Check out the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts - Episode 15 is out now!
In this episode, I’m talking with Scott Thomson, who works within the sustainability sector, specifically within education.
The role of the organisation he is working with is to support sustainability specifically in universities and colleges in Scotland, and they work with people right from university level up to the UN.
He has so much valuable information regarding Sustainable Development Goals and how/why governments should be held more accountable, and have more responsibility to place tighter regulations and laws to support climate action, and also what large companies/corporations should be doing to help towards solutions to the climate crisis, rather than drastically contributing to the problem in many cases.
So many interesting perspectives, and he expresses how we, as individuals, shouldn’t feel as if we have to tackle everything alone. There’s so much companies and governments should be held accountable for, and we can’t blame ourselves for the poor systems currently in place.
A Bit About Scott
Scott is from Scotland, and went to university to study ecology and conservation at the University of St Andrews. There was a module in sustainable development (first time he ever really heard about sustainability – 2015 when he graduated).
He didn’t feel sustainability as a term was used as regularly at this time – you heard a lot about climate change, animal rights, human rights, but it was never really linked together under one field.
Upon graduating, he began to work in the wildlife conservation field - for a marine charity in Scotland. His work involved a lot of public engagement, giving talks and raising awareness.
He realised how much more impacted upon wildlife conservation – pollution, plastics, human behaviour etc. so much damage was being done.
He then became an environmental consultant, but he isn’t really a sales person, so this job wasn’t for him.
Currently, he is working for the EAUC (The Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges). The broad role is to support sustainability in university and colleges.
He's working within communications and networks. Getting people together to talk about these important topics.
Students
With the people Scott has been working with, he finds students to be the most engaged in sustainability - really pushing for change.
Students are questioning the practices in place, which prompts this change to happen. It feels to him as though young people are more conscious of these things than he was in university.
Recognising the intersectionality, and connections within sustainability – racial injustices, gender inequality, socioeconomic implications etc. - SUPER IMPORTANT
Scott recognises that students are great at bridging these gaps. They generally seem to have less fear of being wrong, and are much more willing to question. Whereas at a board meeting, people may be more reluctant to speak up for fear of sounding too controversial, or challenging too much.
Intersectionality – students are very aware of this (generally). Bringing these issues to the forefront. It’s all sustainability, all equality, and we need to join these dots and recognise how all of these issues are interconnected.
Gaps Within Education Surrounding Sustainability
An example Scott shared regarding this is how jobs are being created that people haven’t been trained to do. E.g. hydrogen power is a big thing in Scotland. Renewable energy storage possibility.
No one in Scotland is teaching students about hydrogen power in Scotland. This is BIZZARE. Especially as students are still being taught about oil and gas.
They are not teaching for what is planned to exist in the future.
Car mechanic classes are not teaching about electric cars, yet by 2030 a ban will be introduced on petrol cars, so cars will have moved to electric. Electric cars are currently biggest selling cars in UK.
ELECTRIC CARS
Not the best solution …. Cobalt mining is incredibly damaging for the environment and workers (cobalt is needed for batteries in electric cars).
Great to walk, cycle, public transport where you can!!!
“Ultimately, we are not going to get rid of cars for a long time”
Scott explains how electric cars are a positive step, but a lot needs to get better in the production and functioning of the vehicles. He also brought up a point I wasn’t aware of, where old car batteries are reused and being put in houses as a renewable energy store (solar panel storage). At least it is given a longer life this way.
Car tyres are the biggest source of microplastics in Europe!!!! Contested evidence over whether electric cars expel more microplastics.
In the UK, we need to improve public transport!!!
“Some people drive because there’s simply no other option”
Trains, for example, are often not affordable, and many places are not well connected, especially rural areas e.g. my experience growing up in Wales, public transport was incredibly poor. This needs to be addressed.
We need to keep evaluating and questioning the systems in place. There is not one solution to the problem, and some current solutions are stepping stones to better systems.
Responsibility of Governments
Problems with big companies avoiding paying tax – huge problem, but it is legal because the laws in place have too many loopholes. This is such a problematic issue that the government needs to be addressing.
Chinese government – carbon neutral by 2060! This puts world climate targets back on track, which is great news. It's a huge step. The Chinese Government are more likely to achieve the target due to state government. However, China are undemocratic and do have an incredibly bad human rights record, which is a huge issue also.
The UK government has a massive lack of forward thinking, which is why so many issues don't get addressed, as they just pass the problem along to the next government to deal with it.
Do you feel hopeful surrounding current climate targets? Are the targets enough, are they realistic?
Scott is hopeful on some targets. He was waiting to see what would happen at COP26, as this highlights the inequality in our targets. But this has sadly been postponed due to COVID19.
COP26 – not the democratic system you would hope. It's actually a bit of a mess e.g. countries have different numbers of delegates.
In a COP negotiation, you have several votes happening at the same time.
This means if you are a smaller country with fewer delegates, it is impossible for you to have your voice heard on all the issues you may want to contribute a vote for. This is incredibly unfair!
We are consistently failing on biodiversity targets – WWF said we failed on all of them!!
Biodiversity, land, deforestation, oceans. This is so worrying. Biodiversity measures are less quantifiable, you can’t monetise it in the same way so sadly it’s much more ignored as an issue.
Approx. 98% of the biodiversity of planet is humans and farm animals. Only 2% is natural wildlife. This is truly horrific.
US have rolled back environmental laws, lifted a lot of environmental pollution rules ☹ will the laws get reenacted?? We can only hope that they will be.
Constant economic growth is often the biggest priority for companies and governments, but how can this be sustainable on a planet with finite resources?!?
Governments are continuously negating responsibility, and just passing it on to the next government. A huge lack of forward thinking.
Governments need to give companies more of an incentive to change their actions. It’s so saddening many companies don’t care enough to make these changes for moral reasons, but if that’s the case, tighter laws are needed!!
It can be so overwhelming as an individual to feel like you can make a difference among all of this, especially when sometimes you can’t even know what is the most ethical decision to make because it gets so complex.
You can feel powerless, like you lose your choice. Why can’t the information be more readily available?!?
Sadly, the bigger the company, the more they stack the odds against you.
Why is reduced packaging even an option and not just the norm?!? Why don’t bigger companies seem to care? They have too much influence and this is a huge flaw in the system.
Companies could have such a positive impact if they made better choices!!!
We just need to do our best in the situation we are in, try to make changes where you can and encourage others to do the same.
We rant our frustrations of plastics…. Single use plastic packaging… WHY?!?
An interesting perspective on Oatly 'selling their soul'
Oatly (the biggest oat milk brand) sold approx. 7% of their stake to a private equity company called Blackstone.
Blackstone have previously been involved in some very unethical practices, and have gained a poor reputation. The owner/CEO is a Trump supporter also, although 2nd in command supported Biden’s campaign. A lot of the reports are quite ambiguous so it’s complicated to understand the roles they have played.
It’s a complicated story.
Important point – Oatly could have made this money elsewhere, but they consciously chose Blackstone – it may open up new markets for them, but also, now Blackstone have investments in a sustainable company – if that money hadn’t gone to Oatly, perhaps it would have gone to someone worse.
Oatly may have disrupted the market, as now Blackstone have invested in a company with more sustainable focus points.
Until 2016, Blackstone owned all of Jacobs and McVities. They also own a share of Facebook, Whatsapp, a lot of hotels. Even if we object to Blackstone, we need to recognise we are already contributing to them elsewhere.
Blackstone have done many poor, unethical things, but could this be a step in the right direction, investing in Oatly? A big risk on Oatly’s part, but this is a much more complicated situation than initially exposed in the media.
Blackstone’s investment in Oatly does not mean they have any control over how the business is run.
If you boycott Oatly, it is important to consider your alternative purchase. If you buy Alpro instead, Alpro is owned by Denone, which have a massive stake in the dairy industry…. It becomes so much more complicated.
Where do you draw the line? How much guilt can we take for this when it isn’t our fault?
It’s important as individuals that we don’t take all of the responsibility onto ourselves and feel like we have to fix everything on our own.
“This not your fault, you don’t have to fix everything, you are doing fine”
Scott goes on to talk about a recent situation where he was communicating with someone who became very depressed and was suffering from immense climate anxiety, which led down a dark spiral where they sadly became suicidal.
Luckily, they got support which helped them out of this, but it’s so awful that someone can be made to feel so hopeless and feel so much guilt for what isn’t their fault to the point they wish to take their own life, this shouldn’t be the type of world we live in.
People who are caring and thinking so much about how to do better are by definition not the people responsible for these unethical practices.
Our governments, and large companies that have so much influence and power to change things, they need to be held accountable.
“We can only try our best. It’s not up to each individual to solve the climate crisis”
Something which brings Scott (and myself) frustration, is seeing people arguing with others who are working towards the same cause. For example, vegans and non-vegans who both care about the environment, but placing blame on each other to who’s actions have the most negative impact.
It’s not constructive, or productive, to have a thread of people caring about sustainability fighting amongst themselves over who is the most ‘sustainable’.
We should be supporting each other, sharing information, not competing and placing blame on each other.
Even people who get the blame for climate issues e.g. BP (common target). BP were the 21st biggest oil company in the world. They recently sold their plastic manufacturing side.
Per barrel of oil BP aren’t the worst (obviously this doesn’t absolve them of responsibility), but we rarely hear about Saudi Aramco, or NIKO who are the 2 biggest oil companies in the world, only a handful of people have heard of them. Why is this?
Seem to be double standards at play – Saudi Aramco sponsor formula 1, receiving very little in the way of complaints. BP have talks regarding sponsoring COP 26 and there is a considerable negative response from the public.
Surely, when trying to find solutions regarding the climate crisis, those who are contributing massively to the problem should be in these discussions to learn why and how they need to do better.
How do you find a little bit of Lagom?
Scott loves being outdoors in wildlife (weather permitting). But on a typical day, Scott has a fish tank and finds it really lovely and calming to just sit and watch the fish.
It’s a weird phenomenon but we tend to develop feelings of calm when surrounded by living things. Great to have plants around to support well-being as well.
That comfort of feeling somewhat connected to nature is what brings Scott his little bit of Lagom.
Final message – keep trying your best, and try not to take all the responsibility of the world, and all the guilt on yourself. Be kind to yourself and you can only do the best you can.
Thank you so much to Scott for so many interesting perspectives and informative insights.
If you would like to find out more about what Scott does, you can find him on Instagram @sustainabilityscott
Resources:
Petrol and Diesel car sales ban by 2035 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-51366123
Electric Cars Pros and Cons - https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51977625
China's net zero emissions target by 2060 - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/05/china-plan-net-zero-emissions-2060-clean-technology
Japan becoming carbon neutral by 2050 - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/26/japan-will-become-carbon-neutral-by-2050-pm-pledges
WWF biodiversity targets missed - https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?850241/World-fails-to-meet-decade-long-biodiversity-targets-as-unequivocal--loss-of-biodiversity-reported
Chinese fishing armarda in waters surround galapagos Islands - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/17/chinese-fishing-armada-plundered-waters-around-galapagos-data-shows
Trump allowing companies to pollute without penalties - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/27/trump-pollution-laws-epa-allows-companies-pollute-without-penalty-during-coronavirus
Post discussing Blackstone - https://www.instagram.com/p/CFSvTpLne2o/?igshid=17anrjk11fdhr
Climate Anxiety - https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/explorations/blogs
Oil Company size ranking - https://www.instagram.com/p/CFE910SnMUH/?igshid=9a9hnlov7xid
Fossil fuel sponsors of COP26 - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/01/uk-held-private-talks-with-fossil-fuel-firms-about-glasgow-cop26
If you have any thoughts or comments, I’d love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram @alittlebitoflagom, or drop an email to alittlebitoflagom@gmail.com
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