Ep 8: Avantor Sciences and Muir AI

If you're trying to solve supply chain emissions reduction in your organization, this is the podcast for you. And if you're looking for honest, helpful and human stories, insights, tips, advice and ideas for getting to grips with scope 3, this is definitely the podcast for you. And if you need some help navigating all of those solutions, platforms, technologies, all claiming to solve the scope 3 challenge, this is absolutely the podcast for you. This is the scope 3 podcast. Thanks for joining us and great to have you on board. Hello and welcome back to the scope 3 podcast. This is episode eight, eight, Olly. We've made it to number eight. I don't know what that means, but it feels like a high number. Did we feel like we get this far? I think we did. Yeah. I think we're only halfway there. I mean, in terms of the year or so. I've got a feeling I read somewhere that most podcasts collapse after episode four or five. So we're doing something right, mate. How are you doing? You've been busy again. You've been traveling again. This is a common theme on this show, isn't it? I know. There are more and more people having a go at me about my carbon footprint. There was a great post by Solly again, Solitaire Townsend this week about not picking on people who work in climate change sustainability, not having them, having to justify literally everything they do. And yeah, again, the border guard in the States was very eyebrow raising when I told him what I did for a living. But yeah, Vermont. I was in Vermont. It was an incredible week, actually. I was with an organization called the corporate eco forum. So it's sort of chief sustainability officer collaboration, been running for many years and I've been on their advisor board for a few years. But it was the who's who of chief sustainability offices in North America. We're all put away in a forest in a lodge, which is very nice. And it was proper old school retreat type stuff. People got a chance to relax and talk to each other and there was lots of different activities. There was one activity, Tom, you'll love this, where you got the option to go and do maple syrupy, which is a Vermont thing, apparently. But what they didn't tell you, and I saw numerous videos afterwards, was that the guy runs this, got about 20 golden retrievers and part of the therapy is that all these golden retrievers jump off the back of a truck and run towards you and jump all over you. So this is this is what chief sustainability officers get up to in America when they're just when they're taking a break from final, you know, this is work is it? Sorry. But no, it was really good. And there was some really good stuff. I was chairing a number of scope three workshops that it was scope three was very, very high on the agenda. And yeah, we had some fascinating chats. I have to sort of talk about one workshop. There was this essentially at the end of the day and a half or whatever it was, there was a sort of an ability for everyone, about 150 people there to vote on their sort of most popular and almost design the most popular workshop. And the title of it was, what are we going to do when we all miss our scope free targets? Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, that is that says it all, doesn't it? I mean, I think you you noted for eros report this week, didn't you? Yeah, I got into a sort of LinkedIn chat with a guy called David Burrows. If you don't know him, then go and follow him. He's brilliant. He's a sustainability journalist and he he tends to dig into sustainability reports when they get released. And yeah, for eros came out last week, I think, and he just made the point that, you know, complete absence of any mention of scope three, particularly in the kind of the CEO's forward. And it sort of raised the point of like, you know, why can't founders of companies admit or CEOs of companies admit we've got a problem to be solved? It's a huge problem. It was like 93% of their emissions in scope three and no food companies got a solution to this. They're all struggling with it. So let's admit we've got a problem and then we might find some solutions. It was a really interesting point that he made and it kind of, you know, it does link to what you're hearing out there in Vermont. Have you got a whole bunch of people that are feeling a bit a bit paralyzed with scope three? They were. It was a fascinating vibe in this room. I mean, you had people who obviously care about stuff. I mean, you know, these are people that are the converted they don't need preaching to you. The topic of that, I won't know names, but the topic of that workshop very much and the vibe went along the lines of people who hadn't set targets and were worried about setting them people that and there was quite a few people in there who had set targets and felt that they were not going to achieve them. And they were almost trust. So it was a big conversation about what we're going to do when we don't, what's going to be the comms strategy was one of the conversations. And then there was a group of people, some very large businesses. And there was one lady in particular who rightly kind of provocatively said, what are you doing? We can't talk like this. We need to focus on this and invest in renewable energy with your supply chain. Why are you not doing that? Just get on and do it. And so there was a, there was a really nice tension in the room in that way, but it definitely felt like the room is at that inflection point almost of kind of, oh, are we going to do some giving up? Are we going to shove it under the carpet? Are we, but I, you know, I think it's right to say that because a lot of the conversation was also about, will the rest of the company take them seriously if we keep missing these goals and keep missing these targets. So very fairly conversation, but worth letting people know that that's out there and that's being felt. Exactly. And I think we are in an interesting time, aren't we? And I think that's probably why this podcast is resonating with so many business leaders right now. It's like, they just need that validation. They want to hear from other practitioners that are grappling with this, like now more than ever. It's like, okay, what the hell are we going to do about this? But it sounds like you've had some very interesting conversations on the other side of the pond this week. Yeah. What else has been happening in the world of scope three, Ollie? Well, there was great news coming up from another industry collaboration. So I think you met Ray Baker and colleagues at the London meeting of the scope of Pickup and January, Tom, but the home improvement industry or the DIY industry, depending on where you are in the world, you can call it different things has got together and the CEOs have got together. So all the major leading home improvement DIY retailers in the world have got together. We've mentioned it on the podcast, I think previously, but now they've launched their scope three work stream. They are, they are underway. Kingfisher of a leading way, Thierry Garnier is their CEO, and he very much believes in the importance of scope three and the challenge. They're using a solution provider that gets mentioned a lot of time on this podcast. We won't give them any more headlines that everyone knows who they are, but yeah, doing great stuff. So that's another industry collaboration that I think is making good progress. The other thing I think is interesting is we've got our Chicago meeting of the scope of Pickup coming up next week. So I'm back in the States again, talking to all US border guards about my role and how bad it is that I've flown over here. But we have nearly 150 people coming and they've also put challenges on scope three. So I stuck that through chapdbt, in fact, this morning, just to look at sort of the vibe in there. It is similar to what was revealed in London. So it's very similar across both sides of the pond, which I thought was interesting, but supplier engagement does still dominate. So that challenge of regardless of whether it's to help them set targets or to collect data or to drive reduction, it dominates the how do you get suppliers engaged? How do you do that? Data methodology inevitably, lots of questions about product carbon footprints. And I think that was pretty common. I think a lot of the specific challenges are around suppliers, specific emission factors, what methodologies, what tools and platforms, all of that good stuff. But refreshingly, and again, this was the same for London, one of the key challenges was how do we actually get decarbonisation to happen? So rather than just engaging suppliers and collecting data and getting internal buy-in, there's that big question of how do we actually get numbers to go down? So to see that continuously discussed, I think is important. And again, we've got a great workshop in Chicago with the likes of Schneider Electric on engaging suppliers on renewable energy. And to see that being as popular as ever, I think it's giving people who are worried about their targets hope that we're still discussing how to actually meet the targets, not just how to shape them, form them, communicate them. So I think that's positive. That's great. I'm really looking forward to finding out how it goes over there in Chicago. We've got one more episode before we have a little break for the summer. So we'll go through all the findings of what happened in Chicago on the next episode. But that's cool. Thanks for sharing, Ollie. So this time coming up on this episode, we have got the guys at Muir AI, another one of the great solutions providers, a young company run by Harris and Peter, former SpaceX and Amazon representatives. And they've given up really good jobs to start their own business in Scope 3, which is cool. So that was a good chat I have with those guys. And then you met Emma from Avantor. Yeah, and I know we say a lot, but yes, another person from that value chain of life sciences, which I think we're on a bit of a thread here, which I think we can get off that thread, but it's still a good thread to be on. But Emma's great. She I think speaks with the voice of the supplier. I think she has rightly not only got her own supply chain to manage, but she is engaging and collaborating with the likes of GSK and AstraZeneca and others and making sure that they appreciate and understand the challenges that they're putting onto her. So she I think provides a great story, regardless of the industry, about how to manage up and manage down on Scope 3. And I think she does that beautifully. So I really enjoyed that. Yeah, good stuff. All that coming up very soon. This episode of the Scope 3 podcast is supported by Muir AI. Muir AI is a supply chain intelligence platform that determines the material breakdown and origins of your products. It delivers fully automated product carbon footprints and identifies the material costs of procurements so that you can reduce emissions while improving your bottom line. For more information, go to Muir.ai. That's Muir.ai. At one point during this next conversation, you're about to hear, Oli says there will be so many people nodding along, pointing at their listening device and saying, yes, Emma, you're so right. And this chat with Emma Halkcroft is full of those moments. Emma is the Global Sourcing Sustainability Director at the Life Sciences Business Aventor Sciences. She's a former Cafe Nero and GSK employee who's been in growth in all manner of sustainability challenges over the years, from packaging to human rights. She's so full of words of wisdom to those of you charged with tackling Scope 3 in your own business. And as you're about to find out, she's especially vocal on the subject of data, capturing it, organising it, using it and crucially sharing it. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation you're about to hear. Here's Oli and Emma. So Emma, delighted to have you on the podcast. As I say to everyone, I'm always delighted to have everyone on the podcast. But having spent so much time with you over the last couple of years and being involved in so many different things, it's great to have you sharing your story and updating us a little bit about your challenges, hopes and dreams on Scope 3. So great to have you on. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. It's lovely to be here, Oli. Thank you for inviting me. Yes, so I'm Emma Halkcroft. I work at Aventor Sciences, which is a life sciences company. I head up there, sustainable sourcing team there, and yeah, fighting good fight, trying to get our suppliers and ourselves really, just to be more sustainable. And I'm trying to think back to when we first met, I think it was you were putting your dissertation together. So we're going back a while now, and I remember it was on a very interesting topic that was very close to my heart. So what's been your journey into your role and wherever you evolved through in terms of roles and organisations? Yeah, so I started, I think right at the start, funny enough, at Cafe No in their head office in a property role, and sort of did property for about three years, and then sort of transitioned over to sourcing for probably the bulk of my career. And then when I was working at Black Safe Smith line, I was lucky enough, I would say, to be asked to join the sustainability team there, and then got to look after that sort of plastic stuff. And I'd been interested, I think, at that point in sustainability, and particularly chemicals in the effect it has on the environment for probably a good 10 years and reading about it. So I had quite a good sort of foundation in essence, but I didn't have sort of the rubber stamp, should we say, to prove that I knew this stuff. So I went away to do a Masters roughly two and a half years ago on sustainability, to be able to show that I did know my stuff, and to your point about what I did my dissertation on, I decided to do it on human rights because I spent more time, let's say, on environmental topics, and I hadn't really spent much time doing any of the social stuff. So I thought it'd be good to use my Masters to learn some new topics. So yeah, I did it on human rights in the supply chain and specifically focusing on India and China. Yeah, excellent. Do you find that, I mean, obviously there's a lot of talk about how human rights and climates intersected and how social and environmental needs to be tackled together. And obviously, particularly if you're a sustainability professional, it's good to have that rounded view. But if you're in procurement, sometimes it's a real struggle to cope with all of these different kind of areas of sustainability. So have you got any thoughts about how human rights, climate change, social and environmental sits together? And do you do that in any way in the role you do now? Well, I think it's all interconnected, really. I mean, climate change, nature and human rights are all interconnected, aren't they? And all we're doing is eroding the planet, really. And I think we break it down into these meaningful topics because it's easier for people to get their heads round because they're such large challenges. So I think it's compartmentalization and categorization for the purpose of progress as opposed to us misunderstanding how things work, but absolutely everything's interconnected. I mean, it's quite sad that we didn't realize that if we keep sort of chopping down trees, we're sort of releasing carbon into the atmosphere and actually making it worse. And I had the funniest idea the other day, which was perhaps if we stopped reducing carbon and spent more time planting a lot more trees, would we actually do better that way? Because the reason I say that is because we work in the chemicals industry at Aventor. And I have noticed there's this move to, let's say, chemicals that come from an agricultural source. And if that keeps happening and we keep moving away from petrochemicals, I'm not trying to sort of make a case for the petrochemical industry here, but I am just wondering, like, to what point will we just literally chop down every single forest to be growing all this stuff? And I do wonder if anyone's actually looked at a macro level and seen what is the actual right approach when you look at all these problems together in totality. And I don't think many have. And I think that that's what makes it so complicated and hard. Indeed. And of course, most of the trees are ultimately cut down to be able to allow those people in the agricultural sector, in far flung parts of the world to make money from be it palm oil or whatever it is. So everything seems interconnected, isn't it? And I've always said, respected that. I enjoyed that dissertation and the context of it back in the day. I know I'm passionate about human rights myself, and I felt like, yeah, hopefully that had some bearing to play. And there is a bit of a running joke on this podcast that's forming that because of the kind of nominations of each other, we're ending up in a real life sciences fest at the moment, which is fine. But the realities are, there is such amazing work happening. Now, event or a kind of, you're a critical part of that value chain, aren't you? You're someone that finds itself relying on both customers and suppliers to be able to make the improvements and drive the ambitions. And you're doing some really good stuff, particularly with your Chris Holmes and others in your business that are really passionate about this. So what's it like playing that role in that value chain and having to sort of collaborate up, down, lift, and right? I think it's been quite interesting actually because I sort of came into event or from GSK where GSK I would say sort of at the end of the chain from a customer perspective. I appreciate they have patients, but let's say a business customer perspective. And yeah, it was very interesting to see how top down target setting can be from sort of these much larger organizations into the supply chain. And then the pressure that puts in the supply chain. And then the fact that you then have to sort of pass on those, I always call them draconian, but difficult targets down onto your suppliers as well. So that's been quite a learning for me. And I think where we're all struggling is generally the person at the end of the chain or let's say at the bottom of the chain tends to be the more mature person or the more mature company should we say. And that just creates this horrible bottleneck. I would say sort of up the supply chain where they're sort of pushing it. And technically what you really want is for the other end to actually be getting themselves sorted and then sort of moving in the opposite direction. So I do think there's something to be said about perhaps not having such a targeted approach initiative and really focusing on education and training up and down the chain. So that when targets land, people are better prepared to start the work in short. And I think that's been quite a learning my side as well. And what I always jake about funny enough is that our actual customer emissions are our largest emissions on scape three. I think we're quite peculiar that way. And our supply emissions sort of follow a quick second. But I do sometimes, I have jaked one of our customers that in actual fact, if you sorted yourselves out, then you'd actually meet our scape three emissions because our scape three is your operational emissions. But yeah, I think they expect us to sort of again rate supplies and get them on that reduction journey as well. And obviously it's the right thing to do. Yeah, we often talk about what we find ourselves talking about empathy and the importance of it in this challenge because you've got to understand the realities of what the Emma Howcroft is in your suppliers and the Emma Crowcroft in your customers is actually trying to do what they're going through. And it does feel like this is true for human rights as well as everything else. We seem to be over the years so addicted to believing that by sending demands or targets or questionnaires down the supply chain that suddenly they'll magically be able to work out how to do stuff. And it feels like that that still continues to today, doesn't it? There's a sort of lack of empathy and a lack of understanding about how to capability. But I guess you feel it's not their responsibility. Yeah, I think there is a lack of empathy and I think sometimes it's not just empathy. I think sometimes they don't understand the complexity really. So I think there's a few things here. I think the first one is what may seem material to one customer may then, once you go into the chain, may not be as material to the next level down in short. And I suppose we just need to get better at sharing data so people can work out the correct level of materiality and focus for their supplies. And I think more of a pick and mix approach would be better. And perhaps even taking a step back and perhaps appreciating that what you may have started off thinking as material as a customer actually needs to be adapted and changed. And I think that's our problem is we're not very good at adapting and changing because no doubt the sustainability team has spent like two years trying to sort of get their leadership team to sign off these targets. And it's been such a huge effort just to get this done. So to suddenly be told by your supply base, we're not going to focus on this. And in actual fact, this is what we're focusing on because this is actually more material to us probably isn't hugely helpful. But it goes back to the whole data challenge up and down the chain, which is if we're all much better at sharing data with each other, we would actually be able to calculate our materiality in aggregate together and sort of be really clear on who should focus on what. So that's really the challenge was trying to solve for, I think. Yeah, and we spoke before this and you were a bit concerned that you'd end up talking about data the whole interview. But we've made it halfway through with only mentioning data just now. So it is possible, it is more than just data. But I think we should talk about data. I know that it's important to you and you think it's critical part of the challenge. And it's amazing how many members of the scope UP group that I speak to every day that bring me up and ask me data questions. And I sort of look at the blankly and sort of say, well, let me pass you on. But what do you think needs to be done around the data challenge? I mean, what do you think could make our lives a lot easier if we got it right? Well, I think there's two ways to look at it. I sort of the sustainable sorting team that's after all our sort of sustainability topics. So it's climate change, it's human rights, it's nature conservation and resource circularity. And I very point those out because in the packaging space, there's a huge amount of regulation. I think we're coming up to over 200 regulations across various jurisdictions. It's quite intense, really. And I've sort of sat back and started to think, I don't think it should just be about capturing sort of carbon at a product level. I think we have to look at how do we do product specification data management better across the entire value chain and appreciate that the types of information we're going to have to collect at a product level need to increase exponentially to meet sustainability data requirements, but also regulatory requirements as well. And I think the two need to be combined together. And so, for example, with Seabam, say the carbon border adjustment mechanism, there's a few industries that have been pulled into that into that this year, including ourselves moderately. And everyone's sort of running around treating it as a sort of independent project that needs to be fixed. But I think really what we should be doing is saying, actually, this is now a new product specification data management criteria that needs to be added into our product specification management strategy and system so that we can just collect this as normal, really. And I think if we stopped approaching different sustainability challenges in the sort of bespoke, siloed way and just look at data management as a whole, I think we'd probably be able to solve that challenge better. And I think on the point of systems, because this is quite funny, we've been talking to a lot of system providers at the moment, obviously trying to solve this exact challenge and understanding what can we solve and how many use cases can we squeeze into this before it becomes unmanageable. And they all talk about being able to pull data in. They all say, yes, we can pull data in, we can aggregate this, we can do this. But rarely do they say we can share the data. We can share the data in a meaningful way to another system. Or more importantly, we will share the data with the person that gave us the data so that they can then continue to use that data. So that's a problem there. We're very good at pulling stuff in, but not necessarily sharing out. I couldn't agree more. And as you know, we like to get your thoughts about what the solution providers could do better. And I think you've given a great example there. They love to tell us they can pull in data from anywhere. And it's usually people who are data experts or have lived and breathed data that think that by pulling in data and putting it on a nice dashboard, that magically drives change. And of course, it doesn't. It's obviously part of the jigsaw. But you're absolutely right. It's integration of information and presenting it to people that you like in procurement. They need to see this data alongside each other and be able to turn it into insights and actions. And that's not always that easy. What's been your other reflections on the kind of solution providers in this space? And obviously, you're probably someone who gets sent lots of requests to join platforms and surveys, as well as perhaps to consider them for your own supplies. So what's been some of your thoughts about what they could be doing to make your lives easier? I think there's a lot of greenhouse gas providers. And I think it would be great for people to look at the entire ESG spectrum, because what you don't want to be doing is asking a supplier to enter information on one system for greenhouse gas, one system for human rights, one system for something else. So I think an aggregation of needs is really important. I think bringing in the kind of product specification bit into that need is also really good. I also find with all these tools, it's very much we survey the supplier, and we haven't fixed this outside either. I was hoping to, but we didn't get it right, sadly, so we need to try again. But there's this idea that you survey the supplier, you request data from them. That data goes into a black hole, and then it gets taken away. I think system providers need to create supply of portals, where a supplier can still own their data and actually go into the portal and update it in real time. And then it needs to be exportable in a manner that allows the supplier to take their data back, and then potentially use that in another system, which is rarely ever provided. And then, obviously, you have to think about corporate level reporting and product level reporting. It'd be lovely not to have to keep doing that in two separate systems as well. And I think validation of data. So you can have the best wishy system in the world, but if your suppliers aren't trained and really haven't started this journey properly, they're probably going to put bad data in. And that's something that we found doing this for the first time last year. A lot of the data wasn't usable because either it was just off completely or silly things like Europeans using decimal places or commerce versus decimal places, like loads of tiny little things that can just sort of corrupt your data and make it meaningless. So I think that a validation of data and having rules to validate that data would be quite good, really. And I have some ideas about that if you want me to share it, but I don't know how long the odd cast is on it. Oh, it could be as long as you like. Absolutely fine. Yeah, great point. Why do Europeans use commerce? It absolutely blows my mind. It looks bizarre, doesn't it? Well, who are we to tell them what to do? Definitely not. Exactly. We left them a long time ago. Probably I'm very glad about that. So again, tell us more. What do you think could help that along? I think weirdly, sort of auto-validation in tools would be brilliant. So let's talk about product level. So let's say you're entering information for a centrifuge, let's just say. There is enough secondary data out there to be able to provide a range for a centrifuge. So if the system could get that range for that product type, and obviously this would require us all to use universal codings, which does exist, we just need to get better at using it. That means that when the supply puts something that may be slightly off, the system will immediately be able to prompt the supplier, or at least prompt someone in the customer company to say this is off. It needs to be investigated. Same with a corporate level. You've got loads of credit data which shows companies sort of annual revenues. Again, using a company's universal coding to determine their industry, you could apply a generic emissions factor to their spend data, sorry, to their revenue data as a whole, so that when then the supplier is entering that sort of corporate emissions data, it can be validated against their total revenue. No one's really doing this, and I think they're quite simple things to do that would allow for an element of improved automation, as opposed to people just having to cope with bad data and having to fix it manually. Maybe this time next year you need to come on as the founder of a new solution provider. No, I don't think that's what my brains at really are. Well, I suspect there are many listening in, nodding along or making notes, or others probably agreeing with you. I think it's some great points. So I want to talk to you about nature. I know this isn't the nature podcast, but I know that it's an area where you're passionate about, and obviously you've supported the development of the new nature peer group that I've been working on. Can you tell us a little bit more about your work there? And I'm really so impressed by the work you've done with your industry on that. Maybe give us a little indication of some of the stuff that you've been doing there. Yeah, I think I'd probably just come to the conclusion that nature is probably going to be a lot bigger than greenhouse gas emissions eventually. And if you're manufacturing and extracting, it's likely that you're going to play a large part in it, both from an impact perspective, but obviously you depend on resources in order to produce your products. And I just don't think enough of this are focusing on it. Now, to your point about creating a life sciences echo chamber, I think the life sciences industry and obviously agriculture industry and a few others are doing this really well, and well done to Pharma for leading the charge here. I just think a lot of us could be doing a lot better. So I'm certainly not an expert in this place, Holly. I think I've just recognised that we need to sort of ring the bell and get people moving faster on this. Because if we did, we can then also improve our sort of greenhouse gas emissions storage efforts as well. And yeah, and just start focusing on the right thing. Sorry, that was very willy. Yeah, that's fine. That's absolutely fine. And I think the bit that I've been really impressed by is the willingness to create toolkits for suppliers on nature. Because nature, again, is an area where it's a bit of a wild west. It's confusing. There's jargon. There's a billion initiatives. And I know that you've been working to try and develop up a toolkit that can help engage suppliers ultimately at a site level, but ultimately then again, so they can understand what's happening in their supply chain. And it's that practical thinking that I think we need when we engage our supply chain, isn't it? You can't just tell them vaguely what's important. You've got to actually show them what they can do. Yeah, I think it starts off with what we kind of spoke about right at the start, that the topic is just so large that it becomes overwhelming. And I think we're going through the period of breaking it back down into sort of tangible metrics that people can get their heads around and make a start on, like waste, like water, which are the ones that a lot of people are already focusing on. But I think the big challenge ahead, which I know everyone's grappling with is, how do you then aggregate all that into one common metric that shows an overall impact on nature? So I think that's what confuses a lot of people. And to your point about suppliers and helping them, yeah, I just didn't want us to repeat what we did with greenhouse gas emissions, which again, was large companies rushing ahead with targets and getting their act together. And the supply chain in essence has been left behind and then suddenly being forced into doing something without necessarily having the expertise behind them. So yeah, the purpose of thinking about supply chain first, really, was to again, create that toolkit to sort of educate them better. That's the idea behind it. It would be lovely if big companies had these ideas and then immediately went to the end of their supply chain and said, right, we need to train these people up, then got to the end of that project. And then said, right, now let's set our targets now that we can actually converse with our supply chain effectively and get meaningful data from them. But we never seem to do it that way. There are many people. I suspect millions of people listening to this who are nodding furiously and pointing at their wireless. No, they're probably pointing at their phone, aren't they? And say, yes, Emma, that's absolutely right. We agree, we're part of that value chain and we agree. So finally, obviously, we like to encourage nominations for people and people that have inspired you or impressed you. Emma, anyone in particular that you think has really impressed you on this topic and you think may be interesting coming on the pod? Well, it's going to be really bad because this person's already been on your podcast, Ollie, but they did actually really impressed me. So I do want to give a shout out to DHL, who ran a phenomenal sustainability conference. I can't remember it was last year or the year before in Valencia. And it was fabulous. And that's where I met this person. So I met Suzanne Green talking at the DHL conference. And obviously, she's helped out, create standards, some significant standards and all just sort of help. That's her with calculation and reporting across greenhouse gas emissions. So yeah, I think she's a very impressive person. And I would love to spend actually more time with her and understand what she does at DAO. But unfortunately, I think we're both quite busy people. So we haven't actually managed it. But yeah, I find it very impressive. Oh, that's brilliant. We've almost come full circle. Then she was on our very first episode, if I remember rightly. So she is wonderful. And I can understand why you think that. And I'm sure you'll get on very well when you do properly meet without doubt. So thanks, Emma. I really appreciate it. It was lovely to have you on. And thank you again. You're another person that supports all of this activity so well. You're always willing to share, always willing to learn. And I think your perspective is clear, concise, and often quite challenging, which is what we need. So I really appreciate you coming on. It's lovely to be here. I really enjoyed meeting with Harris Chalatt and Peter Williams, the co-founders of Muir AI. After meeting each other during their studies, they both entered the world of work and were fortunate enough to be involved in some really cool stuff. Williams was working on drone technology deliveries for Amazon while Harris went to work for Elon Musk's SpaceX program. So it was going to take something really special to drag them away from those positions. And with Muir AI, they think they found it. It's a chance to work on solving the biggest challenge of our time, reducing emissions in the world's supply chains. I caught up with Harris and Peter to find out more. Here's our conversation. Harris, Peter, welcome on board the Scope3 podcast. It's really good to have you with us. How's it going? It's going well. Thanks, Tom. We're excited to be on. Good. Yeah, thanks, Tom. I want to start right at the start with your story this time because you two met at MIT, where you were both studying aerospace engineering. And then, Harris, you went to work at SpaceX, which is obviously Elon Musk's rocket company. And it doesn't get much cooler than that. Tell us what you were doing at SpaceX. Yeah, yeah. I spent most of my time while I was there working on a few different projects, largely on remote sensing satellite technology. So both building the technology applications as well as some of the design work and business development. Great. And what about you, Peter? You went to work for Amazon, I see. And what was your role there? What were you up to for Amazon? Yeah. So I was working on drone and robotic technology for delivery, so primary and then another robotics team. I was focused on really how to meld the AI, ML, kind of data fusion type of solutions that we had into the ultimate behaviors of the drone. So I got a lot of experience across building at the system level, understanding the implications of different pieces of solutions and how those come together to kind of form this complete product. Right, right. And then you two come together and obviously knowing each other from back in the day. But how did that come about? And did you always talk about doing something together while you were at school? And what were those sort of conversations like? Yeah, I think we always flirted about it a little bit. Peter, I think you reached out maybe a few years before you finally quit our jobs and said we're doing it and said, hey, we should have conversations and think about the ways that we wanted to build a company if we were to build one. But I think then the question was, what do we want to build? And what is that mission? And it became pretty clear for us and also clear why we wanted to leave our companies. So the cool things that you described, Tom, that we're doing was this real desire to go focus ourselves within climate change and find ways to solve the hard problems within climate change. And where did that come from, that desire to be working in this space and then working on the climate problem? Where did that really come from? I'll say for me, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I love it out here. Ever since I came back from school out in MIT, back to Seattle for Amazon nine years ago, we've had these significant wildfire smoke events every summer. And I'm a big outdoors person in that existential dread of how bad is the smoke going to be this summer? How is that going to impact my time outside? While I was at Amazon, that really drove me to start thinking about how can I actually get involved in this climate movement. Yeah, there's nothing like torched earth to really focus the minds. And so that original mission then and vision for what you wanted to achieve with Muir AI, did you both have the same vision for what you wanted to create with this? I think it was a learning process. So we made this decision and became convinced that now is the time to build a company, now is the time to go and have a positive impact and quit our jobs. And beyond that, it was kind of a question of what was next. And what we did is we did what most founders and entrepreneurs do is start having conversations with potential clients and understanding the challenges that existed. And what are those problems out there that need technology to come and solve them? And that's what eventually led us to Muir was not some sort of inkling or determination of the solution that we saw to build this company, but instead from the challenges and stories and problems we're hearing from customers. Yeah, right. Who come out with a name? That was a joint effort, I think for both of us. We wanted something that could both give a nod to conservationism, the environment, but also maybe a little bit of the adventure and the journey that is building a more sustainable company. And it's become a bit of an age old question on this podcast so far when speaking to founders like yourselves. When it comes to solving scope three, it's a crowded space. There's lots and lots of new players entering the market. Lots of companies claiming to be able to do roughly the same things. So what is it that genuinely kind of sets you apart? Yeah, so what's really unique about what we do in Muir is our ability to provide scaled product level insights of cost, carbon and risk across the supply chain. So we're able to generate rapid product carbon footprints for nearly any product and then combine those footprints with pricing and risk data. And it's all automated and there's really no need for consultants to be involved in that process. So one thing I like to think about is don't think about us as an emissions factor database. Think about us as a product supply chain modeling system where we are able to automatically determine the components and materials that make up your product, even for complex goods. We're able to figure out where those are likely coming from. And then we layer on these insights across cost, emissions and risk and generate recommendations for how you can go reduce those emissions and cost and risk in the most logical ways possible. Right, and so if I sort of lift up, open the bonnet a bit then and have a look at your solution in a bit more detail then. So how do you do what you do? What's going on there? Explain the process a bit more, Peter. Yeah, so what we do is we take procurement information that our customers have on hand. So what good are you procuring? Where and who are you procuring it from? And then how much of that good are you procuring? And what we do is we break that product down into the components and materials that comprise it. We then map those across a likely supply chain upstream from that known sourcing location or sourcing supplier. And then we layer on carbon at each one of the different steps. So each of the manufacturing steps and each of the transportation steps between there. And we also layer on the cost information and risk on information on there. So we have pretty complex models that power this. There's AI involved. There's data fusion. We have a bunch of different internal databases and other types of databases we've used to go through that kind of three step process to really give these insights. And what that does is give us this map of what a product is comprised of, where it's coming from and all of these other insights. And we can then run analyses on top of there to be able to give things like rapid product carbon footprints, but also generate recommendations and run scenario analyses for our customers on what would happen if you changed a material for another material? What would happen if you changed a sourcing location to another sourcing location? So we're really able to put this carbon data next to this other information that is key for our customers in their optimization of their slide chains. Yeah. And so it's fully automated the system itself. Correct. And it's largely run by artificial intelligence, right? It's powered by artificial intelligence, yeah. Okay. And what are the real benefits of the AI in something like what you're doing? You know, one of the things that it allows us to do is make these fully automatic assessments, right? It has unlocked the ability to make product carbon footprints at the depth that we go fully automated. That is not to say we don't include customers and highlight to them the assumptions that we're making and the artificial intelligence is making in that process. For example, the initial breakdown of that product into the components and materials, right? There's probably a hundred, a thousand different ways to make a running shoe, right? Having an initial estimate there helps to get insights and those are generally consistent across those given products. But we also work to collect data from customers to be able to ground and get rid of those assumptions that we have to make when we use artificial intelligence. So if you have a bill of materials, we can adjust that and take that in and get rid of some of the assumptions that the artificial intelligence is going to make. Yeah, yeah. And so give me some examples then of sorts of recommendations that you're able to make at the end of the chain there. So you've got all the data coming in, it's fully automated and then it serves up these recommendations for action and to really get that carbon down. What would that look like and what sort of customers might be using your service? I think for the recommendations, it comes down to like a few specific groups. So there's design. So one of the areas that we're providing recommendations on is where can you leverage recycled materials versus phased materials or virgin materials? Operations. So what does your supply chain from a transportation or a manufacturing process look like to sourcing decision? Where in the world are you buying those upstream raw material, feed stock goods? Are there opportunities to find greener countries or sources of origin for those products? And so our model is looking across all of those facets and taking into consideration not only what does that impact in terms of each of those steps for your given products and your given supply chain, but also what is the ease of implementation? Like is this a feasible thing for you to go and ask a tier three supplier to install renewable energy on the prep? Probably not. That's going to be very difficult. But maybe something that's more directly associated with your product design, your supply chain is feasible. And then last is what is the cost impact? What is that overall dollar sign going to be associated with the reduction or maybe improvement if you're finding a way to actually reduce operating costs for your goods? And so our model is taking its own consideration, considering your own specific desire and focuses and goals as a company. So what matters to you? How much are you willing to pay for carbon versus price to then come out with those recommendations for a customer? And as you can imagine, that basis of what customers are hoping to do with an insight can vary a lot, depending on who you are and what industry you're in. Yeah, yeah. So who's using your platform right now? What does a typical customer look like? There's a few common traits. At a high level, our technology is industry agnostic. We intended to be able to service any type of customer in any type of product, but we are certainly seeing common traits from our customers where they're relatively large, but not enormous enterprises. They have complex global supply chains and are generally dealing with more complicated goods. So industrial manufacturer types like automotive, electronics, chemical manufacturers are where our customer base is today. Yeah, and a hard one. I know, but what do your customers think of you? What's it like working with your AI, would you say? I think that there's a general excitement with it. There's a lot of buzz and talk around artificial intelligence and these people coming to bring AI to your job. I think that sounds seems very high level and not really applicable. And I think when we have opportunity, where customers walk them through our system and build with them, I think what they see is people from the outside typically, like we're not from sustainability in our career and background, like that fully admitting that we're coming from this from the technology side. But what they're seeing is people that come from the technology side that appreciate and understand their challenges and are building tools to enable them as professionals. For us, it's how do we enable these sustainability and procurement professionals to be more effective? And I think that they see and understand that from our side and are excited to then use and leverage the technology we're developing for them. And how are you finding it running a business like this? I mean, there's so much involved in starting up a business and having that drive to maintain momentum and succeed. What are your motivating factors, the pair of you, in terms of why you do what you do? What makes you get out of bed in the morning and do this? You're right, you're not from sustainability backgrounds. You've come from different spaces. But what's driving you now, would you say? I guess I'll answer that Peter, like I think you should jump in too. But I think for both of us, we come from very mission-driven backgrounds. Like we worked at Amazon and SpaceX, where there was high pressure and expectations to deliver towards these greater missions and goals. And I think for both of us, I really honed and focused us in a way that we wanted to seek out in our next opportunity and that desire to apply ourselves and solve a mission. And I think for both of us, Peter kind of alluded to from his personal experience, felt a real drive to focus that mission on climate change. And I think that's day-to-day what gets you through the grind of starting a company that could be relatively challenging and that sometimes a real labor of love. Yeah, I mean, it's really exciting to be able to first off work on that mission piece that is, for me, getting rid of the wildfire smoke at the end of the day. But I think the technology that we're building is exciting there as well. Like we both are very technically come from that background. It really motivates me to get out and be able to still be able to build these pieces and then really be able to do that in a way, this complex technology and be able to find those opportunities for helping reduce carbon emissions, reduce the rate of wildfires, and then also be able to help companies in their bottom lines as well. Like I think that's an important piece that we have to get to, to be able to have real impact in this space is being able to balance both the sustainability goals with the company bottom line goals. And I think that our technology is enabling that. And that's really exciting. And some of the founders of Solutions Providers that I've spoken to actually put a number on it when I asked the question. So what does success look like? Where do you want to get to? What sort of impact do you want to have overall? And sometimes there's a figure there. But have you guys thought about what you actually ultimately want to achieve with MuRAI? I think we started at this company because we believe that there's an opportunity to reduce emissions at gigaton level if companies can truly understand and manage their supply chains. And so that's the motivating factor. I think we'll gauge success on whether or not we can have a positive impact on these corporation supply chains. But at the end of the day, that was the scale that we were looking for in terms of impact and where we found it. And that's on reductions, right? So not managed carbon emissions in our platform or other things that gets very focused on the reduction piece. Yeah, yeah. And on that, are you able to track that? And are you able to track the recommendations you're making, whether the action follows through with that? Are you doing that piece of work? We can track general recommendations and shifts. And if it's something like we now are using recycled aluminum, we can take that into accreditation. We're not, as Peter suggested, coming in from a consulting auditing perspective and not going to stand in that state. Yeah, sure. And on a more practical level, it's obviously relatively early days for you guys. You've been going for two, three years now. But what are the next five years look like for you guys? And how different will your business look, do you think, as we approach 2030? Yeah, so I think ultimately our vision here is to be an engine for supply chain optimization. I mean, look, we know there are ample ways to reduce emissions across supply chains. And the hard part here is doing it in a way that meets the goals and priorities of all the stakeholders and customers of those supply chains. And we're really building our AI in kind of this engine to be able to find and identify these key opportunities and deliver them in the most logical way possible. So we are going to continue to build out our platform. We're going to continue to work and partner with other platforms in this space to deliver our data to them. We really see our core engine as our unique piece of the pie here and what we can provide in generating those recommendations. And so we're going to continue to push those out so that we can get those insights into those supply chain managers' hands so that they can take the decisions that meet their company's needs and are also the best for the planet. Part of the way that we get data into the hands of our customers is to offer it through API. So we have partners in this space that are other data platforms or other platforms that are servicing customers as software as a service. And we deliver our data into their platforms so that they can add carbon emissions alongside the data that they're already providing to their customers. We've seen a lot of synergies in this space, right? Putting our data next to supply chain risk management data, putting our data next to cost and analysis data, other types of things here. We've seen a lot of ways that we can combine these different pieces of data and provide a more complete picture to our end customers. And so we're really excited to continue to build this ecosystem of being able to partner and share data across this space to continue to get this data in the right hands to them today. Yeah, I think like one point on that is our specialization our focus is on understanding supply chains and what that means from a sustainability risk cost perspective for companies. There's lots of other things, especially when we talk about sustainability that clearly a company cares about, right? Like we're talking about two categories of scope three out of three scopes that we're focused on. And so finding those right partnerships and opportunities to leverage what we think is actual important data in a way that customers still need a consumer, a wider breadth of services. That is something that we found to be incredibly impactful. Yeah. Well, look, Peter Harris has been lovely having you on the podcast and thank you for sharing your story and your time with us. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thanks, Tom. That is it for another episode. Ollie, thanks for joining us, mate. Yeah, I enjoyed that. And again, two great guests. Harris is fantastic. I love the story of the hell they've... I think there's quite a few people coming off that sort of tech data world and seeing the light and wanting to do stuff. Time will tell whether it was a good idea for them to leave those extremely exciting jobs to do this. But I suspect they sound a good chance. They're a very impressive chap. So I'm looking forward to seeing how they do. And Emma was great. I mean, Emma is always great. And she's well known and respected within that. And some great thoughts there. Yeah, good stuff. And we've got some great feedback, as ever, always on LinkedIn. So if you've got something to say about the show, then please send us a note or make a comment. We had a few this week, didn't we? Yeah, Megan Young's. Let's give Megan a shout out. So if anyone wants to shout out on the podcast, we'll start to use the end of the podcast to shout people out. So yeah, Megan Young's came in. So she works on script for reporting at NatWest. And she highlighted... Very thank you, Emma, Megan, for highlighting the podcast. But you've also highlighted the challenge of engaging smaller suppliers, particularly if you're in a service-based supply chain and engaging those smaller suppliers. So that has been an increasingly big question. I know that, in fact, was the number one supply engagement question from our meeting in January of this year was how to engage smaller tailspins suppliers. And I think particularly if you've got service-based supply chains, it's tricky. It's difficult. You lack the leverage. You lack the engagement. Suppliers don't have the capability. So I think we need to think about that, Tom. I think we need to tackle that. We need to get off the Life Sciences bandwagon. We need to get back on maybe the banking bandwagon. I don't know who knows, but maybe we can get Megan on. Yeah, good stuff. I hope you enjoyed the episode, everybody. As ever, all of the links and references to anything that was mentioned during this episode will be on the website. Just go to scope3peergroup.com and hit on the tab that says podcast. And you'll find all the episodes there. But yeah, until next time, we'll be back in two weeks. We'll see you then. Can't wait. [MUSIC PLAYING]