Carbon Zero Webinar

[Shane Clarke] Kia ora koutou katoa, nau mai, haere mai. Good morning, hello to you all and welcome. Welcome to our Nuralite Carbon Zero Journey webinar. I'd like to start with a quick poll actually, just to let us know where you are with your Carbon Zero Journey. So wish me luck, I'll try and get this out. Actually this poll is the first one for what time of day would you like your webinar, so I'll just flick that one out quickly. Thanks for that. Well, we've always got a full house here, it's quite good to see, so thanks for that. Right, so for those of you who don't know me, my name is Shane Clark, I'm a General Manager here at Nuralite. Nuralite's been synonymous with flat roofing membrane supply products for the last 50 years. We're always evolving and innovating with ways to build New Zealand better and this morning I'm pleased to introduce the elusive Mr John Simmons, who's the owner and Managing Director of Nuralite, who's going to spend 20 minutes with you sharing our sustainability journey, which has started with Net Carbon Zero. And yes, it started with Net Carbon Zero and what we hope to achieve going forward in our world of sustainability and environmental awareness. There may even be a challenge thrown down to you all along the way, so listen out. I'm also stoked to advise everyone today that Nuralite will contribute $10 towards an organisation close to our hearts called Trees That Count. Trees That Count are a conservation charity that make a difference by planting native New Zealand trees throughout the country. Since 2016, this organisation, along with their community, have planted over 31 million native trees, which will be responsible for removing approximately three and a half million tonnes of carbon from our atmosphere. So well done to them. And congratulations to you all. By simply attending this morning, you've already done your part to make the world a better place. The last few minutes of the webinar will open up to a brief Q&A. I encourage you all to participate. Enter any questions you may have on the Q&A feature at the bottom of the menu bar and I'll get through these as best I can towards the end. Right, enough from me. Are you there, John? [John Simmons] Yeah, thanks, Shane. Welcome, everyone. It's really exciting to be able to share with you our journey. I've got a few slides, so I'll just bring those up. All right. So about two years ago, obviously, climate change has been a huge challenge for all of us. And about two years ago, we really felt, or I felt personally, that Nuralite needed to be doing more to move us along and to confront the challenge. We were, like most companies, sitting there waiting for something to happen, waiting to be told what to do, waiting for goals to be set. And we resolved that actually we need to do something. So the very first step on our challenge was, 18 months ago, coming to creating a resolution. And one of these resolutions we actually did something about was that we must do something, even if no one else does anything. And that was actually challenging ourselves to get going. Because up to that stage, we were waiting for someone else to tell us what to do. And I think it's up to everyone to challenge themselves about what can they do to make a difference, rather than waiting for someone else to set goals. Particularly, one of the things that kind of concerns me is we talk about we need to begin at carbon zero by 2050, which is a goal that's miles away and really encourages you to do nothing. And so we were really wanting to go to ourselves and you're like, what can we do to move the dial today? Now, it wasn't easy to figure out what to do. And so we did quite a bit of reading. And what I really found attractive was this one and a half degree business playbook, which was published as a guide for businesses who are wanting to move the dial. And there are other guides around, but this one was really clear for me. And we did this guide in conjunction with working with Toitu, who gave us the insights to actually drive things at a much more micro level. But this guide here, which I'll take you through today, really gave me a sense of purpose and gave the business a sense of purpose of what we can do to make a difference. And we'll also show you about how it kind of leverages so that you actually make bigger changes outside the business rather than actually necessarily just inside the businesses. So as you can see, it's a four-step plan. Once you've completed the first two steps, you're carbon zero. But actually, step three and four is actually where you can possibly make even bigger differences than being carbon zero. Okay, the first step was actually looking at our own fossil fuels. That's actually relatively simple because you can figure out where you buy fossil fuels, where you buy your gas, and where you buy your fuel. And having a look at that and going, what can we do about it? Obviously, with petrol, you have to move to electric vehicles. And with gas, it was moving to electric forklifts. We're not 100% there yet, but it is a journey that we're moving. And we've currently got six electric vehicles and one electric forklift. I would like to think that we will get to 100%, not too far away, but you have to manage that transition so that people have appropriate vehicles. So far, we've invested $200,000 in that transition, which is a significant investment. But what you do find, when you actually look at the numbers, is that these have a payback period that is actually quite attractive. Because once we've moved to electric vehicles, obviously our petrol bills have been slashed, disappeared, but also our maintenance costs have been disappeared. So it's confronting to actually have to make that investment and confronting for some of our employees. But actually, once you make that step, you actually find it quite nice. I actually quite smug when I drive past petrol companies now. Okay, the second part of it was looking at our supply chain. So for us, we're looking to go carbon zero from the manufacturer's site to the job site. We're trying to eliminate as much as possible our carbon footprint during that point. So we have gone and we've talked to our suppliers and told them about our journey, much like we're doing today with you. And we've also analysed our supply chain. So for example, one of our suppliers has invested in solar panels because that was a large part of their carbon footprint was in electricity. A huge part of our carbon footprint is in freight. And so how can we reduce our freight? There's a few things, but the big game changer for us was actually setting our warehouse up in Christchurch so that when we're shipping product from Europe, it was going directly to the warehouse in Christchurch and not using any road freight between Auckland and Christchurch or Auckland and the South Island. And that has reduced our carbon footprint for road freight by 15%. Being really aware of air freight, which is a huge carbon footprint, has actually changed the way we do business. So we carry more stock here in New Zealand so that we don't have to go in and use air freight if we're getting low on stock. There are other things that we've done around renewable power supply. So we've swapped power supply to 100% renewable. And also we're looking at the carbon zero website and picking suppliers who are carbon zero. Because of our carbon zero, automatically we're getting the carbon zero benefit from there. So that's actually kind of creating an ecosystem of companies who are all invested in it. So for example, we use Urgent Couriers now who are a carbon zero company. Again, our investment so far, $100,000 with regard to the warehouse in Christchurch and a few other things. But again, when you do the benefit analysis, that actually has a payback of relatively quick time because we will be doing less road freight. So it's challenged our thinking, but it doesn't actually need to be a financially negative thing. Once we've done it, all we can to mitigate the carbon footprint of our factory to our customer base. Are you still seeing that screen? [Shane Clarke] Just lost your PowerPoint there, John. [John Simmons] There we go. Is that all right? [Shane Clarke] No, it hasn't popped up just yet. [John Simmons] Sorry about that. Share the screen again. What are you seeing now? [Shane Clarke] Just popped to present mode. There we go. Yep. OK. [John Simmons] Sorry about that. So once we've slashed our footprint within our own company, then we've looked at our supply chain, trying to mitigate what we're using there and trying to find smarter ways to do our business. We then have to offset the carbon that is still being used within that supply chain. It's kind of a controversial thing for a lot of people. I know I've talked to people who say, oh, you just go carbon zero, you just buy carbon offsets. For me, that's totally the wrong way to think about it. It's actually, I see it as a tax that we're trying to actually eliminate. We're wanting to get our carbon footprint as low as we can so we pay the minimum amount of tax. So we're paying this carbon tax for the non-avoided carbon pollution. So for me, it's a bad thing to have to pay a carbon offset, but it is something that actually creates us a carbon zero footprint in the end. These are done with quality projects through Toitu. We've gone for a mixture of forestry ones, so they're actually planting for the long term, they will actually sequester carbon. And then there was other ones where you're, the international ones where the carbon has been reduced. So it's, for example, might be a diesel generator and you're actually helping to pay out for solar panels. So you actually got a quantifiable real reduction in carbon as a result. So once we've gone through step one, step two, we've done the carbon offset, we can then declare ourselves carbon zero through Toitu. We're really proud of it. When we look through, we're the first company in the construction product sector to have done that. There's lots of other schemes around, but for us, this is a really clear statement of what we've done and what our intention is. And it's from the factory to the building site. So there's also a bit of confusion, does that say our products are carbon zero? Not claiming that, what we're saying is in our supply chain, it's carbon zero. And for those who want, there's a link there. We'll provide this presentation to everyone at the end, but that link takes you through to the full detailed Toitu document that sets everything out. [Shane Clarke] Okay. I've got, I've just had one burning question pop up here, John. I'll interrupt you here. What's the feedback from your staff and what have you done to bring them along on the journey? [John Simmons] Well, actually the staff have, in a large place, challenged us because when we first started this, the feedback was so strong that we couldn't actually go back. It was really clear that it was a desirable thing for the company, for buy-in. Younger members of the staff were very excited, but we even had members of the island community who actually took it as something that was going to benefit them, their whole community. So yeah, once we started the discussion, there was no going back just because the staff were so committed and it really built the Nuralite brand for them. We've also gone and done some kind of smaller things, but also along the same lines of building staff engagement. So for example, we gave an incentive of $500 per employee for doing low carbon transportation. So for example, buying hot cards, for buying scooters to get to work, so that the people who aren't using company electric cars can still find a way to connect to work in a cost-effective, environmentally friendly way. I hope that answers your question. Okay, step three. I think step three is really most interesting step as well. Step one and two is kind of nitty-gritty, trying to figure out what your carbon costs are and carbon footprint is, and mitigating, measuring and managing. Step three though is actually starting to think about how can what we do influence how others behave, how our products influence people, and looking at what you're doing. So I've read about engineering businesses who figure that they can actually make the biggest difference through step three by changing the way they're doing their buildings, or really, really emphasising or pushing their customers to challenging them to build more eco-friendly building. For us, step three is looking about our product selection and how they're being used, and really emphasising trying to push our specifiers and our building owners to build closer to net zero buildings, build much more efficient buildings. The only real way to do that is doing a warm roof system, because if you're doing a cold roof, you're actually allowing all your hot air to escape, which is just nonsensical in today's society. Why would anyone be doing that? And so for us, we actually need to challenge everyone to say, actually, what you're doing is wrong, we need to actually start raising our bar and do better for today and for the future. We're also doing other things with regards to publishing a design guide that demonstrates ways to comply, for example, with architects to clear. So how do you go about reusing a building rather than stripping it down and throwing all the materials away, which is totally wasteful? How can we upgrade buildings? I saw recently Green Building Council publish a press release saying we upgraded 1,200 of the biggest commercial buildings. We would actually save the entire wind generation capacity in New Zealand. And so for me, it's like, well, how do we actually get people to build on the existing buildings so that they're net zero energy as well? I mean, it's actually exciting. It gets us out of bed in the morning. What can we do to do that? We can also talk about green roofs, solar production, and how flat roofs create more livable space. But for us, the key thing we're pushing is the warm roof and trying to get net zero energy roofs, so buildings that actually aren't consuming energy. So I'll just take it down. For those who don't know what a zero energy roof is, I'll just take you quickly through. Zero energy roof is when you're actually putting the insulation outside the building envelope, and you could call it a perfect roof. It's about actually no thermal bridging and having the insulation at a level that is well above New Zealand's building code, because New Zealand's building code is pitifully small, to be blunt. But getting it so that we've got enough insulation on the building so that we're not actually wasting energy heating it or cooling it. I'll just show you a quick slide. This slide's been inspired by SANG architects who are doing work in the passive house area. And as you can see, they've got a number of criteria when you're looking to build a passive house. Weather tightness, air tightness, insulation, thermal bridging, vapour control and cost. And actually when you look at all of those, we don't have time to go through them all today and we can actually happily draw down and do a whole presentation on this. But when you look at all those, a warm roof is superior on every single criteria. And so for us, it's about how do we get our customers, our specifiers, to just by default specify a warm roof. Particularly when it can be done in a cost-effective way that's better than the old way. So that's going to be our biggest challenge this year, is we've done the stuff to reduce our carbon footprint. Now how do we help our customers reduce their customers' carbon footprint? Once you've done that, once you've looked at those six criteria, you have to ask yourself why would you do it the old way? Because this makes no sense. Okay, step four on the Carbon Zero Roadmap is how do we support other companies who are doing good work in this area? How do we use our voice, like we're doing today, to encourage others to go the same way and to point people in the direction of those who are kind of leading the way. So for example, you've got Toitu who have got a group, a community of companies who are all doing the net zero energy thing. New Zealand Green Building Council and Toitu have published a net zero carbon roadmap and so for us it's like well how can we A, change our processes so that we're building buildings that are going to head towards a net carbon zero and how do we use our influence or whatever influence we can to get the net carbon zero roadmap implemented. Even this week we've actually put out a press release highlighting our commitment to the net carbon zero roadmap and just along the same lines of these commercial buildings, getting commercial buildings upgraded as one of the key initiatives that the government could do post this pandemic crisis to invigorate the community and do it in a way that's going to benefit the future generations. Okay, so our challenge to you is what measurable actions are you taking that reduce carbon pollution in your value chain? Our challenge to you is to go, are we just playing lip service? Are we joining schemes and doing a lot of talk or are we actually going out and reducing carbon ourselves? An example is we've been to with our electric vehicles to architect practises who are very sustainable but they have no charging points for electric vehicles and you have to ask well are they walking the walk or are they talking the talk? So our challenge for you is it's 2020. The clock is definitely ticking on carbon. We have to eliminate it and we can't wait for others to do it. We all have to do it ourselves. Yeah, so I'm John Simmons. I've taken 18 minutes so that's my budget. Sorry if it was a wee bit rushed but I really want to, A, get through the content and B, have a chance for anyone to throw up to the floor if anyone's got any questions. [Shane Clarke] You know that's good John and it's good to respect everyone's time commitments too. Everyone's got things to do and they're busy people. I do have a few questions that have come in and I've actually tried to try and combine them up which is good. So I sort of combined this up. What are the next steps for Nuralite and to mix in the other question is have we audited the carbon cost of our products etc? Talking about embodied carbon. [John Simmons] Okay, so two questions. So the first question is around the next steps for us. I think a big part is looking at the construction waste and how do we minimise construction waste and how do we take any excess and put it into the product chain should we say. Why do we find a good use for, for example, the insulation offcuts so that they're not just being put into the skip which is a very common practise. Membrane offcuts and plastic. Currently our plastic wrappings we're sending them off to be recycled and put into a business down in the Wairarapa is turning them into new products. So we know what's actually happening because that's the other thing we don't want to just send it off to a recycler and hope for the best. We actually want to figure out okay what can we do with this product? How can it be used in a productive way and then actually encourage our customers to bring it back so that we can put it into that chain. That's a big one and the other big one is what we've talked about was step three which is really really putting pressure on our customers to talk to their customers and build buildings at a much higher quality that's built for the future rather than necessarily worrying about what have I done in the past. The other question around the carbon of our product. We do have environmental product declarations for the insulation and our membrane that are quite deep and complex and I actually find it quite challenging to compare even a double torch on membrane with a TPO membrane because they both have one's a plastic and one's a bitumen. They each have their pros and cons. So for us our main focus has been actually let's not spend all our time getting down into the nitty-gritty of the carbon component of that but it's actually about how can we really make measurable steps that slash our carbon. But those environmental product declarations are available on our website. So yeah anyone can read them if they wish. [Shane Clarke] Cool. I've still got some questions coming in which is great. As well as Carbon Zero John, what other certifying sort of agencies and certificates have we got? And the example that the person has put here is things like Declare or Redlist Free. [John Simmons] Okay on one of our product lines we have the full Declare. I think it's actually the only waterproofing membrane in literally the world that has the full Declare. [Shane Clarke] Redlist Free, yeah. [John Simmons] Redlist Free. That's our TPO membrane. I know the torch on we don't actually have that level of certification. We've had notes from the supplier that it's Redlist Free but we don't actually have it as a documented certificate on the Declare website. Yeah those are the main certifications that we've got. [Shane Clarke] Okay. Hi Sam. Thanks for your question. Hey Sam's asked how widely are we planning to share our learnings? [John Simmons] Well look. Tell everyone. Yeah yeah. This presentation we've done a couple of times already. I'm more than happy to go and give it to anyone or everyone because for me actually although we had a wee bit of product commentary in there for our specified community here today but actually we've actually got a number of people who aren't even in the architectural profession here. I think it's talking about, a message I'm trying to get across is hey we all have to start. We have to start today. If we think about the roadmap to get from here to zero in 2050, we can't all do it in 2049. The biggest difference that we can make is making differences today because even our experience if we look at once we've cut out the petrol by going 100% electric, how do we make the next move? It actually gets harder and harder to reduce your carbon footprint. And so we should be taking the low-hanging fruit and the easy stuff and I just see in looking in New Zealand when you see these businesses that are doing a big carbon footprint and they could make movement today and they're talking about doing that over the next 10-20 years. It's like we need to do it today. We can't wait because once you've done those ones that's actually the big the next ones are going to be the harder ones to attack. We can't be doing that in 2040. It's too far away. So one of the things I'm trying to encourage people is we have to do it today. I know there's a pandemic on which is a strange thing to kind of have off but for me actually the pandemic, if we put aside the personal costs and look at it more in a macro thing, it's illustrative for us about what we have to do. The government's motto was to go fast and go hard. When it comes to carbon, I think our model is to go slow and go softly. I don't understand it. It's still an emergency. It's a bigger emergency but it's not an immediate emergency and so for us, yeah, come back to your question. I'm happy to have this conversation with everyone and anyone except climate deniers because I have no time for them. I don't have time to convince people that this is a thing because it's a thing. Yeah. [Shane Clarke] Cool. We've got about one minute to go. John, you've got room for one more question. Sorry, we weren't able to get through them all. Do you think that overall that there's a financial benefit to the process or is it simply just an additional cost to doing business? [John Simmons] When we signed up with Toitu, the account manager said to me that people tend to find at the end of the day that they're saving money and I actually thought that was kind of blah blah. It was a salesmanship to try to encourage me but when you get down to it, you can be saving money, be building better, doing it right. Yeah. So, for example, this and the electric cars, it's a big upfront cost. So, for example, we're buying secondhand Leaf 2017 at about $40,000. That's a big commitment. We used to spend $20,000 a car so we're spending $20,000 more than we normally would but you're saving well over $5,000, $5,000 to $10,000 a year in running costs and so the payback is quite quick. So, when you actually put on it through that lens, it does make sense. It's just being compelled to do something rather than sticking with the status quo. So, yeah. I mean, I watched the Red Building Council presentation yesterday which is really good and I love the kind of talk about old thinking and new thinking and how this kind of pandemic has confronted us and made us move to new thinking and stuff like going, well, yeah, okay, I'm going to spend $20,000 and buy a petrol car or $40,000 and buy an electric car. We should be buying a $40,000 electric car. [Shane Clarke] That's good, John. We've done our time so I'm just going to flick out this last poll, hopefully. No, that's all. There we go. This is just a quick poll that asks where you guys are at personally with your carbon zero journey. We've sort of shown you ours. We'd like to see, you know, where you guys are at. So, by all means, fill in that poll. That would be fantastic and we'll leave you on that. So, thank you again, everyone, for your attendance. Yeah, quite a number of people in attendance, which was very humbling. We've got a lot of trees to buy, John. Happy problem. Yeah, all right. Thanks very much, everyone. Remember to be kind to yourself and be kind to others. Thanks very much. Thank you. [John Simmons] Bye.