Vegan Tapas, Strong Leadership, and Sustainable Secret Santa 🎅
We caught up with Val Martell from NRI to discuss the success of implementing their sustainability strategy.
At Alectro, we've been lucky enough to work with some great organisations on their sustainability strategies, and this is an opportunity to showcase some of the fantastic initiatives that they’re doing to transition to a low carbon economy.
Nuclear Risk Insurers (NRI) is a global leader in nuclear insurance and provides specialist solutions for the civil nuclear industry at over 300 nuclear sites around the world. Since 1956, NRI has been working to help protect operators, people, society, and businesses in the extremely rare event of a nuclear incident.
Our first guest is Val Martell, an Engineering Surveyor at NRI. We’ve been working closely with Val for the past few years and she has been instrumental in making NRI's project a success. We spoke to her about the journey NRI has been on, the success of the project so far, some of the challenges and surprises, as well as getting her advice on how a company should start a project like this.
We’ve summarised the interview below. [B] indicates Bertie talking, while [V] indicates Val.
Q: What prompted NRI to start its sustainability journey?
[V] I think there were a few starting points: As you know, our chairman is very passionate about the whole subject of nuclear and carbon neutrality.
Because we are part of the nuclear industry, we very much believe that we should do our bit and that NetZero and more broadly the sustainability agenda should become integral to our activities.
Our Managing Director also had pressure from his young adult children about what he was doing as somebody who leads within our industry, and what was he doing in to decarbonise his organisation?
Q: What are the key ambitions for the project?
[V] The first one is to look at ourselves and achieve carbon neutrality for our own business before we can expand what we’re trying to achieve.
Following that, the second ambition we've always had has been to challenge and encourage others regarding their sustainability. This is something that we’re very actively engaged in right now.
And the third ambition is to show support to our industry’s overriding goals. Through providing insurance, we provide a social licence to nuclear operators for existing and new reactor technologies. And that's really where the main savings in carbon emissions will be in the long term, so it's crucial to see the small picture as well as the big picture.
(On Ambitions) The first one is to look at ourselves and achieve carbon neutrality for our own business before we can expand what we’re trying to achieve.
Q: Do you think the project has changed how people have worked?
[[V] Within NRI, it has definitely changed the way we do work, although of course, the response to the pandemic has driven a lot of change as well. Traditionally, because we provide support internationally, our work has involved international travel. And during 2020, as we all know, that was curtailed somewhat.
But because of what we've learnt through the pandemic going forward, I think there's going to be much more of a challenge on whether travel is necessary. Some of it will, of course, remain necessary because we have to travel overseas to carry out insurance surveys and meet with some of the other insurance pools. But I think going forward, there will be much, much more of a challenge because one of the silver linings from the pandemic is it showed people that video conferencing can be successful. You don't always need to meet people in person.
I think there's going to be a much more challenge of whether travel is necessary
Q: How was the transition to virtual surveys?
[V] The virtual surveys were OK, but we would never want to replace physical surveys entirely. Visiting the site is such an important part because everything about the site is important to assess the insurance risk, not just the fixed site parameters like its type, age and location. It's the feel of the place when you get there, too. I don't think we'll ever stop doing physical surveys, and so this will still need some international travel.
We can make carbon savings through better planning, though. If we're travelling to Asia, for example, we could try and make sure that there is more than one survey carried out back to back so you don't have to take two flights. So there are things we can do to make it more efficient, certainly, and we will be factoring that in.
There are also other places for savings - it's the meetings and discussion sessions that I think we can make more improvements at.
We can make carbon savings through better planning
[B] I think for NRI especially, to realise that with better visibility and access to the data, you can make some decisions around the meetings and get-togethers. You can make decisions about when you do those surveys, and ultimately be satisfied that journeys are necessary journeys - and you can only really do that once you have the data.
Q: In of the data and understanding your own footprint, were there any parts of that that were particularly surprising?
[V] I think probably for me, it was the fact that more than 80 percent is due to international travel, and only 10 percent was commuting, and only 10 percent in the office. I think I was quite surprised that our existing office arrangements were so carbon-friendly. Obviously, the landlord had already been thinking about this. Overall, I think the overriding impact of international travel was possibly something that I hadn't expected.
[B] I think you raise another interesting point there about what you said about the landlord doing things already. One of the biggest surprises people often get is they think electricity and heating will be the biggest contributors. They’re the obvious components that we’re brought up thinking about when we talk about emissions. Actually, a lot of these companies are in buildings where building/facilities management have already got some great policies in place to make some changes. And so then, a lot of where your impact comes from is actually down to your own very specific emissions, which for NRI focussed on international travel.
Q: Would you agree that the first step to making the right decisions is the most important step? To make sure you have all the knowledge in front of you so you can understand what is necessary and what is not?
[V] Yeah, I think the quantification part is very important because it provides context for the company. For us, the fact that not everybody in the company travels means we had to do something to engage the individuals in the organisation who felt that they couldn't contribute to our sustainability journey just because they didn't carry out international travel as part of their work. This is why we broadened our approach to be more than just about the carbon footprint, and to be more about lifestyle as well and all the things that we can change to become more sustainable, like single-use plastics and not wasting any resources at all.
[B] I think it’s such an important part of that journey as well that ultimately you want everyone and everybody to feel empowered and everyone to feel like they're part of that journey. I wonder if you could talk through a few other initiatives you’ve done to engage everyone?
[V] Yes! So earlier in the year, we had a vegetarian week. We weren't trying to make everybody go meat-free, but we were just suggesting that people could consider a reduction in their meat consumption. We had people posting recipes, and we made a bit of a competition for people to post their creations during the week. We had a teams channel set up, and at the end of the week had a small prize based on company-wide voting!
The winner was vegan tapas. I think it involved quite a lot of preparation, but it was worth it, I’m sure!
We also made other small changes like changing our core working hours so that people could avoid peak times for travelling, and this would make it easier for people to use bikes or walk for parts of their commute.
Q: Do you think that was the biggest challenge to engagement was finding things that everyone could relate to?
[V] Yeah, I think because such a high proportion of our carbon footprint has been due to international travel, if people weren’t travelling as part of their NRI work, that they might think “well, this doesn't apply to me”.
So it was very much about trying to make people think well any small thing is good. There are no wrong answers. Nobody knows what the right answer is, but certainly, we're not going to tell somebody their sustainability suggestion is the wrong answer. And so small things are just as important as big, big changes.
Small things are just as important as big, big changes.
We've talked a lot about sustainability in reducing waste. One of the other ideas came from a colleague who is a tennis coach and so they bring any used tennis balls that be can reused as dog toys. So it's just simple things like that, anything that reduces waste.
In fact, our Secret Santa this year involves no buying of new presents. We've got to bring in either homemade or second-hand gifts from Secret Santa. And that was a direct suggestion from one of our employees as well.
[B] That's why it's a really nice thing. It gets people thinking so much deeper as well, rather than just being a pure, transactional change. Sustainability policies and sustainability journeys go far beyond just box-ticking and moving on. They go far deeper into people's lives, and they get people thinking a little bit about what the future world looks like and how to hopefully enhance and improve their lives.
[V] Yes, it is. We've got a Teams channel set up where people have been posting all sorts of things on there recently; about composting fallen leaves and buying and not buying Christmas trees, or hiring Christmas trees.
[B] Another great idea, and one that’s come completely naturally after embedding sustainability into the culture of a company.
Q: If you were going to recommend somebody else in the industry or somebody else in a similar situation wanting to start their journey, what sort of advice do you think that you'd give them?
High-level leadership acting as champions and being very enthusiastic and passionate about the journey.
[V] Well, I think the first place is that you need to understand exactly what your own carbon footprint is. You need somebody to quantify that for you.
When I've spoken to people about what we’ve done a lot of people said they didn’t know you could quantify what your carbon footprint is. And then people don't really have much of an understanding about what is a typical CO2 footprint per person, or per industry. So a quantification of what your business does and how that compares to others in the same field. Then, I think once you've got that, then you can decide how sustainability goals would work best in your organisation.
At NRI, the issue was that such a high proportion of future international travel and that it ultimately excluded half of the workforce. So we had to expand the sustainability programme so that it was much more sustainable, much more about sustainability rather than just about the carbon footprint.
I think, of course, high-level leadership acting as champions and being very enthusiastic and passionate about the journey is a crucial component.
[B] I think that's the start of it, isn't it? Knowing that people who are putting in work and putting in effort and putting in the time to really understand that this is going to have the support from the top. It is really important as well.
So thank you very much for joining me and talking us through the journey. I think it's a great opportunity for other companies to see what you've done to think about the nuances that you went through to go to get to this stage. It's great to see that technical analysis has filtered all the way down to the Secret Santa!
Thank you again to Nuclear Risk Insurers, and we're looking forward to sharing the next champion in our Climate Champion series before too long!
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