Sustainability Symposium 2022 - ESG Essentials

00:00:01:20 - 00:00:31:29
Mike Collignon: All right. Our final session of day one is going to be a three person panel talking about the essentials of environmental, social and governance, or ESG initiatives. These initiatives are designed to protect the environment, safeguard employees, encourage diversity, respect human rights, deliver safe and useful products, defend customers privacy, and create ethical and transparent governance structures. And if you're not aware, ESG is becoming an increasingly important facet of corporate America.

00:00:32:01 - 00:01:00:13
Mike Collignon: Here to talk about it is our panel of experts. Our first panelist is Scott two, the vice president of sustainability and managing director of the center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability at Train Technologies. They are responsible for forward looking sustainability initiatives aimed at reducing resource demand of products and minimizing resource use within company facilities. In addition, Scott serves as a featured speaker and thought leader in linking public policy, economic impacts, and sustainability.

00:01:00:14 - 00:01:33:15
Mike Collignon: His recent efforts have led to the development of world class initiatives, including the creation of a green product portfolio, personalized employee engagement, unique resource on a research on unmet needs in the green space, and sustainability related solution concepts like building a 300 house. I'd like to hear a presentation on that sometime. Scott. He played key roles in several important groups, including the Alliance to Save Energy, the North Carolina New Schools Energy and Sustainability Council, and the U.S. and India Green Building Councils.

00:01:33:17 - 00:01:59:02
Mike Collignon: Now our next panelist is the Our Hero. He is now the Executive vice president of operations for Better Homes, where he leads business innovation, which combines design, efficiency, sustainability and new technologies to establish a new standard in homebuilding that provides better comfort, healthier air and cost less to own and operate. KR has spent 20 years in fortune 500 companies driving innovation and supporting change management.

00:01:59:03 - 00:02:26:14
Mike Collignon: He is on the ResNet and C Standard Development Committee, Technical Committee for the Leading Builders of America, and is an active member in the Housing Innovation Alliance. And last but not least, we have Eddie Sulfur. He is the ESG manager at Interactive Brokers in his role. Eddie leads Interactive Brokers ESG strategy and planning through the development of sustainable trading products, while also spearheading the incorporation of fundamentals and reporting frameworks into the firm.

00:02:26:17 - 00:02:50:24
Mike Collignon: Eddie has spent over 20 years in the financial services industry, with roles ranging from relationship management and sales to business strategy. He developed an affinity for sustainability while previously serving at Brown Brothers Harriman, where he created and led the firm's ESG initiatives through the development of a global strategy across all of its business lines. Now, this panel session is going to be facilitated by our friend and hostess, Sarah Goodman.

00:02:50:26 - 00:02:52:28
Mike Collignon: Sarah.

00:02:53:00 - 00:03:26:11
Sara Gutterman: Thank you so much. So much, Mike. Appreciate it. Hello, Scott. Eddie anchor, so lovely to have you here. I'm excited about this panel. I'm eager to hear what you all have to say. I think that the panel is timely, and I like the way that we put together the agenda today, because Paul kicked us off, obviously at a very high level in the very lyrical way that Paul always presents information, both thought provoking and, you know, as genuine as can be.

00:03:26:14 - 00:03:58:07
Sara Gutterman: I think Sandra brought it down and created a framework for us to all understand how we can get to a more regenerative, circular economy. And now I think that we can explore some more in depth solutions from the three of you a builder, a manufacturer and an investor. You know, we very methodically crafted the panel so that we could hear three distinct perspectives and just as some context.

00:03:58:08 - 00:04:30:07
Sara Gutterman: So, you know, clearly a paradigm shift is happening throughout our entire global economy, bringing with it a new way of thinking about the purpose of a corporation, as Sandra outlined in her presentation. Companies are indeed shifting away from a single bottom line, comprised solely of financial profitability, towards a set of blended values that incorporates environmental stewardship and social justice considerations, and really looks at the interests of diverse stakeholders.

00:04:30:09 - 00:05:13:18
Sara Gutterman: Sandra pointed out again, rather than just on that single bottom line of profitability. And so, you know, in the face of these evolving expectations, companies are implementing initiatives that protect the environment, safeguard their employees, encourage diversity, respect human rights, deliver safe and useful products, defend their customers privacy, and create ethical and transparent governance structures. And that's really now taking shape in the form of what we're calling environmental, social and governance, or ESG strategies, which are becoming essential in the business environment to not just satisfy shareholder and stakeholder demands.

00:05:13:18 - 00:05:38:07
Sara Gutterman: Sandra kind of clarified the difference between those two, but also also to achieve cost savings and drive revenue and reduce risk. And companies are really finding that ESG strategies allow them to streamline operations, boost productivity, improve resource allocation and strengthen the supply chain. So, you know, when we look at the ESG elements, first we look at environmental elements, right?

00:05:38:09 - 00:06:13:10
Sara Gutterman: So that's ranges from carbon emissions to pollution and emissions to biodiversity and etc.. We can look at the social aspect in terms of relationships with employees and those stakeholders, ethics and values, human rights and the social impact that operations have on communities, governance structures. So how a company is run, how boards are run, how executives are incentivized. And, you know, I think that there's a whole new world of opportunity here.

00:06:13:12 - 00:06:30:18
Sara Gutterman: And what I would like to do now is open it up to the panel. C.R. if you can start your mic, I see that you're muted right now. I'd actually like to start with you. And actually, if you can start your camera, if that's possible for you as well.

00:06:30:20 - 00:06:46:05
CR Herro: I have tried to I may be a floating head, unfortunately. I think I'm mobile, unfortunately, and my camera is acting up, so you may have to you may have to hold up bunny ears that represent me virtually throughout the rest of this talk. I got a lot to say, but you may not be able to see my face.

00:06:46:13 - 00:07:05:13
Sara Gutterman: All right, well, we'll we'll we'll listen to your voice. We'll still start with UCR. If you can just talk about what ESG means to you as a builder and developer and how you see it, you know, kind of evolving right now from a builder perspective, please.

00:07:05:16 - 00:07:48:27
CR Herro: Yeah, I think I really want to build on what Sandy was talking about, on the very pragmatic approach to what ESG was always intended to do. Right. ESG was founded as an investment criteria to ensure that businesses were sustainable. And I mean that not as the environmental term, but in the capacity to endure. And so ESG, at its most fundamental level, is about looking at the profitability of a business and the key impacts of social, political and personal that can stabilize that business over time.

00:07:48:27 - 00:08:27:03
CR Herro: And obviously, as societies become more aware of the broader impact that businesses have beyond just the product, as we learn the interdependencies of both the direct employees and the associated societies that those businesses do their business within, and as regulations, both prescriptive and social change happens in the market. ESG is really become the metric by which investors and smart businesses look at the long term viability of that business.

00:08:27:03 - 00:09:06:13
CR Herro: And so while I love polar bears and I want to reduce my carbon footprint, and I want to be proud of the way we go about doing business for future generations in a sustainable way. ESG at its heart, from my perspective, is a pragmatic way to look at the viability and the robustness and the broad understanding of the social, political, personal impacts into a business to make sure that they are being proactively managed and not the potential source of disruption of that business.

00:09:06:16 - 00:09:37:00
Sara Gutterman: Thank you sir. Scott, I'd like to shift to you. You, as the head of the center for Energy Efficiency and Environment at Train Technologies and now the senior vice president of sustainability at Training Technologies. You've been a pioneer in first corporate sustainability, now evolving ESG for, you know, over a decade, probably more, but at least since I've known you, which is probably, I don't know, now 15 years and, you know, you've been on the cutting edge.

00:09:37:00 - 00:09:51:17
Sara Gutterman: You've been a role model for all of us. You know, I'm going to ask you the same question as a manufacturer, what does it mean to you right now? And, you know, how do you see it kind of as it evolves in the corporate space?

00:09:51:19 - 00:10:13:02
Scott Tew: Yeah. Thanks, Sara. And it's great to be here. Thanks for the beginning of a great symposium, and I appreciate the previous speakers today. I think we're all at once we're inspired, but we are also a word that I wanted to open up here with to your question. And that is we're challenged. And I think that I think ESG is a challenge for companies.

00:10:13:02 - 00:10:39:15
Scott Tew: And I appreciate what KR just gave in terms of context, especially from like a textbook context. But I think what ESG, this paradigm that companies are up against now is that it's it's challenging companies. It's challenging individual companies to begin considering how do we do really? It's the challenge of doing everything different than we've done in the past.

00:10:39:16 - 00:11:05:13
Scott Tew: It's the challenge of moving beyond incremental thinking and incremental actions. It's the challenge of doing more, better or more good and then less bad. I think the old paradigm was much more focused on risk and reducing risk for companies. And in some of the parlance, it would be how do we do less bad than in the past? And that's not the that's not what it's in front of us anymore.

00:11:05:18 - 00:11:35:01
Scott Tew: The challenge now for companies is how do we do everything that we do better in terms of attracting people, retaining people, social commitments around community investments. It also extends to our product stewardship and product design. And that thinking of better is a mantra that I think is new to a lot of companies. We were trained, many of us around the less bad, incremental thinking of last year.

00:11:35:04 - 00:11:58:09
Scott Tew: How do we just do 1% better? Those days are over. The new the new paradigm is one that invites us to to challenge ourselves about and to be motivated about doing it completely different. And can we do it? In the words of my friend Andrew Winston, can we do it in a way that's net positive? That's a that's a that's a that's a page turner.

00:11:58:10 - 00:12:22:20
Scott Tew: That's a total different paradigm than what we've been doing in the past. And I think ESG invites that. If if the company truly I believe that companies change using ESG and this paradigm of ESG, when we begin to very much personalize what's happening outside the company with the company's role in solving the problems. And climate change is a great example.

00:12:22:28 - 00:12:47:22
Scott Tew: You know, if you can begin personalizing I mean, for us, for instance, we know that 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions comes directly from heating and cooling buildings. That's the homes of people in this meeting today. It's the offices or buildings that we return to when we're in the office. The heating and cooling those is 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and that's too much.

00:12:47:24 - 00:13:13:20
Scott Tew: And so we personalized the fact that we've got to do we have a personal stake in doing better, doing better for communities and for the environment. It also has direct implications for how we operate the company and how we design products. And so I'll stop there. But I mean, that's the it's it's been it's been a shift. I mean, Paul Hawken gave a great lots of great examples and great inspiration, as always, about rethinking everything.

00:13:13:24 - 00:13:25:26
Scott Tew: And I think that that's what that's the it's the process that many companies are undergoing right now. We're not there yet, but we're on our way and ESG allows us to do that.

00:13:25:28 - 00:13:38:16
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Scott. I have a lot more questions for you. But before we delve into that, Eddie, if we can hear from you about ESG means from you, from an investment and investor standpoint, certainly.

00:13:38:16 - 00:14:08:09
Eddy Soffer: So I think that the KR and Scott used a lot of terms that I was thinking of as well, which is it's a way to look at companies long term viability. It's definitely a challenge, but I also see it as an opportunity. So for us in the investment world, it's so prevalent like it never was before. And for me personally, ESG is a way to channel financial resources to the betterment of our planet.

00:14:08:11 - 00:14:36:18
Eddy Soffer: Obviously, you know, we're talking about about carbon emissions, but there's also a social element to this that I believe everybody is starting to focus on. And so it's also governance. It's being more transparent. And for me, I see it and I know that this is something that the tenor was talking about before is not just look at companies that make profit, but also what else they're doing to contribute to to the positive elements of society.

00:14:36:25 - 00:15:02:05
Eddy Soffer: I see those two things as being married. I really believe that ESG is also a risk management tool, and it's also a way to become profitable risk management, because you are applying strategies that, in the long run will remove the risk, right? So you're being more transparent. You're putting more things that will help in case companies have accidents or in character lawsuits.

00:15:02:05 - 00:15:25:15
Eddy Soffer: So all those elements do reduce risk. And on the profit side, you're going to start doing things that are going to resonate with your consumers. The time is now. It's a new generation of consumers, stakeholders, investors, and there will be affiliated more towards your company and invest more and buy more of your products. So I see that as a marriage and I do see it as an opportunity.

00:15:25:17 - 00:15:27:21
Eddy Soffer: So that's what it means to me.

00:15:27:23 - 00:15:52:29
Sara Gutterman: Thank you. Eddie, you know, I'm curious, how have recent world events like the pandemic, like the war in Ukraine, impacted ESG in general and particularly ESG investments? Have they how have they hindered things or actually have they helped facilitate the mainstreaming of ESG? Eddie, I'd like to start with you, please.

00:15:53:03 - 00:16:25:06
Eddy Soffer: Sure. And so that's a great question. I do remember when the pandemic first started. I was concerned because I'm a I'm very passionate about ESG and I just didn't know where this was going. What was. Nobody knew. Right. And I do believe that the pandemic, social justice events that have taken place, the wars have definitely increased the importance of ESG to a level that is at the top of agendas, and you're now seeing it in almost every industry.

00:16:25:07 - 00:16:48:04
Eddy Soffer: It's not just in financial services, but you're seeing it in construction and building, manufacture, fashion industry. Everybody is much more focused on that. So I think it's definitely elevated. It's important. I think it's great that it's doing that because it's starting to hold companies more accountable. It's starting to sort of people are starting to look more under the hood of companies.

00:16:48:04 - 00:17:22:15
Eddy Soffer: And in my firm and even in our industry, we're having a lot of shareholders asking those questions. What are you doing as it relates to social issues? How are you treating your employees? How have they managed through the pandemic? Were there any benefit programs that were in place that helped? What are you doing to reduce carbon? So all those things that we see from a pandemic that brought out health and environment issues to a war in terms of treating how do we treat each other, are now in the front of everybody's agenda?

00:17:22:16 - 00:17:26:24
Eddy Soffer: So I definitely think it's elevated it to a new level.

00:17:26:27 - 00:17:30:22
Sara Gutterman: That I see you shaking your head. I'd love to hear your perspective on this.

00:17:30:24 - 00:17:53:08
Scott Tew: Yeah. I mean, the pandemic has taught us all lessons, just like Eddie said. I think for some companies it may have pushed us to find a North Star. There was a lot of there was. I think there was way too much lethargy in the, in the, in the system prior to the pandemic. The sitting on our laurels was probably all of us, including companies, including governments.

00:17:53:08 - 00:18:19:04
Scott Tew: And I think we've all learned some lessons about what agility means. The the term resilience probably didn't mean the same three years ago as it does to us today. And I think that goes for companies. But at this point about North Stars, I think companies who have made it through the pandemic and have maybe thrived have found a way to focus on what's most important.

00:18:19:06 - 00:18:43:14
Scott Tew: It many times it's people and how the people were treated. Many companies, including my own, have had to adjust policies related to future of work flexibility. Maybe even new benefits had to be introduced to help employees balance home with work life. You know, children at home needed to extra, extra assistance if you needed the employee to be productive.

00:18:43:14 - 00:19:09:01
Scott Tew: And so companies had to step up to do that or not. Those that didn't, I think will not thrive and are not thriving. Those that did will continue to thrive in the lessons there are about finding a North Star, and I think it's the same though from from environmental impacts and the social impacts of companies have. And many companies, as I've mentioned, found in North Star, my company found one around some bold commitments related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

00:19:09:01 - 00:19:35:18
Scott Tew: We we currently have the largest size space greenhouse gas emissions reduction for products in the world with a gigaton. That's a North Star. And that what that says to our employees is that we're serious about it. It also means we have to redesign products and solutions and think differently about the future. And, you know, our customers call us to find out what does it mean to them when we provide some new solutions to them?

00:19:35:18 - 00:20:02:19
Scott Tew: It helps us talk to policymakers differently. So I think the pandemic and things like the Ukraine and Russia war, all of these things meant to be sort of earth shattering moments. They can be for companies. And I think those who those who will win will find a North Star to focus on. And they will they'll keep the focus there and continue to, you know, to continue to make make progress.

00:20:02:19 - 00:20:10:24
Scott Tew: And so that's my that's my hope about moving away from the pandemic that we that we focus on what's real and what matters.

00:20:10:26 - 00:20:43:15
Sara Gutterman: I'm silver lining there. Thank you. Yeah I'm going to shift gears. I'd like to talk a little bit about innovation and technology advancements. So CR let's start with you. What is the generation look like in the built environment with respect to builders and developers and other building professionals. And what's the evolution of products solutions, homes themselves even, you know, financing vehicles within the building sector.

00:20:43:17 - 00:21:06:13
CR Herro: You know, we've talked a little bit about how as ESG evolving, it's about creating a personal connection. And, you know, homes have always been a very intimate, personal, emotional component of people's lives. And ESG creates opportunities to create more of those connection points, right. Understanding how.

00:21:06:16 - 00:21:37:18
CR Herro: The intentions of the way your family lives and buys products and uses products and chooses partners as companies that align with their value systems, creates a great opportunity to get out of the echo chambers that Sandy was talking about earlier, right? To not just speak to the choir, but to start create connections regardless of people's economic perspectives, political persuasions, and preconceptions about the intentions behind ESG.

00:21:37:18 - 00:22:10:03
CR Herro: But to really create understanding about, you know, how our dependance on foreign oil is contributing to the lack of funding for bridges and schools and all these really important pragmatic pieces that ESG, while there is this great ideal and we can talk about these North stars at a fundamental level, if we want to move society to becoming more sustainable, there's no getting around the fact that people choose better for themselves.

00:22:10:03 - 00:22:58:25
CR Herro: And when we can stretch whether a business understands what it looks like to run a business better, or people can make better choices for their families and the products they buy, including the houses they live with. And ESG is a platform for those nexus to create an understanding and awareness and importantly, a cascade. The most important thing I've seen with ESG is the opportunity for the entire supply chain, from timber to petroleum to manufacturing to distribution to construction to operation, to cradle, to cradle, to start talking in a consistent language, using variables and materials and quantities that pull all the way through the supply chain.

00:22:58:25 - 00:23:28:27
CR Herro: So there's better transparency about total impacts, total recyclability, total usability, how durability changes embodied carbon, right. The interconnectedness of our world, whether we just think about it as a smart business from an investment perspective, or how a consumer would ideally, ideally like to pursue choosing better for them and their family in the marketplace. It's about empowering people to make good decisions.

00:23:28:29 - 00:23:38:19
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Scott. Can you weigh in on this talk about innovation and technology advancements, specifically with respect to ESG in a corporate environment?

00:23:38:22 - 00:24:01:22
Scott Tew: Yeah, I think the big, big change recently has been moved towards systems thinking. We're moving away from just equipment level innovation and moving more towards systems thinking. It's the I mean, for some that makes a total sense. It's just not how companies have done it, especially in the space where I'm at, where we still are developing equipment to sell in people's homes, for instance, mechanical equipment.

00:24:01:22 - 00:24:29:26
Scott Tew: But this moved towards a systems level thinking. Whether it's systems level, efficiency gains, systems level impacts, systems level, you can take the positive or negative. It changes. It changes how the design engineers approach solving the problem. It also just brings into play so many new technologies. I think home automation sensors in our own factories. It's a lot of machine learning.

00:24:29:26 - 00:25:10:19
Scott Tew: These are terms that were, you know, Jetson like just pretty recently. But it's very common now that we're letting things solve their own problems, learn from past procedures and processes and improve over time. And so this whole systems thinking, when you step back to think about all the elements of a home that we can adjust to increase efficiency, to lower the alliance on the grid, for instance, you know, when we start doing that, you begin tweaking everything from the envelope of the home to the individual systems within the home, whether it's mechanical or other plumbing.

00:25:10:19 - 00:25:27:24
Scott Tew: And together what you get is it's like a living organism that improves, you know, substantially over time. And that has led to more of our innovation advances in the past, I'd say three years than than anything else.

00:25:27:27 - 00:25:58:13
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Scott. And Eddie, I'm going to reframe the question a little bit for you, because innovation and technology advancement means something very specific for you, because you really helped master mine leading edge technology platform and app for ESG investments to for ESG investors. On behalf of your firm, Interactive Brokers, which is, I believe, the fourth largest online brokerage firm in the world.

00:25:58:15 - 00:26:23:01
Sara Gutterman: So, first of all, thank you for that. Thank you for mainstreaming ESG investing. But can you talk a little bit just about kind of the framework for your platform and how you have kind of created these values that investors can can select from and choose, you know, companies based on the alignment of those values?

00:26:23:04 - 00:27:01:14
Eddy Soffer: Yeah. Thank you, Sarah, for those for those comments. I'm grateful for those. Yeah. We launched an app called Impact in November of last year. And we talk about technology. Obviously our industry is leading in terms of technology, but it's amazing to see what has happened over the last decade in terms of ways that it allows investors or users to filter through hundreds of hundreds of thousands of investments to find the ones that they want to invest in that aligns with their values.

00:27:01:14 - 00:27:40:06
Eddy Soffer: So that's what that's what impact is all about. And I know that KR mentioned an element of personalization. I do believe that that is where the investment world is moving towards, is having a personal journey a customized way of investing, because everybody has different things that they care about. Everybody has different values. So the app itself allows anyone, even investors that are just starting on their journey, to be able to seamlessly put their money into things that really, they can have an affinity towards.

00:27:40:11 - 00:28:08:17
Eddy Soffer: The 13 values that we created in house are proprietary, that were inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and also by an organization called Sasb, which is not for profit. That helps with frameworks on ESG for all companies. And so those 13 values fall into the buckets of ESG. So we have things such as pure water, clean air, gender equality, LGBTQ inclusion and others.

00:28:08:20 - 00:28:40:26
Eddy Soffer: So a user can go in, select the things that they care about most, and also select the areas that they want to avoid. Frankly, if I don't want the companies that I invest in to be involved in animal testing or in greenhouse emissions or others, that's also a filter that you can add. And with those two elements, you're able to get a letter grade and see how closely you are aligned, your your existing investments, I should say how closely they're aligned towards your values, which is pretty amazing, right?

00:28:40:27 - 00:29:20:19
Eddy Soffer: So you'll be able to go in and say, wow, I got a C, you know, and my pure water investments are not good at all. What can I do to improve it? So the app itself will suggest companies with higher scores in that particular value that will increase your overall affinity or alignment. So it's pretty exciting. The app itself, which I think is very important, and I don't want to talk about just our product itself, but I think it's an important thing overall for an industry and for investing is to not just put money into investments that you care about most or companies that align, but also to give back to communities.

00:29:20:20 - 00:29:49:09
Eddy Soffer: You know, we're seeing what's happening in the world. We want to help as human beings. We also not just want to volunteer our time, but also our resources. And so we've been able to develop a donation portal in the app itself that also aligns with people's values. So, so yeah, we're very excited about the product. But just as an industry itself, there is so many things happening, and I think it's just going to help people that are new.

00:29:49:09 - 00:30:15:15
Eddy Soffer: As I mentioned in the ESG investment journey and others, to find things and find investments that that are really going to resonate with them. And it's also breaking down a lot of barriers. The industries are changing dramatically before investing in the stock market and other things was almost prohibitive for certain individuals. There was certain thresholds. You have to have X number of dollars now it's it's very minimal.

00:30:15:15 - 00:30:31:19
Eddy Soffer: The barriers have been broken. So now anybody can go in and invest. And I think it's awesome because all of us together can make an impact through our money and sending a message to companies that they need to start looking more at ESG.

00:30:31:21 - 00:30:57:01
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Eddie. Yeah, clearly you're helping to make ESG very market driven. And I think platforms like yours have helped facilitate that growth that I mentioned in the beginning of the symposium that has occurred within the ESG investment space within the last two years alone. Let's talk about obstacles, Scott. What are companies waiting for.

00:30:57:04 - 00:31:23:28
Scott Tew: Companies waiting for? I think that there's a misalignment at times. I think we we get insights from lots of audiences, lots of stakeholders, and it's a bit confusing. You know, the housing, housing, contractors and homeowners have different lenses of seeing the world as an example. And the way they may view solving something's very different. No different for companies.

00:31:23:28 - 00:31:47:24
Scott Tew: I think there's a misalignment there many times just in terms of how they're waiting. Well, I should say misalignment between what they believe they're hearing. Could be they may hear it as as confusing. And so what that leads to is the big is a bigger issue. The bigger obstacle is this waiting around this delaying action. And I think that's the one we have to curtail.

00:31:47:24 - 00:32:11:14
Scott Tew: That's the one we have to we have to stop the waiting around the time for action was it was in the past. So if you're not taking action now, it's time. It's time to set a bold commitment. It's time to start taking action. It's time to to do things that are meaningful, science based and will make a difference, I think, for your own people as well as for the community that you serve.

00:32:11:14 - 00:32:35:21
Scott Tew: And so I think that's probably one of the big ones. I think for consumers many times, Sarah, it's people are waiting around thinking there's some great new technology they need to wait for, and we don't need to be waiting on that either. That's another waiting issue. There's enough technologies today, whether we're talking about your home, your personal home, or whether we're talking about your company, your business to do great things.

00:32:35:21 - 00:32:49:23
Scott Tew: And so the the age and the days of waiting around for what's great, just around the curve, I think are behind us, we have enough now to do some great things. And so it's time to take some action. That's my view.

00:32:49:26 - 00:33:14:27
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Scott. Yeah, I've been thinking and talking about that a lot lately. How this myth that green building or sustainability sustainable living is only for the mega-rich. It is just because we yeah, we have market available products and solutions that are either at price parity or are, you know, net positive from an economic standpoint. So we can utilize right now today.

00:33:15:00 - 00:33:20:27
Scott Tew: And you don't have to rebuild the house either. You don't have to start over. It doesn't have to be a new build. It can actually be a retrofit.

00:33:20:29 - 00:33:37:29
Sara Gutterman: Yeah. Indeed. So let me ask you the same question. What are builders and developers waiting for? Why don't we see just massive and rapid adoption of ESG practices and principles in the construction sector and specifically the housing industry?

00:33:38:01 - 00:33:57:14
CR Herro: Yeah. So Scott Scott's thesis is 1,000% correctly. There is so many opportunities, especially in this sector. I mean, there's a reason why all of us idealists are in this sector. It's the largest consumer of energy and one of the most wasteful consumers of energy of all industrial sectors. But I will tell you that the baby's a little ugly.

00:33:57:14 - 00:34:28:09
CR Herro: On the financial side, one of the big challenges with the corporate execution of ESG is that there is ESG consultants coming from industrial corporations trying to put a round peg in a square hole and saying, hey, you know, you need to you need to do a detailed report on sex, traffic and blood diamonds and, you know, nitrogen emissions to the atmosphere, and then try to push that into the regulation environment for ESG, for housing.

00:34:28:09 - 00:35:20:27
CR Herro: So one of the big needs in order us to take a big, bold step forward is leadership and consistency throughout the supply chain to identify the 25 key metrics. The 25 biggest impacts we can have cumulatively throughout the supply chain, a common language, and then get that alignment as an industry. The challenge with sometimes following your individual North Star is that lack of alignment doesn't bring an industry like housing into focus, and we have to create commonality in the conversation and commonality in the supply chain continuous improvement processes to really make those big differences in our potential to pollute and our carbon footprints, and to create economies of scale, to realize some of the amazing

00:35:20:28 - 00:35:27:02
CR Herro: opportunities that are right at the periphery that need to get pulled into the mainstream.

00:35:27:04 - 00:35:39:03
Sara Gutterman: Thanks. And, Eddie, what about, from your perspective, what's really prohibiting investors or just regular people from placing money into ESG related investments?

00:35:39:05 - 00:36:12:23
Eddy Soffer: Yeah, and I think that KR mentioned an element that is pretty similar in our industry, which is commonality standardization. There are so many different ways that people are defining ESG even within financial services. And there's so many different acronyms like an alphabet soup. There's so many organizations that are out there, there's so many rating agencies that are out there, and each one has their own way of measuring how good a company falls within the world or doesn't.

00:36:12:26 - 00:36:38:13
Eddy Soffer: There's also different frameworks on how to measure, you know, ESG, how environmentally friendly is this company and what I will tell you to follow this framework while another one says something different. The other complex factor is that, as you all know, Ishi is now global. It's everywhere. And so companies like ours and others are sometimes at a loss to see what framework do we adopt?

00:36:38:15 - 00:37:01:11
Eddy Soffer: Is it the one that the Europeans are promoting, or is it the one that the US is promoting? And so it gets very complicated and and frankly, confusing. Looking at a company's ESG score from some of the Raiders out there, you know, you would be very highly rated in one particular with one particular agency and then very low rated on another.

00:37:01:11 - 00:37:20:21
Eddy Soffer: So if there is no common language, I know that that's mentioned that as well. And I totally agree. So we need to standardize. We need to have more uniform measures. And frankly, an agency that provides that on a global basis because we just don't have anything like that just yet.

00:37:20:23 - 00:38:05:13
Sara Gutterman: So, Eddie, that's a perfect dovetail into my next question, which is let's talk about policy and regulations with respect to ESG. We're kind of in the wild West Frontier days in terms of reporting, accountability, transparency. But I think that's going to change soon, whether that's the ES vs or kind of their global guidance for ESG related reporting or the SEC's new climate disclosure requirements, which I think is going to push the corporate environment here much more towards a standardized ESG reporting format with more accountability and transparency.

00:38:05:13 - 00:38:35:07
Sara Gutterman: But that's really kind of the big elephant in the room right now. There are certain companies out there that are saying, yeah, I have an ESG strategy, but really nothing to back that up. And I don't think that's going to be the case for much longer. And I think that the companies that don't have that accountability, that transparency and the backup information that's, you know, soon going to be required, will face legal repercussions, will face reputational risks, etc..

00:38:35:07 - 00:38:52:22
Sara Gutterman: So, Eddie, do you want to start by just talking about some of the kind of new policies and regulations, including those SEC climate disclosure requirements and how you think they're going to impact the environment here in the US and globally?

00:38:52:24 - 00:39:32:11
Eddy Soffer: Certainly. So this is something and it's interesting, you mentioned, like the Esrb and others there is because of the challenges that I mentioned, a lot of movement towards unifying agencies and unifying regulators to start putting out policies to to provide guidance, frankly, on how companies should be reporting. And as you just mentioned, the SEC recently announced that I believe starting next year, companies, you know, I think there's some sort of a tiered schedule, depending on the size of your company, are going to have to start reporting on climate, right?

00:39:32:14 - 00:39:54:25
Eddy Soffer: Scope one, scope two, and eventually scope three. And a lot of companies are definitely not prepared for that in particularly companies that are not huge carbon emitters. Right. So companies in financial services sector or others, they just don't have the expertise to to actually start measuring their own scope. So they have to look at outside vendors to start doing it.

00:39:54:25 - 00:40:18:29
Eddy Soffer: So I definitely think it's a great way that is going to bring everybody into alignment. But we're still far away from doing that. As you just also mentioned the SEC. Still, the proposal is under review. There's pushback, obviously, from both sides of the aisle. There's certain Republicans that are pushing against this and Democrats. So there's going to be time.

00:40:18:29 - 00:40:41:16
Eddy Soffer: It's going to be refined. But I'm excited that that's out in the public domain, because we do need that clarity, and we do need some sort of guidance and someone to hold companies accountable. In Europe, it's already far ahead. As we know in the EU, companies are already reporting and we need to start looking to them to see how the future is going to look like.

00:40:41:16 - 00:40:53:28
Eddy Soffer: Once we put those policies into place, we can learn a lot from it. And so it's it's great. I'm glad that it's arriving, but I think it's a few more years away until things are uniform, standardized.

00:40:54:00 - 00:41:14:07
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Eddie. Scott, can you first explain what scope one, two and three means? Because I think some of our audience might not be familiar with those terms. And then once you do that, can you talk a little bit about policy and regulatory changes, how they're going to affect manufacturing in general? I know that's a big question with lots to unpack there.

00:41:14:07 - 00:41:22:20
Sara Gutterman: But really, what are the ESG fundamentals that businesses in general and manufacturers really need to be thinking about?

00:41:22:22 - 00:41:45:06
Scott Tew: Yeah. So first on scopes one, two, three for the audience scope, I think of scopes one and two as the scopes where you have the most control, for instance. So that's the electricity that it takes to run your factories, for instance, in your offices. And so the ones that you control the most that emanate from the company. So without the company there would be no emissions.

00:41:45:06 - 00:42:10:05
Scott Tew: Scope three are those that you have less control over. It's the it's the part of your emissions that are associated with your your products once you leave them with a customer. So for us, our customers plug in our our appliances at the home and the appliances consume electricity. And that will be considered scope three. So that's the scopes.

00:42:10:05 - 00:42:32:17
Scott Tew: So for the audience hopefully there was no confusion there. What Eddie mentioned is that now the SEC's requiring companies to be more transparent and disclose the the load that they're creating across all of those scopes. So once we have that, we can finally, at the economy level, begin to balance things out to figure out where we should go, focus.

00:42:32:17 - 00:42:57:05
Scott Tew: That's number one. And I think policymakers to your second part of your question, Sarah, I think we're all it's finally all coming together. There's enough intersections happening that we're all trying to focus on. First, let's understand how big the problem is. Number two is let's figure out if there is any hotspots. And then let's put into place that what will come next will be some mechanisms to drive action.

00:42:57:06 - 00:43:25:21
Scott Tew: Things like market signals. I won't say the word carbon tax. I'll just say market signals. There's lots of market signals, including incentives that could help drive new action towards something away from something bad to something better. And there are also other things that can happen, like the stick of attacks are a fee that could be placed on those actors in the economy that need to change, but maybe unwilling without some type of disincentive.

00:43:25:21 - 00:43:59:21
Scott Tew: And so I think that we're about to we're on the precipice of seeing all of those things happen. We can't go to the market signals until we know exactly an accounting for what we need to go and fix. And so that's what that's what I mean by it's all coming together on the intersections of all this. And so and the last point that I wanted to make around what I believe policymakers are looking for on the solutions side is the same thing that policymakers, those who are smart, are always looking for, which is do you have a solution and is the solution?

00:43:59:21 - 00:44:21:23
Scott Tew: Can it be available economy wide and is it affordable? And that's what they're looking for. Companies like my company to to help them understand. Like if you say you have a great solution to reduce the carbon load of buildings and homes, then tell us, is it just some niche thing or is it actually something that could be adopted at scale in the marketplace to make a difference?

00:44:21:23 - 00:44:28:26
Scott Tew: And they have to look to companies like ours to help them understand, engage what's needed to make that happen.

00:44:28:29 - 00:45:02:06
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Scott. Yeah, it's really interesting to see that convergence, as you're talking about, between advances in the policy and regulatory landscape, with the market indicators, and specifically, for example, like what's happening in carbon tech, where companies are getting really creative about pulling carbon out of the air and utilizing it as a raw input and a valuable resource. So all of a sudden, carbon transforms from something that is this harmful greenhouse gas and a wasteful material to something that companies are incent.

00:45:02:07 - 00:45:27:03
Sara Gutterman: Companies, utilities, etc., are incentivized to collect and then either utilize themselves or sell right to companies like Carbon Cure, which infuses carbon into a cement mix to make concrete that's actually more structurally sound and ends up becoming an enhanced carbon sink in the long term for further carbon removal. So I think.

00:45:27:05 - 00:45:33:12
Scott Tew: But what you just said is that there's a value that's happening. So once we place a value on things, it all changes.

00:45:33:18 - 00:45:56:06
Sara Gutterman: Absolutely. Yeah, indeed. CR let's stick with policy and regulations. What do building professionals and people in the real estate need to be paying attention to with respect to ESG related policy and regulations? What should they be thinking about now so they're not blindsided in the near or mid-term future?

00:45:56:08 - 00:46:30:06
CR Herro: Yeah, there is a couple great carrots and a couple big sticks that will definitely shape the mid-term reality of working in this space. A couple of the big carrots are the tremendous cost that's associated with underperforming individual components, low durability, individual components. Right. We the 70 to 80s was all about a disposable economy and the trillions of dollars of inefficiencies in the electric and the natural gas grids.

00:46:30:07 - 00:47:23:21
CR Herro: So there is a tremendous amount of financial incentives to align stakeholder value. And as we've all been talking about to this whole process, so much of the challenge and therefore the opportunity has been a lack of consistency and language, alignment of goals and alignment throughout the supply chain so that more holistic decisions are made. As far as sticks go, I think the transparency that's being required by the ESG reporting process, some of the investment criteria from the US government and and the European investment agencies with requiring not only ESG reporting, but significant improvements year over year in good scores and leadership positions, to even get capital is going to be a reality for everybody in

00:47:23:21 - 00:47:54:01
CR Herro: the space that that the global economy will reward people that are both creative and broader minded and their understanding of success. So the great news is, you know, I tip my hat to it a couple of times. The housing industry is incredibly wasteful, is incredibly large and consuming energy has a tremendous carbon footprint, from materials to logistics to operational energy.

00:47:54:01 - 00:48:13:04
CR Herro: So there is a tremendous amount of carrots available to do better and to improve and to create value within the supply chain. And there will be need they'll need to be some sticks and transparency and reporting to to not allow bad actors to hide.

00:48:13:06 - 00:48:34:21
Sara Gutterman: Thanks there. So I know we have a couple of questions from the audience, but I've got one more before I turn it over to Mike to rapid fire. Some final questions at the three of you. Let's. I'd like to just talk specifically about the creation of national and international solutions in the space. The KR let's start with you.

00:48:34:22 - 00:48:47:29
Sara Gutterman: What's the number one thing that needs to happen to kind of propel the adoption of an expansion of ESG in, again, the construction sector and the housing industry?

00:48:48:02 - 00:49:23:14
CR Herro: You know, the good news is a lot of the foundations are being talked about but not being implemented. So in operationalizing of everything we've just talked about over the last hour is the key. So having an alignment of language and reporting metrics and variables throughout the supply chain, so that we're all focused on the 25 largest opportunities to impact each industry segment and not spinning wheels and and and and you know, putting lipstick on pigs on things that aren't going to move the needle.

00:49:23:15 - 00:50:00:24
CR Herro: So I think that a lot of the things we've talked about that is starting to create policy. It's about getting into the industries, getting into leaders and operationalizing it. So so from my perspective, the problem is apparent. The tools are becoming clearly identified. There is currently still a lack of industry stakeholder alignment, transparency and communication throughout the supply chain to actually operationalize it in a way that really right, makes the big strides we're all advocating for in the near term.

00:50:00:26 - 00:50:04:11
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Scott. How would you answer that question?

00:50:04:14 - 00:50:24:07
Scott Tew: Yeah, I mean, I agree with what KR just said. I would say on top of that is that we need every company to do their part, and we need to do it in a thoughtful way. Gone are the days we can lead up portions of your value chain. As you talk about all the things that you're doing, just because there's no answer for that one, the answers can come many times today through collaboration.

00:50:24:10 - 00:50:43:08
Scott Tew: So you have to move outside your company maybe. I mean, we're collaborating with the US Department of Energy right now on a cold climate heat pump challenge to dispel some myths about heat pumps in the economy. There's still some myths that they don't work in Copilots. They're still some myths about cost. And we can dispel all of those things.

00:50:43:08 - 00:51:05:28
Scott Tew: And so it's good for us to work collaboratively with others to prove the proof that it's a very new day for for things like heat pump solutions. But I think the bigger issue is, is that many companies are still leaving out portions of their data set and or not setting targets align with the best science has to offer.

00:51:06:00 - 00:51:22:13
Scott Tew: There's still sort of some incremental thinking out there, and some follow the pack. And I think they were getting really close to that changing across every segment to see our point across industry sectors. We're not quite there yet, but that has to happen.

00:51:22:15 - 00:51:28:16
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Scott and Eddie. How would you respond to that same question?

00:51:28:18 - 00:51:53:22
Eddy Soffer: I would agree with my fellow panelists. I do think that as an investor in the financial services, the attention to ESG and the amount of funds is already very, very high record levels. It continues to be and I think it's not going to stop anytime soon. But I do feel that investors continue to be confused. They continue to look for guidance.

00:51:53:22 - 00:52:24:20
Eddy Soffer: So we do need some standardization. As I mentioned earlier, we need some regulators to step in and inform consumers on how they should be investing. And the other thing that I'm mostly concerned about is greenwashing, right. So that's another thing that we're seeing in our industry. There was a huge amount of influence going in. And for those people in the audience, greenwashing is when companies are not genuine about their mission or investment in ESG.

00:52:24:26 - 00:52:47:16
Eddy Soffer: Or they might say that some of their funds are ESG oriented or green. But when you look at the securities that they're holding, they're really not. So I think we need more regulation, more guidance, and frankly, ways to deal with this greenwashing that is happening more and more because people are seeing as being trendy and everybody wants a slice of the pie.

00:52:47:17 - 00:52:57:09
Eddy Soffer: But we all need to be genuine and not just doing it to to attract others because they're going to get caught in the end. So that's that's an area of focus we need to start looking at.

00:52:57:11 - 00:53:08:24
Sara Gutterman: Thanks, Eddie. Now, Mike, I know we have a few questions from the audience and we've just got a few more minutes. So if you want to chime in and and ask some of those questions, that'd be great.

00:53:08:26 - 00:53:32:04
Mike Collignon: Certainly. Thank you much, Sarah. I'm going to start off with a question that I think is geared towards KR. KR. Good to hear you again, sir. How you been? So Mary Jo asks, you know, or opines that a majority of net zero buildings are commercial and it makes sense to commercial building owners because there's a long term payoff.

00:53:32:06 - 00:54:00:09
Mike Collignon: In her opinion. We need to approach this as a what's in it for them kind of mentality, because there's still a healthy percentage that aren't net zero. On the profit side, she's thinking that we have to engage them in what is the long term financial and ecological benefit. So that's part of this. But the other part of her, her kind of thinking on this is how do we get residential builders to think this way to.

00:54:00:11 - 00:54:35:06
CR Herro: Yeah, the it's a challenge. I've personally been faced with a lot which is distributed construction, where you're building 2000 square foot at a time on a different lot across a geographic area, has much more challenges in documenting compliance with, you know, large sustainability programs like lead. And so, you know, lead has been working a ton in order to consolidate and create processes much more aligned with, like, Energy Star and U.S. Department of Energy.

00:54:35:06 - 00:55:21:04
CR Herro: Zero energy ready so that that that residential programs and builders can better ally to ESG centered policies and procedures and documented efficiently. So from my perspective, the the the large adoption of governmental buildings with lead was driven around a governmental policy to do that and an efficiency from the general contractors of being able to document all the supply chain, all the trade base, all the materials, all the energy, all the mechanicals over one project that creates, you know, an economy of scale per se for, you know, let's say government building costs $10 million.

00:55:21:07 - 00:55:50:27
CR Herro: Well, it you know, that's 20 residential homes certifying 20 residential homes instead of one commercial building is exponentially more complex and labor intensive. And so addressing the ability to, you know, I certainly believe that we need to hold people accountable and not allow greenwashing, but to create these recipe books that are easy to audit and comply to and common throughout the supply chain.

00:55:50:27 - 00:56:00:13
CR Herro: So the entire supply chain aligns to achieving those significant goals and accomplishments.

00:56:00:15 - 00:56:34:27
Mike Collignon: I tell you what, the questions that we've been asked today have been fantastic, because the answers that have been given to just kind of roll out into the next question and and that's the case here. So this is really a question geared more towards Scott and Eddie. Pete wanted to know with with standardization of metrics and regulatory bodies for ESG, how do we keep meaningful concepts from being co-opted and watered down by large companies who want the credit but don't want to pay the costs?

00:56:35:00 - 00:57:15:13
Scott Tew: I'm not sure I quite understand the question. I think the question is more about unique solutions that might be headed to the market, and how do we keep those as proprietary as possible. And I think our rules around international intellectual property will remain the same. I do think, though, that that for those solutions that are significant, that we'll see the same thing in a capitalism society as we've always seen, which is a rush to follow the leader very fast and to find out if there's a way for, for other companies to to get a piece of the pie as well.

00:57:15:13 - 00:57:45:07
Scott Tew: So I don't say I don't see anything changing there. It's not been one of our big concerns. I will say that for companies who have who have begun the journey of rightsizing their carbon footprint, say over the past 5 or 6 years ahead of regulation, I think they do stand to gain something in the marketplace. It's unclear exactly what they will gain ahead of compliance with SEC and other groups that are regulating some of this, or who will be regulating this.

00:57:45:07 - 00:58:08:02
Scott Tew: That's still an unknown, but I always believe that those who are ahead of a compliance deadline or ahead of standards being developed, they have a different view. Those companies have a different view. Those are the companies you want to to, I think to to watch because they're going to continue to push for staying ahead of the curve.

00:58:08:04 - 00:58:41:01
Eddy Soffer: Yeah. And I would agree with Scott. And I think that the question that I heard, perhaps the way that I'm interpreting it is, you know, taking credit or watering down for me, it's kind of like greenwashing. I think that the presence of regulators and, you know, putting out policies and this is the way it has to be done will align everyone and will also minimize greenwashing effects and will also encourage more transparency, which is great for consumers, in particular, in this environmental side.

00:58:41:01 - 00:58:56:15
Eddy Soffer: It's going to be an amazing way to see collectively how far are we from reaching our overall goals. So I think that that is coming, and that's something that's definitely going to going to level the playing field.

00:58:56:17 - 00:59:20:29
Mike Collignon: Yeah. And that's that's exactly what he was getting at it. He was the prevention of greenwashing. And so that companies can't just say, oh well we're going to lobby this down and water it down because it's a challenge. It certainly is. So I've got I've got two questions. They're both for Scott. Scott, I know you're not going to like these questions because they're going to make you talk about train.

00:59:21:02 - 00:59:34:17
Mike Collignon: So you know forgive me but but Ned's got a question about are there opportunities for using refrigerants with very low GWP. Can you talk a little bit about what's being done in that regard?

00:59:34:19 - 01:00:01:22
Scott Tew: Yeah, we sort of we've been leading this now for nine or so years. No one else spends us on research and development around low next generation, low GWP refrigerants. The issue in the residential space is the same issue that we've had for a long time, which is the industry, the residential industry, home builders, as well as really just the mechanical contractors nationwide.

01:00:01:25 - 01:00:51:04
Scott Tew: They would their preferences to always have one refrigerant on the trucks as they service in homes, and which means that the industry, typically we typically transition in lockstep with the rest of the industry. That may not be the case this time. There's enough research and development out there. There's enough new options on low GWP refrigerants that we can move faster, and there just may be a period of window coming soon where we're able to offer speaking train, as well as other providers, can offer a variety of options for customers based on your specific request and the application going in the home, whether it's a whether it's a mini split or whether it's ducted system.

01:00:51:10 - 01:01:11:17
Scott Tew: And bottom line is, is that options exist already. So you can follow up with me if you'd like to know more about those. Number two is I think in the next year or so, you're going to see even more options in the market around this next generation refrigerants.

01:01:11:19 - 01:01:14:01
Scott Tew: Was there a second question, Mike?

01:01:14:03 - 01:01:32:15
Mike Collignon: Yes we do. So there's another question from Pete. He's wanting to know is there we talked about transparency. Right. So his question is is there any place to see what train has to say about heat pump myths? Or do we have to wait for the publication of something?

01:01:32:17 - 01:01:52:21
Scott Tew: Yeah, that's a great question. So there is a we do have some of that on our train website. So if you go to train technologies. Com and then go to the business website you will see something there. However, with that being said, we will be releasing something very soon actually. On Friday, the company's latest ESG report is released to the world.

01:01:52:26 - 01:02:24:02
Scott Tew: It's Earth Day, and following that will be some more behind the scenes information about the cold climate heat pump challenge that I just mentioned. You can also go to the Doe website to find out more about that one. And they have a lot of great information as a little pitch there for the Doe that IRI office is doing a lot of great work around heat pump, and the big piece of this one right now is just to demonstrate that, yes, heat pumps can continue to operate at -15.

01:02:24:02 - 01:02:33:18
Scott Tew: So for our friends in Minnesota, it works and we're coming after you. So yeah, it's on the website.

01:02:33:20 - 01:02:38:19
Mike Collignon: All right. I'll hand it back to Sarah now. Sarah. Go ahead.

01:02:38:21 - 01:03:12:18
Sara Gutterman: Wonderful. I just have one last thing to say, Mike, before we wrap it up. And that is Scott. I'm glad that you talked about announcements, because I did just want to mention that Green Builder Media is collaborating with KR and Scott, hopefully you and others in our community to create an ESG working group that can establish key metrics, tracking and management for the primary factors within ESG, for the housing sector, for the built environment.

01:03:12:20 - 01:03:40:10
Sara Gutterman: We want to look at impactful data that we need to collect, such as embodied energy. We want to look at the supply chain. We want to look at full lifecycle so that we can start really solving for that accountability and transparency in the built environment. So if anyone is interested in participating in that, my email address is pretty readily accessible on our website.

01:03:40:16 - 01:04:11:16
Sara Gutterman: We will also be sending out a call for participants. Please look for that. We're very excited about it. We think that there's a lot of opportunity, also a lot of work to be done, but fortunately we'll be able to leverage the experience and the inside of Scott and CR and others who have really, you know, gone pretty far down the road to not just create a meaningful working group, but then actually to implement some frameworks that we can all follow and utilize.

01:04:11:18 - 01:04:28:06
Sara Gutterman: Because if we don't create the framework, somebody else will create it for us, right? And we want to make sure we have control of that. So Mike, that's it. And I want to pass it back to you and let's wrap it up. Good day. Thank you. Thanks. By the way, Scott, Eddie and and KR for your insights on this panel.

01:04:28:06 - 01:04:29:18
Sara Gutterman: Really interesting.

01:04:29:20 - 01:04:31:26
Scott Tew: Thank you.

01:04:31:29 - 01:05:02:11
Mike Collignon: Thank you to all of our panelists and all of our speakers today, providing us with the dynamic day one of the Greenville and Media Sustainability Symposium 2022. Also, another thank you to Train Technologies for their generous sponsorship of the symposium. Now please make sure to join us tomorrow, April 21st at 12 p.m. Eastern Time for day two. Our featured speakers will include Roger Ballantyne, David McGinty, Peter Pfeifer, Bronwyn Berry, Steve Easley, and of course, our hostess, Sarah.

01:05:02:12 - 01:05:14:07
Mike Collignon: Government will conclude tomorrow's program with another three person panel and will be sure to address your questions throughout. On behalf of Greenville, the media on my Collignon. Thank you for attending today and we'll see you tomorrow.