A short update and "The impact of political climate and actionable outcomes from COP 30"

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So, welcome to Sustainability Solved.

Hello and welcome to Sustainability Solved. So this is a slightly weird one for us, isn't it, Will?

It is, it is. We've not been around since— is it July?

I think so. Summer. Feels like it was warm and sunny. Yeah, there were swallows in the air, there was the sound of insects in the long grass, and it certainly isn't that now. It is midwinter and we've not been, we've not been around, and for very good reason, isn't that, Will? What's been, what's been going on?

Yeah.

So we've, we've had a very interesting last 4 or 5 months. We have now partnered at Green Element with a company called 51 to Carbon Zero, who I'm now part of the senior leadership of and helping steer that boat. We have closed down Green Element. Compare Your Footprint's been bought by our development company and they are now steering that boat. focusing in on small, of the SME markets. And 51 to Carbon Zero are a tech platform, AI-powered tech platform that is helping organizations understand their emissions and put together an automated reduction strategy as well. It's a really exciting proposition that is centered in on midsize to enterprise-level clients as well.

Right, so that means that we've not been interviewing, recording the podcast for a few months, but very much with an ambition and a hope to be back very soon with more of what you've enjoyed today. That's right, isn't it, Will?

Yeah, so the new year, I think we're going to be kicking off new podcasts, all going well. And we thought we'd just do a bit of a stopgap, didn't we?

Well, have a catch-up. Yes, have a catch-up.

Yeah, tell me what you've been doing for the last 3 or 4 months.

Uh, lots of architecture, lots of— lots and lots of architecture. Uh, we, we're very, very busy. We've got some really exciting projects. We're starting to look at sort of sustainment, settled settlement size, um, sort of schemes. Uh, we've got some really great projects going through planning. I, I'm not— I'm being slightly cagey because, uh, as with all of these things, until you're actually at planning application, everything, you can't say too much. But we are looking at trying to get a really influential 80-acre site off the ground on the edge of one of England's sort of premier cities to try and create a new sort of new habitats for nature and people. So how do we kind of wrap— how do you sort of wrap nature reserves and wildness into the places that we're creating? You know, if we're going to build 1.5 million houses, we need to create really high-quality space and we need to try and stop the decline in biodiversity. biodiversity. And actually, gardens are a really powerful part of, of, of stopping that or providing habitat in this country. So we're trying to like turbocharge that with a new, with a new type of development, uh, and that, that's quite exciting. I mean, it might go somewhere, it might not, but that's all, that's all going ahead. And no, we're really good. We've been, we've been very, very busy.

And I heard you're on a really cool music podcast as well.

Yes, yes, yes, uh, All About the Music with Neil. Can't remember his surname. Lovely guy, really good podcast. The other thing that's happened actually is that we've become an employee ownership trust.

Oh cool.

So Charlie Luxon Design is now an employee ownership trust. So all of the 11 team members own it with us. And so that's all cracking on.

Oh, well done. That was, you've been talking about that for a while.

I know.

It's been happening for a while.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it took a while just to get it together in our heads and then we sort of got it through. And so like I counted, I was saying, get it through before the budget. I was like, they're not going to change that in the budget surely. And then sure enough, they changed it in the budget. So slightly grateful we got it through. But it's still a really good, like, employee ownership trusts, if you don't know about them, go and have a look at them. They have traditionally been a really good way of incentivizing sort of long-term stewardship of companies. A lot of architecture practices and consultancies do it because design consultancies are quite hard to sell. But if you can incentivize your team to, you know, feel like they've really got ownership over that, then they tend to survive and do really well. So, that's been positive.

That makes a huge amount of sense actually, because you are a service-based company, aren't you? So therefore you have no product to sell at the end of it. The people within it are almost, dare I say, the products.

They are. The process is the product. I mean, you know, and that process is not like, it's not, you can't stick it in a box at the moment. AI might change all of that. Let's see. But, you know, and, you know, we've, yeah, it's been really, really positive at the moment. And given the kind of wider headwinds in the economy, it's great to see that our sort of sustainable, sustainability-heavy approach is still really cutting through and winning us good clients. So that's a positive as well, given— and I mean, I'm interested to see, get your thought on how much you think the sort of Trump swing to the right sort of undermined what you guys are trying to do at Green Element, or whether there was a wider sort of issue at play.

I think it has definitely made an impact across the industry. I've spoken to a number of people now I mean, we were profitable, actually interesting for the first time across the group. So the software and the consultancy for the first 6 months of this year. But I think on the whole, companies have found it quite hard in this current climate. But listening to British but also large American companies, the It's changing. It's definitely starting to swing. I think people are starting to go, actually, is Trump right? Do we need to listen to him? Do we actually think that that's the right way forward? No. And you're seeing— we're definitely seeing signs now of it. I mean, it's at the end of the day, it's not down to whether someone thinks that you should do it or not. You actually have to down to risk, down to mitigation of your you know of being able to survive and move forwards as a business in the next ten to twenty years anyway. If you've got any type of supply chain, you need to be looking at it because that supply chain will be changed in some form or another. Therefore, you'd be remiss to go. I know Trump says I shouldn't do it, so I'm not going to do it. Well, he's also going to not help your company either.

No, I think that's very interesting. I mean, I know that there's a lot of challenges in sort of the sustainability funds as well because of the dot-com bubble. And that is really putting a lot of the sustainability funds under pressure because of the amount of money piling into the economy on that issue. So there's a lot happening. I mean, it is interesting times, as the Chinese traditionally would say, may you live in interesting times. I don't think they meant it in a good way. And I certainly feel like we're living in interesting times at the moment. So that's the sort of summary. That's a very quick—

can we just talk a bit about COP? We have just had COP30. And some of the good things came out.

Can I be completely honest with you? I took absolutely no notice of it.

If I'm honest, I didn't take huge amounts of notice. Isn't that bad? And I wonder why two of us didn't. I mean, I followed it at the end and I've got a bit of a kind of rundown in front of me about the fact that 122 countries did submit climate updated commitments. And, you know, there was some stuff that happened that was good. But I, yeah, I just wonder. I think I heard a really good podcast, the Outrage and Optimism podcast, through COP on it. And one of the things that someone said was there's a lot of bad— people talk about how bad the process is and how bad COP is, which doesn't help COP actually ultimately. And I just wonder if there's something in that because I think that you do hear such negative stuff talking about COP, but They did achieve— they achieved quite a lot. They didn't get a formal agreement to phase out fossil fuels. That's not great. But I don't know, it'd be interesting to know what the overall outcome, whether it was positive or negative. I feel that it was probably on the verge of positive.

But, you know. I mean, I think my problem with it is that, you know, that then people aren't meeting the obligations they've made anyway. So sooner or later you say, brilliant, we all get together and make commitments to obligations that we fail to meet. I mean, I understand it's part of a process and it's all a journey, but equally, it also feels a bit sort of like, well, forgive me if I don't massively take any great amount of interest in it. I have to be totally honest, it's not really where, you know, we don't operate in that level and sphere of policy. And increasingly, as I get older, I just feel like I need to just do really good projects in a more immediate sense and use those as exemplars of what needs to change and let And let, you know, because talking, a lot of talking doesn't get us everywhere unless we actually do stuff, I suppose. But, you know, no, I'm glad people are still meeting. It just feels like there's an awful lot of, you know, petrochemicals and petrochemical interest groups there, which seems slightly wrong. But, you know, maybe I'm too much of a Puritan.

No, no, I think you're probably right, to be honest with you. And I think that's probably part of the problem. But, Brill, well, really good to talk to you.

Just a very— just so you know, thanks for listening everyone, and apologies that we've been slightly, uh, uh, uh, well, not here, not doing, but we very much hope to be back, uh, with some wonderful guests. And so if you're interested in chatting to us, please get in touch. Will, where would they get in touch now?

Um, at, um, at will.richardson@51tocarbonzero.com. Uh, they— and also, if you've got any ideas on the way we should go, because we're actually looking at the format at the moment and working out where we're gonna go, what we're gonna do. What would you like to see and hear? What would help you with your business? What would help you on that sustainability journey within the business world? That would be really interesting to know.

Brilliant. Do get in touch with Will. And hopefully we'll catch up with you in, uh, just after Christmas. Thanks.

Bye-bye.

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