Perspectives on a Sustainable Recovery from COVID-19

Michael Luckman: Good morning everyone, and welcome to the first in a series of ThinkHouse webinars on sustainability.

We aim to host the webinars on the last Thursday of each month, inviting speakers from across our Firm to talk about environmental issues in their practice areas. In future webinars, we will cover topics such as green barriers to trade, climate change litigation trends and how to make 'green' supply chains. We're excited about Green Thinkhouse and we hope you will all tune in regularly.

So, today we are kicking off the Green Thinkhouse series and we're going to talk about sustainability issues post-COVID-19.

Before the current COVID-19 crisis took hold in the UK, there were two big topics - Brexit and climate change, but only one was a truly global subject! Not a day went by without reference to "net zero emissions" and "2050 targets". In fact "climate strike" was the named word of the year by Collins dictionary in November 2019.

Many of our clients were talking to us enthusiastically about their sustainability plans and we were greatly anticipating the UN climate change summit in Glasgow - COP26, which was expected to be even more significant that the Paris conference in 2015. In summary, "green issues" were firmly in the mainstream and we were gearing up for a new green economy.

But then COVID-19 arrived and understandably the global focus shifted from 2030 and 2050 targets to the here and now - we asked ourselves what steps do we need to take to get through today safely, then next week and next month? And now that our individual worlds have contracted, many of us are interacting with our local environments in new ways - we are walking and cycling more, we are seeing clearer skies and hearing the birds arguing louder than before. So whilst "net zero" and "sustainability" are not in the news as much, the issues are in some respects more present than before

So as we start to think about the future - with lockdown restrictions being slowly lifted - we start to think about what life post-lockdown might look like. Will we continue to live more sustainably? Will we see green growth or will environmental issues take a second seat to growth and any cost? And finally, where might some of the opportunities in a green economy be found? This webinar aims to explore what the future may hold.

Our two speakers today are: Ben Stansfield, a partner in our Real Estate group, who specialises in environmental and planning law and focusses on sustainable development and policy; and Gareth Baker, a partner in our Corporate practice. Gareth has a particular focus on the infrastructure, energy, and renewables sectors, and has a number of clients at the cutting edge of low carbon technology.

I'll now handover to Ben for a very brief presentation to further set the scene before we move to the main discussion.

Ben Stansfield: Good morning everyone. I am going to do just a very quick scene set-up for you. We are very conscious in putting together our presentation that we do not want to bore you with long dry PowerPoints, so I am going to take the view that pictures tell a thousand words and hopefully graphs even more so.

Michael was explaining that the government's legislative for net zero emissions, so a total cut on emissions by 2050 and the graph here shows the progress we have made to date.

The black line that starts in the top left at around 600 - 595 million tonnes of C0² is what we are emitting as a country in 1990 and over the last 30 years we have got down to about 365 million tonnes, which is about a 40%25 cut, which is pretty impressive actually and beats a lot of other countries.

During that 30 years the economy has grown 72%25, so as the economy has gotten bigger, we have really made some very impressive cuts. Now, last year - up until last year I should say - we had an 80%25 target so we were going to get our emissions down by 1990 levels, we were going to get them down by 80%25 by 2050 and that is the blue line you can see moving from the middle to the right-hand side.

Now, we were making progress towards that but the existing policies that we had were not quite getting us there. And that is something to bear in mind. And then last year, we legislated for net zero - so that is our red line. So you can see, we now have a dotted red line all the way to the bottom of the graph. That is an even steeper dive.

Those of you who are runners, will know that when you are trying to get your 5k personal best time, those last few seconds are really difficult. If you are on a diet and you are trying to lose weight, those last few pounds are really hard to shift. So I suspect we will not be on a linear line, we might well be getting to 95%25 carbon cut by 2045 and then leaving those last five years just to sort out the last few percentage points of greenhouse gases.

The green line which I have put in, is not a statutory target but that is what I think policy needs to do. We have done 40%25 cuts in 30 years, we have now got 60%25 cuts to do, possibly 25-30 years. It is a real challenge.

Some businesses and some organisations are going much stronger than that. O2 - the mobile phone business, they are going to net zero by 2025. The Church of England, they are taking it really seriously, they are going to net zero by 2030. Costain, the infrastructure company aimed for 2035 and Sainsbury's have declared 2040.

Although the government and policy are saying we will get there by 2050, there are a number of businesses and organisations/institutions who are trying to get there much faster.

Just to show you what cuts we have made so far and what cuts are still to come. On the top line there, you can see the cuts we have made in the last 30 years and that is 230 million tonnes of C0² gone from our lives which is, again, a really good progress to make.

And you can see that those different colours represent different sectors. So the power sector has cut 137 million tonnes of C0² by going through renewables. Much of that has come from solar, little bit from biomass and a really substantial amount from offshore wind.

As you can see in the bottom line, the C0² cuts which we have still got to do - the power has got another 66 million tonnes to go. More than half - 60%25 of cuts that we have made in carbon so far have come purely from power.

And actually, I have checked this morning and the current stats - gas is around 29%25 of the power generation we have so far. Nuclear is at around 20, solar I think is in the 15%25, wind - it is not very windy today - they were only about 8%25 but the vast majority of our power is coming from low carbon sources currently.

What do we have to do in the next 30 years? Look at the bottom bar - power, still got a bit more to do but easy wins - the offshore wins, you know the solar - we have made a good start there.

The purple - or maroon - is transport. We have only cut two million tonnes of CO2 from transport; we have another 123 to go. Aviation will struggle - certainly long haul we have a lot to do in cars, private cars, light goods, heavy goods vehicles. Shipping is another big one and trucks as well and buses - things like that.

There is a lot to do there. The red is business. Good progress is being made there. Residential. We started at it about 80 million tonnes in 1990 coming from residences. We have done 14 we have another 66 million tonnes to cut from our private homes, so a lot to go at there.

And we must not forget that sustainability - we talk about net zero. That is greenhouse gas emissions. But sustainability means much more than that. It means improving bio-diversity. It means taking micro-plastics out of our water. It means taking chemicals out of land contamination. It means dust particulates and particulates from tyres and exhausts out of the air.

There is so much to go at in the next 30 to 40 years but we will be going from - in the 1980s we had 'greed is good' and hopefully in the next few years we will be going to 'green is good'.

Hopefully that sets the agenda for what Gareth and I are about to talk about. Michael, back to you.

Michael: Probably a question really, if I may to Gareth to kick things off. During this crisis, looking out the window into this glorious morning, do we think we have had a bit of an insight as to what a sustainable future might look like?

Gareth Baker: Thanks Michael. Perhaps we have. Two very quick comments. One, I think the line of stability was actually very good in that last bit, so I think the switching off videos thing is working. Secondly, I was also having a moment of personal reflection as Ben was talking, about losing those last few pounds in a diet and going in the right direction. It would be nice to go in some kind of right direction, on a personal level, but there we go.

I think perhaps we have seen some different features which have given us some signals. Clearly, there has been in the short time, a significant drop-off in the demand for power, as businesses have had to go into lockdown. You have seen low oil prices; we have seen negative oil prices!

The question I guess is whether those are temporary things or whether they are long-term things - we do not yet know the answer to those. They have the feel of the more temporary, whereas others, perhaps are a big more long-term. What about the fact that we have all changed our travel patterns quite significantly in this short-term period?

Is it something that we are going to see as a much more significant change, particularly in the way in which we commute to our workplaces or other places? Feels to me like there could be a longer term change there that will have implications for our energy usage. It will have implications for our air quality for example.

I am thinking that the other thing - not everyone has had during this period, but some have is time. Time to pause and consider how they have lived and balanced everything in their lives up to this point. Has there been a moment of assessment, has there been a moment of reflection.

Certainly on local issues for them, but also the trend that had been so successful towards globalisation which has been really successful. Has that globalisation, at the very least, if one looked at it negatively, enabled transmission to a much quicker degree otherwise would have happened had it not taken place.

Are we able to be globally sustainable? The bigger macro issues - have we been reflecting on those. I think definitely it is part of the conversation now. We will see if the short-term changes do unwind themselves, but I think some of the longer term ones are probably here to stay.

Michael: And Ben, do you think the current crisis is showing that the UK is on its track to net zero, in accordance with its timeline?

Ben: I think we have made really good progress. I think 40%25 cuts that we have made so far are really positive. I think we are well ahead of the EU, which I think is overall at 23%25 but then that is because they have got some countries like Poland who are very heavily reliant on coal and what have you.

Against other countries, we are doing a good job. Carbon emissions have dropped between 4 and 8%25. It is estimated during the crisis and if we were to make cuts of 4-8%25 year on year, we would crack this really quickly.

But that is not reality. As Gareth said, we do not want to be living monastic lifestyles. We are sociable creatures. We do not want to be hunkered down in our homes; we want to be out driving to the pub or to visit family. We want to be going on holiday. We want to be eating nice foods, going to restaurants, going to the cinemas.

We need to be getting out there and so the trick is that we need to be at net zero emissions doing all that kind of stuff. Proving we can do it in lockdown is great, but we are probably only at 50%25 emission reductions even during the lockdown because the retail is big business - still needs to do much more. B plus so far but more to do.

Michael: I would have been very happy with a B+ at school sometimes it is fair to say, Ben. Particularly around chemistry. Probably all in relation to climate change, very much focus on the individual - our individual actions. Certainly, the way I tend to think about climate change.

Query - is individual action enough and exactly what role do businesses and institutions need to play? If I can start perhaps with view from Gareth please?

Gareth: Thanks Michael, yes I will give some observations and then pass over to Ben. We all have a role, clearly. I think we should commend businesses for recognising - well before COVID that this is an issue that they should be interested in.

A lot of businesses have made significant strides to respond to both consumer demand and also the messages that are coming out of government about this being a critical and important thing that they need to engage with.

We have seen some very eye-catching statements from organisations who have set aspirations to be carbon neutral or even carbon negative! But I think we do need to recognise that not all businesses will have the resources to make such strides

Not everyone is an Apple, a Google or an Amazon or equivalent. There is some need, I believe for greater facilitation in order to help the next tier get engaged with this in a bigger way. I think there is interest and support for that to happen, so I think there is more to unlock but I think there is a willingness to engage there.

Institutions are really interesting. I think we have seen - particularly those that control the money and there are some very significant institutions who do that. Names in business that we would know, but also names that would not be so obvious. For example, like the Church which has huge amounts of investments.

They have given signals that they are either they have come out or they are going to commit to come out of those industries which are incompatible with the broader environmental and social agenda and I think the mobilisation of capital out of one area and into others, is going to be the real driver here. Which is going to see a shift at the business level? Those are my thoughts I guess on the financial institution aspects. Ben, you might have some other thoughts on how other institutions have a role to play.

Ben: Yes, I think it is really important. I think it is easy for us to say there is just one of me, what can I do. But we can eat plant based foods. We can take surface transport on holiday. We can compost more. We can work from home more often and we can do Zoom calls, Zoom webinars rather than in person events sometimes.

You aggregate a lot of individuals and you get a real movement and Greta Thunberg started out as a one person strike and as you said earlier, she got climate strike to become the Collins Dictionary word of the year! Individuals have a really important role to play.

Gareth talked about the Church of England but another example is the University of York. Students there lobbied the University of York and said we want your investment policy to be different, so the University of York divested its investment in fossil fuels.

The Royal Shakespeare Company - another really well and famous institution has parted ways with its sponsor - BP after ten years. Again, a lot of individual action can be really powerful. Just one more point on business. Businesses are really big, powerful consumers!

Gowling WLG has many hundreds of employees and if we and other businesses can procure green goods, that is really positive. We set the market. We can go for an electric fleet, we can buy green energy, we can ditch plastic cups. We can do all of these things as businesses, that have a really significant impact. Individual action is not enough, but with business, we can get there.

Michael: Thank you. We mentioned this briefly in the introduction that obviously the crisis has changed our focus a bit. We hope that as we come out of the crisis, we can focus on long term global issues and short-term local issues. That need to drive economic growth and probably Gareth, would you mind taking that one?

Gareth: No problem Michael, thank you. For anyone who experienced a bit of a line quality issue. The question was about sustainability given economic growth being the imperative. Does it mean that sustainability will have to play second fiddle. Well, take a second seat in the short to medium term.

I would say that these things are not mutually exclusive and we may come on to talk about some sectors later on, but it is very much the case that in a number of sectors now that a green choice is not the more expensive choice.

In fact, in some sectors, the green choice can be cheaper than the other choice. That is a really important tipping point. And if you look at then, broaden[ing] that out to the broader macro view of things, I think there is a consensus building. Certainly in the UK and in Europe and beyond and even, to some degree, in the States if perhaps not at the federal web.

Some form of growth plan will involve investment in infrastructure and that will be, we hope, a way out of this economic challenging times. Therefore, investment in green assets, green technology will be part of that. We advise, only days ago for example, on a found for Baize which is matching investments in clean technology.

The government here does understand that that is part of the narrative for growth going forward. And so, putting green agenda at the heart of the growth plan coming out, will be fundamental, I think.

If you look at it at a more local level, we need to be realistic for businesses and a good many people who are on this webinar may be thinking, well look, these are challenging times. We are going to be cautious. And that is, frankly, a perfectly understandable view to have. Why would businesses suddenly embark upon, for example, highly intensive capital expenditure programmes.

I think we all understand that. I would encourage though, people to look at the options out there because we are seeing a large number of business models cropping up, where frankly the investment does not necessarily need to come off your own balance sheet and therefore, there may be a third way to get engaged which does not involve immediate money off the bottom line. I am very happy to explore that further offline. Ben, do you have any thoughts you want to contribute to that?

Ben: It is risk. When we come out of lockdown and as we are piling into public transport, or actually many of us will want to go in our own cars. I think sustainability issues could take a second seat in the short-term. I hope that is a blip and obviously we have cheap oil price at the minute, which is probably as a result of industry shutting down globally or certainly cutting back.

Again, that may be a slight worry for a short-term but I think these will be only temporary blips. I do not think it is going to be a long-term. There is enough clammer out there now. There are enough voices saying, we want sustainable growth. I am confident from that perspective.

Michael: The sustainability debate of course, does not affect everyone equally and I think, from your chart Ben we could see that different sectors have reacted differently to the challenges raised by the sustainability debate. Which sectors, Ben do you think are really leading on this issue and who will be the leaders in the future?

Ben: We saw from the graph that the power sector has been streets ahead. A lot of that has been down to government subsidy in terms of deployment of green energy due to renewable propagations being in tariffs and the like. But there have been some really inspirational figures within that industry.

Someone like a Dale Vince of Ecotricity. Really passionate about the environment and really keen for the industry to reach the challenge. Power, as you know, has been an obvious one.

Real estate! A sector that has really excited me in the last 18 months or so. Built Environment contributes to 40%25 of our carbon emissions, so a substantial part of our carbon emissions come from office buildings, from industry, from building homes even.

The real estate sector in the last 12-18 months has really taken on sustainability in a large way. Many of our clients have been appointing heads of sustainability or e-bodies responsibility, to make sure that the portfolio is performing in an environmentally and sustainably sound way.

There are businesses like St Modwen and Seagrove who put sustainability and environmental improvement at the heart of their business and that is really encouraging.

Some of the larger corporates, some of the large industrials too are taking environmental matters seriously. Really taking on board the responsibilities to report. There are new environmental, energy and carbon reporting requirements, but a lot of businesses we are speaking to are going much further and being really honest and open - engaging with their stakeholders in a much more honest and open way.

I think that, as a good lawyer or a good sustainability professional, is a bit like a bee. You can see the bio-diversity thing. We go from client to client in different sectors, pollenating each one and talk about what other clients are doing in other sectors. Best practices are being shared really well at the minute. Clients are not keeping their sustainability secrets to themselves, they are sharing that information amongst each other.

There is a lot of work we are doing - not just in education but in guiding clients through that process. It is really positive. We are not getting pushed-back by clients who do not want to do this stuff.

Michael: We have a large array of sectors represented in today's audience, but looking a little further ahead, where do you think the opportunities lie in the new green economy? Gareth energy is one of those big areas where I would expect there to be opportunity. Is that true?

Gareth: Thanks Michael. Yes there are - I will not repeat the ground that has been covered by Ben but clearly in the power sector, it has been a great new story so far that has been supported, to a large degree by subsidy. But it has worked and we have created really a whole new industry that did not exist before which we should feel proud of.

I think that - and what I would say further on that is, if those who - well a bit like me, a bit of an energy geek who looked at the, how we were doing, over the weekend - a combination of well, lower activity, a lot of sunlight? And also, high winds. This country was consuming more than 50%25 of its electricity from renewable sources.

Ten years ago that would have been unthinkable, frankly. There is a huge amount of work that has been done in that sector. The point I made earlier though is that this sector has learnt to thrive and adapt without subsidy, and what is exciting now, particularly is how the supply chain has responded and we are going to see a second wave that we would want to see.

Which is, of more renewable technology coming onto the system. That is going to happen because the economics makes sense that it will happen and I think that that will create brand new opportunities for lots of other sectors like construction, hospitality, and tech and data. The challenge of managing and going from a system of very few concentrated electricity assets to distributed generation around the country is a huge challenge to balance. So I am confident that we are going to see lots of different new business models cropping up, meeting that challenge.

Particularly I think in data and tech, heat is an area that has been much more difficult for us. Looking at Ben's graph, I think it does not register as much. We continue to have a very close relationship with our central heating systems. Gas is something that is fundamental to how we heat our homes. We are not a country like the Nordics, that have a lot of heat networks.

Weaning ourselves off that is going to be harder and I see that we will make two immediate changes. One is looking at how we decarbonise our heat network and some of the distributors are doing that by, for example, putting hydrogen into the system. That is a good start and will make an impact quite early on. I think fundamentally, our homes, our businesses, we will be moving away from gas boilers. We will see more electrification. I think we will see more use of things like heat pumps coming in and again there will a whole new raft of opportunities for supply chain, service companies cropping around that I believe.

Michael: Probably Ben the same question for you, but in the context of real estate. Where do you see the opportunities in real estate?

Ben: Well they are significant and they have to be. Real estate, as I said, contributes 40%25 of carbon emissions and residential, for example, has a lot of work to do to decarbonise. If you look out your window after this webinar, you will see building all around you. 80%25 of what you see, will still be here in 2050.

This is not just thinking about what we are building tomorrow or the week after. Actually, the bigger opportunities, the bigger plays, is retro-fitting. Making green what we built yesterday and in previous years. In terms of construction, we are going to be looking at low carbon materials, so less concrete and more timber frame. Looking at how we can design our buildings much better, so more flexible spaces, lowering the need to keep demolishing and rebuilding.

If we have future pandemics and we are not working in offices in the same way, can that space be flexible? If we are not using the high street - can we use that space in different ways? Looking at design. So we have more passive heating. Less reliance on air conditioning, which again, from a pandemic perspective is going to be important because that is an issue for all of us as we want to re-open offices.

Also from an energy perspective we need to be less reliant on air conditioning. The construction industry obviously take a lot of materials to site. That is 20%25 or so of what the carbon footprint of a building can be during the construction phase, so that is something we need to look at as well.

Whether we start looking at more modern methods of construction where we make pods and then bring them to site and assemble, rather than using a lot of bricks and mortar. As I said, retro-fitting is really important. We are seeing a lot of property businesses think about innovation, how we can retro-fit, how we can do more tricky carbon reductions.

Changing light bulbs is one thing. Switching to renewable energy supplier is another, but there are some harder, more difficult things to do along the way.

I guess the hardest thing is residential. You can make a home green, quite easily. You can put your solar panels on there. You can put some domestic electricity storage there. You can improve insulation, what have you. But all that comes at a cost and so, homes are expensive to buy as it is. We know that.

And so whilst a large business, a successful corporate might be prepared to pay a premium to have green space - because it can put it on its website, put it in its environment policy and say, look at us we are very swanky and very energy efficient building. It is harder for individuals to pay an extra 5-10%25 on top.

I think the government have probably got to do something around that. Whether it is going to be stamp duty reductions for green homes ,providing subsidies or for greater access to funds for green retro-fitting. I think there is a lot to be done around there. A lot of opportunity.

Michael: Thank you. I think one of the things your chart, Ben, picked up - but this is a question for Gareth. One of the industries that seemed to have a made as good a stride as the power industry had in chipping away at its emissions was the transport sector. Gareth, do you have a view on how the transport sector might look in the future?

Gareth: Thanks Michael. The transport sector again, I think a lot of us are going to be familiar with electric vehicles now. Much higher penetration into the market than they have ever had. We are also seeing a lot more charging points cropping up around the country.

We are doing well. Some countries have absolutely forged a very strong path in this area. Those examples being, I think China and Norway, as the ones that are really leading the way. Looking slightly further ahead than that, I think that we are going to see a mix of electric vehicles for us as individuals, consumers and employees. Which means, I believe, businesses will be considering whether the way in which they - well, perhaps deploy charging stations on their own land and make that available to employees as perhaps a perk.

What about our retail and leisure businesses? Will that be something that they offer as part of a retail experience? Coming to, for example, an out of town department or an out of town development where there are lots of stores. I think hydrogen will be part of the answer certainly for things like trains and logistics companies where you have larger vehicles with different kinds of power demand.

If you look a lot further ahead, I think we are going to see a convergence between a number of things. We are going to see the move towards autonomous vehicles, which has already started, enabled by certainly the 5G rollout. I think that is going to be interesting. What will that do to ownership of vehicles? Will we own cars going forward, for example? Will it all be fleets? Will it be the Uber type model?

How does that overlay with smart cities where you live in a city like Birmingham or London? Are we going to see cars that help our homes? Are we going to see the emergence of vehicle to grid? Some people will look at electric cars as a car. I look at it like as a battery on wheels, which is a different philosophy. Is that going to get traction in this market? Well, who knows.

When you overlay technology on that, you have got some really interesting, I think, business models that could develop in the Venn diagram overlap between vehicles, energy, tech. I think we are going to see a lot of innovation, particularly data driven innovation, in that space.

Michael: Thanks Gareth. We have had some really good questions in. But because of the sound qualities, I am going to let the speakers pick at those questions individually.

Ben: We have had one question about retail and sustainability and I think retail is a really interesting one from a sustainability perspective. On the clothing side, you have all sorts of environmental factors. You have fabrics. We are seeing some people are perhaps moving away from manufactured fibres. So in the UK the average human, or the average adult, by washing their clothes in the washing machine over a year will shed plastics equivalent to 15 carrier bags. That is tiny little micro-plastics going straight into water.

In the US where man-made fibres are more prevalent or more popular, it is the equivalent of 40 carrier bags. One can improve sustainability and fashion quickly by going to man-made fibres and looking at alternative fibres. We all have cotton t-shirts, cotton shirts.

What about bamboo?  Bamboo uses much less water than cotton.  It can grow in poorer quality soils. It requires less fertilizer meaning no pesticides.  It is a sustainable, environmentally friendly material and yes, there is energy needed to process it, but there is no reason that could not be sourced from renewable sources.  Fabrics is one area that fashion and retail can look at.

We are seeing some of the large fashion houses - the really haute-couture ditching or moving away from seasonal catwalks and fashion shows and saying, we need to make fashion less cyclical - last year's coat can be worn this year. It should not be thrown away.

On longevity. I do not want to sound like a fan boy here, but after this webinar, look at Patagonia's website. Patagonia - US based manufacturer of outdoor clothing. You look at the website and yes, they have a bit about their products, but there is so much about their activism about their environmental policies about how they pay, what they call a self-imposed earth tax of 1%25 a year towards the environmental issues.

They are a bit like Lush in the UK in their sense of, they make really good sustainable products but actually they are really driving the debate and are beacons of great sustainability for the retail and fashion sector. In Patagonia, you walk into a store, they have a huge sewing machine. You buy your clothes - when they rip, when they break, you take them in. They fix them.

We need to get away from that fast fashion of, wear it once, throw it away and buy something new the next year.

Recycling is another area where the fashion industry will find is going to come its way. We are used to - when we buy a new laptop, new electronic devices, we take our old one back to Currys and they recycle it for us. We are going to get those producer responsibilities for textiles and fashions too. That is coming down.

The question was about what an in-house lawyer can do to drive sustainability in a fashion retail brand. My perspective of in-house lawyers is that they are at the heart of the business. They have access to the board, the CEO, the accounts. They have access to the buyers, to the property department. They are at the heart of the business and are best placed to bring anyone in from different parts of the business to talk.

I think an in-house lawyer should be setting out some of these issues and saying, look this is the regulatory background. This is the direct travel and one of the difficulties we have with net zero is we have this target for 2050 and no-one really knows the roadmap of how we are going to get there. So that is something that an in-house lawyer can say. We do not know the legislation is going to affect us in five, ten years' time but this is the direction of travel, this is what our stakeholders, our investors, our funders, our employees, our customers are asking for.

So these are the questions. You should be going to our supplier. To the buyers. Go and ask the suppliers. What are they doing on renewable energy? What are they doing on sourcing, on pesticides and how they are treating the fabrics and what can we do better? I think there is an important role for in-house lawyers.

Gareth: Thanks Ben. Just to chip in on that last one. I think at the moment the language around sustainability is more pull rather than push. I think - and this will differ by sector of course - there is a real, longer-term fear about the risk of businesses being exposed to stranded assets or equivalent concerns.

This starts to travel into the area of risk mitigation which boards are generally much more alive to and have been - well certainly over the last decade. So I think that a way into the conversation is perhaps presenting the topic under that guise and in that narrative.

And of course, if anyone on this webinar wants to explore that in a little bit more detail, we are happy to do that offline. I think that is something that perhaps is going to get engagement at that board level. Frankly it is about safeguarding the core business, which tends to be language that the exec will understand. I think that is quite a high-level answer, but we can get more specific, certainly by sector or business.

I think that we have covered the questions on the Q&A but it may be that those on the line have not had a chance to raise all the questions that they would have liked to and of course, we welcome any follow-up questions following this. Looking at the time, I think we are just about - only marginally over. So I think all that remains in terms of wrap-up is to say that thank you very much for your time this morning and joining us for the webinar.

We will be sending around a short survey and we really would welcome your feedback, certainly on any technical aspects that we can improve on. But also, this the first of a series and there is an opportunity to influence ground that we will cover in other webinars. Please do let us know if there are particular topics or subject areas that are of interest or relevance to you and you would like us to pick up in those future webinars.

We do really welcome that feedback, it is very useful to us. As I said earlier, if we did not get a chance to cover any of your questions or those that you would have liked to cover, please do get in touch with us by email and we hope and look forward to seeing you on a future webinar. Thank you very much for your time.

Ben: Thank you.