breakthrough from a technology perspective but more importantly from a collaboration perspective having all agree food companies work together around the table to co-create solutions to shared problems. It's a new way of working which is accelerating grandly the time at which we can develop solutions and take the solutions to market. That is so beautiful and I love those type of solutions. The agriculture, seafood, food and beverage industry industries are actually the biggest industries in the world. It's our human resource, it's where we get our energy from that's the most vital, it's the agrarian society the most longest running successful economies our world has ever seen but it also has had the biggest impact on our climate and on our human health and our world. And so by digitizing this industry by changing and globally reforming how we do things instead of doing it the way we started and the industrial revolution getting it up to speed with our world and reducing that impact not only on resources, human health and the environment to be within those planetary boundaries is such a vital thing to do. So again, music to my ears my hats off to sustain certain the work that you guys are doing and I think it's so vital how one last comment I guess what I that I have on that is I really believe we need to provide the consumers those tools but it doesn't start with the consumer it starts with the digitization and those industries that really need to onboard those new processes so that when the consumer picks up the package then they can really make that informed decision which then gives a nice feedback loop to those organizations to say this product that we're trying to sell is just not selling but it could be because it has a high carbon footprint a high footprint regardless and people are just not willing to move that and so that also gives a nudge and a shift for the industry to improve their standards so I love that aspect as well because I'm a food aficionado and trying to reform food do you have any other positive stories you can tell us some projects you're working on specific in that industry you mentioned there might be some more food ties that you can make me aware of or was that it? Yeah I think that there's a lot of good initiatives that are going on in the industry and you know one of the reason why this industry is moving to some extent faster than others I think there's two reasons for that first is because people intuitively make the connection between food and their personal health as well as environmental health so that connection is intuitive we realize that the food we eat contributes to our own health and the way it was produced also had an impact on the environment so that connection is intuitive in the eyes of customers but also because the agree food sector cannot continue to operate under a business as usual scenario our soils are being depleted soil erosion is driving productivity losses and so unless we change course right now we know that we won't be able to continue to produce as much food as we are producing now that we won't be able to feed a growing population so that transition in the agree food sector is necessary and imminently necessary and that awareness is rising and that's why the sector is moving it's a matter of survival for the sector and companies are aware of the challenge that's why they're looking at solving it even though we would hope that that would obviously be done faster and on the bigger scale already some of the really interesting things that are happening right now and on which we're working on in the cacao sector we're working with our partners in a number of countries in Africa to verify the footprint the carbon footprint of cacao beans that are being produced and harvested it's a really great fantastic program one of the first actually the first one to achieve verification under the value chain initiative we're extremely proud of the work accomplished there and we're also looking at other types of crops in the US as well as red meat in Australia and so it's really interesting because in the US, in Africa and in Australia on those three different commodities we're seeing the same willingness to work with farmers on the ground share the value with farmers the carbon value of their production share it with farmers and valorize it through the supply chain towards end consumers so that's really fascinating and we're expecting to see a lot more momentum there what remains slightly difficult in the agriculture sector especially when working with small holder farmers it's the complexity and cost associated with the monitoring of what's happening on the ground how can you be sure that practices are being implemented the way you would expect them to be to maximize the carbon that can be sequestered in the soil so here again we're looking at technology to help us simplify our monitoring requirements make it more cost effective more manageable for farmers and at the same time increase inaccuracy and you know one of the reason why we're seeing so much uptake for our work right now is because there's also the growing understanding and realization that if the impacts that you're claiming to have achieved if those impacts are not verified well they're not true the only way a company can credibly communicate about their climate and sustainability achievements and impacts is if they are having those impacts independently verified against an internationally recognized standards and so working with the gold standard on one hand and working with the greenhouse gas protocol on the other hand verifying the impacts of those companies against those two standards is helping drive change by pushing for more credibility and more independent verification in sustainability claims because at the end of the day we know there's also a lot of greenwashing unfortunately happening in that space and so- That's exactly what I wanted to just mention Yeah, there's a lot of greenwashing happening in that space so if as a corporates you're not having your impacts verified then we can't know for sure that what you're claiming is true if it's not verified it's not true In this world of fake news and misinformation and greenwashing it's wonderful to hear that you're doing this but it is common sense and I think those industries and people who are doing this and on looking really realize that there is a standard there is a way to verify and it's much needed One thing with the greenwashing is I've seen a trend I've been at this for a while and I've seen a trend that companies that even do a half-hearted greenwashing effort for a while after about a year or two of doing that they actually realize that this fake it till you make it principle that it is a better model that they're getting response out of something that they're almost faking or greenwashing and it pushes them to eventually get fully on board and to do it the right way I've seen that with numerous cases in the past and so that's a nice trend that I like to see I even don't mind, you know go ahead and fake it till you make it greenwash for a while because you'll realize that you'll get more resonance from your clients your coworkers, your organization that it's actually a better model which I've really seen some great examples in the past this year was really supposed to be the decade of action right 2020 started off with a huge bang and a lot of momentum around climate action and things that we're doing and I was at a DLD in Munich at an event on the road to Davos so I was getting ready to go to the World Economic Forum on a tour to Davos doing other events and I was at DLD in Munich and just two days prior to getting on stage at DLD Microsoft made an announcement that was an announcement that a lot of people weren't aware of really didn't know, didn't listen had some noble numbers in it that we're not sure we understand they said, you know, $1 billion climate fund and by 2030, 20, yeah, I think it was 2030 they're gonna go carbon neutral, not negative and then the one that everybody missed which is the most important and that's the question that I have for you or maybe something I'd like to discuss is they say, we're gonna remove all our historical carbon emissions since we've been in business by 2050 now that is a real noble thing to say but most people I'm not sure can grasp what that means since they have been in business, 19, what, 40 something or maybe no, I think 19 I can't remember how long they've been in business but since Microsoft has been in business everything that they produced they're gonna remove those historical carbon emissions that's a historical precedence and it really set the year off and the right way to move with this I believe that instead of doing the bare minimum hitting the standard of where the industry set let's just remove our emissions or let's, we're going to stop emitting by 2030 or even 2024 or 2025, you know a lot of companies say that we're gonna stop our carbon emissions or we're gonna remove our plastic by this time that's just basically going slower in the wrong direction until one point they're still doing harm and they're only stopping or reducing their emissions to that point now Microsoft comes on board and says we're gonna remove our historical carbon emissions since we've been in business that's a precedence because now all the big players you know, Google, Apple, Amazon, et cetera can follow and say, yes, since we've been in business we're gonna go that extra step leave the world better than we found it we're gonna clean up those emissions so that we can get closer to the balance where we truly need to be how do you feel about historical carbon removal and emissions through an offsetting program do you have measures in place if a company comes to you and say hey, we've been in business to this we'd like to purchase carbon credits we'd like to do something to make sure we offset our historical emissions but we also want to need some help with some actions to get us there and that's a great question Mark it's exactly why companies like Microsoft need a company like SustainCert SustainCert can confirm that Microsoft and the likes of Microsoft are indeed delivering on what they said they would deliver in the absence of an independent verification by SustainCert we'll never know whether those are fake news or real news fake impacts or real impacts and so that's why our role in that space is so important to your question on removal yes, removals are extremely important we need to take carbon out of the atmosphere there aren't enough removal-based carbon credits available in the carbon markets right now there's a shortage of good quality removals for two reasons one reason is because it's really more complex to quantify removals and confirm or ensure that those removals would be sequestered for a long period of time for long enough especially in the context of agriculture and the second reason is that in many cases removals are also more expensive to achieve than reductions especially if you consider soil organic carbon interventions which can be quite costly or even technology-based removals so with the emergence of plagues like the one that we heard from Microsoft earlier this year to be completely carbon negative and remove from the atmosphere the entire emissions since they were incorporated we're definitely going to see a lot more innovation and a lot more supply of removals in the market but this is going to take time and with gold standard we're working very hard to develop new methodologies that will make it easier for removal-based activities to issue carbon credits however it's important to communicate the message very clearly that removals need to be permanent that there needs to be really clear safeguards in place to make sure that there will be no reversals that the ton of CO2 that was sequestered from the atmosphere is going to be sequestered for 100 years or more otherwise we have a problem and so that's why working with a standard like gold standard gives us the reassurance that we're aiming for the highest bar and that we're verifying against the highest bar do you believe that in the future not just carbon markets or carbon credits and the carbon is the issue but we will bring into the umbrella of this all greenhouse gas emissions or have something similar so because we're realizing especially in the agriculture, seafood and beverage industry methane plays a huge role in the short term effect it's a little more powerful than carbon absolutely and those gases are already covered so when we talk about carbon emissions or greenhouse gas emissions we include the six gases that are captured under the CO2 protocol and methane is one of them so methane is for sure covered and as you said in the agriculture sector many emissions, greenhouse gas emissions are methane emissions which has a global warming potential which is much, much higher than carbon dioxide so it's really important that methane emissions are mitigated to the extent possible so those are already included into that that is good because a lot of people don't know that they think they're only addressing carbon and that's much so I'm glad you cleared that up because a lot of people don't know that I'm coming to where I'm almost done and I'm coming to the first real question which is the burning question, WTF and it's absolutely not the swear word it's what's the future and I'd like to know for you and maybe sustain sir what's the burning question? What's the future? So the future for us is really two things from a value chain perspective and corporate value chain emissions perspective what we're focusing on right now is the prototyping of our emission factor tracking system so we'll be launching it next year we're working with our close corporate partners to design it and test it so that's really the future for us because we believe that such a system would allow to monitor, track and transfer the carbon intensity of goods throughout supply chains and that this is what we need to incentivize everyone to take action in a supply chain so that's where we're focusing our efforts the other effort that we're focusing on is really in our carbon market work as the certification body for Gold Standard we're launching the first digital carbon credit certification platform so the Sustain Set app was launched already two years ago but we're constantly maintaining it and we'll release a new module specifically for land use projects in a few weeks and next year we'll take the carbon credit certification fully digital for our renewable energy project portfolio so we're really excited at the idea of leveraging the power and potential of technology to bring down barriers to credible impact verification and thereby making it mainstream that's beautiful, that's beautiful thank you for sharing that I want to jump into the next topic of air travel a little bit and gives people some education and maybe some of your inputs and feedback January 1st, 2019 a big transition happened especially in Switzerland but all over internationally for air travel on some standards for carbon offsetting and there's Corsia stands for carbon offsetting and reduction sheen for international aviation and what most people don't know is that the United Nation has an organization that's been around since 1944 it's the International Civil Aviation Organization which is a United Nations specialized agency dealing with international air travel and some things and so we've known for a long time they've known for a long time that we need to do something not only on carbon emissions but on some standardized impacts that this industry has on the world and in January 2019 some things went into place but I wanted to get your stance and feeling on Corsia and what we're seeing coming and the future of travel just during this pandemic time not only we've been on lockdown and it's been a huge industry that's been effective but we've also now seen things that we've been talking about the future of air travel some hydrogen options are coming out some electrical options are coming out and there's some movements in this industry but it really affects what you guys do carbon offsetting and things like that so I kind of want to get your insights on what you think and if I've surmised it right but also how we can educate the general public a little bit more on what's going on behind the scenes of what we can do to not just jump in the next boat and row to America. Sure, so clearly I think put simply the future of business travels in my view is virtual conferences the future of travel generally speaking is a combination of virtual travels train and really aviation for distances that aren't possibly covered via other means there's no way we can meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement if we continue to fly as much as we are today or as we were before the pandemic so there's a real need to discuss the intensity of air travel and look at ways to substitute air travels with other forms of travel virtual or low carbon solutions like train Hydrogen isn't going to solve the problem Hydrogen is extremely energy intensive to produce you need the same amount of energy to separate a molecule of hydrogen from a molecule of oxygen as you the molecule of hydrogen will ever produce afterwards so unless hydrogen is produced using renewable energy sources then it's not really a climate solution so hydrogen will be a solution in some cases but clearly not as a substitute for a jet fuel clearly so really the only solution a mix of solutions available on one hand reduced the intensity of carbon intensity of air travel by using more fuel efficient aircrafts reducing our consumption of air travel so flying less and third offset residual emissions that cannot be avoided and to that extent it's important to remind ourselves that the target that was set by the aviation sector is not a carbon neutral target it's a carbon neutral growth target i.e. starting from a baseline set in 2019 or 2020 or maybe in between from that point on any growth in emissions will be compensated using carbon credits but it's not completely carbon neutral because it's only the emissions that are coming on top of a baseline set in 2019 or 2020 so it's important to keep that in mind and really as a key message I would say that there's a need to have a real conversation on real substitutes to air travel because if we can avoid to fly then we can reuse those offsets for other needs and get closer quicker to our Paris goals and so this is really the conversation that we should be having even so clearly it's taboo no one wants to talk about flying less so the debate was a position around offsetting and compensating for air travel emissions but really we should all as business people as well as individual we should all plan to fly less I appreciate you addressing that and kind of explaining that that is that more sustained certs official stance or is that more your stance as well or it's it's clearly a personal stance clearly at sustain set we're trying to to fly as little as possible this year we haven't been flying much like everyone else but we we will try to continue that way because you can't really be a climate change activist or a climate change organization and ignore the fact that flying is unsustainable and so there's probably a middle ground to be found between flying every week for a business conference and and trying to fly much less only once or twice a year when absolutely necessary and that's a conversation we all as as climate change actors climate change players should be having yeah I'm I definitely agree with you it is a sensitive subject I I don't I'm not sure I would say I disagree with you but on in a lot of ways this industry of aviation but regardless in the transportation industry whether it's a ships she see refrigerated trucking refrigerated shipping air travel different types of logistic methods getting around whether it's for business or private for vacation as well as from my understanding of different studies is about 15% of the global emissions compared to it's not even if you were to combine all those together the emissions that are being emitted from those sectors it's only 15% of those emissions that are being produced by the agriculture seafood food and beverage industries not only methane but carbon and nitrogen oxide and many other emissions coming from the agriculture industry I believe in innovation and technology in that that the product of the future isn't hydrogen fuel it's necessarily how we produce the products of the future so if we can produce like you said hydrogen fuel kerosene for jet fuel in a way that's using renewable energies that doesn't have that intensity and is done with either wind power solar or some other form to to produce it without emissions in that process at a scale which they do by the way in Hamburg airport here in Germany where I live they use almost 100% hydrogen jet fuel kerosene produced just north of Hamburg in and a production facility that uses wind and solar energy to produce the hydrogen and some kind of a new technology and there's a big push in this area but that there's also these electric vehicle vertical takeoff machines and drone taxis automated drone taxis and and some other electrical options coming on the market that are short hop short journeys kind of like a helicopter journeys that are coming around 2024 that there are some innovations out there that could really have been realized years ago but now are kind of being pushed forward a little bit further I'm hoping that that will really be addressed in our industry for aviation or transport that we can continue to see our family and do business around the world because I'm from America and I have businesses and productions all over the world that I'm required to to see them because I love and miss them that the virtual way will always be the fix for me so I don't I don't see it going away I'd like to see a reduction in it and have it change in a different way that we we produce it but I really strongly believe on innovation that we could do it in a way that isn't harming of our planet and so um I don't know if there's something you'd like to say with that but I but I but I believe that we can rely on a different way of innovation and digitization that we can come up with a solution like Bertram McCartn and his solar impulse airplane even though that's not realistic for us to travel to visit family in a solar glider um but that we start thinking of how we can use clean tech ways that don't harm our planet to to get into different places around the world innovation could could solve the problem but but it's not there yet it's not there yet and we're running out of time and so that's why as I said at the start there should be a discussion on focusing maybe air travels on on on travels that are can't be done with any other alternative and if we as a global community agree to that then you'll be able to fly back to the US to see your family because in Europe we'll have build a much better more efficient railway system that will allow me from Zurich to travel to Amsterdam or Hamburg by train and avoid flying there if we can do that if we can maximize the use of other lower carbon transport modes on those occasions then international flights will remain sort of possible within the one and a half degree budget that's that's the best solution we have right now rather than technological innovation because we won't have anywhere in the near term a low carbon flight from Hamburg to the US it's not going to happen in the short term so so so the solution is really sort of cutting out those flights that can be avoided with with rail transport and and other solutions like virtual conferences for businesses for sure yeah and and you know really to to to close maybe this conversation mark on the on a call to action and and on a positive note I think it's it's true that we will all have to to change our our behaviors our way of living but but but for the better climate change is could be our last battle as a global society simply because if we fix climate change we also fix so many other global problems we're facing like biodiversity loss or poverty if we do it well then our society will be transformed for the better and we'll enjoy cleaner healthier happier lives so that battle is is worth fighting for and it's worth considering changing our lifestyles to reach a new a new society that would be a happier cleaner and healthier than the one we have now I totally agree and don't worry I was obviously going to always try to end on a real positive note and and by no means is flight shaming or our future of aviation supposed to be negative in any way it's things that we need to be thinking about we should have been thinking about them years ago so that we could be prepared and and when I hear that Corsilla and also the the UN international aviation area has been around since 1944 you know a lot of talking a lot of discussion and and now it's time to implement well well beyond time to make some implementations and get us prepared for the future that's why I ask the question what's the future a lot of people are waiting for the future to be delivered to us and we are all empowered to to deliver the future and build the future create the future we'd like to live in and be in and we don't need to wait for others to to deliver it to us in some respects that can be very depressing or dystopian if we do the thing that that you started off on with your introduction telling us a little bit about yourself is really how I wanted to end our discussion because my heart of hearts I know that one of the biggest ways to draw down our global warming and greenhouse gas emissions and change and make an impact on our climate and our world and human health is by empowering women and girls and you're a very powerful woman who has done amazing things in our world but I I would like your view and your stance for my listeners to explain why is empowering women girls such a powerful more than 75 uh impact on drawing down the some of the global grand challenges we're having today especially around human health and our environment yeah absolutely we men and and and girls are first and hardest hit by by climate change but they're also part of the solution um uh we men all over the world make lifestyle decisions they make purchase decisions they make investment decisions empowering women to to to make more of those decisions would lead to more sustainable behaviors there's a wealth of evidence showing that when women are empowered to make decisions the patterns become more sustainable if you empower girls to go to school be educated get a job they will change their communities and their families for the better towards more sustainable behaviors and attitudes so empowering women and giving to all women across the globe equal access to education to employment is is a really important solution in in fighting climate change and and it's it's a solution that is not sufficiently supported and explored so I welcome the opportunity to to talk about it here thanks for that mark because it's true that we don't talk enough about the role that women and girls can play in fighting climate change from a climate mitigation perspective but also from a climate adaptation and resilience perspective women can help families and societies adapt to climate change through farming practices um uh uh changes in uh in lifestyles and um and and community um uh choices women are a powerful driver of positive change and an immense source of um innovation and and climate related solutions I totally am in alignment with you and I couldn't have set it better myself I would like uh three little sustainable takeaways for my listeners um it's kind of your gift to to them that would empower them or help them if there was one message you could depart to our listeners as a sustainable takeaway that has the power to change their life what would it be your message I would say three things I would say the first thing is to talk about it talk about sustainability with your friends with your family with your colleagues we need we need to talk about it much more and don't hesitate to cover the sensitive or taboo issues like flying should we fly less should we eat less meat having those conversations with with families friends and colleagues can be extremely uh uh insightful and um and fulfilling uh the second thing is take action don't wait for tomorrow don't wait for another opportunity every small action is is is good to make and to take every small impact is worth it um if you really have to fly then fly but offset your emissions by purchasing gold standard carbon credits if you like meat then continue to eat meat but consider eating less meat that's coming from your country or your town or as close as possible to where you live your choices every day are making a difference and so everyone of us can drive change and then the third thing that I would say is let's stay optimistic let's let's be optimistic it's too easy to to be uh think about the doom and the gloom that come with climate change but the reality is that innovations are happening every day positive change is happening every day as a global society we can overcome the global climate challenge we can do it for the better uh if we stay optimistic and take action and talk about it right what what what have you experienced in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start for for those now just starting out on the journey or new startups or new people in in sustainability what could you depart with them that you say wow I wish I would have known this from the start or had had experienced that it's it's a good question I would say I hadn't realized how what I wished I had known earlier or realized earlier is how technology can really simplify the impact verification process we spent seven years in Cambodia working with SMEs and NGOs filling up carbon certification documentation if I had realized that technology could be such an enabler of simplification and and cost effectiveness and higher accuracy I would have embraced it earlier so I would I would urge everyone to to consider a technology enabled solution that can give us the opportunity to scale solutions much faster the other thing that I hadn't considered initially was the the the power of pre-competitive collaboration to solve global challenges there's too much of a tendency to try and solve global challenges within our own organization or with our very close partners by launching really broad multi-stakeholder pre-competitive collaboration platforms we can move much faster we can get to scale faster and we can solve problems in a more much more efficient way and the last takeaway is is there anything that you would suggest to people are feeling like they're behind the gun or they haven't done enough or there they've been years of of inaction or something and now are just coming to this arena or in this thought process what are some things or actions or advice you could give them to help them accelerate their impact in your field to make a difference what what would you suggest or give them I would say that that really the three things that are important are first talk about it talk about it in your organization with your own colleagues if you're trying to drive change internally then first create the space for it to be discussed then second take action and start small but it's important to start action as early as possible even if those are small steps you will learn a great deal from those small steps and third be optimistic and think big if you do those three steps in parallel then then you'll be able to overcome the status quo and create a positive momentum for for change I've been using yours and other services for a number of years now and that's really I before I started I thought wow this could be expensive I'm bracing myself for this and and that's kind of a a misnomer I think that a lot of people don't don't know because I haven't looked into it they just assume okay well that you know but would you agree it's really to get started to take some action even on some small steps it's really not that bad the pricing is in ratio that that's a good way to start that the don't panic don't worry it'll be you can afford it you know absolutely yeah yeah great all right I really thank you so much for your time unless you have any questions for me or anything you would like to ask me I'd like to tell you thank you so much for your time and it was wonderful to have you here on the show thanks mark it was a pleasure have a good day you too thank you very much bye