Season 5, Episode 194 : Why Investing In Your Supply Chain is Crucial to Business in 2025: The Wine Society

Dom: [00:00:00] pay a fair price. invest in your suppliers. And then it's that old adage of, of working with the industry,and getting a few,of you together who all kind of think the same way.
Dom: you can start to actually get a few things done and then others join.
Will: welcome to Sustainability Solved, where our mission is to help you solve sustainability problems in your organisations. I'm your host, Will Richardson, founder and chief purpose and innovation officer of Green Element Group. And as ever, I'm joined by my wonderful co host, Charlie Luxton.
Will: Charlie, how are you doing?
Charlie: I'm good. I, I, I'm trying to be Christmassy. I'm, I'm trying to warm up to the, to the Christmas break, and getting excited about all of that. What about you?
Will: I can't wait. I can't wait. Um, uh, [00:01:00] I'm now in two minds on whether I'm on the 18th of December and we've had our Christmas party for work and we've had our Christmas thing or whether it's a dreary day. Actually, it's not even dreary, it's actually a sunny, glorious sunny day here, um, in November because we've obviously
Charlie: in November. Shh, don't break the wall. The whole magic of, I mean, I have to say like, let's be level. It's, it's like late November. We're pretending it's Christmas, but can you imagine the people that do this stuff for a living and like making like a Christmas party in in January to, or in February, you know, in, sorry, June for your TV programs, it's kind of seems slightly bonkers, but anyway, it is November.
Charlie: Let's not, let's not, but we are, I'm, I'm, I'm ramping up for Christmas.
Will: What about, in the rear view mirror now, what, what's your take out from Cop? I have to say, I slightly was not interested, but I'm interested now that a bit of time has passed. What, what do you think came from it?
Will: I mean, for all intents and purposes, it was a bit of a show, wasn't [00:02:00] it? I mean, I'm not sure if you're allowed to swear, probably not. Can you beep that out, please? Um, Mr. Producer, but it really is disappointing. I read yesterday that one of the things that's the Northern Hemisphere companies, countries did was right at the last minute say, Oh, actually, we've got this group of people and we're only going to pay 300 billion or 250 billion dollars, when they could have actually said that right at the beginning, because this was a lot about finance and trying to finance the, Southern Hemisphere countries and you just kind of go there's, it's all playing games and We've now had three oil, is it three oil?
Will: and gas countries that have been hosting it. They've been making deals left, right and centre for oil and gas. I mean, if I was on the outside, if I was an alien looking in, and I'd go, right, so fossil fuels are the reason why they're in this mess. These humans [00:03:00] really are stupid, aren't they? Because they're asking the fossil fuels that put them in the mess to source out the mess that they're in, and they haven't changed their economic structure.
Will: What's that about?
Charlie: I mean, the only, the only upside you hope, I mean, two things happened I thought was interesting. One is that the UAE called out Saudi Arabia as being effectively a bad actor in the whole process and named them, which I thought was pretty significant that, and they're very close. partners and allies and, and I think because UAE had hosted the previous co op, they felt moved to say you're undoing all the stuff that we did, stop it.
Charlie: I think that was interesting. I think the second,
Charlie: my one hope will is in terms of cop, is that maybe this is the, the low point. This is the, the kind of the nadir of the process. And actually people will realize what has been going on, that, that, that the Pecho industries have flooded the entire event in an effort to dilute and dissolve what the, what the ambition of the, the, the, the program's been.[00:04:00]
Charlie: Maybe, maybe we'll see a transition. Maybe we'll get better hosts going forward. Maybe we'll get more, uh, we'll get more action again. But I mean, you know, Ed Miliband wrote quite an interesting piece saying that irrespective of the kind of short term pain, it just seems so clear that the long term trajectory towards renewable energy is, is unstoppable.
Charlie: And maybe, Maybe all of this is, is just dancing, you know, dancing around while the inevitability happens. So,
Will: well, I think that's the answer. I think that's, I think a lot of scientists came out with Trump with regards to that in the US. the, the ship has already sailed. It's going along. Whatever Trump wants to do is he's only going to impact his own country now. The rest of the world is, and actually most of his country, want renewables.
Will: Why is Texas, one of the biggest oil burning states in the US, the largest renewable energy producer? It's because they're making money.
Charlie: so, moving on from all of that, Christmas stuff, Christmas spirit, [00:05:00] Christmas cheer. So Secret Santa, let's talk about Secret Santa.
Will: Oh, thank you so much for mine! It's brilliant, it arrived, and
Charlie: So wait a second listeners, wait a second listeners, we decided to give each other a Secret Santa gift. And I, being told that this is what we're going to do, ordered my Secret Santa gift, less than 10. Uh, in fact, a second hand product that I furnished to source, and I got it sent, over to Will. And it's arrived, hasn't it, Will?
Will: It has arrived, it has arrived, and I was so on it. And I was like, Charlie, you need to get this done. And I spent about three or four days trying to work out what to give him. It's really hard to you because you've got because we're also on air. So we've got people to listen, listening to us. So therefore, we've got to do under 10 pounds, it's got to be environmental.
Will: And I would have actually done a mixtape for you, if I'm brutally honest. [00:06:00] That's what I wanted to do, and the postage would have been the money sent. But the reason why I didn't do a mixtape was because of copyright issues, and I wondered if people would have a problem with that, and I'd be really interested to know if, could you email us and tell us whether you'd have had an issue?
Will: Because I'm now wanting to know, because that's Because I just wanted to give you Anyway, I then was
Charlie: Will, I would do, I would, I would do jail time for your mixtape, dude. So you should have just gone with it. Because actually, nothing's arrived for my Secret Santa. I have, I have got an empty hand. It's en route.
Will: So I got you a CD from Martin Bennett and it's called Grit and he was a producer, music artist from the Isle of Mull and his music is really cool. Scottish influenced dance music that blends together incredibly well and I thought your love [00:07:00] for the islands and surfing and water, it's a nice blend of all of that.
Will: It was a second hand CD from Music Magpie, which is my personal favourite. Personal love, um, websites. It's my website of choice for everything. Uh, well, I only buy music and anyway, I just, I wanted to buy a drum and bass and a really cool ambient drum and bass, album, but I couldn't find them on music magpie and so I got you grit, but it actually was Laura's Laura was the one that said, why don't you do this?
Will: And I'm like, Oh yeah. Okay. That's a really good
Charlie: Well, no, I'm very excited. I love, I love Scottish music. I, I, I've, I follow a lot of Scottish bands. Uh, King Creosote Massoud. I absolutely love Scottish music. So look
Will: hopefully you'll like
Charlie: that. Yes.
Will: Well, it should have arrived. Yes, it was secondhand. And you got me Wild Fell, and that is a book around the, about the Lake District. And it's a [00:08:00] very thoughtful gift because, of your wife's and my family who have a house there and,grew up there and it's, I'm really looking forward to reading actually.
Charlie: So critically, secondhand book. I think it was awesome books, a world of books, one of those fantastic websites, secondhand books. So it's about a guy who moved up to the Lake District to run the Haweswater RSPB estate and his kind of journey into understanding, about how the biodiversity of the lakes has been degraded by farming practices, essentially post Second World War, and essentially because of the number of sheep that they've put up there.
Charlie: It is such a nice book in that it really is thoughtful and understanding about the existing uses of the land, i. e. farmers. It tries to understand how we can balance the potential for reintroducing wildlife or, restoring wildlife. Whilst respecting existing culture, and there's some fantastic bits in it about going to Norway and going to the Alps [00:09:00] and seeing what the, what the lakes would have been.
Charlie: it's absolutely brilliant. And as you say, you know, you're not just you, you grew up there, your, your grandmother, I think your great grandmother was born there, your Kate's mum spent the war living there with her grandmother and her mother. Um, your family house, you guys have had for 200 years up there, haven't you?
Charlie: So, I know my, my wife and I know your family have an enormous connection to the Lake District and reading this book, I see it differently, but also have hope. So, great book. Great book. Wildfell. Really, really recommend it.
Will: yeah, it's brilliant, I'm, yeah, I was really touched and loved it, loved it, I mean, that just shows for under tenner, you
Charlie: Okay, great presence.
Charlie: So, Charlie, what have we got coming up today?
Charlie: Well, it's a fantastic chat with a guy called Dom DeVille from the Wine Center. Love the Wine Society, amazing organization owned by all of the members. it's a members benefit society. And it's a fascinating chat really that sums up, I think a lot of [00:10:00] the issues facing the majority of businesses in this country, which is that scope three, i.
Charlie: e. supply chain emissions are the biggest part of what most of us are going to be tackling with because we just don't make that much stuff here or Most businesses don't. So that's really interesting. The second thing that really came out of it for me was this idea of when your product or the thing that you're selling is massively impacted by climate change, as wine is and agriculture is, how do you respond to that?
Charlie: And I think the real inspiration has been about reaching sort of down the supply chain. And then turning and asking your, the people you're selling to, to also get that longitudinal conversation going on. And then finally, actually there was some fantastic insight into the role of procurement, the wine society buy wine from people.
Charlie: and sell it to other people, but actually how do you embody your value set into that process? And I think there's some fantastic stuff that comes [00:11:00] out of this conversation that I think is really relevant to the people listening and really relevant to people trying to run sustainable businesses in, in our economy.
Charlie: So I found it a fascinating bit of a bell driven episode. What about, what did you, what was your big take out, Will?
Will: I think the fact that the Wine Society have closely looked at offsetting and looked at insetting and recognize that there is some real problems with the offsetting markets, but are absolutely wanting to look at their supply chain because They need to in order to reduce those scope three emissions and they have,ingeniously and intuitive, not intuitively, but you know, they've properly looked at their supply chain and looked at how they can help their supply chain to reduce those emissions through a variety of different means that we're going to find out in the episode.
Charlie: My jargon busting bell has been ringing off the charts during that comment there, Will. But if you stay listening, you [00:12:00] will understand everything that we're talking about because we do explain it in more detail. Enjoy the episode

Will: Thanks for joining us today, Dom. It's great to have you here. And before we get into the specific problem that you're going to help us with today, why don't you just tell us a little bit about the Wine Society? Because even though both me and Charlie are members, not everyone will know what it exactly is that you
Dom: Will. Um, thanks for inviting me on. Great to be here. so the Wine Society, it's basically an online wine retailer. so we will, we have a team of buyers. they travel the globe and it's their mission to find really interesting wines from about from about 26, 27 different countries around the world.
Dom: we then ship those wines to our, headquarters, warehouses in Stevenage, and then [00:13:00] sell them to our, our members. and so I think the difference with the Wine Society is we're, we're a mutual, And no one really knows what a mutual is, most of us that actually work at the Wine Society don't really know what a mutual is, but it is basically, it's kind of like a club, but so you pay 20 pounds, I think it is now, to join the Wine Society, you're a member for life, you don't have to pay a penny more if you don't want to, you can buy one bottle a year, you can buy no bottles a year, you can buy a thousand bottles a year if you want to, but the point is that because we're a membership organization.
Dom: the, we, we don't have shareholders. so all the profits go back into the business and they go back into the business on quality, service, and increasingly so, um, sustainability. So that means that our, our wines are really good quality, but they're also really cheap. so it's kind of like the best, One of the best sort of [00:14:00] kept secrets, really, the Wine Society.
Dom: It always amazes me that not more people know about it because it's a, it's a really interesting model. that, that mutuality, cause yeah, we don't, we'd have to make money. Of course we have to make money to, to survive. But as I say, all the money just goes back into the business and making it better.
Charlie: And it's your 150th anniversary, isn't it, this year?
Dom: It is. Yeah. So we were founded, yeah, 150 years ago today. By, a group of guys who basically were annoyed with the price of wine. Um, and said, surely we can do this better ourselves. Why don't we form a club and we'll just source the wine ourselves from really interesting places and kind of sell it to ourselves at really fair prices.
Dom: Like fair prices for us and fair prices from the people we buy it from. And honestly, that, that. Model, has stayed the same for 150 years.
Charlie: I'm, I'm a [00:15:00] huge, I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan of the Wine Society. As you say, I think, I think the wines you get a really good value. really good value and the fact that I've only ever had like one or two bottles that haven't been good and whenever I've written in and said they're not good, I've got a full refund or a replacement bottle without any questions.
Charlie: And I just think that's an amazing service. So I love
Dom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Charlie: I suppose, I suppose the big question is what, what are the main sustainability challenges that wine and you specifically face?
Dom: the obvious ones I mean climate change is a big Is a big challenge,people often forget that wine is, an agricultural product. and so we buy grapes or, well, the producers that we buy from,you know, they buy grapes from. Big farmers, small farmers, but people all over the world and and farming is just becoming more and more of a challenge.
Dom: you know, just weather systems, changing climate, droughts, floods, hail in the summer, all [00:16:00] sorts of things, you know, and that really affects the crop. So climate change is a, is a biggie and adapting to climate change. carbon reduction, of course, all businesses. Working on that one. and then another biggie for us is, is the kind of the human rights element as well.
Dom: Um, another thing that people don't really think about so much in agriculture is, all these grapes have to be picked and they are picked mostly by Um, so that needs lots of people in the vineyards, picking grapes at harvest time. So it's a situation where you suddenly need, you know, hundreds of thousands, champagne, you take champagne for example, they need in about a four week window, 120, 000 additional people.
Dom: To pick the grapes. So those 120, 000 people have got to come from somewhere. back in the day, they used to come from the local community, you know, everyone would get together and go and go and pick grapes for a few weeks [00:17:00] and, and all support each other. But now, now people don't really want to do that.
Dom: So, it's often migrant labor. it's third party recruitment agencies that bring people from Africa, from Eastern Europe, from Asia. To do the picking, and you can imagine there's a lot of risks with that in terms of the treatment to those people. So, so those are kind of the big things we're working on, I'd say.
Charlie: And what about biodiversity and chemical use in the vineyards and in their winemaking process?
Dom: Yeah, definitely. again, it's, it's, it's not something that people tend to think about with wine. Um, is, is the fact that it's a very,it's a highly processed product. You know, a lot of people think actually it's just squished grapes and you put it in a bottle or put it in a barrel and let it ferment for a little while and then stick it in a bottle.
Dom: But actually,it's the same with most farming these days, conventional farming. [00:18:00] involves a lot of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides,fertilizers, chemical applications on the land. so that obviously has an impact on biodiversity. you know, when you see these vineyards where it's just a row of vines and then bare earth next to it, it, it looks lovely.
Dom: But actually, what that means is that all biodiversity has just been killed. and it's just the grapes that are living. and those grapes are actually, growing from chemicals rather than from natural stuff in the soil, if that makes sense. So, so biodiversity loss. I mean, it's happening in farming all over as we know, but, but, you know, one's, you know, one's no different really.
Will: you also do a lot with regenerative, farming as well. Could you explain, like, the difference between the biodiversity and regenerative?
Dom: so regenerative is essentially a [00:19:00] farming practice. so as I was just saying, since the second world war farming has, what's called sort of conventional farming, tends to rely on a lot of chemical applications. Um, you know, those fertilizers to, to provide nutrients for the crops. you, you, you're tilling the land, to, to stop weeds growing, you know, plowing, you're throwing down herbicides to kill weeds.
Dom: Um, you're putting pesticides down to kill the bugs that might eat the crops. Essentially. So there's a lot of stuff going on onto the land. What regenerative farming. is, and in wine it's called regenerative viticulture, is, trying to move away from that dependence on chemicals. So it's trying to essentially use nature to provide all the things that the crops need, and to kind of bring balance, that sort of balance back to vineyards.
Dom: So, instead of, um, plowing up the soil in [00:20:00] between vine rows, to, so that there are no weeds growing because, they, they don't, conventional farmers don't want weeds there because they say it competes, for nutrients and water with the vines, but actually you can add beneficial crops.
Dom: into those rows. So you can, um, add in, you know, wildflowers, legumes, other kinds of crops that add nutrients naturally into the soil. and they share those nutrients with the, with the vines. it's about bringing, animals into the vineyard to add fertilizer. So you bring sheep through the, through the vineyards.
Dom: They add fertilizer to the soil rather than you having to put chemical fertilizer on. it's about you finding natural ways to manage predators. So rather than, spraying your crops with pesticides, you can bring bats or geese or other kind of [00:21:00] predators into the vineyard that eat the things that you don't want, or keep them under control.
Dom: And it's about not tilling the soil, because by churning up the soil, you're damaging the soil. and you're also releasing carbon dioxide that's stored into the soil, into the atmosphere. And actually, soil is a massive resource. So, if you have healthy soil, it will absorb huge amounts of carbon into it.
Dom: So, that's kind of the regenerative approach. It's about using life to manage life, really. Um, uh, and using nature rather than using these sort of, chemical inputs.
Charlie: So if we, if we see that as a sort of the backdrop to the general challenges of the wine industry and, and as you rightly say to the whole agricultural industry, if we just focus for a second on, on the wine society as a business, because that's, organization, if you like, that's the kind of Interest.
Charlie: It's what for you are the, I mean, should we [00:22:00] get a bit nerdy here and talk about scope one, two, and three for a second? Much as my jargon alert is going off here. As a business, let's talk about your scope one and two. Will, give us your very quick summary of scope one and two.
Will: 2 are emissions that you have produced, i. e., Scope 1 is what petrol have you poured into your car? What is gas have you used for your air conditioning units? What gas have you used to heat your building? And scope two is your electricity off site that has used a fossil fuel or not, but, and it's brought in.
Will: So those are your scope one and two emissions.
Charlie: So scope one and two for the Wine Society, massive or not so significant?
Dom: No, really quite small, actually. and all businesses will be [00:23:00] different. So for us, our scope one and two is about 6 percent of our total carbon emissions. So what that means is 94 percent of Of our carbon emissions are in our supply chain. so for us, that's, the wine production. So that's some of the things we were just talking about chemical use,in, in vineyards.
Dom: it will be tracked a diesel for tractors in vineyards driving up and down. it will be, energy use in wineries. so that kind of wine production, it'll be packaging. amazingly for us, 31 percent of our total carbon emissions come simply from the glass bottle. So it's the making and disposing of that glass bottle.
Dom: then you've got shipping. As well. So imagine bringing all that wine from around the world to the U. K. that's a biggie. so, so those are those are kind of where [00:24:00] are our biggest emissions are. So when you think about right, how are we going to reduce our carbon emissions? Actually, it's all about working with your supply chain.
Dom: because yes, there are those 6 percent of emissions that are Are directly attributable to us. So we have as well, which will was just saying, you know, it's putting diesel in vans. So we have 30 of our own vans, that we do some of our distribution in. So yes, we can move those to electric vehicles. Yes, we can reduce, energy consumption in our offices and we're doing those things, but actually where you, where you can have the biggest impact is, is in your supply chain.
Dom: So that's where it gets tricky.
Charlie: Which is effectively your scope three.
Dom: Which is broadly your scope three. Yes.
Charlie: you also have um, quite a lot of wine storage, don't you? Members wine storage. I mean, I assume you've, what's the kind of demand of that element of the business? Is that within the six percent?
Dom: Yeah. So that'd be within the 6%. So we, we're, we have just one [00:25:00] site, so we're based in Steve Stevenage. We have five warehouses here. So, if members want to store their wines with us because they don't have space at home, um, for example, Or they don't have the right conditions at home. We'll store them for them, in our warehouses and their temperature controlled.
Dom: So for us, the energy use of that temperature controlling will come under our scope. One and two,
Charlie: But ultimately, you're, you're dancing at the edges, aren't you? If you, if you really focus on the six percent, obviously, that's not, that's not the biggie, is it? So, what, what have you, because this is a really classic one, isn't it? I mean, this is a huge challenge that I think many organizations face. A lot of organizations, certainly consultancies all about the scope three, isn't it?
Charlie: It's all about the beyond stuff. how have you tried to tackle that given that you're actually in charge of so little of, you Nominally in charge of so little of your [00:26:00] carbon emissions,
Charlie: for us It's all about working in partnership with with our suppliers So and I find this really interesting because I've been in In sustainability for a long time, and I've seen how procurement has shifted, um, sort of 30 years ago or so, when procurement was all about, getting the best price.
Dom: So if you were a procurement officer working for a brand or a retailer, you were a hero if you beat your supplies down and got the lowest price possible. it's then kind of shifted over the last few years to actually, it's not just about price. We also need our suppliers to take care of compliance for us.
Dom: so, there's some environmental compliance in there, but it's health and safety standards and things like that. And now we're in a stage where actually the decent businesses are thinking, my God. I can't achieve my sustainability goals [00:27:00] without my suppliers because so much of what we do of our business activities are in our supply chain.
Dom: so we've got to work in partnership with our suppliers. So we, we've just got some of our suppliers we've worked with for 100 years, some we've only worked with for a couple of years. So we kind of have those relationships in built, but, but that's where we're focusing efforts. And what we can do with them.
Will: I think all all proactive and really forward thinking organizations are doing exactly what you're doing. And it is so good to see, I look at some of the businesses that we work with. And the better ones are all on a similar vein to you. And I think that's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Charlie: So what are the kind of initiatives that you're, initiating with your partners? And how do those initiatives come around? Do you say, Hey, Mr. Winemaker, you need to do better, or is it, is [00:28:00] it more of a, what can we do together to improve this?
Dom: So it involves a lot of thinking. Um, so we have about a thousand ish suppliers in any one year. so you can't work with everybody. So you do, you do have to take it bit by bit. So one of the things is, we are producing emissions.
Dom: We want to reduce emissions. But at the same time, and that's where our priority is. But at the same time, we recognize we are still producing emissions as we go. So we wanted to see if we could offset that. Um, some of the our emissions. So I'll scope one and two emissions at the very least. and We looked into this,into various different offset, carbon offsetting schemes.
Dom: And actually, because we're working in agriculture, we thought we've got access to all of this land. Why not invest that money directly with our suppliers? So we've got a climate and nature program where we, we give money directly to our [00:29:00] growers. so that's, that's one thing that we're doing. another thing we're doing is around, engaging with our suppliers.
Dom: On what are the big sustainability challenges we're all facing, and it's about having conversations with them, talking about their priorities, talking about our priorities, and then coming up with, plans of how we can help them, so how we can help them move to lighter bottles, because They're lower carbon.
Dom: How can we help them, understand how to reduce carbon in their, in their businesses, um, et as around new product innovation as well. So there's a whole bunch of areas around there that we, we can work with them on. And then, and then the third big area for us is, is working with the industry to catalyze.
Dom: So if you think about something like, bottle weights, it's all very well, and we need, if you reduce bottle weights, you're essentially reducing your, your carbon emissions because, they're lighter to [00:30:00] ship. and, they also take less emissions to produce.
Dom: If we go out there and on our own and just tell all of our suppliers, please reduce your bottle weights. well, they'll say, well, that's fine. You know, you, you want us to do that for you, but we have a bunch of other customers who are not telling us to do that and actually want heavier bottles because they think that, consumers think that heavier bottles means more quality.
Dom: So then you need to work with the, with the industry, and get everybody. working on the same issue. So everybody working on bottle weights, everyone talking about the need for the industry to reduce bottle weights, to reduce carbon footprint to make change. So there's a bunch of areas there.
Charlie: Well, should we go back to the first one? So you looked at offsetting and decided, Well, against it on one level, but I suppose you're, you're organizing. I mean, I have heard this phrase in setting, um, and you, you decided to, to take that route. [00:31:00] What, what was, what was the driver behind that?
Dom: yeah, we did. I personally think that there is a really, good case for offsetting. I think, offsetting schemes, they've come under a lot of, scrutiny, they've had some bad press recently, but I think the concept is really sound, you know, and it's about, diverting more money into projects that, sequester carbon or avoid.
Dom: carbon, and I think we absolutely need more money flowing into, climate adaptation, climate resilience, carbon reduction. so I wouldn't have had a problem doing that, but actually because of the, our type of business where we have access to thousands of growers, around the world, thousands of hectares of vineyards, we thought, well, why don't we just give that money directly to them?
Dom: To do nature projects in their vineyards, so we created this fund. it's not a huge amount of [00:32:00] money. it's about 65, 000 a year. but we'll do it every year. Um, we have two criteria. for our growers to, to,to apply for one is,for projects that are conservation restoration type projects.
Dom: So it might be tree planting, it might be hedgerow planting, it might be rewilding. or the second criteria is, for, to help them adopt regenerative methods. viticulture practices, because there are quite a lot of barriers to entry to, to changing your farming practices. You know, you imagine your grapes, you've been,adding chemicals to your grapes for the last, uh, your vines for the last 20, 30 years.
Dom: It's like a drug. They're addicted to it. so moving your vines off, chemicals is, it's a slow process. and what it can often mean is that your yields go down for a few years. so obviously then [00:33:00] there's a risk of the farmer making less money because they have less grapes to sell. So there are barriers to entry like that.
Dom: Um, so what this fund is doing is helping to. Help is sort of providing a bit of seed money to help either get somebody started on their regenerative journey or help them overcome some of those, those financial barriers.
Will: um,
Charlie: are you, how are you then estimating, or maybe you're not because you're not, effectively looking at exactly carbon offsetting, are you working out the carbon impact of those programs individually? And
Dom: no, at the moment.
Charlie: I don't blame you.
Dom: No. Um, so we've taken the view for now that we, cause the, so we've invested in, 11 projects this year. And they're all really varied. Um, so, you know, one of them is,planting trees in vineyards. for example, so it's kind of an [00:34:00] agroforestry project.
Dom: so there'll be maple trees, olive trees, and I think, Think truffle trees, because trees and vines go really well together You know, if you think about where vines grow naturally, they're creepers. They just creep up up trees But so so when you see a vineyard, that's not the natural way that vines want to grow They actually want to grow with trees Trees and vines work very well together.
Dom: They share nutrients, they share water, they share, all sorts of things. So, agroforestry projects like that, there are some projects which are kind of trialing new approaches in regenerative viticulture. so we have this one project, this is getting quite geeky now, about
Charlie: go ahead. We love a bit of geeking. We're into this.
Dom: Um, what is that hydro seeding? so you imagine you've got vines,as you go through spring and into summer, weeds grow [00:35:00] under those vines. and what a lot of conventional farmers would do would be just to spray them, spray them with herbicides.but there's this new approach called hydro seeding.
Dom: which is basically, it's like a water spray that you spray under the vines. It's a mixture of water, um, cellulose fiber, seeds, and, What that does is then grow beneficial crops under the vines. so it's crops that add nutrients into the soil. and that don't compete with the vines. and this provides kind of a blanket of dense crops under the vines, that capture carbon, that improve moisture retention, protect the soil from erosion, provide nutrients into the soil and for the vines, all those kinds of things.
Dom: And crucially, it means that the farmer then doesn't have to spray herbicides. So we've, we funded a trial to, to look at that. [00:36:00] You know, can that work for the, for the wine industry? we gave money to one producer for them to buy a direct drill. so it's a, it's an, um, um, piece of equipment that goes on the back of their tractor that drills seeds directly into the soil, without needing to plow the soil.
Dom: Um, because as I was saying earlier, you know, when you plow the soil you you damage the soil But you also release a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere So if you direct seeding, it literally just it does a little Little groove has this little wheel that spins around and makes a little groove in the soil, and then it just like punches the seed into the soil, so they can plant these cover crops or crops in between the vine rows.
Charlie: So you, you're sort of, you're sort of trying to create a sort of, almost like a, an intellectual hinterland around projects that you're hoping will seed behavior change [00:37:00] into the wider industry. Is that part of how you're,
Dom: That's that's what we're thinking at the moment. So because they're all really diverse projects, it's really hard to measure the impact of all of those. It's really hard to come up with concrete numbers around, X biodiversity produced or X carbon sequestered. So we're using it as a a way of investing in our supply chain,so building relationships with our suppliers.
Dom: we hope it is really genuinely contributing to more sequestration and biodiversity, even though precise measurements it's going to be difficult. But the third thing is learning from these projects and then taking that learning, packaging it up and then sharing it with all the other thousand suppliers that we work with to try and Encourage them to do similar projects or at least show them how, how to do it, how to get going.
Dom: Um, so it's providing case studies to them, says, listen, we invested [00:38:00] 3, 000 in this project. We did this, this was the benefit. and this is what the grower got from it.
Will: well you're almost becoming a kind of think tank within the wine industry aren't you in a way?
Dom: Well, hoping to definitely contribute to the growing body of knowledge, for sure. Yeah, because farming's hard, right? And farming, in the face of climate change is really hard. And then you've got, retailers and brands saying, Oh, and now I want you to be more regenerative or to use less chemicals.
Dom: So there's a huge amount of pressure on farmers. whether it's wine or, or tomatoes or whatever crop. so they need help, really, and they need guidance, and they need to understand what works, because a crop like grapes, you only get one chance at it, if you cock, if you cock it up, you've lost your whole, Crop for that year and you've lost your whole income for that year.
Will: do you work with other [00:39:00] buyers? I, I guess Tesco's just reading Brooks, et cetera do you talk to each other and go, this is what we're doing. What is it that you're doing? And so that's, um, there's a more of a cohesive approach across the whole
Dom: Yeah, I think that's growing. I think that's still pretty young if i'm honest So there's there's two organizations that I would mention one is called the sustainable wine round table which is umIt's global in nature. There are probably more members from the UK at the moment because that's where it was founded.
Dom: And that's just a collaborative forum. It's just where people get together, share things, share learnings. so that, that's Yeah, so yeah, it'll be everyone. So it'll be wine producers. It'll be bottle, bottle manufacturers, logistics providers, retailers, agents. there's so membership is really, really broad.
Dom: So that's definitely, [00:40:00] Helping and then there's another organization called the regenerative viticulture foundation Which is a new one. It only started a couple of years ago, but basically their mission is just to Help people move towards regenerative viticulture. So they provide Case studies They provide technical advice they hold webinars they send out guidance notes and and all sorts of things like that.
Dom: So That's definitely helping, but it's, it's, it's pretty young, you know, there's not, there's not, yeah, there's, there's never quite the collaboration. I think that one would like
Will: Yeah, which we need.
Charlie: just a circle back for a second, Dom, you mentioned, and I know Will that there is a lot of skepticism, well there's been a lot of controversy if you like around offsetting. Do you just, should we just like fill in what have been the failings of that and what is the potential of that as a, as a [00:41:00] concept, as a mechanism for dealing with, with carbon emissions?
Charlie: I think what Dom said was exactly correct. I think offsetting per se in the reason why it was set up is actually a good thing because it was, it was helping, families in, southern hemisphere to put in stoves that are more environmentally friendly. It was to, it was almost insetting around the world.
Will: The problem started to appear when we companies were selling offsets for say 1 a pound a tonne or free for the first three months, and they were just planting trees literally willy nilly anywhere. Those trees We're not necessarily going to last. Those trees were sold as one ton of carbon offsets as oil as a removal.
Will: They were saying it was basically a removal of one [00:42:00] ton. Whereas if you plant a tree, it takes 40 years. if all is correct for that one tonne to be removed, so you're not removing it then, and therefore business was going on as business as usual. You had a lot of, communities around the world that were being affected by big corporates buying up swathes of land around the world, and they were planting the wrong type of trees.
Will: It was colonialism all over again, And I think the way that the Wine Society have looked at insetting is such a refreshing, sadly, refreshing way to look at their supply chain, and it's just wonderful to see.
Dom: Yeah. Thanks. I mean, I, I would echo that. I mean, there are some really good offsetting schemes out there. Um,
Will: But let's not call them offsetting schemes. That's the bit, [00:43:00] bit that gets me is we need to call, we need to get them to come up with another name for them, and it's a part of your, corporate responsibility program. It's a part of your supply chain. It's a part of your, it's not taking the emissions away.
Will: It's working with your suppliers.
Dom: yeah. I think so. And that that was the conclusion that we came to as well. and, you know, there may, there may be a chance with this over time, where our growers can, an extra income by selling carbon credits. and so, you know, if, you know, if we're investing in them or if we are, if we approving to them.
Dom: That planting trees in their vineyards has a benefit to their vineyard, so it brings more biodiversity in, but actually it has a benefit to the grapes and the quality of the grapes and the resilience of the vines to climate change, which is the theory. if we can prove that, encourage more. [00:44:00] Growers to do something like agroforestry and plant more trees That's got a great benefit To the world because the trees are sequestering carbon But it may also have a double benefit for for the grower in that It helps the resilience of their vines as I was just talking about But they may also be able to sell the additional carbon that they're sequestering It's a carbon credit.
Dom: So there's additional income source for them It's still early days that and there's a whole host of problems with carbon
Will: There is a lot of problems with that. I don't want to go into them now. Yeah. Wow.
Charlie: the concept is, is very valid, isn't it? You know, the idea that you, you can ascribe a value to a unit of carbon and you can do something to hold that or retain that or, or, you know, or take that out of the atmosphere.
Charlie: That seems sensible and I understand that the devil is in the detail.
Charlie: so this interests me because [00:45:00] It strikes me that that is one way as an organization. I mean, your catalog comes and there are hundreds and hundreds of bottles of wine in there. What I would love to see and what I've always wanted to see in supermarkets is some kind of score system that makes me realize How sustainable is this bottle of wine on a scale of whatever you want it to be one to ten, one to five, green to red, whatever you fancy.
Charlie: I mean, is that something you've played around with internally? Or is that,
Will: Surely that's That would be quite hard because it'd be so subjective, and there will be views on regenerative, there'll be views on, like, natural herbicides over, there's going, it's going to be, and also you've got regions around the world, so you've got water depressed regions that are producing, I think that would be really, really bad.
Will: Difficult. And I guess it goes into, I want to talk about the results, sorry, um, of what you have been doing with the insetting. And I think this ties nicely into that. [00:46:00] Like what, what have you seen as the results from the money that you've been putting in? And could that play into some kind of scoring system?
Dom: possibly. So we, we've literally only just, spent the money since, September now. So, and because we're working with nature, so we, we launched it in March. This is the first year we've ever done it. We launched it in March. We went through a whole kind of application process through the summer.
Dom: We chose our winners at the end of the summer, and now we've just basically handed over the money. So the projects are just starting now, so it's, it's too early to tell really. but, I mean, the, the whole, the whole, tell me, What's sustainable and what isn't sustainable and that communication to consumers is just honestly, the conversations that I have about that.
Dom: It's a constant conversation because wine. So exactly as you said, it's so subjective. It's not like, Chicken, for example. You know, when you [00:47:00] go into, which is really binary, when you go into a supermarket and it says, right, high welfare, free range, organic chicken.and it's certified red tractor, whatever it is, and then you've got the, You The essentials version.
Dom: It's quite a binary decision. whereas wine, there are so many factors involved. and in wine, there's something like 40 or so different sustainability certifications. So the whole sustainability certification market is, is crazy. And,you know, one person's sustainability, sustainable wine is not another person.
Dom: So there's a whole debate about organic, for example, and is organic actually sustainable? you know, you might be an organic farmer, for example, or a generative farmer, but then you, the producer puts the wine in a one kilogram glass bottle. so So [00:48:00] it's really difficult. and I don't think the industry's got an answer to it yet, although trying to work on it.
Charlie: Yeah. I mean, you know, we, there's similar issues around construction industry, but We have things called EPDs, environmental performance declarations, which are ultimately, I suspect at the end of it, that they're subjective and that's supposed to capture. The impacts of making the widget that you stick in the building.
Charlie: I suspect it is easier to, to, to sort of marshal the information that it is with wine. But you'd like to think at some point we need those figures. I mean, you, In some way you have worked out the carbon emissions associated with your scope three, haven't
Dom: Yeah. Yeah.
Charlie: way, so you have some data somewhere, quite how accurate it is and how much you want to share that with consumers, I don't know.
Charlie: As a consumer, I'd love to see it, but I totally understand it's a bit, it's a fraught area. How have you seen, how have you seen your relationships with suppliers? Change because it feels to me very much like by putting sort of skin in the game, if you like, by investing [00:49:00] in these transformation projects, you're sort of in the journey with them.
Charlie: Have you seen the conversations changing, not just with the 12 chosen, but with the wider supply chain.
Dom: yeah, definitely. Definitely. it, it honestly, it's, transformative, um, taking these kinds of approaches. so,We have some relationships with our suppliers that, that go back a hundred years. We have some relationships that, that just go back a few years. But I think that A supplier seeing a retailer, investing in its supply chain, whether that's, you know, handing over money, to do projects in their vineyards, whether that's putting on webinars, which we do, whether that's having And this goes back to your earlier question.
Dom: And I probably should have said this earlier. We have a category of wines on our website called producers making a difference. So we have done our own evaluations of our suppliers and we've put the ones that we thinking are making the best wine. Best strides forward [00:50:00] on sustainability into this category of producers making a difference.
Dom: We think that they're the more sustainable ones.so that gives them more marketing, more sales opportunities. we're really now starting to talk to them a lot more about, the human rights issue. and that's a win win because, there's, There's growing media attention about exploitation of workers in the agricultural sector.
Dom: So it's beneficial for us to be working on these things together. So we're providing guidance. We're providing training or we will be next year. Free training to our suppliers to go on training courses about how to how to recruit seasonal workers. What are the issues to look out for? How to do audits on your labor provider?
Dom: Yeah. So I think that just all these things they find helpful, all these things make them think really positively about the wine society and,you know, [00:51:00] wine's quite competitive in terms of finding the best wines. There aren't always enough, isn't always enough wine to go around and we, we get good allocations.
Dom: Of wine. So our, so suppliers want to sell to us. So they come to us with the wines that they've got and say, we want to sell to you,these are our wines or we've only managed to produce so, you know, a certain amount of this wine this year, but we would like to sell it to you guys because you have the same values as us so that partnership.
Dom: Just it's a real win win.
Will: Yeah, I can, it's, it's really hard isn't it for wine producers because I would imagine that the profit margins are very low
Dom: Yeah.
Will: they're also fluctuate massively due to climate change and the difference in environments that they're producing in and one of the things that you probably need as a. As an organisation, but also as a, industry [00:52:00] it's probably more money to be put in to be able to tackle the problems and understand what it is that needs to be done in order to circumnavigate climate change.
Dom: And I think, I think that the, the producers need more money to help, you know, some are very wealthy, some of course, but, but a lot live on the margins. Um, so just, just to put it in perspective, for a six pound bottle of wine that we sell, only, I think, 6 percent of that money goes to the producer.
Dom: The rest goes on shipping costs, taxation, packaging costs, things like that. Whereas a 7. 50 bottle of wine, about 17 percent of that money goes to the producer. For a 10 bottle, It goes up to 28%. So you can, so you can see how,if we, we, you know, we increased the sale [00:53:00] price and I know I shouldn't really be saying things like this as a retailer, but, but,if, if we're, if we're paying a fair price for the wine, if we're selling it at a fair price, that's both fair to suppliers and also fair to consumers, we can channel.
Dom: More money down the supply chain so that the suppliers can do the things that they need to do because sustainability does cost money As we all know.
Charlie: just to point out to the listeners, I would say that your bottles of wine are at least two pounds cheaper than pretty much anyone else's, even at the 10 pound range. And then it just goes up from, from my, my sort of experience. Uh, so, so even if you are paying a little bit more to the producer and you're selling it slightly cheaper, the fact that you don't make profits in the same way as a traditional company means you can still make the magic happen,
Dom: Yeah, that's
Charlie: why I love the, love the organization so much. And if you have to charge a little bit more to get more into the sustainability sector, I'm fine with that, but yeah,
Will: but it's,
Charlie: I'm obviously biased.
Will: but in a, but if you were to look at it really cut [00:54:00] throaty as in this is why we need to be charging more is if you're a producer and you've got to get, we've talked about migrant workers coming over, you're either basically in a position where you are not able to have all of your grapes picked.
Will: And therefore you lose all your crop, or you pay for people to come over, and I would imagine No one wants to treat people badly. No one. I really fundamentally think that, it's It, it's almost driven by the consumer. you know, we are driving bad habits within the supply chain, and that needs to be communicated more.
Will: And I think we need to be talking about it openly and saying, actually, we, if you want to buy wine, 10 a bottle and just buy one a week rather than three. My math is awful. Whatever. You know what I mean?
Dom: yeah. Yeah. Well, I agree. I mean, it's the, it's covering the ethical costs of production, isn't it? You know, you, you think, well, I'm picking on the clothing industry
Will: was [00:55:00] thinking exactly the same.
Dom: how, you know, how can you buy a t shirt for a pound? I mean, something is not right. Something is going wrong. Somebody is not being paid properly.
Dom: Somebody or something is being exploited. Got to be because things can't be that cheap. so yeah, I mean, we very much think that our suppliers, they, we're asking them to do a lot, right? This is, goes back to what I was saying earlier about how procurement has changed from, well, actually we just want the lowest price, but now we're saying to our suppliers, we actually, we need you to save the world for us because all of our emissions are in our supply chain, but actually we still really want you to give it to us really, really cheap.
Dom: Well, something's got to give. and suppliers do need the money to play their seasonal workers properly to, um, to take the risk of adopting more regenerative farming practices, for example, because there is a financial risk to them, or they need to, pay a consultant to come in and help them.
Dom: These things just, they cost money. [00:56:00] So I think. We have to be aware of that and do what we can to help
Will: Um,
Charlie: been on over the last couple of years, what have been your kind of main takeouts? What have been your moments of real success? And what do you think the big challenges are coming up for the industry?
Dom: one of the successes that is not just down to the wine society, but, a few of us is this, bottle weight accord. Um, so we agreed about 12 retailers came together. It was organized by the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, and all have pledged to reducing bottle weights down to lightweight bottles by 2027.
Dom: and, You know that that's quite transform transformative in terms of carbon reduction So if we it's about two billion bottles a year all those retailers added together So you can see how that kind of can have a big impact. and we were really involved in thatI think and I hope that that's going [00:57:00] to have a real change.
Dom: the the other thing, I think I've I'm really proud of here is just just and I've talked about it a lot already. It's just the general approach that we take to suppliers. I think again, I think that's really Really transformative. Um, that kind of partnership approach. Um, well, what's going to be difficult going forward?
Dom: getting I think we've this is the same with all things with sustainability when you we've only been on our sustainability journey for three years. Really? I've been at the wine society for just coming up to three years. and in the first few years you work on the low hanging fruit. You work on the stuff that's kind of easy.
Dom: moving to renewable energy, putting solar panels up, reducing lightweight, lightweight, lightweighting bottles, those kinds of things. but then it gets really hard.how do you actually move more of your supply chain into [00:58:00] regenerative viticulture? We're sort of teetering around the edges of it.
Dom: How do you get the industry having a proper conversation about human rights?in the industry, and doing something about seasonal workers that come in, how do you get the industry all, calculating carbon emissions in the same way so that we all properly understand where emissions are coming from and we've got accurate reporting and we're all working on the things that need to be worked on.
Dom: so that, that sort of collaboration Peace and the industry working together. it's going to be a big. It
Charlie: would you, would you,
Dom: big challenge and opportunity.
Charlie: would you say that's one of the key takeouts irrespective of the industry you're working? in that it's about the conversations, it's about collaborations, it's about going outside of the silos of a traditional business boundary, if you like, and understanding we only solve these problems together.
Dom: Yeah, definitely. I mean, [00:59:00] my key takeaways are,it starts with paying a fair price. If you're a retailer or a brand, you have suppliers, you've got to be paying a fair price to your suppliers because that's where, as, as we talked about, your emissions are, that's where your risks are. and that's, that's where you can have the biggest impact.
Dom: It's your suppliers,making these changes. pay a fair price. invest in your suppliers. And then it's that, it's that old adage of, of working with the industry, and getting a few, even if you can just get two, three, four of you together who all kind of think the same way.
Dom: you can, you can start to actually get a few things done and then, and then others will. join.
Charlie: Brilliant. Dom, that's fascinating. Now, do you like wine, Dom? Do you drink the odd drop?
Dom: I do. I, I know very little about wine. I kind of fell into wine. I've always been in sustainability. and until I got this job, I was just sort of a drinker of it and I'd drink all [01:00:00] sorts of plunk. But now, I have found being here that I still don't know anything about wine, but I know more about what I like and I don't like.
Charlie: Okay. What's, what's your, what are you going to be drinking on Christmas day?
Dom: So I like a aka.
Charlie: There
Dom: Um, I like that it's red currant tea, blackberry kind of fruits, and, and, um, you know, a bit of a plug for the wine society. We sell a very, very good Rioja. uh, yeah, grab some of
Charlie: in, in your household on Christmas day. Lovely.
Will: you so much for coming on today, Dom. Happy Christmas and
Dom: to
Will: New Year.
Dom: Yeah. Thanks for having me on guys. Happy
Charlie: Christmas. Enjoy that bottle of Rioja.

Charlie: So Charlie, The Wine Society, what, what were your key takeaways from that? [01:01:00] Yeah,
Charlie: labor in the wine industry was the thing I had to worry about. And now I'm worrying about it. I'm like, Oh gosh. I mean, I knew about the other stuff. I knew about chemical usage and I knew about biodiversity.
Charlie: I mean, amazingly, when I was younger, I traveled to New Zealand, South Island, New Zealand. And you look at these miles of vineyards. And you know that they've only been there since about the 80s, 90s, all around Sauvignon all those areas, you know, around Marlborough and everything. Most of them have come in the last 30, 40 years.
Charlie: And you just think of the amount of biodiversity that's been lost. So wine certainly has an impact. What I took away from an organizational perspective was what a, what a great organization the Wine Society are. And I love, What they're saying about trying things, not being afraid to make mistakes, not getting too obsessed about the carbon modeling, because you know, they're not talking big sums of money.
Charlie: You could spend 64, 000 just trying to model the carbon that the little projects might save. And at some point you've just got to [01:02:00] try stuff, learn lessons, move fast, fix things. And I really felt they were doing that. And I love the way that they're trying to lead both the consumer and work down supply chain.
Charlie: both up and down and with their peers. I thought, I thought it was, yeah, I thought it was really inspirational. Weren't you?
Will: I agree. I totally agree. I think that if more organisations think the way that the Wine Society think as an organisation, i. e. holistically, we'd be in a much better place.
Charlie: Yeah. So tell me, I've been a bit rubbish with the, with, with book club. I, I didn't make the last book cause I was away for most of it. And then by the time I was back, like there was hardly any book left to do. Your next book sounds like a, a very, challenging read. And again, in the lead up to Christmas, I'm just not around, but what are you reading next?
Charlie: Tell me about it.
Will: We're reading Me and White Supremacy and it's a great book. The idea is to educate white people about, racism that's [01:03:00] endemic within society, and I've read a few books around this subject, and I, it really is a part of, even if you think you're not racist, you realise that some of the stuff that you do is, inherently a part of the problem and I think it's really important for us to educate ourselves around this subject.
Will: Interestingly, the last book we read, Ministry for the Future, we talked about carbon credits, and we talked about stuff like that on this episode and it comes up in Ministry for the Future. I'm seeing a lot of stuff In society and what the future could look like. That has been described through Ministry of the Future, and I love
Charlie: so effectively sci fi,
Will: it is sci-fi in the rea in reality.
Will: And I think that's what I'm enjoying about this book club is you actually talk about what's going on. And so this current book, we're gonna be talking about it, it goes in [01:04:00] weeks, I think, and we're gonna. talk about it after each week. And so if any of the listeners want to start reading Me and White Supremacy, ask questions and we can discuss it and we can bring them in to the show.
Will: And if you've got any books that you think that we should be absolutely reading, what we want to do is we want to have those uncomfortable conversations and talk about things that actually no one wants to talk about. So that's how we're going to solve. Sustainability and it's really what the whole show is about.
Charlie: I mean, I think it's just that, that moment of realizing that there's another thing that you don't really want to talk about, you need to talk about, i. e. slave labor in wine or, or, or, or malt, you know, badly treated labor in wine. It's just endlessly you find these things that I think very easy. You can just brush it under the carpet when actually the daylight is the thing that will, will change these issues.
Charlie: I, I am going to read, I am going to read that book, Me and White Supremacy, because I think, I think what I'm [01:05:00] fascinated to understand is the subtext of the structure, the social structures that have been put in place effectively by white people over the last four or 500 years that you're not even aware of.
Charlie: And they, and they are, I suspect, Always skewed towards the people that constrict created the structure. So again, not an easy read, but you know, there we go That's that's the life. So I think that's it for this. That's it. Not a very Christmassy end to this show
Will: No, there is You know what? Uh, I'm on my personal
Charlie: sustainability people crikey have some fun
Will: on my person on my personal book reading. I'm actually reading alex ferguson's Um autobiography at the moment and that is Brilliant. I'm not a big football fan, but actually it's an amazing book and it's got some lovely parts to it. So, and it is quite uplifting, uh, to listen to how he's, and I think about it from a business point of view and what he's done and how he's tackled difficult, personalities like Roy [01:06:00] Keane and et cetera.
Will: So, um, I think that, you know, I don't know, I don't know where I'm going. I'm trying to uplift the show. I'm trying to uplift
Charlie: no, but look it's Christmas Everyone, everyone should be excited about, you know, a few days off, really enjoying that Christmas period, uh, you know, and resting and recovering for another year of trying to solve the sustainability issues that affect your business.
Will: think that what would be really good is you can either email us, but more importantly, come and join the Sustainability Solved Hub and ask questions within that. Let's pull together, All of you wonderful people that are listening to the show and your brilliant brains and as a collective, we saw this on this episode, as a collective we're much better together to be able to understand sustainability as a whole.
Charlie: Well, also, if you could rate the show and leave a comment on Spotify or wherever you listen, that really helps us out as well. And also just, you know, mention the podcast to the people that you know that you think might [01:07:00] be interested. And if you've got any thoughts, you want to get in touch, things you want us to look at, issues you want us to tackle, insights into the things we've discussed, we'd love to hear from you.
Will: Podcast at sustainabilitysolved. org.
Charlie: Bingo. Happy Christmas, Will.
Will: Thank you. Happy Christmas to you too.