Name: Net Zero Industry Strategies
Uploaded: 2026-04-30T15:16:07.414Z
Duration: 1 h 8 s
Description: Net Zero Industry Strategies

Transcript for "Net Zero Industry Strategies": So welcome to today's webinar, and we're gonna dive straight into something that is at the forefront of every business leader's mind, how to achieve net zero whilst continuing to grow, innovate, and crucially stay competitive. My name is Charlie King. I am the senior editor of Sustainability Magazine, and today's webinar title is Net Zero Industry Strategies. So we're all aware that the pressure on industries to decarbonize is intensifying rapidly. But the question now isn't just how do we reduce those emissions, it's how do we fundamentally transform operations, business models, and innovation strategies to to reach net zero in a meaningful and scalable way. Beyond compliance, this is about rethinking how industries operate, collaborate, and create long term value. So today, we are going to explore decarbonisation pathways, renewable integration, the role of policy and regulation, and how innovation is shaping sustainable business models for the future. I am so pleased to welcome, to help me dive deeper into these topics, some incredible speakers. So I've got Sven Willthink from Radisson Hotel Group, Karen Flug from Inca Group, and Vance Merola from Colgate Parmalith. Thank you all so much for joining me. If we can kick things off, by each of you briefly introducing a bit about yourself, and your organization. Karen, do you wanna start us off? Great. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm the chief sustainability officer at Inka Group, which is the world's largest IKEA retailer. So You probably know us more through, that name. So we're a home furnishing company, of course. And then for us, I suppose, net zero success for IKEA is really we need to halve our emissions by 2030 and reach net 090% reduction by 2050. But, of course, as as Charlie's already said, we want to do that whilst being profitable, still growing, still being relevant for the many people, and being affordable for our many consumers around the world as well and being a resilient business. So what it means for us. Sven, do you want to go next? Yeah. Absolutely. So my name is Sven Wilting. I'm the global senior director of sustainability of the Redis Natal Group, a group which is in about 1,600,000 operations and under development in EMEA and Asia Pacific, and leading sustainability team, and really driving change on the pillars of tenants, people, and community. And like Karen said, we we have similar targets on SBTI, so also halving our footprint by 2030 and moving to net zero by 2050, although some of our hotels are already there. So I hope to tell you a little bit more about that, in the next couple of minutes. And Vance? Yes. Yes. Hi. Hi, everybody. Good to be here. So I'm Vance Worrall. I'm the senior vice president of global sustainability at Colgate Palmolive Company. We're headquartered in New York City, consumer goods company. And I help lead our global strategy and our programs, and I have firstly, I have a a pretty long history and focus on on climate action, so that's and which continues to be, you know, interesting and and evolving. So I'm really happy to be part of this. I've been with, Colgate nearly thirty years now, actually, and, you know, like like I said, in the in the sustainability time the whole time. And, and I wear another hat. I also I also teach. I've found 10 ago, I started teaching a course, which I really love to do, on sustainable operations, a graduate course at Columbia University in New York City, and, that's my second job. Not that I need one, but, that's what keeps me busy. So, yeah. And and similar to to these folks here as well, we have a we have a SBTI approved net zero carbon target for 2040, and, that cuts across scopes one, two, and three as well. I always love talking to sustainability leaders because there's so much passion I feel in the industry and in the sector, and so many people go. So so this is the role we wanna talk about, but here's a load of other projects I work on often in, you know, in the community or education. So, great to see that already already being reflected. Okay. So let's, I mean, dive straight in. I'd love to sort of get a sense of the current landscape. I feel like we've got a really interesting array of of industries on display here. Also, all of which are quite, consumer facing, which is is maybe interesting for our audience to to be able to relate on both the sort of, exec side and the consumer side. When you look at supply chains today, what would you say is the most single most important shift shaping decision making right now? Sven, do you wanna do you wanna kick us off? I know, obviously, we're, you're seeing a lot through your hotels, and and the net zero hotels as well. No. Absolutely. And I I just wanna give the hospitality perspective because we also operate as a brand, and that's what our guests will know us for. But the reality of the business model is that we don't own any of our hotels. So we predominantly operate and and franchise the hotels. So that means that we're not the asset owner. That means that the initial investment because sustainability is supposed to cost money. Right? That that also needs to be put in by by the asset owner, really, yeah, for the implementation of our net zero strategy. So our role is therefore, certainly as a brand, to enable to to set the pathway, and that's something we've started doing with, SPTi, initially having the targets. But it also need to be tangible. So what does it actually mean? Because, I mentioned this every time, but net zero as a term, it doesn't mean anything for a hotel operator. They need to know what what is what is the impact on my bottom line, what are the actual savings I need to do on non energy, on water, on waste, looking at the different scopes, try to explain scope one, two, and three to, top down to to your hotel manager, but also, bottom up to to the executive team. That has taken time. So it's really important that you make it a a language which everyone can understand. And then from there, of course, looking at the different stakeholders, which are covering your your scopes. So for us, looking at at the scope three franchise would actually sit within scope three, but we address them in the exact same way as we would do with with our scope one and two. So it's really enabling that that process. And from there, it's it's a while ago that we actually set our science based targets, but it was very important for our executive team to understand, what do we actually mean and how are we gonna reach this before we even set those targets. Because setting targets is the is the easy part. It's also the implementation, which is is the hard work. And to do that, we we also looked at the biggest levers, across the three different spokes, which with science based targets, you obviously guided towards that as well. But, the biggest piece of the pie was pie was for us to to transition, our hotels to to fully electrify. And I'm talking here about a perfect world. I'm sure that that we're not there, but, to fully electrify, but also to to look at the investment in renewable energy and and to really grow that as as to target really that that first bit and then further dive dive into your supply chain, and to make it part of the transition. May it be a smaller piece of it that buy and also more, more complex because everyone knows that scope three is is not your direct influence, and it's also the, yeah, the the most difficult parts to actually, complete. Karen, what's your perspective? Yeah. I think I this it's sort of building on spend, I suppose, but also in what some ways, the opposite because we do own all our assets. And so we're both a production, manufacturing retailer, and we own the buildings where we have all our IKEA stores and DCs around the world. And that sort of been our sort of most of the brand for for decades. So, of course, in one way, that is easier to control the parts we can control. But just as Sven was talking as well, just for most companies, the huge majority of our emissions is scope three, still 96, 7%, or whatever it is. So a huge amount is scope three. But, but beyond that, I mean, even when we when we look at what we've done since we set our baseline in 2016, we've managed to get scopes one, two, and three down by over 30% while still growing revenue over 24%, and that's without any offsetting. So, because, we've really made it look at the entire value chain, even though I'm I'm responsible for the retail part of IKEA, working very closely with the value chain, what's going on on the production, the material agenda, because a huge chunk of our emissions sit in the products and materials. But then if we take our own operations, the part that within Inca Group that we can we can focus on, Of course, the switch to renewable energy that we've just been on to and and in particular, renewable electricity, I think, is is super important for us. We're sitting now on, just under 95% renewable electricity. Of that, around 8% is, generated on-site. We've got over a million solar panels on the roofs of our buildings around the world and also on some of our car park roofs as well. Just under 50% is actually, certificates matched to we have a separate income investments arm where we've been, we're committed to investing in renewables up to €7,500,000,000 by 2030, and we've, so far committed and invested €4,300,000,000. So we managed to sort of match, our consumption to those wind, farms and solar, parks that we've got. And then the rest are done through, credible certificates using the r e 100 standards. So that whole sort of portfolio makes up the just under 95%. But beyond one thing is switching to renewables, but the other thing the really big thing for us has been also energy efficiency because, that doesn't require any investment. That's just behavior change. So helping our coworkers to make better decisions about when do they turn the LED screens off in store, not turning the ovens on to warm up the cinnamon scrolls until we really have to. You know, a a kitchen worker might have come in in the past and turn them on at 07:30 when they start the shift, but the store doesn't open till ten. So, you know, things like that have saved us over the last five years nearly a €100,000,000. Just and it's not rocket science. It's really about changing behaviors and knowledge being power. So we have both the switch to renewables, which I think is absolutely key for us, giving us energy security, lower prices, and so on as well as as as sort of lowering pollution and promoting public health. So all the reasons we know. Renewable energy is good. And then we've got the energy, efficiency side as well. So they're the two, in our own operations. And then as well as that, we have to switch to zero emission deliveries. We're sitting on around 60% now for the home deliveries to our customers. Again, helping with lower pollution in the in the cities where we operate. And also in many of our cities, there's now, especially in Europe, ultra low emission zones and fines or and so on if you bring in a diesel truck into the cities. So that, is also, an economics argument as well as being good for people and planet. Love that. I love where sustainability strategy marries with not just cost saving, but, like, value driving. Exactly. Yep. Franz, what about you? What's your perspective? Yeah. No. I mean, these are, like, both of what, Karen and Sven say is right, resonates with me. And then similarly, you know, our our our net zero carbon boundary, if you wanna think about it like that, is, you know, 85% plus related to the the, you know, purchase goods and services, that we do. Really, really, the raw packaging materials that we source in to make our products around the world. And so, you know, we have a nice, you know, slice of it. It's also manufacturing and logistics also that makes up the balance of it. But, there's been, you know, there's been a lot of focus with us and a lot of challenges going on. I'll see with scope through with with suppliers. It's not it's probably the most, challenging portion of it. But but, you know, we're trying to be innovative and think of new ways. And and and Net Zero is a topic overall, I I think, and I think Svend kinda mentioned a little bit, sort of the language of what this means. Net Zero doesn't really mean a lot well, it means a lot to people, but they they don't really know what it means. And so or it means something different to everybody, and so that's not helpful either. So you have to you can't speak the the climate language. You have to speak the business language or the day to day people's language. And what we're starting to think about, I think, is your original question, Charlie, was, like, what's the, you know, most important shift that's shaping decisions right now? And I think what we're trying to do is leverage and and make aware of the the idea of resilience. And and this is not just about meeting a target and reducing percent emissions. That's important, of course, for stakeholders and investors. But, like, what is this really about? What at its core, what could this bring the business? I mean, there's aspects of growth or sustainability as well. But but beyond that, it's really about resilience. And so having for us, think about having resilient supply chain means that we have assurance of supply near term and long term. Right? We're we have reliability, flexibility, pricing, contingency, all these things built in. Right? And all of those, we do as a business anyway, but all of them can be helped with smart climate action if we do it right. And both on the decarbonization side, but also on the climate risk management side, which maybe we'll talk more about there. So, you know, the decarbonization of suppliers absolutely can be complex and and costly, but we're really trying to think about it. We care about the percent reduction, but being more surgically precise and thoughtful about where we could really have bigger impact for transformation. And I think that's something that is gonna be where people go. I think the reality of everybody trying to decarbonize equally across all suppliers is probably not delivering the world the results they need. That's not our comp just our company, but I think around the world, you'll see in the results. Right? The world is not on the right path for this. So could there be a world where you really lean in on the places that are important to your business as suppliers where you have the most leverage and most carbon and really try to make that transformation again through the eyes of resiliency? And I think that's the next level. I would my opinion of what the next level could be in all this versus us all trying to individually try to, you know, hit suppliers with the same reduction everywhere. That's not really moving at the pace we need it to be. So I I would say resiliency and one step closer is understanding the on the ground resiliency. This is the I work in a corporate group and it's great, right, but decarbonization does not happen in New York in the corporate group. It's happening on the ground around the world and the people who are doing it, whether it be procurement, engineering, logistics people, they need to really, you know, understand what this means in in the language that they speak, I think. I know we see, you know, communications in the language within sustainability fluctuate quite a lot and and develop over time as the needs of business and and the ways to communicate with people changes. I do feel I I don't know how much you guys agree, but I feel like resilience is definitely a top word for 2026 so far, and I can't see that trend changing. Yeah. Yeah. I would just I'm sort of building on that as well. Resilience for sure. But I also think there's something about the fact that, you know, the decade since the Paris agreement, it was agreed in November of of, 2015, but actually signed around this time a decade ago. And I think, you know, it was a pivotal moment a decade ago, but the world is vastly different as we would all agree. But one thing does remain the same is that sort of that need to demystify it and sort of I think for many of us, I feel anyway, we've won the science, but we've gotta win the story now. And that's the story whether we're talking to our legal counsel, our CFO, our business leaders, our salespeople, all the everyday consumer who's also a voter as well. So the politicians we talk to, the policymakers need voters on side as well. And if they're worried or concerned that they're not gonna, get the vote, they may not go that way. So understanding for the everyday person what it actually means in terms of benefiting them, the cost of living, you know, prices going down on energy, energy security, as I mentioned before, the business is just as important for the everyday consumer as well. Climate anxiety, choice overload, worried about the just the daily living. We've got to demystify and make, you know, sort of the the transition to net zero and this transition to renewables so compelling and and so valuable for their everyday life here and now and not be about saving the planet anymore. So I think for me, that's a real passion of mine is changing the whole narrative. I think it's super important. Okay. So let's, let's dive into some decarbonization pathways and then look at some specifics. Sven, if we can start with sort of looking at it from a hospitality hospitality perspective, how are how are you Radisson, approaching decarbonization across operations? And where is it specifically that you're seeing those obviously, we've discussed biggest opportunities. I think the biggest opportunities well, the biggest challenges, needs the biggest opportunities as well. And then what I mean with this is that we're looking at at the challenge we initially already have, like, where investments are needed to, to fully electrify, for example, our hotels, but also to see what's what can you get out of this from an from an market perspective. We all know that and and we're looking at the various reports from Booking Lisbon, for example, what our guests are asking for. We see what we, in our our sales pitches and our RFP requests, what's what b two b is asking for. They also set our science based targets, and then they also wanna drive the change in scope three, which, obviously, transport and hospitality would sit in. So that that's allows us as well to to drive that message internally and and not just to see it as a as a cost, because still that's something which is is something which you seem feel like, okay. We need to do an investment, but but for what? And then the the for what is is that storytelling with Carol is talking about as well. It's it's really making sure that that it's clear. Okay. This is something which is not just for the sake of Renaissance. I'll do it. It's something which the the the the global economy is is going towards regardless if we want it or not, and we see as well that the demand is there. So it's we we used to say it gives you an an an a license to operate in the future, but the future is today. And we see more and more that, there is the need for confirmation of what you're doing, so through verification and then certification. And that is actually one of the elements we've picked up to say, okay. We have the the the element of we need to provide proof of what we're doing. We're doing a lot of good stuff, but maybe we're not talking about it enough. Maybe we don't see the the business benefit directly. But we also need to tackle this this scope one, two, and three at an operational level and and really making it, in a language which everyone can understand and not just understand, but buy into and and get on on board with. So this last year, we actually started with with a pilot of of two properties, to, to drive to net zero, to make a industry methodology of, of net zero applicable for these two properties, breaking down the three different scopes and really zooming in on the, of course, the the behavioral change, but that that's something we have embedded in our program anyway. But also looking in into what what it means to to move in in scope three. Scope one, scope two, that's very clear. Stepping away from any fossil fuels is also very tangible, clearly with the pricing, I guess, but, but also to see what it means in scope three. So for these two properties, we've been able to reduce our scope one, two completely to zero. And then for scope three, a full, analysis was done on on the key categories, which we are, which we see as material for the hotel. And from there as well, work with with suppliers to, to bring that to an to a zero. And and one of the biggest footprints for us is, for example, food and beverage. And I'm not only talking about food waste, but that's an area we tackled as well, but also looking into what is, how is the menu engineering done? What are you actually putting on the menu? Do you consider the items and and their their footprint, and bringing that to to a reduction. So we've actually been able to to reduce the footprint of our actual menu items by about 50%, and without sacrificing that that guest satisfaction. And, of course, it's really important that you do that storytelling, that you bring it to the guest and that you explain what we're offering and how we're offering it and why we do this. And that's been so far, that's been perceived extremely well. It's not that we have to make sacrifices in in our menus. It requires a a mindset change. It's like telling a chef, to go away from from the use of gas and go to induction. That's also a a mind change. You need to provide them also with the tools in order to do that, And that's something which which we do, very well and then ensuring that the training is put in place, that that they they are part of the journey. And it's not, well, like, fans were saying, like, it is a proper decision or something. No. It's it's not. It's everyone needs to be part of this, and and they need to own the program as well. So right now, it's, it's two hotels. This year, it's it's growing that portfolio, away from the pilot, but actually looking at, at the opening of two 10 other hotels. And these are not new hotels. So these are all conversions, existing hotels, to show that this is possible and it's not just possible as a pilot, but that we can scale up. And the scaling up, that is is key to to obviously drive the change because we all see that it's gonna be extremely challenging to meet our, near term targets already, let alone, moving to to net zero. But we need to show what we can do now and how we can do this in in a pace where we can actually grow the business, so decouple the business growth with with the reduction of carbon emissions, but also see how we can scale up as as fast as possible because, yeah, we're really behind if if we're looking at the global target setting and and what we agreed back in Paris. I think that's great that, you know, reshifting challenges into opportunities. I think if if everyone took that mindset with sustainability, we'd potentially be be doing a bit better. Vance, thinking about sort of complex industrial manufacturing environments, what would you say are the biggest challenges when it comes, thinking about electrification and reducing emissions at those scales? Yeah. So I I think so I guess we'll put it put aside the scope three supplier piece, I guess we'll talk about that separately. But for scope one and two, let's say, for our breaks, so we manufacture products, in many countries on in all continents and and so that's that has a complication of it alone. I think I think Karen mentioned earlier a little bit about energy efficiency and that that type of thing. So we have a long history for twenty five years doing sort of really good energy efficiency stuff. And honestly, it was you know, we've had carbon targets along the way, but like like I said, manufacturing people are they'll they speak the language of electricity and energy and energy bills. That's fine because those are actually carbon projects. They may not think about them like that, but that's what delivers the carbon reduction. And so even though that's intuitive, it probably took us a while to to think about what we're driving net zero. So they could, like, okay. Let's train everyone about net zero and carbon and it's going to be mushrooms and all of a sudden. And it's good that they know about it. We do webinars and stuff, but it, you know, they're not gonna ever really resonate completely with them. And they all wanna do good to the world. That's good. They all believe in Colgate. They're happy with that target. So that's that's all in place. So what wasn't probably working as fast was imagine having, I don't know, 50 manufacturing sites and you say, okay. You have net zero target, you know, go work on it and and we'll track the data. You'll have 50 sites doing it 50 different ways and and exactly what we have. And so net zero can't be done well that way. So we took a decision about a year ago to really try to look at this differently to to change it from a net zero projects to energy projects, so it went back to stuff that they understand. And we we did we decided to get the heavy lifting. We need we needed better data, centralized data, so we found in investing and now building out a a SaaS tool, a sustain basically, a platform that allows the simplicity at the site, which is really the key. Get them as little that to do as possible in terms of figuring this out and then let them do the implementation. So in in essence, what we've done is we've collected up all of the energy reduction projects from every site in the world. Anything that they've had, you know, like, on the books, either they're doing them, they're studying them, or they're thinking about them for the future, whatever. Like, these are projects. They all have them. That's the good news. But they all have them in different formats and in different spreadsheets and, right, you can imagine what that looks like. So we took the effort, bring that in, bring it into one system where they have full visibility to their work, and all they really have to do is enter what kind of project it is, what type of and typically fuel or or energy source is being reduced, how much would be reduced. They know that because they're they're they have to get that in order to get it approved. And then the financials, like, what's the capital or operating cost that goes with that. And so that and that's nothing new to them. So if they could do those three things, this tool then ingest that and basically creates what I like to think about is really financial decision making tools, which that's at the end of the day, it's not the carbon that they're that's gonna make the decisions. A lot of it's gonna be based on financials. It's carbon plus financials. So they this tool generates them their what we call their their net zero carbon road map. So there's been a lot of pressure from our chiefs, the supply chain officers that how do we build these road maps? How are we gonna build these road maps? So this tool does that. They the road map is no more than just a glide path of where they are and where where they could go based on what the projections are with a waterfall chart to say where the gaps are. And then the most important thing are these marginal bait and cost curves or MAC curves as they're called, which are really financial instruments that in a simplistic terms is how I talk to the, you know, sort of the divisions about it is just think about if you had all your projects on a on a on a time on a on a line here and you said these are the ones where you put a little bit of money and you get a lot of carbon on this side. And on the other side, it's a lot of money for a little bit of carbon. Most likely, you're gonna work from left to right. Right? And and that's what it does. And some of these projects are savings projects. So it actually brings money to the business, and those are the most interesting ones to focus because they're always you know, they have budgets and they they have profit, margins. And so this does that for them. Just by entering those things about what projects, what the finances are, it creates the MAC curve. And it basically gives them a road map to say, okay, maybe these five projects are the ones that we should propose this year because there's good payback. I have very good chance of getting those approved. They have decent carbon benefits and start there. Eventually, you have to work your way down the curve where it may get more expensive and that's where the tougher decisions happen. But there's plenty of work to do for all companies on that left hand side of the curve. And so as that rolls out to all sites, every site has the same exhibits. The divisions geographic division like Europe or North America or whatever has visibility as they roll up to see how their division is doing in which and they can say, I can look across 10 sites in North America and maybe I need to do 880% of the projects at this one site because that's where the benefit is, the best payback and the most amount of carbon. Right? And they don't have that before. And then it rolls to the global level where our team can really keep an eye on what this looks like as well. So that's been a transformative thing for something as mundane as scope one and two. Everybody's like, you know, that's easy. Not easy, but it's not, you know, it's not challenging as scope three. But you put that together with our 100% renewable electricity target, which we're making really or if a goal to get 100% renewable electricity operations by 2030, We're in the eighties now, like so we're making good progress. We put that together with these electricity and, like, and, oil and gas projects. We start to have what feels like an energy and savings project on the ground, but for the company, it's it's a carbon reduction project. So that that's a big bridge for us to have crossed, and it's not perfect yet. We're still people have to learn. But I think that's that's a big unlock for us is rather than trying to just let people do their best and then collect the data. Why don't you drive it by making their life easier in the language they speak and then bringing the data together where you could actually have impact. And so, yeah, Silver needs to be seen pretty new, but this tool's been hugely helpful. And and and in my mind, I'm already thinking I'm already doing it. How do we do the same thing for logistics? How do we do the same thing with suppliers? They all have the same thing. Well, how much carbon per invested dollar? And if they you give them visibility, these are business people, they will be able to make better decisions. I wanna dig a little bit more in into this sort of energy discussion if that's alright. Karen, can you share a little bit about, how those sort of large scale renewable energy projects, thinking offshore wind and things like that, support industries in achieving net zero targets? Yeah. First of all, I'd like to say I wanna stay in Sven's pilot hotel and taste the food as well. I think it would be fantastic. And then, sort of building on vans as well. I think what for us, our big focus as well, in the past, it might have been sort of trying to do an equal approach everywhere. But increasingly, as we get closer and closer to the target, you obviously have to be more sharp about how to get there. But every, sort of dollar, euro, or a penny that you spend, on investing, make sure you're getting the biggest carbon reduction for that investment. Or the and the biggest cost saving or driving growth or visitation depending on on your other, financial metrics. So I think, I all of them. Right? Yeah. Exactly. So from the same, song sheet there with with Vance the way he's talking there. But for us, yeah, we we are fortunate that we have this separate, sort of, large, into investments business. And one of the areas they do is is with renewables as I was talking about. But, of course, we don't offset with that. We don't count it towards our scopes one, two, and three, but it's more about additionality. So it's supporting the greater switch to renewable, overall and therefore lowering carbon overall. So that's why we've decided because it is about investing in the future and making sure societies are more resilient and businesses are more resilient and so on as well. That's why we're investing in it. And then part of that, we can, have the, certificates for the the the credible, reqs for as well. So we it it is a bit of a win win. But for us, it is about also sorting out what we do in our own operations. And beyond what we've talked about renewable electricity, it's the switch to renewable heating and cooling, which isn't more costly, but definitely, worth the investment longer term. So that's a real, project that we're on looking at end of life initiatives because we own, so many of our assets in terms of buildings and so on. And then for us, it's also, touching on things like, reducing our waste. I think it was Vance also mentioned that too. So, waste in our operations has a a carbon implication. Switching materials in our products to being recycled or renewable has a huge, thing. How we ship the products and even product use at home and product end of life. So all the different emission categories have different ways of helping us get our, c o two footprint down. And then touching on spend with the food agenda, of course, many people know IKEA for home finishing retailer, but we serve about 700,000,000 meals a year for one of the world's largest restaurants. So, we both focused on our own operational food waste, and we managed to be the first global company to have our food waste recognized by World Resources Institute a couple of years ago at at Climate Week in New York. And then, that saved us millions of euros as well as saving resources too. And then we're also, switching helping customers switch to plant based meals. And we want to have a fifty fifty split in our, stores in our restaurants because it's not about making people feel guilty about eating red meat. It's about giving them a choice. And to help nudge them with their behavior, we've made sure that the plant based meals are always a lower price than the meat based alternative. Because the biggest impact an individual can have is on what they eat and their food waste in terms of their own c o two footprint. So it's about helping customers to make decisions as well. It's not just what we do in our own operations. We touch just like both of the other guests, speakers there as well, we touch millions and millions of people around the world. So if we can change their behaviors in a way that doesn't make them feel guilty or they're giving something up, as Sven was talking about, you know, people don't feel like they're compromising eating at these pilot restaurants and hotels, then I think, we can have a greater societal impact than just what we do in our own operations. So it's it's a more holistic approach as well, I think. And then I'll just touch on it. When you do talk about the big, sort of, investments we need to make in offshore wind or whatever it is. For us, we cannot do it alone even if we're a large organization. We need to come together with sort of the local communities around those areas and policy makers. Some of the, permitting takes years, even a decade to sort out. Even when you get granted it, it can take a year for all the paperwork to go through. And if, if we really wanna speed up that switch to renewables, we need policymakers to help unlock that. And in our zero emission deliveries, the electric vehicles going to the cities and around the world delivering our our goods to our customers, they're investing in grid capacity for the charging. It's not the the stopper that's stopping us get from 60% to a 100 is not that now the trucks that was a problem a while ago. Now it's about grid capacity and charging capacity for the vans and trucks. So everyone needs to come together and collaborate for these big systemic changes to happen. I feel like infrastructure and collaboration, we we could talk on either of those. I have a whole set of webinars. I want to dig on dig in a little bit more to your sort of previous point around policy, if that's okay. What I I feel like, you know, if if 2026 is maybe resilience is is the word, I thought maybe 2025 the word was regulation. Karen, from your perspective though, which of those sort of policies or regulatory frameworks or or regulations have you found most effective in accelerating your net zero strategy? Well, first because we're a privately owned company. We've, been reporting and had audited reports for many years now, but we haven't had to have. So it's not been that we've suddenly gone, oh, it's, CSRVs coming off because we're a European headquarters, but, of course, we operate around the world, so we have to look at all jurisdictions. So but, first, we were doing it because it was the right thing to do for our business. It made good business sense. You know, climate smart is cost smart is business smart sort of thing. So we're doing it anyway. But, of course, then we now need to make sure that our annual reports are compliant with CSRD. But I think it's that combination of reporting because reporting shouldn't really drive behaviors. You should be reporting on it's a result of great things that you've done that you can then report on. You know, sometimes it can help because you say it's a new regulation or we're legally obliged. But in our company, the the sustainability agenda is so entwined with our culture and our values and our why, if you like, that we don't have to have that argument. For us, it's about making sure that, as Vance was saying, that we don't just sort of, write blank checks, and we actually look where is the best use of our time, energy, and money to get the best carbon reduction. So that's more the how is more the discussion, not the why that we have to do it. But, of course, help it does help to be aligned with the science based targets. We know not not all regulatory systems are perfect, and we know there's lots of discussion. We're involved in that, the updates on the greenhouse gas protocol and so on. Also involved with the global, circularity protocol because unlocking circularity for us as a producer of goods, is and and actually, of course, in our own operations, circularity as well. That's key, for our carbon footprint too. So I think, of course, we work very closely with those. We we we like to not just wait for the regulation to come, but actually be part of task forces to help try and shape it and give the practical hands on industry and business insights into it so that it's not, it's common sense as well. You know, we've gotta try and find that that balance of business sense, common sense as well as being led by science. So that for us is really important. And then, of course, the biggest thing that would help all of us on this sustainability agenda would be to remove fossil fuel subsidies. You know, people say sometimes, what do you want for Christmas? And I say, that's what I want. It's always every year on my on my Santa wish list is to remove that because it's it's not a level playing field. But even so, 90% of new, energy that came on the grid last year was renewable. So it's it's moving forward anyway, because it makes good business sense to do that. I yeah. I had a big, big celebrate when when The UK moved to to more of a new whole production. That was a big day. I don't live in The UK anymore, but I follow The UK news. That was great news. Yeah. And, Vance, what about looking at how obviously, Karen's already touched on it, but a lot of your businesses operate across wholly different markets. How do those large organizations navigate differing regulatory environments across those global markets? Yeah. It's it's it's a good good question. And, yeah, more more recently, I think with regulations starting to really emerge in many, many jurisdictions around the world, it's it's actually helpful, you know, this, you know, regulations have pros and cons. Right? And and different continents treat them very, very differently. So as a global company, it it you know, people like us say to us, oh, you're a US based company, so I guess this climate regulation, well, that's no. There's actually, even if The US is is sitting back on this at the moment, we have operations all over the world and many jurisdictions and this is not slowing down. And then quite honestly, even in The US, in California and New York soon and probably Illinois soon, you know. So you have to this is this is gonna happen one way or the other separate from politics. Right? It's just happening. And and so as a global company, it's it's helpful to us to to have a program and and to have something to do and say, I really like what what Karen say. When reporting and these things started coming out, it was it's all about reporting, all about reporting. I said, well, if we all spend all our resources on reporting, we really have we'll have nothing to report on. Actually, what we need to do is is do the work of decarbonization and risk management, which is really what climate is. And so I think we're getting back to that, which is good. I think they've come down that, you know, we we go where we do the work, then the reporting will follow. So so we're there. But I think there's an opportunity with some of these with emerging regulations that if nothing else they they're trying to mimic, of course, what I think investors wanna hear. Right? A lot of the regulations like CSRD speak about companies measuring and reporting on their the climate risk associated with them with their operations and their supply chain, and that's exactly what investors want. If you're investing in a company, you're gonna wanna know, do you does the company understand what the climate risks are and and are they preparing for them and all that? I think that's that's been a leverage point for us as we, in addition to net zero carbon, looking at climate risk assessments, I think it's been really helpful for us as we've for for several years actually, we've had piloted different approaches and tools for how do you do a climate, you know, risk assessment or climate scenario analysis, whatever you wanna call it. And we've had tools from, you know, from investor groups or for NGOs or academics, consultants. There are there's many different ways to do this. And I think, again, I think now we're finally hitting on the right way to go about it. The tools out there are generally probably fine. What's not so fine is the lack of transparency of of what's in those tools. And so it may not matter to some folks, but if it's an academic tool and it takes a bunch of data and it spits out, you know, monetary potential risks, then and it may be completely right if if you don't know what the assumptions are, the calculations are, and you can't get your finance team through this whole thing in a way that they understand and and align with it. You've done an exercise for no real reason because you're not gonna disclose information that your finance team doesn't understand and can stand you. And so I which is right. Right? They should understand that stuff. So we've taken a step back from that as well in this and and sort of thinking about, we know our company does a very good job of managing, let's say, physical risk when they happen and then periodically and they and they do happen. Right? The weather is not new, but climate is different. And so we we're very good at contingency planning, mitigation, response, and we have we have lots of stuff in place. So that realization, we just we decided, well, what if we could just sort of take forward looking climate information, so to speak, which you have from science under 1.5 degrees all the way up to four degrees. You you have that data. And then somewhat think about injecting that into your existing systems versus creating a whole new system of itself, which nobody really understands and will be very hard to get through. And that's exactly what we're trying to do. And and it's having success in that the internal team is understanding it now and saying, oh, well, basically, what you're doing is you're telling me storms and floods and other things will will happen, but they're gonna happen more frequently and more severe and in different play in different places in the world. That's something you can get your your mind wrapped around. That's what that's what an an insurance company do. Right? So a lot of this data and approaches are I think, are gonna come from the insurance industry because quite honestly, they have the most to lose here. And when they lose, you know, we're gonna pay into it as well. So I think the insurance companies versus is probably a better way to go. They they understand the assets you have. They understand business interruption because they know the revenue flowing through there. I mean, if you're working with them already, they understand the very they need to property loss work all the time. They're pretty well suited if they bring the climate data in to tell you what the potential losses are on a on a on a hundred year storm or fifty year storm in different regions around the world or floods and that type of thing. So I think that's where this is all gonna head. That's my personal opinion. I don't know that for sure. But I think those kinda smart, simplified ways of getting about this is half the it's half the work that we do. Like, the science is clear. How do you translate that into terms that business people understand and they're gonna act upon and speak the language of the business? And I think, like, climate scenario analysis is one of is a great example of that. Now I want to sort of round out the the sort of policy side of discussion with with a bit of chat about, engagement with with those policies. So, Sven, I know Karen's already touched about this, but I wondered if you could dive a little bit into, how companies can proactively engage with those poly policy makers to ensure that innovation in companies is aligning with with sustainability goals and compliance requirements. Yeah. That's a very good question, and I think it's it's really key that, policymakers are being understood but also understand what we're making policy for. And and that's something we have the past where we may not have been part of the discussions, versus where we sit today, really engaging, for example, with European Parliament and European Commission on certain projects on sustainability specifically for the travel and tourism industry. And you see as well the the need for for education from both sides. So for us to understand policymakers, but also policymakers to understand, in in our case, the hospitality business, stepping away from from the theory, but seeing as well in the science, let's say, but applying the science in in, in the the operations. And and these these two elements are sometimes so far apart, but with with that that ongoing conversation, you can actually bring it much closer together. And I do think that policy is is needed. And if if I see what's, specifically CSRD has already changed for us even though we're not even reporting on CSRD, yet, but it it it connects sustainability with finance. Mhmm. And that is something which wasn't there before. Maybe, yes, for early adopters, but not for for the the large majority. And that is a a significant change, which has allowed us as well to to build a business case on on what we already were targeting on, but we need to focus on that, that large majority. And I think that's the power of of policy, maybe also the the disadvantage where policy is not in place. But, like Vance already outlined as well, and we have the same. We are we are a global company. So whatever policy we we lead and and we report in, in Sweden, actually. So, that that's quite advanced when it comes to sustainability. So that is something which we then apply as well at the global level, making sure that every every part of the business is actually involved in that. That still means that that's these discussions which will need to happen, we we still need to provide the learnings of of what works, what's, in our opinion, does not work, what goods look like, but also how how you apply goods in in practice, and to show that this can be a value for obviously, that that policy can be a value for the various stakeholders we have to deal with. And, obviously, I refer to our our guest as well, b two c, b two b, our owners, investors. Of course, our guests, they're looking for this as well. But also our talent, we are an industry which certainly post pandemic has been significantly hit with, with the lack of staffing. And therefore, you need to put yourself out as well as a leader in in an area where it matters certainly for you wanna attract. And this is also one way to do. It comes down to policy, but you still need to be if you wanna make a difference in in addressing these different stakeholders, you need to stay ahead of that, and that allows you as well to to be part of of the discussion with the policy makers. Mhmm. Okay. So I'm I'm conscious that we are slightly running out of time, because I feel like we could we could discuss this for hours. I want to sort of round out, the session with a little bit of a discussion about, innovation, if that's okay. And I'm going to to ask a very, very broad question that you can all interpret as you as you wish, to give you the foothold. But I think we've probably only got about a minute answer each, if that's okay. So just a just a a massive question and a a short answer, so I apologize. Innovation in sustainability, can you either give me a great example of it or tell me what role it plays for for you and your company or, how you're seeing sustainability driving innovation or vice versa? Something something along those that's that's a terribly worded question. I apologize, but I'm hoping that you'll all springboard with it. Vance, do you wanna start us off? Sure. I'll go I'll try to do this in a minute. I'll use my my favorite example and it just happens to be from Colgate, just by with this, is, in innovation and growth with sustainable because, I mean, it it is hard, with consumer products to necessarily to deliver that, more sustainable product at the right price that that's a better product or, like, doing all those things. It's possible and we do it at times, but it it's not it's not always easy, right, because there's there's a lot of hurdles to that. And the good news is consumers generally do want sustainability, but certainly they don't wanna pay more money, for it necessarily. So I'll point to one example that we have. We have toothpaste tubes, of course. We we make more toothpaste tubes than than than anyone else in the world. And so about, I don't know, five or six years ago, we we just decided to try to figure out how to make a toothpaste tube recyclable. It has never been recyclable. It had a layer of aluminum and different plastics. I won't go into the technicalities, but we have scientists that spent five years reinventing that tube and came up with a tube that is different grades of the same type of plastic, basically HDPE, which is think about milk bottles. So it's made of different grades of that, and that is technically now recyclable. Got approved as recyclable. We patented the technology. We committed to transition all of our tubes over a five year period to do that. We're getting close now, and that was that was great. The the best part I think that I'm most proud of is then once we had that, we had the patent, but we did not enforce it. We actually shared it with our competitors. We shared it with the industry, with suppliers, and said, Colgate's got half the tubes in the world, but we inclusivity tubes, everyone has to come along with this. It's never gonna transform. Nobody's gonna recycle just Colgate tubes. Right? So we have to give it to and lo and behold, our our competitors stepped up as well, and some used our technology, some used the rope. Basically, figured out how to transform that as well. So that is an industry transformation example where we won, but then we win together and, you know, there's still plenty of challenges that stuff doesn't get recycled enough. Right? It doesn't get picked up. There's millions of challenges in the industry of recycling. But in terms of making it recyclable, to me that was a real innovation that we were able to then share and transform. That is absolutely incredible. Karen, what about you? I love that story too, actually. And I building building on that for us, it it probably is also all about circular and circularity as well. And some of it can be innovation that you change that the customer doesn't even notice, but it makes a huge difference to how we construct something where we might switch a metal frame in a sofa out to a wooden one, for example, or switching to recycled material that's a virgin material. So things that don't sort of, on the face of it, have a a visible impact for the customer. But things like the sort of, bookcase that I have behind me, making sure it's, really easy to disassemble and then reassemble when you move so it doesn't end up going to landfill when people move because it's, not been able to be disassembled properly. So changing the way we construct so that it is, able to be repaired and also rebuilt again when you move is super important for us. And we made that also open sourcing so that the the circular design principles for furniture, which we originally worked with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation on years ago. We've now made open source for everybody to share. And then it is about the switch to, different materials. And then I would say for us as well, mattress recycling. So via our anchor investments arm, just starting only in The Netherlands, which is a small, country, even there, we recycle 1,000,000 mattresses a year, which would go to landfill or incineration, and we can break it down to the textiles, the metal, and even the foam can get recycled, which was a really new innovative, chemical innovation that we worked on together with the, with the whole group that we're working on in this retour mattress mattress recycling. So So I think that, for me, is a really big shift. And then helping customers adopt behaviors with secondhand buyback. It doesn't sound like a tech innovation for products, but innovation and behavior change. We do buyback. We'll resell your IKEA furniture and and and you get a voucher back to do that. And we're looking at peer to peer platforms to connect IKEA customers to sell our furniture, keeping product in use for longer, extending product life is a is a big part of what we're doing. Amazing. And, Sven, last but not least? Yeah. We're obviously not producing products, but we're providing services. So, we do have a lot of products in place, and then this is something which we are looking at. But the hospitality industry is quite a traditional one, and we're certainly not as innovative as as we should be, in my opinion. But I also think that that looking at that our pathway and then we spoke about net zero, solutions are there. So it's not that we like the solutions. It's more how do you create the accessibility to it, affordability, and, of course, can we scale up? And that is something which we've done with these, with these two pilots of verified net zero hotels, really showing that this is an industry methodology, which is not just applied but also verified, and allowing to to use this as a board. But then on top of that, it's it's showing the industry this is possible and not in 2040 or 2050, but today. And then really enable to to break down to to educate your your partners, your suppliers in in that way as well. That's so valuable. And, at that time, you do see, okay, we're not perfect, and and our partners are not perfect. But there is all the the the mindset is there. The solutions are there, and it's just if you can combine, all of these different stakeholders, and we were talking about policymakers before as well. I think Karen hinted to that in the beginning, but we require systematic change. And that is something which, being a front runner, you you inspire people to to do that, but really to, yeah, to make that change for, for the wider industry. And that that's something we, we continue to do. We're also happy to learn from from our competition. I also see this as as pretty competitive, possibilities to to really drive sustainability because in the end, we all wanna go in the same way. We're all positive people, and and that's something we need to, yeah, we need to materialize. Well, what a what a perfect way to to finish up, but I am sorry to say that is all we have time for today. Huge thank you to our audience and, of course, to Sven, Karen, and Vance for sharing your incredibly valuable insights. The recording of this webinar will be available shortly, so you can come back and watch it again alongside a host of others on Sustainability Magazine website. And, of course, don't forget to share it around. Thank you once more for joining us and from all of us here at Sustainability Magazine. Bye for now.