Green Builder Media CEO Sara Gutterman talks with Trane Technologies sustainability VP Scott Tew about the company's ESG commitments, from net positive water and carbon neutral operations to the Gigaton Challenge to cut customer emissions by a gigaton.
00:00:08:05 - 00:00:35:14
Sara Gutterman: CEO of Green Builder Media. And I'm here with Scott to the VP of sustainability from Train Technologies. So Scott, you've really been a pioneer with respect to corporate sustainability and ESG over the years. With respect to the agenda you've set at Train Technologies. Can you talk about the evolution of your corporate sustainability strategy over the past decade or so?
00:00:35:16 - 00:01:01:21
Scott Tew: Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. I mean, you know, every company has their own specific story. Ours started with an understanding that there are big issues related to climate in particular. And buildings, for instance, represent roughly 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. And you take something like food loss, which is another area that our company serves. That's another 10% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
00:01:01:22 - 00:01:23:28
Scott Tew: So those two combined, 25% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. It became really clear to us that we had to start working on solutions for the market, not just churning out more equipment to sell into the market. And so that began to change how we do everything from product design to innovation. And so that was sort of the impetus for, as you called it, our journey.
00:01:23:29 - 00:01:31:09
Sara Gutterman: So tell me a little bit more about your current ESG initiatives or corporate sustainability initiatives, and what are you most excited about?
00:01:31:10 - 00:01:53:20
Scott Tew: So we believe that we have a responsibility and should be accountable for not just how we chose the raw materials, not just how we manufacture it, but also what happens when we leave it there. So it's sort of the entire value stream. So our approach now in our ESG commitments are covering that entire footprint. On the manufacturing side, I'll start there where we committed to a net positive water.
00:01:53:21 - 00:02:19:25
Scott Tew: Our plans will help us become positive, meaning we will provide more clean water in the communities where we extract water for our manufacturing and we consume. So that's the net positive, piece only energy side. We've committed to a 10% absolute energy consumption reduction, and that's even in years like we've had a really great run of increasing production, increasing revenue every year, making more of those products.
00:02:19:25 - 00:02:38:09
Scott Tew: So no longer should. Should you think that just because your productions and going up that your energy needs to go up with it, you can actually produce more and use less energy while you're doing it. So we're proving that one out. We're also committing to carbon neutral operations by 2030. So we're working on all those fronts to reduce carbon emissions.
00:02:38:09 - 00:02:56:13
Scott Tew: That also extends our supply chain. As I mentioned, we're asking all of our preferred suppliers to share our commitments. We're also partnering with them. Some of them are small companies that never set a goal like this before. They've never even evaluated their energy use. And so we're working hand in glove with them on how do you understand your footprint?
00:02:56:15 - 00:03:17:02
Scott Tew: How do you understand your consumption? How do you begin increasing productivity as you use that energy? I'd say that one of the most interesting areas for us has been our opportunity for all. Theme. Meaning we want our community of employees to match the diversity of the community that we're sitting in. So that was important to us from the beginning.
00:03:17:02 - 00:03:50:13
Scott Tew: We want to reach parity in terms of gender in our leadership globally. The last but not least, Sara, is our what we call the Gigaton Challenge, which has been the really exciting endeavor for us. We have committed to reducing our customers bourbon emissions by a gigaton by the end of 2029. No company has ever set a science based, validated target for product emission reductions larger than the Gigaton Challenge, and it's sort of an all in for our company and our sector.
00:03:50:15 - 00:04:20:25
Scott Tew: This is a it's an amazing commitment because it requires us to rethink how we design solutions for customers, how we apply them in homes and buildings and in areas like transportation. We're rethinking how we collaborate with, rethinking how we pilot and demonstrate these solutions. And we're doing some amazing things. We have commercial heating and heat pumps in Europe now that are that are replacing boilers of the past, where fossil fuels were being burnt to heat the building.
00:04:20:25 - 00:04:42:20
Scott Tew: We can truly move away from fossil fuels in terms of how comfort supply to buildings. And there's just so much more to do in this space. I'd say the Gigaton challenge is galvanized the entire company around a common North Star. That's all about what Andrew Winston would call net positive. So that's where we're that's where our head is currently.
00:04:42:22 - 00:04:50:03
Sara Gutterman: What do you foresee as some of the challenges and, you know, some of the the big opportunities as you really blaze this trail?
00:04:50:04 - 00:05:12:20
Scott Tew: We've gone way beyond the time of everyone sitting around waiting on someone else to move. We've just decided we need to just keep moving forward. So when I think about some of the big things ahead, you know, there's certainly the plan to 2030 that's going to be really important for companies like Train Technologies to understand how do we begin lessening our impact, that negative impact across the entire life cycle of our products?
00:05:12:20 - 00:05:30:11
Scott Tew: That's number one. Number two, you mentioned the people side. I think finding new ways of being productive and of doing things is what we we're beginning to call the future of work. And the future of work will look different. And that's a good thing. It is speeding up things like collaboration. We're finding partners faster than we used to.
00:05:30:15 - 00:05:56:26
Scott Tew: That's what we'll be working on. But the beyond 2030, this this journey to net zero, which is the next piece of this journey that's an exploratory territory for all of us. This space is very exciting because I think that consumers, employees, customers, I think we all have a win here as companies try to figure this out. This is just this is better for the entire ecosystem of what we're trying to do.