#11 Podcast – TLD Talks … Net Zero Carbon with Kiley Tan

Episode introduction: Client Legal Director, Kiley Tan talks to Ed Simpson CEO of The Legal Director about how SMEs can address the challenge of Net Zero.

How do you create efficiencies in order to reduce carbon, and what role can your staff play in making the change?

Today’s guest: Kiley Tan joined the Legal Director after 15 years in private practice, helping SME clients deal with legal issues in their day to day operation.  He is also a business consultant through his own business, Mosaic International. He is a passionate supporter of Net Zero having recently completed his MBA dissertation on the same topic.

Main topics:

• Despite the wall to wall coverage of net zero most people still didn’t know what it was and have never heard of the concept (2’55)
• Net Zero is about the balance of carbon emissions and attempts to remove those carbon emissions (4’40)
• Engage your staff as they will be the ones that create the efficiencies and innovation for you to move forward (22’05)
• How do you manage that need to use carbon because a business cannot just shut up shop, how do you go about taking that carbon monoxide out of the atmosphere this is about balancing the emission removal (6’01)
• If you are a  large business you are now obliged to prepare a report about your emissions, so you have to start taking steps to measure your emissions. While there is no legal obligation to reduce carbon emissions there is an expectation that you will take steps to reduce those emissions (7’05)
• Plc’s are now putting forward pledges in relation to how they will arrive at carbon net zero; what’s happening is that is creating an expected behaviour (7’58)
• There is a great deal of ignorance in the business community – a case of ‘not my problem’ (8’44)
• If SMEs are supplying to larger companies they are becoming under increasing pressure to show that they are doing something and this pressure is coming from the larger corporations who want to know what they are doing about climate change” (9’01)
• At COP26,  a lot of UK lenders have signed up to net zero banking lines – what they are doing is they are pledging to reduce carbon emissions not just for themselves but for their investments (10’15)
• For SMEs the longer you leave it the more difficult it gets (11’10)
• The OCE came up with a report that says you can’t receive net zero without SME’s being involved in that process (11’40)
• The sooner businesses start to tackle it the better: don’t put it off (12.01)
• You have got to start thinking how is climate change going to impact your supply chains because it will impact them (13’30)
• The first thing you need to do is carry out an energy audit find out how much power you are using, most utility companies are able to tell you what your KW/hour is using in terms of your carbon emissions (14’09)
• It allows you to make capital decisions that you have probably been putting off for some time because you are trying to save money (14’45)
• Everyone in the business needs to understand the need to reduce the energy usage (16’41)
• Potentially SME’s will save a significant amount of money if they are able to make processes more efficient and can cut down the amount of energy that they are using (18’03)
• Try to get your head around net zero and how it works; it’s fairly complex but once you get it, you will get it, and it will be useful in your business  (21’36)
• You need to start looking at your GHG emissions (greenhouse gasses) and engage your staff (22’05)