#45 Why DC Buses Run On Time and Jenson Delegates - Behind The Veil Of Certified B Corp MRCagney

Right. It appears. Right, there we go. Right, we are live in the Facebook group because I can see it on my other screen. So we are here. So yeah, Kyoto, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Be Better podcast. And this week we have got Jensen and Amber from. Not from Mr. Cagney as I've been called from Mr. Cagney.

So yeah, these guys, we worked with them a wee while ago on their B corp. They've recently certified as a B corp. A pretty high scoring B corp, I'd say. You did it. It was a solid, a solid B plus I reckon in terms of B corp scores. A little room for improvement. Yes, we just, we're coming together to chat today and just, yeah, get to know these, these cool cats a little bit more, understand what they've been up to. So yeah, Jensen, Amber, over to you. Maybe take it in turns perhaps. Ladies first. Who are you? What does Mr. Cagney do? And why are we here talking about cool B corp stuff?

I might hand that one over to Jensen to set us up to, to, to set the scene for who we are and then I will happily introduce myself.

Go for it.

All right, well, kia ora. So I'm Jensen Varghese, the managing director here at Mr. Cagny, or MRC for short. And so maybe I'll start with the company. So we, we are a sustainable transport consultancy. And so we, our focus is public transport, walking and cycling. We provide strategy and advice to primarily city councils and central government clients around how they can make their cities better. And our mission is really to create a world where people can thrive without a car. So that's not to say that, you know, we're anti car, but we do also recognize that all our cities, especially in the last 50 years or so, have been built around the private vehicle. And what that means is if you can't drive, if you can't afford a car, if you live in certain places or you have, you know, disabilities or sort of restrictions, then life can be pretty bad for, for some people. And we're trying to create cities where anyone, anyone can thrive whether or not they have a car. Kids can sort of walk safely on streets. That's, that's plain streets. That's kind of the city we're trying to create. And that's our company mission. And so as I said, I'm the managing director. So my role is really just overseeing the overall business. I've worked in the sort of in the transport and urban planning sector for about 15 odd years, been with MRC for about 13 of those and so. Oh, God, no. I've been here for like, I've been working for like 20 years now. I'm getting old, but yeah, for 13 of those years I've been with MRC and yeah, look, I just, it's, it's a pretty special place. It's pretty, pretty incredible group of people that are pretty, pretty committed to this goal of making a difference. And so, yeah, that's mrc. That's me. I'll hand it back to Amber.

Like, catch, catch the hot potato. So my name's Emma Karen Fletcher. I'm the operations manager at Mike Agni. I've been here for about four and a half years. I think I started as a consultant and then moved into this role about a year and a half ago. And my job is really to support Jensen with the running of the business, but I'm much more internally focused and making sure that, you know, we're not only doing good in the community, as Jensen said, but we're really sort of living those values as a company and making sure that we're looking after our people and that all our processes are supporting our work so that we can be the most effective in making that change in the community. But also that we're, yeah, supporting our staff and being. Giving good internal customer service, if you will, as well and making sure that our staff are well supported to do the work they do.

So you mean you, you do all the work, Jensen takes all the glory? That's.

I couldn't, I couldn't possibly say. Those are your words, Tam.

That's just how I'm hearing. I think Jensen is just the glory boy, poster child.

Yeah.

We do really cool stuff. Do we? What have we done? What have you done? Tell me what we got. I know how this works. Yeah. There's plenty of companies that we hang out with where there's. I know how it works. So I guess. How do you both get into transport consulting? I don't really remember anyone at school going, when I grow up, I want to be a transport consultant. Because I think that sounds really cool. How do you. How do you. Yeah, how did you get into that as a, as a career path? Was it something that you both kind of wanted to do from an early age? Or is it kind of one of those careers that you sort of form, fall into it at a certain. Or does some. Is it like, is it like MI5 or the FBI? You get, you get sheltered in a dark room. Can you solve this problem? And you go, yeah, I can actually go, great. You're going to be a transport consultant now.

Okay.

Do you want me to go first for that one, Jensen? Okay.

So.

I started, I guess, yeah, my journey in transport began. I did my master's in public policy when I was living in Washington D.C. and.

I sort of focused on urban policy. And then when I was graduating, I did an emerging leaders program with the local government in Washington D.C. and got sort of placed in agency which happened to be transport. And so I was in the policy and planning department. And the idea was that, you know, you'd sort of get some work experience and then maybe move around to some of the other agencies.

Yeah, I was actually working in the commercial vehicle planning department there, which was. Which was quite interesting. And we dealt with a lot of commercial buses and things as well.

And I enjoyed it. I had a great boss and he convinced me to stay. Is basically. And the rest is history. That's basically it. It was, it was really great though. Like, it was, you know, a lot of great opportunities. I got to work on fun stuff like planning all the. All the bus transport coming in from around the states for Obama's second inauguration. Like, that was quite a cool thing to work on. Right. And then. Then we moved back to New Zealand and I. Yeah. Then ended up at MRC when I. Yeah, when I came back to work here. So that's sort of how. How I ended up.

Nice. So, yes, if you can organize the buses for a massive event in Washington D.C. that's probably nothing bigger than a presidential inauguration, then you can possibly sort out a few buses in Auckland.

Cbd, maybe.

Maybe.

So. Yeah. So why Washington? Like was there. Was it like the program that kind of took you there or.

We actually, we'd moved there for my husband's job. So he was working for the federal government. Yeah. And.

Can't say any more than that. Just.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Back to that. MI5.

So actually you're an MI5.

So.

Hang on. Jensen does no work. Amber's an MI5 sleeper agent working in transport. So if the buses are all bugged, we know who did it. It was Amber. It's a long play.

You heard it here first, people. Wow.

And somebody's gonna pick this up and. Right.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, we're probably on a watch list now, aren't we? Well, we're already on the watch list because Amber's put us. Put Jensen I on the watch list probably six months ago. She's like, yeah, these guys clearly need to be. And. And so how about you, Jensen? How did you get into this?

Yeah, so like, yeah, in, in, in Aotearoa there's not, there isn't really a transport planning qualification as such and so it's not the sort of thing that you can study. And so I did a degree called engineering science which is like applied mathematics and computing and then basically try to, and at the time like, so this is going back like 15 years or so, there wasn't a lot of like transport planning was sort of largely dominated by civil engineers, maybe some planners as well. And so like they didn't, they didn't really have a diverse range of qualifications. So I kind of just managed to convince them that yeah, I knew what transport modeling was. I had no idea what that was but I did a lot of math modeling at uni and so I was like, yeah, I can kind of figure this stuff out. And so started doing like transport models which are quite sort of detailed like simulations of you know, motorways, roads and this, like if you expand this motorway, this is what it's going to do for traffic. And you know, I was honest, I was working on like a motorway interchange which was somewhat soul destroying and quite sort of esoteric. And then so I put up through that process I realized that actually transport's a really powerful way to make a difference. It affects so many people's lives. There's so much good that can come of transport and we're also seeing a lot of negative effects of it. So.

I caught the transport bug then but I wanted to work in a much more strategic space rather than kind of the details. So yeah, like you said, get somebody else to do all the work and.

Just kind of think about that. I knew it, I knew it.

And so yeah, look, it was actually a classmate of mine who had been working at MRC and this amazing small consultancy that does strategic work and is focusing on doing good. It was, yeah. And I just kind of took the plunge and kind of went into the strategic transport space and yeah, haven't looked back.

Nice hotel California. You can't leave. Yeah, I just have visions of you two like playing like with Lego as, as kids, like building towns and cities and like were you into it from like an early age like that? Or had you always been like a spatial planner? Because I would imagine like your mindset to visualize a city and an infrastructure and how things like go together. Like you've got to have a certain way of approaching the world which I don't have. Like if I was in charge of infrastructure planning it would be fun but we wouldn't be getting to Work on time. There'd probably be more slides and, you know, sort of fun things than actual useful infrastructure. Yeah, yeah.

Look, I mean, so full disclosure, I'm probably not the best at like the spatial planning side of things, but I think, I think for me it was. There's always like. So I grew up in Samoa and especially my father's always big on like environmental sustainability and just seeing how things were done historically that, you know, like traditional ways being so much more kind of sustainable and better for the environment and how that was, like environment was degrading. Like that was. That's always been big for me. So it was probably less the trans. For me. It's less about transport, it's more about the environmental and the social impacts that we can make. That's, that's, that's always been big for me. Quite a few people in the office. Oh, sorry, the, the, the older folk in the office, office, a lot of them grown up playing SimCity. So I think there isn't like Lego to some degree. SimCity is like, there's a common theme with quite a few transport planners as well. I don't know what about, what about you, Amber?

Yeah, I'm not sure. As a LEGO person, I think I've always been really interested in how things work. Right. Like if I go to the theater, I'm actually quite interested in what's going on backstage. Right. Like, I see the pretty picture. I see what, you know, everyone's putting forward, but who's actually making this happen. There is a reason that I'm the operations manager.

Right.

This is a thing.

But like, you know, in almost everything that's always, I'm always like, but how does it work? Right. And you know, I guess transport is such a critical part of that for cities. Like, I love cities and I. But I really want to understand how they work. How do people get to where they need to be and you know, are there barriers to that? And as Jensen said, like, quite a big sort of.

Focus on sort of environmental outcomes and sustainability and things. But I think probably for me more it's, yeah, that social aspect and understanding how things work and how people get to what they need to get to to be able to live fulfilling lives. Right.

So, yeah, so you've got a good, good balance there. So the yin and yang of the social and the environmental and coming together nicely. I think the one thing you need to think about is if there are people, the older folk still playing SimCity, you should be monitoring for the ones that unleash Godzilla because They, they're the ones that you might just need to, you know, put on your watch list and make sure. Dave, that's interesting. I've noticed you've unleashed Godzilla three times this week on your simulation. Are you okay?

It's good.

It's good metric.

Was it the UFO that would fly through as well and like zap the city? Yeah, it's coming vaguely coming back to me.

Yeah, I know. Nice. So what, what sort of projects does Mr. Cagney do? Like, where do you do them? Are you, are you across the whole of New Zealand? Are you international or are you just Tamaki Makoto? Auckland? Yeah. Would we have been. What is a project that someone might have been on or been a part of unwittingly and now being monitored on the surveillance that.

Yeah, so I guess maybe starting geographically. We used to be part of an Australian company and then last year we, we executed a management buyout to be 100% sort of kiwi owned. And it was just, we were quite keen to sort of be in charge of our own destiny. So that happened about a year ago. So we're just, we're 100% kiwi kiwi owned company. In terms of the work we do at the moment, it's primarily in Aotearoa and of that, it's, I guess it's a mixture of. We do work across the country.

And that's for like sort of city councils, local governments as well as central government. So projects that we've been involved with that you might have heard of for anyone in Tamaki Makoto, the Northern Busway. So one of the most successful sort of public transport projects in the country or in the Southern Hemisphere. Mr. Cagney was involved in that 20 years ago. That's how we started here. We've always kind of lived and breathed public transport and we do the, I guess the early planning and strategy of these things. So we're not, we're not a detailed design company, we're not an engineering company that, that builds it. We, we, we come up with the ideas and make the case for why these projects will be positive. So Northern Busway redesigning sort of Auckland's public transport network. There's been sort of significant sort of changes to like national legislation around urban development, allowing for more intensification. So we've provided advice, evidence to inform elements of that overall national policy statement for urban development. Yeah, off the top of my head, public transport projects, in terms of early planning across the country, we've probably been involved in quite a few of them in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin. And sort of in between as well.

Maybe potentially more controversial or certainly politically challenging is parking reform. So that's, that's a big part of what we do. And it's, you know, everyone wants to get a car if they're driving, they want a car park right outside where they want to go. But if everyone gets that, then it's going to be a city of car parks with no buildings. And it's recognizing that there's a massive sort of subsidy and inequity thing that comes with providing a whole lot of parking for free. And so we've helped councils and, and our clients just manage their parking better, which actually makes development and construction more, more affordable and just yet contributing to that better places objective.

How are you sort of finding the shift or is there a shift happening? Because I know, you know, I guess post quakes here in Christchurch, there was a, there was a fair amount, it felt like of community interest and buy in for light rail to connect Rolleston and Pegasus. So if you're not from Christchurch, listening from overseas or you're not even from, if you're in Auckland, you might not know parts of Christchurch. There's two sort of big commuter belt towns that feed into the Christchurch as the main hub and the traffic getting into to the city from both those places was just awful because everyone's trying to leave at the same time with one person typically in the car. And there was a, you know, there seems to be some pretty good groundswell support for why don't you just build a light rail into a central train station? Because most people are working in the cbd. And then from there you could make use of E bikes or scooters or what have you to get you to your final, that sort of final mile of delivery. But it just came down to now we'll just build a bigger motorway.

Are you seeing, I mean, clearly, I presume you're trying to play a part in sort of shifting attitudes and mindsets at government and other infrastructure departmental level. Is that, yeah. Is that, is that becoming more so or is it still kind of like motorway? It feels like motorway is the, is the big hammer that most departments can kind of, you know, it's easy, it's an easy crowd, please, and say, yeah, we're just going to build a bigger or another motorway because people like cars and we look good opening another motorway. Yeah. What's, what's your take on that?

Amber's keeping quiet. I think she's going to.

Yours, Amber.

Well, I think, I think I mean, I'll let Jensen sort of answer the question around sort of where things are changing, but I think that.

Increasingly we need to understand how we can work within our existing infrastructure. Right. And rather than either building a big light rail or a big motorway project, understanding how we can, you know, shift the times that we travel or shift the mode that we're traveling, or shift the sort of the capacity of the vehicle that we might be traveling and that sort of thing to think about how we can work within our means. And there's definitely been a bit of a shift sort of with the legislation that's come out and some of the policies and plans that we're going to need to start thinking more about that if we're going to meet our emissions reductions goals and we're going to meet our climate change commitments. The question is how quickly we can do that, I guess, and how responsive we can be. But that is definitely sort of an area that we work in as well. Maybe providing some of that sort of background advice and some examples of how this can be done, either whether it's individual projects that might feed into bigger impact if they can be scaled up or applied in a lot of different places, or whether there are sort of leads, sort of pathways or policy pathways to support that sort of shift in New Zealand.

So is there like a hierarchy almost of solutions in terms of their. Like, do you have like a go to list of, of a hierarchy of solutions that are kind of like easy to implement, that provide good, typically good outcomes, or is it 100% nuanced on each project? Like, would it be like if everyone rode a bike, like that's the solution? Or is it like. Well, no, because not everyone can ride a bike. Obviously if you have a disability or you don't have a bike. Yeah, I'm guessing it's probably more nuanced than my idiot brain would be able to apply, which is why I'm not doing what you do.

I think the really challenging thing is that it is complex and there's so many different factors at play. Like, I kind of talked about, you know, transport planning historically being dominated by sort of civil engineering. But, you know, it covers everything from land use to. It contributes to housing affordability, to environmental impacts, to access to jobs, to like, you know.

Other, other social outcomes. And the, the. It is, it is, it is incredibly nuanced. And the challenge for decision makers, particularly like at a political level, is that new infrastructure that shiny is really easy to sell. But actually, you know, like, some of the more, the most Transformational things we could do anywhere is just increasing existing bus services frequencies. So rather than waiting an hour, if you have to wait 15 minutes, you almost have to turn up and go. And you don't have to worry about your timetable and things like that. And so the real challenge that we have is that.

The powerful stuff that can really make a difference sometimes isn't politically sexy.

And recognizing that in the environment that we're heading into, increasingly where we're going to be funding constrained, it's going to be around doing, as Amber mentioned, doing more with existing assets because there isn't this abundant supply of money. There isn't. And there are impacts of, like, there are negative impacts from, from every decision that we make. And so it's being really considered about how we do that. So, yeah, it's tricky. It is really tricky. And there's so many different players and interests and stakeholders that navigating it and communicating so that everyone's making informed decisions is really, really hard, I think.

I mean, sorry, you go, I was.

Just going to say, but I think, you know, some of the work that we're doing, you asked if there are kind of like a hierarchy of suggestions that we would make if people are choosing. And so if you look at sort of in the emissions reduction space or maybe like reducing the amount of, as you said, you know, a lot, a lot of those cars that were driving and just had one people, one person in them. Sorry. And.

While there are lots of quite often a response to reduce the amount of like single occupancy vehicle travel or.

You know, which translates into emissions reductions and things, there is often more of a package of interventions that you need to think of to get to that. We often say there's no silver bullet. Right. Like, that's something that we say quite often because as Jensen said, for folks who are sort of in the political sphere, it's really nice to be able to point to one single thing that you've done and say, well, this is going to solve everything. The reality is there's very rarely such a project or a piece of infrastructure. But one of the things that we've certainly found with some of the work that we've done is that while those packages are really important to get to whether it's reducing private vehicle travel or emissions reductions, but parking is often key to that. And that's why Jensen talked about that. It's not always very popular parking reform, but it's often really critical to unlocking the benefits of those other interventions that you're maybe implementing.

It, I guess it.

Kind of feels like.

Here, you know, New Zealand, Australia, the US in particular. You know, it's, it's kind of like, you know, the car is this birthright that I have to have a car, I get to drive it, I want to listen to my music, I want the aircon. So that's my level. Like, I don't really want someone else in my, like. The whole idea of car sharing, I guess has got maybe increasingly more common as traffic's got so bad. And obviously in Auckland you've got your car shared lanes on the, you know, coming into the commute. I don't know, the UK seems, I guess, you know, in London you've got the tube, you've got other bigger infrastructure that's kind of more adept at moving people around.

Is, is it how, how much of it is a. Is a play at a government level on big project infrastructure versus the corporate level where increasingly companies are starting to think about. When we were talking with a company yesterday about their B corp and they're like, oh, you know, they were like, oh, should we incentivize our staff to, you know, walk or public transport? So. Well, yeah, if you do that, you're going to get some points on your assessment. So that's clearly seen as a, you know, a positive. But then also we need to have a mindset shift. Mindset shift on the individual level of. Well, actually I don't need to have a car or don't. So how do you play amongst all of that? I guess you'll mainly focus on the, on the project side of it. But yeah, what's your sense around how do we move the needle more quickly to get change? Is it government business or one on one individuals or a mixture?

I actually think it's at the government level and like, so, you know, we quite often hear the statement that actually, you know, Kiwis, Kiwis love their cars. Right. But I guess the kind of response to that is it's more like it's an arranged marriage or a forced marriage where you don't have a choice, you don't have any other choice. And if I talk about the Northern Busway project and I mean that was an infrastructure solution, but there are like, I talked about increasing frequencies as a way of doing that without building new infrastructure. But in that case. So that's, you know, the planning went on for like started like 30 years ago. And before when it was built there was this like, you know, pretty famous like herald cartoon that says, you know, the big white elephant, like Everyone was saying this was, this was a joke, a waste of money. And so for those who aren't in Auckland or don't know of it, the Northern Busway is basically a busway in the North Shore part of Auckland. And then it goes over the Harbour Bridge and comes into city. And there's no, there's no sort of infrastructure on the Harbour Bridge, but it's, it's, there's a lot of separated infrastructure on the North Shore part of Auckland. And so when this was built, they said it was a white elephant. So 20 years later, there's more people coming over the Harbour Bridge in buses than there are in cars during the peak period. And so this isn't, this isn't like businesses sort of subsidizing public transportation. There's an element of communicating with the public, but it's actually, this is so much more convenient. I don't have to drive, I don't get stuck in traffic. And I can be on my phone or read or just look at the awesome view and enjoy that rather than being stuck in this, in kind of stressful driving environment. So I think it's really around providing people with the choices, giving them a genuine option rather than making people do it because it's the sustainable thing to do that, you know, that that's so secondary or maybe even kind of less down the list than just giving people a genuine option.

I would agree with that. And I think it's really important for governments to provide those options. But I think that there's a role for businesses as well to nudge their employees maybe. And you know, there's all sorts of things like, you know, workplace travel plans and things like that that businesses can put in place. But there's also the financial incentives that businesses provide for, for their employees. If they're providing car parks for their employees, why wouldn't you drive? Right. You know, I mean, and I think that that's something that's really important. Again, it flows down from the government because there are policy settings that you can put in place, whether those are tax incentives. There's been a proposal recently to provide the fringe benefit tax exemption for public transport.

Subsidies. Is that right, Jensen? I'm getting that right. Yeah. Which would at least put that on a living, playing level, playing field with providing car parks for staff.

So.

Yeah.

So just for context on that, so employers can provide a car park tax free, but if you give somebody, an employee, a public transport pass, there's actually tax disbenefits for your, for an employer to do that. So like this is what we talked about, the kind of uneven playing field or, or subsidies that have historically been in place for, for driving or for the private vehicle.

Yep. And I think because in the UK they.

There was certainly what's happening a few years ago, like you got some tax benefits if you subsidize your staff to buy a bike or get into a non car based sort of form of transport. Yeah. So yeah, I guess it's the same with everything. It's. With any change you need that government infrastructure, regulation to set a framework or you know, some boundaries business to be able to take some action somehow which then creates an incentive to the end. I think it's the same with the broader, you know, B Corp sustainability.

Everyone's kind of playing a role.

Yeah, interesting. I had a thought then, but escape my mind. No, it'll come back to me.

No, it's gone. Oh no. Yeah, so that was it. I was going to say. So if so obviously most people listening to this podcast would be a business. So what would be like a top tip or a couple of ideas? If you're a business that wants to sort of think about how you're moving your people around, what are some things to have a look at? You know, are there any like top tips?

So I think I'll start and you can continue. Jensen. I think, you know, in terms of a lot of companies do have workplace travel plans and things like that. There's a lot of support that's around for developing those. But things like providing end of trip facilities for people that want to cycle into work, thinking about providing, you know, or at least giving people the choice to choose whether they might want a public transport pass versus you know, just the default being we'll provide you with a car park. For much bigger companies, there's lots of ways that you can sort of incentivize, you know, think about how you, how you're providing your parking or maybe pricing your parking to, to consider how people can get to work. Yeah, I think there's a range of options available there. But as Jensen said, a lot of it is about making sure, even thinking, you know, about providing opportunity which is a lot more available now for teleworking and where people work and all of that sort of thing, all of that is going to contribute to thinking about how your folks move around.

And I guess the only other thing that I would mention is, and it's tricky because I guess there's leases and things in place, but when considering where you locate and you know, that doesn't come up all the time. But.

Just assuming that, you know, somewhere that's got lots of parking is the, is the ideal outcome. Like we've, we've worked with businesses that have moved from those sort of locations to central city locations and it was a big deal at the time. You know, staff members who'd been driving for 20 years of their career would now have to catch public transport. And that change was a challenge and initially disruptive. But people found, oh, it's awesome being in the city. Awesome being on the bus or catching the ferry into work because then it's, it's quite relaxing. I didn't realize how stressful driving was actually. There's all these cafes around here that, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a different environment. I'm meeting more people in the city. It's actually doing better. Business is doing better because I'm running into more people because there's lots of people in the city. There's a, there's a location element that I guess it's hard if you're in a long term lease, but not, not assuming that just because you've always done things what, something one way, that's the way you need to keep doing things in the future.

That's, that's kind of life though, isn't it? It's like we just get into a habit and it's like, well, we've kind of always done it that way and we don't stop and. But I think, yeah, the COVID working from home. I guess it's a double edged sword though because some people might be more nervous to get on public transport now because of fear of, you know, a pandemic and I'm on a bus or a train or whatever with 20 people that might be carrying some virus.

But yeah, I mean I, I spend most of my time working out of my home office here and when I do have to go in town into town, it's pretty rare. I do try and take the bus where I can. I've got my bike out. I was going to try and get to a meeting this morning on my bike, but I didn't. I failed miserably. I feel really, really guilty now of talking to two infrastructure gurus and I drove to a meeting this morning, but it is a mindset shift and I think also, you know, you go, oh, it's kind of like a networking event. I can't really turn up sweaty, you know, and stinky on my bike. But it's like, well actually should I? And why, you know, why can't I do that? Not them saying you want to be absolutely drenched in sweat, shaking hands with people. But yeah, I think it's, there's a lot of, a lot of it is just our perception and, and that that change. But when I, I commuted into town, I drove in a couple weeks ago for, for another networking event in the evening and the traffic, it took me like almost 40 minutes to do what can be like a 10 or 12 minute drive. And I'm just, I cannot understand how you looking at everyone around, how do you all do this every day? But I'm going insane doing it once.

Do you, have you got, do you, when you're suggesting infrastructure, do you report and suggest and provide that data? Like is there that depth of granularity on. Look, you know, you could put another. You kind of do a motorway set up here with lots of people driving. However, the mental health damage of a thousand people an hour being stuck in a car hating each other and trying to cut each other up, you know, because you could take that to quite a large degree of like, well, the impact of someone having a stressful commute is bad for them at work, but then they get home, what's the impact of them on their relationship with their kids? Are they able to be a good community member? You know, there's quite a large ripple effect just based. Whereas, you know, if I'd gone for my bike ride this morning, it was a beautiful 17 degrees blue sky guy, I would have felt really energized and I should have, should have got on my bike, you know, would have been really nice. I would have got probably an hour's worth of exercise in which I'm not going to get now because I've got a really busy day. So like all of that adds up. Like, can you capture that and do you capture that?

There's quite a bit of evidence out there about it how you. And we try our best to ensure that feeds into the decision making process but.

It is tricky. So I guess it's the sort of thing that we're, I think everyone's generally aware of and there's a lot of evidence about the health benefits of sort of walking and cycling, even PT to some degree because you, you do, you know, you walk, walk to and from sort of stops and the dis. Benefits that come from driving and it's, you know, it's health and so there's, there's a certain number, I forget the number off the top of my head. But like deaths that come from just automobile sound, just like noise pollution and, and you know, it's, there's. There's a lot of dis. Benefits, so there's awareness of it. But feeding that into a case and making the, you know, the convincing. The political argument. Making convincing political arguments about why to do things differently is tricky because it's really making the case for change. So, yeah, we try, but it's not. Yeah, it's challenging.

Yeah, I remember that. I can't remember the guy's name, but there was a guy, we used to live just around the corner and he used to work for the city council. And we would quite often get the same bus and, you know, the first time we kind of got talking and every time we were on the way in we would have like these really deep philosophical conversations around like the meaning of life. And like you just kind of felt. Because I think sometimes people get on the bus, headphones on, I'm just going to be on TikTok or whatever I'm doing. It's like almost as bad as. Mentally bad for you, I guess, as being in a car by yourself. But yeah, it was that connection that we had with a neighbor who I ordinarily probably wouldn't have really got to say hi to, you know, that there was a value to that. And I guess how do you capture that? And I think this is the challenge with the purpose and the impactful side of doing good is some economists will probably try and put a dollar value on that, but it's like I really put a dollar value on having a really good chat with a. With a neighbor and having an idea buzz around your head for the rest of the day. That gives you. Keeps you entertained.

Yeah, And I think that's really important too. It's not just about how you get to, you know, places you need to go, whether it's your job or, you know, your school or your university or whatever. But it's also just thinking about our communities. And so we often think about transport as a, you know, a way to get somewhere perhaps sort of longer distance, but it can also just be that sort of smaller scale, just walking around.

Right.

And being able to walk to things and how we design our cities. There's a really, you know, the, the relationship between how we design our cities and land use and the transport system is really critical as well. And those sort of benefits that you're talking about catching, you know, getting to meet your neighbour and catching the bus with them, all of those sort of opportunities are much more Available for people of all ages, whether it's kids, if they can walk to their school, you know, or, you know, people can walk to their job if they're, if they're able to live close enough to do that or to access things they need. There's really, there's real well being and community benefits to that and making sure that sort of our, our walking infrastructure is available and that our spaces, you know, if we're able to reduce the amount that we're using private vehicles, then that just makes our community environments safer and nicer to be in so that we can get out and about and meet our neighbors and build those relationships.

Yeah, no, 100%, that's been a. I quite like working from home because, you know, I typically try and walk my daughter to school in the morning. So I'll meet some other parents on the way to school. You chat to the principal of the school and then I take the dog for a bit of extended walk and I normally meet a couple of other people who've got their dogs. We have a bit of a chat and you know, so my morning commute is actually pretty connected. And you know, like yesterday I was walking back, it was really windy, the bins were out. I didn't pull everyone's bins in, but I picked up one bin because the bin man was coming around the corner and the bin was on the floor and I try to help him. And then another mate, I thought his bin was about to do the light fandango down the street, so I pulled it in. You know, so you feel like a sense of community and connection just from doing the school commute. Whereas if you're just doing it in the car and you're throwing the kids with some parents and you know, because for good reasons, it's like, kids, get out the car, I'm running late, gotta go. Just that whole different approach to your start of your day. But like you say, it's hard because the world's kind of been built around the motorcar, I guess over the last few years. And I guess it's one of the, one of the challenges, you know, when people sort go, you bloody hippies. You know, you still drive your cars and get on your planes, don't you? And it's like, well, yep, because kind of have to right now. But you know, and I think that the best phrase I heard, I can't remember who first said it or who it's attributed to or who I heard it from, but you know, the guy who invented the light bulb did it under candlelight. And I think that's the thing I keep saying to people is we haven't got perfection, though. We have not got a fully zero emission, perfectly green, socially and environmentally connected transport system. But to create that, we've got to work with what we got. And it's going to be a transition unless, you know, Cagney comes in with the magic wand overnight and tomorrow morning everyone's like, whoa, where's the road? God, why am I on a bike?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Like there, there is, there's, yeah, like there's no silver bullet.

But I think, yeah, it's just important to keep trying and working towards it because, yeah, it's, the impacts are massive and, you know, everyone wants to live in, you know, in, in happy communities or happy places. And the more we can do that, the more we can help make that happen, I think the better everywhere is going to be.

Is there like an exemplar city or, or area that you kind of go, look, if we could just actually copy and paste that? Or is it, is it. It's more nuanced than that, but it's. I mean, people typically go, I like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, you know, like, they've kind of got it nailed. You know, London's pretty good in terms of the Tube and obviously, you know, that infrastructure is embedded. It's been there since the Victorian era. So you're kind of lucky that someone had the foresight to, to get that. Imagine London without a Tube right now, like, that ain't happening. So. Yeah, what, what? Is there one exemplar city or is there? Yeah. What if you could like wave a magic wand and say Auckland, right, Tomorrow it looks like this. Yeah. What would you transplant it with?

Yeah, I don't, I don't know if there is. I don't know if there is an example. And yeah, like you talk about the Amsterdams and the old Copenhagens of the world in terms of like. And they've. I think what's, what's really exciting, especially for me around like, Amsterdam, is that, you know, I think it was in the 70s they were having significant sort of road deaths, right? Kids were, were being killed. And so the people just stood up and said, no, we want safer streets for our kids. And it was, you know, a grassroots sort of people led, demanding change. And like, you know, at the time, this quote says, you know, we can't, we can't be like, increase our cycling mode share. We can't get more people cycling. That's not Amsterdam, that's not us. Right. And so.

I don't think there is an exemplar city. And I talked to transport planners in the Netherlands and they're complaining about how this too much traffic sort of engineering going on and how they keep doing worldwide things so they can complain about the same things that we do. But I think there's learnings from places and I think the most important thing is it's. It's not the tubes of London that did things 100 years ago. It's, you know, like Amsterdam sort of, you know, demanding change 50 years ago. North America is like, not exactly the poster child for this, but they've got cities there doing great things and doing small things and, you know, even in that, like the National Policy Statement for Urban Development, like, that's world leading. Like, it's the first country to say we're not going to force anyone to provide car parking. And I could go on about for hours about why that's a big deal. But like, the stuff that we're doing here, that's world leading. And so I think it's you. You got to pick and choose. And there's like, there's. There's stuff to be inspired about everywhere.

Nice. I've heard the bus network in Washington, D.C. is particularly good.

Oh, no, I don't know about that.

Is that why you have to come back to New Zealand?

Absolutely.

Okay, look, it's not quite worked as I thought it would work out, guys. So, yeah, I'm going back to New Zealand. Just don't ring me, I'll ring you.

I think.

I think another aspect that's important to think, like a lot of what we. A lot of the work that we do is focused on sort of passenger transport and how people get around. But another aspect that some other cities, you know, sort of talked about London, and there's a lot of other cities that are doing some really interesting work in this space as well, is goods movement and city logistics. And I think, you know, possibly with the audience that we've got, you know, with businesses, that's possibly something that's going to be interesting as well as thinking about how that can be made more efficient, both in terms of how things. Because a lot of businesses face a lot of barriers, right, to getting goods to where they need to go and, you know, don't have curbside access or can't get to where they need to go to drop their goods off and adjust actually paying a lot of money and parking fines or other things just as a cost of doing business because there's literally no other way to get stuff to where it needs to go. And so there's a lot of good work being done in that space, I think in terms of.

The relationship between business and government to get that plan so that everybody wins. Right. We can reduce congestion, businesses can get their goods where it needs to go. Whether that's retiming deliveries or whether it's working with the way that curbsides are designed so that there's better access. There's. Yeah, there's a lot of different elements there and that's a really important part of the sort of sustainability piece as well because it's a huge part of our economy as goods movement and really critical. And I think increasingly it'll be something that both businesses and city governments I guess are focusing on.

There was, I don't know if they're still going, but there was a B corp based on the west coast of the US that they were all about that final mile delivery. And they had these little electric bikes or they might even just be bikes with like a little truck on the back that you could fit a good amount of stuff in. And then there was really smart people, they sold advertising on the side of their little truck. So yeah, you know, that, that kind of stuff. And I think, you know, what we're definitely seeing from the B corp community more broadly, but also our people we're helping is this desire to try and work out how do we solve a problem collaboratively. And you know there's going to be people shipping the same product into the same destination. Okay, well how do we maybe, how do we consolidate? How do we. And I think more and more people are starting to look to that eighth degree of.

You know, we're definitely seeing, you know, people in an overseas market asking the retailer, who's then asking the distributor, who's then asking the product manufacturer who's then asking the raw ingredient manufacturer, like hey, what are you doing? And I think we're seeing that across the arc of the value chain where like you might be shipping your products out of New Zealand or out of the UK or out of the US but people now want to know, well actually how does it get it to my house? And you know, is it in a gas guzzling diesel truck or is it a guy on an E bike or girl on an E bike? Yeah, which is. Although that's because I think the NZ post one's interesting how they got rid of people on bikes and replaced them with people in electric trucks. You kind of go, well you actually had the most zero Emission.

Machine and now you've made it. Anyway, that's. Maybe you. Did you help them on that? I don't know.

You're not stepping on any toes yet.

It seems like when you used to have people just going around on bikes or walking and now you've put them in a truck with a battery. Seems to step backwards. I mean, I guess maybe you've got that, I don't know. But no, that's, yeah. There's all heaps of interesting. Yeah, I think it's, it's just like the broader doing good thing. It's messy, it's nuanced. There is no silver bullet. You kind of. We're all just trying to make it a little bit better and you know, do the best that we can. Which is, yeah, all we can ask.

So back to Mr. Cagney for a second. So, management buyout. But like, I think people are going to be intrigued. I'm kind of part of. Whenever I hear the word management buyout, I imagine like the script of managers, guys with bosses. Look, we've had a chat. We don't really like you, so could you do one? Or else we got some pitchforks and we're just going to start saying fire to stuff. How does the management buy at work? They're like, how do you even start the conversation?

Like.

Yeah, how to just. Yeah. Unpack that for us for a minute.

Yeah, look, I mean it's.

Or can you not talk about it.

Confidential and.

Yeah, yeah, look, I think, I think just kind of at its highest level, it's, it was, and look, it was, it was a, it was a agreement and like, you know, there was, there was support from our like Australian owners as well around just recognizing that.

We started to become two different, sort of two different companies really like in two different countries and going in slightly different directions. And it's like actually rather than kind of spending a lot of time trying to align with this, recognize that we're going in different directions and, and maybe that, you know, the best way to do that is to, to just, just to separate. It's kind of in everyone's interest. And so, you know, like not, not, not easy and there's kind of complexities and the kind of conversations, the negotiations. But ultimately it was a, you know, it was a mutual agreement that there are two different heading in two different directions and it made sense for both parties to figure out a way to do that cleanly. And we're still in touch and we've, you know, we're still kind of doing promotions between the two firms and we did a webinar with them a couple of months ago. So, yeah, look, it not. Not easy, but we're fortunate that I guess everyone recognized that. Yeah, it was probably the better outcome.

Nice. Yeah. I think people often forget when I was, well, a guy who I used to work with when I was selling medical stuff, you know, he. When. So most companies, when you're selling medical devices in New Zealand, you've got your New Zealand company that reports to an Australian or maybe Asia Pacific head office. So either Singapore, Sydney or Melbourne, what have you, and then they report into a US or European head office and the European and American head offices would. Wouldn't appreciate the nuance of the difference between Australia and New Zealand. I think they kind of think, well, you all play rugby, you will speak funny, you like drinking beer and having barbecues. Happy days. But as my mate Malcolm used to inform people, he said, no, you've got to remember that Berlin and London are as far away from each other as Sydney and Auckland are. And the cultural differences are just as big. And I think people forget that there is actually a bit. I mean, I lived in Aussie for a year, then we're back to the uk, then came here and. And to begin with I was like, well, I'm going to New Zealand. It's basically going to be a mini Australia. That it's. It's not going to be that different, but actually it's vastly different. And I think. Yeah, and I'd see that play out in the business world, you know. Yeah. So I totally get how that that can happen.

So getting into B Corp, then, obviously, congratulations, round of applause. Fairly recently, newly minted B Corp on the block.

Why B Corp? Obviously you're kind of in the right environment, you're doing good stuff, you're trying to get social. So it wasn't perhaps a massive leap for you to sort of go, maybe we should start looking at, you know, doing good? But yeah, how did B Corp come about on your radar and why did you choose to do B Corp compared to not doing it or something else?

Yeah, so maybe I'll cover this one. So I guess it actually probably first came. Came on my radar talking to a couple of Australian consultancies. And so.

My understanding was that it was actually perhaps bigger or it was a bit more common there than it was in New Zealand. So this was probably first on my radar maybe three years ago. And then I met with Sara Dennis, who's the MD of a company called Just Add Lime. That's a Consultancy sort of in our industry, in our sector here in Aotearoa. And so she had just gone through the process and she was talking about it. And so, yeah, just talking to a few other companies was really how it got on my radar. Why did we do it? I guess for different reasons. I think for me personally it was really around. I wanted to make sure that we weren't just, it wasn't just rhetoric like we like us being a values based company, us existing to do good. That was really important to me and it. And I just, I kind of wanted to just have some evidence to prove that because it's really easy for anyone to just say, yeah, yeah, we exist to do good and there's no way to kind of prove that. And so that's, that's, that's probably the primary reason I probably need to come up with a commercial one because that's.

Not probably good enough.

But like. And so I guess the commercial reason is that in our line of work we, we contract to, you know, to local government, central government, to our clients. And a lot of them look for evidence around social responsibility, around environmental sort of responsibility or standards. And we kind of struggled in the past because we're like, yeah, we exist to do public transport or sustainable transport, which is good for the environment, but we had no real clear way to prove that or no certification to do that. And my understanding is increasingly in Australia that's starting to be like B corps being accepted as a way to, to demonstrate that. And so we might be a little bit ahead of the curve, but, you know, having the certification to now provide evidence that's internationally accepted of our, I guess our doing good.

We've already had some clients express interest in this and over time I'm expecting clients to start requiring evidence of this. And so, yeah, that's probably my reasons, Amber.

Yeah, so, I mean I sort of first found out about it through Jensen sort of coming in and saying, hey, let's do this thing.

He did some work for a day. He's like, I've done some work, Amber. I found this thing. Can you, can you now go and do it?

Yeah.

Yes. Basically that in my defense this time.

I did ask you if you want.

You did? You did? That was true? Yes.

You were voluntold? Yes.

No, no, this was like, I guess.

I think what I found interesting about it was the sort of all the things that Jensen said, right. Like to an objective measure of we think we're cool, we think we're doing good things, but really are we? And in Comparison to our peers, how are we doing? That's a, you know, that's sort of a nice measure. But the holistic aspect of it I found really attractive that it's not just sort of an environmental certification or a, you know, diversity and inclusion certification or something like that. It's the whole package. Right. It's looking at everything that you do, which I think speaks more to the intent and the values of the company rather than just, you know, ticking some boxes in a particular area. And that's, yeah, that's really appealing to me. And yeah, it's nice that it kind of proved that the things that we thought we were doing, we are doing, which is good. But the other piece that I like of it is the, the fact that it's sort of a community from which we can learn from. You know, we very, you know, we got a lot of value out of your help in the process. I think it wouldn't have been anywhere near smooth if we hadn't had your assistance really, just almost even to help us interpret what we were doing.

Right.

Because I think that that's quite hard for businesses sometimes to take that step back and say, we've got all these pieces, we've got sort of all these ad hoc policies or procedures or processes and things, but how do we tell the story around all of the stuff that we're doing? I think that that's really hard. And B Corp sort of provides a vehicle to do that to help you organize your thinking, if you will, around all the bits and pieces that you're doing. And then it provides that really nice framework for how you can improve.

Yep.

And that's, you know, that's, that's kind of it. And I really like the fact that it's a three month, sorry, a three year recertification. A lot of the, you know, the certification programs that you go through are an annual thing. And to be honest, with all the other stuff that's happening in businesses, you really just scrambling to keep up. Right. To say, okay, we've certified, oh, goodness gracious me, it's come around again, what have we done? Right. Like you're really just paying catch up and it means that you don't have that opportunity to again take that step back and make the meaningful change because you're just playing catch up. And whether or not you have to demonstrate improvement on an annual basis, which means you have to have a very clear plan in place about how you're going to do that, I think that the three year recertification provides the opportunity to go and learn from your peers.

Right.

I won't lie, I'm a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of community there is for B Corp. I don't really even know where to start, like getting all these emails, but once I've had some time to think about how to engage with that, there's obviously a wealth of information out there and a wealth of opportunities to learn from peers and stuff. And you know, we've already had folks reaching out to us to learn about our journey, which is really cool. And we'll certainly be reaching out to other people to learn a little bit, I guess, in this next step of, you know, what is that pathway to improvement and how can we all get better.

Nice. Which is why we call this group to be better group. And that's why it's the Be Better podcast. Because it's like this is the whole thing. Community, learn, help each other grow. That's an interesting observation on the three year, you know, timeline. I think, I think you're right. I hadn't really given it much thought, but yeah, I think that the risk is if it's one year, you're just constantly on that, on the hamster wheel and you don't actually have the time to sit back. So yeah, no, I think that's, that's good. But I think the, everything that you've said is what we're hearing in the markets, what we're hearing as to why people want to do B Corp, it's because of all the pressures the wanted to prove you're doing the good supply chain customers. You know, everyone's kind of wanted to prove. But I think really Jensen, you summed it up. It's like actually it's kind of the right thing to do. Like you've, you've created a values based business. The event I was at the this morning with uc, I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he was giving a talk on values alignment between employees and a company and how that's generally missing. And it generally is missing. And I get the sense that that's kind of what, what you're built around is that no look like we've got to. And I think it's the other thing we were sort of talking about was the emotional connection. You know, we're asking or we. There's an expectation that as an employee you will emotionally connect to the vision, the mission, the goal, the purpose and what have you. But it's not always reciprocated by the company. It's kind of like we Want you to bring your heart and soul and a pound of flesh and maybe your firstborn. And in return, you know, look, we've got a pool table and we'll buy you beers once a week, kind of be happy with that. And I think there's this depth of emotional connection, almost like vulnerability, shared sense of purpose, clearly that companies like yours are bringing, which is what people want ultimately. So go you. I think, yeah, like I said, it's like proving, proving the good that you were clearly already doing. Because when I was just looking at your, at your scores, you got a cheeky one, 1 3.9. So close to 14. It's like any.

But you, yes, you scored obviously pretty well in general, but you unlocked a couple of impact business models. So those of you listening who don't know that much about the impact assessment, there's kind of two levels to the assessment. The main assessment is a measure of your operational goodness. So how do we treat our staff? Are we doing some basic reporting, transparency, accountability, what have you, but the impact business model. And obviously if you want to learn more, there'll be a link somewhere around here with our ebook which explains all of this. The impact business model is where you can prove you've gone out of your way to create more positive social or environmental impacts than you are legally required to do. And so you unlocked an environmental impact business model under education and information. And then the big one that you unlocked, it's almost like 30 points of impact business model points was under your customer impact business model because of the work that you're doing to create and support people in communities to get access to stuff that they need to get access to. So exactly as you were saying, Amber, like this is complete proof and validation of the fact that you kind of, you were doing the good. Now you've got like a little cherry on top to, to prove that you're doing it. So in terms of the B Corp journey, what were the surprises like, you know, well, we had no idea actually that we were doing that, but now we know. That's really cool. Yeah. Anything that jumps to mind for you on that one?

Not sure that there was anything that we didn't know that we were doing that sort of jumped out. I was possibly surprised, and pleasantly so, by how rigorous the assessment was and the volume of information required. That took me a bit by surprise. But that's really cool, right? Because that does mean it's robust. It means that it's a legitimate thing. It's not just a tick box exercise like you can't just go through and be like, oh yeah, we do that, right. Because you know that you're going to have to provide the evidence to show that you do. And that's really cool and it's nice. I mean, as I said, I think perhaps I wasn't particularly surprised by any individual thing that we were doing, but I think having that opportunity to kind of put it all in one place and organize our thoughts around the different things that we're doing was really valuable.

Meanwhile, Jason was like, I had no idea we did this. Who does this?

I mean again, I can't possibly speak to that.

We employ people. Where are all these people? Where am I?

Thanks, Tim.

Hey, I speak the truth. You know, I'm, I'm, consider me here the court jester. You know, just pointing out the, the, you know, the, the real world as I see it.

I'm just wondering if Tim can come to my annual review. Jensen? Tim.

We are available, we are available for wedding babitas and annual reviews.

But I think, yeah, you're. Most of the companies we've helped over the last few years, you've been doing the work already and this was just proof. And I think, yeah, you're the typical company that we work with right now where you're like, you're the fish in water. You don't recognize necessarily the depth of good that you're doing because it has been so normalized. Because you've got got great leadership. I'll give Jensen some good snack because you've got really good.

It's very true.

You've got visionary leadership who doesn't like to get bogged down in the detail of the doing, you know, but you've got that values based vision and leadership which yeah, you're very similar to the team at Genora, like going through the assessment with them. They were just like, but we, but that's just what we do. Like how is that special? Why is that worth points? It's like because not everyone else does this which is why we're still at 0.01 or 2% of New Zealand companies are a B corp that we're not. You're not even in the top 1% of businesses in terms of your social and environmental performance. So you are very special. And so yeah, I think, I think.

There'S a new phrase I heard the other day from one of my other clients who I can't name their name yet, but they are calling it green hushing, where people doing good aren't talking about the good that they're doing. So yes, this fine line between greenwashing, it's like Goldilocks, isn't it? Green, green washing, green hushing, perfect green storytelling right in the middle. We're really good and we can prove it. Away we go. Yeah, nice to go you.

So we're at the hour, Mark. I'm happy to keep going a little bit more of you. Are we can, you and me can keep picking on Jensen if you want.

Amber, you know that's always a good time.

So what next for the B corp? So you, you've rested, rested on your laurels a little bit, you've had some champagne and you know, some cake and the team are all like, woohoo, we're awesome. So yeah, what, what's next? Was there one particular area on the assessment that you're like, actually you know what, we want to, we want to get, get better on that. Is there one particular part of the business that you, you want to concentrate on right now?

All right, I'm not sure to be honest.

Like, to be honest, we really have kind of taken a breath and I think.

To be honest, yeah, I think we need to sort of go away and have a think about it and really do that assessment to see not only because it's kind of, you can look at the assessment and say, where's our biggest opportunity? Right. In terms of points, which is always one thing that people do when they're looking at recertification, where is the low hanging fruit? But the lens that I want to bring to this is, yeah, sure, we can probably knock some of those things off, but actually I want to look at this and see if, if we're going to have, because we will have sort of a pathway to improvement over the next three years. I want to make sure that the pathways that we're choosing or the things that we're choosing to work on are not just the low hanging fruit to get points, they're actually aligned with our company strategy and you know, get buy in from staff to actually say, well, you know, you guys have seen our scores, you know, does this track with what you think like, and where would you want to see us put the most improvement? Because as you've said, we really are values based company and it does resonate and we have a very collaborative sort of decision making process. And so I guess also because I'm much more internally focused, I want to make sure that the next steps that we take are ones that staff buy into and they can sort of see the improvement that they want to see for us as a Company.

Nice. What, what a crazy idea, right? Getting the whole team and all your stakeholders on the same journey. Wow. It might catch on one day, who knows? Nice. Oh, very cool. Well, so, yeah. Any final thoughts.

Before we sort of wrap up? Yeah.

Anything you want me to ask or you want to mention before we, before we wrap up?

I suppose one, I guess one other reason.

Maybe that we went on the journey certainly now that we've gone through it, is to just challenge and hopefully encourage other firms, particularly in our sector, to, to think about this and, and you know, and really go down, go down the journey, you know, even if it is just the initial assessment, to see how you pay track because like, you know, you get some insights from that about what you're doing well and where you could improve on. And like we're, we're an SME and we're going, you know, I do think we punch above our weight in terms of, in terms of making a difference, trying to, and actually making a difference. But if our industry starts to go down this path and really reflect on how they can look after their employees better, how they can have better impacts on the environment and the communities, then the world's going to be a better place. And so I guess part of, I see part of our role now being to just kind of challenge and encourage others to go down the journey and the path as well.

Nice. Yeah, we see this happen in, you know, in sectors when there's one or two or the first few sort of pop up. It's almost a bit like, you know, was a Roger Bannister running the mile for the first time. It's like, oh, okay, so it can be done. So yeah, I mean, again, you know, just kudos to you being, being an early adopter and not only in, in your sector but in New Zealand, you know, we're still, I think we may be, I think we're 87B Corps as of yesterday when I last checked. So like I say it's like 0.01 or 2% of the business community in New Zealand. So yeah, you know, thank you for wanting to, to be a part of this crazy ass movement and try and make a little bit of difference, you know, so that we all. And you know, you do like you're such a cool business because you're doing it on multiple levels. You know, you're clearly making a big difference on your day to day. You know, your day to day work is about making big difference, but you're also part of this movement and you want to help create that movement within your sector. So you're like a triple dipping B corp. You're just being greedy, you know, spread some of this love, people. What's going on?

Cool. Well, look, that's it from me. Yeah, thank you so much for agreeing to jump on and have a natter. Yeah, watch this space for Mr. Cagney. Not Mr. Cagney. Sorry, feel really bad.

Yeah.

But yeah, no, thank you guys. You're genuine legends, legendesses. Doing some really, really cool stuff. And yeah, look forward to seeing your score in three years time.

Thank you, Tim, and thanks for having us and thanks for all your help because, yeah, as Amber said, having a guide on the journey made it so much, so much easier and it was fun.

Yeah, it's great.

We try and bring some fun because, you know, why not have some fun and save the planet at the same time? I mean, why not? You know, it's perfect.

It's an exciting journey and we're, we're pleased to be on it.

Awesome. All right, guys, well, yeah, thank you so much. Let me try and work out how to stop the live stream. There we go. So, yeah, peace out everyone, and we'll catch you later on the podcast.