WEBVTT - Consumers and Climate Action 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.000 Hi, this is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switch 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.840 It on the B n OF podcast. For a lot 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.000 of us who look at climate and emissions data, I 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:10.200 think many of us have a moment where they think, 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.000 how are my actions having an impact on warming? It 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.320 certainly happened for me a few years back, and I 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.439 tried to go on a carbon diet, if you will. 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.680 I started by looking at movements all around me for 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:25.520 an inspiration. There were the zero waste folks, the vegans, 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.480 the different shared economy business models, and the second hand options. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.040 Then were the things that I needed to do to 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.000 upgrade my life, like how I heat and insulate my 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:39.000 home and looking at my transportation choices. It was a 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:41.320 long list, and in all honesty, it took me a 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.519 year of incremental changes to evaluate all of these aspects 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.200 and guess what, I am still not personally net zero, 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.280 not without carbon offsets. So where I landed at the 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:53.920 end of this year of carbon dieting was that my 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.160 actions were really a little bit less about the individual 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.480 missions gains and more about the consumer markets signals I 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.200 was sending to companies. It was about what I was 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.840 and wasn't buying. My story is not unique, nor is 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.280 it unique to people focused on climate. So today I 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.040 speak with Hugh Bromley, who focuses on consumer trends for 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.679 us at b an EF. He recently wrote a research 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:21.120 note titled Boycotts Bycotts, Lifestyle Choices and Discursive Acts. Today, 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.640 we're going to talk about some of this framework and 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.320 the examples of things that people are doing right now 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.959 in regard to these categories. Hughes research really tends to 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.479 focus on surveys and he'll talk of it today about 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.679 what they might be telling us about what people are 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.160 thinking and doing. As a reminder, b any F does 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:40.640 not provide investment or strategy advice, and we've got a 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.120 full disclaimer at the end of the show. Also, if 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:44.560 you get to the end of the show and you 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:46.680 decide you want to read the research that he is 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.240 referring to, it can be found at b NF go 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.000 on the Bloomberg terminal on BNF dot com, or via 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.480 our mobile app for our subscribers. And now let's speak 0:01:55.520 --> 0:02:07.160 with you. So Hugh, thanks for joining today. Let's start 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.120 a little bit by explaining what it is that you 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.560 focus on researching at b A d F. Because it's 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:18.040 not our usual technology adoption and looking forward price curve 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.160 sort of situation. What is your primary area focus at 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.200 the moment? I have had a little bit of unusual 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.960 role at being as you say, where my primary focus 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.880 is producing analysis on consumers. It's not marketing research or 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.880 market research per se. I'm really thinking about consumers as 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.600 a vector for transition and decompanization. So that's you know, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.280 how to choose to climate change and energy and transport 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.880 technologies and how their behavior is affecting the pace of 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.480 change in the speed of decompanization. This is a topic 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:46.960 that I'm keenly interested in, but I think you have 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.200 a much bigger theme within this, which is how do 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.640 all those little actions that are leading us closer but 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.000 not personally actually there in many regards to that zero, 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.000 How does that have a potentially larger impact on the 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.720 political and corporate environment that we all exist in. So 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.760 let's start by asking what is a political consumer? Which 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.440 is a deliberate term that you used throughout your research 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.959 on this topic. Political consumer changes over time for each topics, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.160 and we think about climate change, it starts off with 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.400 a pretty fringe group of society caring about a topic, 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.239 right at the edge of the social radar climate change 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.240 of different environmental issues. But over time those ideas become 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.160 more mainstream around admissional reduction or around the emissions related 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.600 to big consumption, for example. And as they do, obviously 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:39.600 the population involved, the populace that cares about this topic grows, 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.760 enters what we call the lifestyle politics of that minority, 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.480 and still it keeps growing and growing, and suddenly there's 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.120 critical mass the political landscape that changes the commercial landscape 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.640 as well, where companies see an opportunity and cater into 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.280 this growing minority soon to be a majority by offering 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.400 new products and services and thinking about their own supply 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.640 chains and how they need to evolve to not be 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.080 called out within there. So you created a bit of 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.000 a framework in which to think about what are the 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:07.520 different things that political consumers actually can and are doing 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.680 currently and where those might actually exist within the climate 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.960 change space, because that is a specific lens you're looking 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.200 at it. You talk a little bit about that framework 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.800 with us. Political consurism as a concept has existed for 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.359 many decades now, and there's examples of political consumerism dating 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.400 back to British settle in India and different trade disputes 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.520 through the environmental movement of the nineteen fifties sixty seventies. 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.479 The framework has been used for media finishes before, but 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.080 really what we're done here in this piece of research 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.520 is applied to climate change. The four ways that consumers 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:43.039 can act in response to political matters are defined as 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.840 Boycott's pretty simple. You choose not to consume a product 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:47.760 or a product group or a brand. They can be 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.960 bi coots, let's be buy cots, and those by coots 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.680 are a little bit different. Sometimes it involves ring fencing 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:59.520 only buying products that are certified green power or certified 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.760 be Corp, for example, or it could be more broader 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.520 than that, by cots of solar storage or technologies of Tesla. 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.600 Then you've got discursive actions. And this is really not 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:11.920 so much about what you buy or you don't buy it, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.000 but it's about how you communicate your consumption choices. It's 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:19.120 about imposing those beliefs on others, generally by making fun 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.960 of a corporation, a brand, or a politician and there 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.400 in many cases greenwashing. And finally you've got lifestyle choices. 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.680 This lifestyle choice is going to compass everything, but it's 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:33.320 where you see cobalt to the population avoiding flying, avoiding needs, 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.640 electrifying their homes, or you know, some cases, going off grid. 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.159 So let's stay fit a little bit on the discursive 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.520 actions part, because I think that's one that might be 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:44.880 very new to us conceptually, or at least you know what. 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:46.680 I'm not going to speak for other people. It's new 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:48.960 to me conceptually, but it's something that actually, now that 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.600 you bring it up, it is really obvious that it's 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.560 we're surrounded by it because we live in this increasingly 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.760 technology filled world where we spend an inordinate amount of 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:04.400 times actually interacting on our phones and looking at different messaging, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.400 not just advertising, but like different people's agendas on whether 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.560 it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or a variety of other 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.159 much hipper apps that I'm sure people younger than we 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.480 actually use. So what is an example of something that 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.400 we might see that like a polluter parodying is one 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:22.640 of the areas that you looked to our social media movements. 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.240 Would something like a meat free Monday be considered a 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.880 social media movement? I could say that a lot a 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.600 lifestyle action in many cases where you're engaging a certain 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.000 population or community in changing their behavior. When we think 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:40.120 about discursive actions, we're thinking more about a way of 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.839 picking an antagonist and really reversing the script on them, 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.000 and we see this all around. Actually there's been as 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.719 much discursive actions, I think as there has been greenwashing 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.719 is you know, played climate discussions for years. But you know, 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:54.320 an example would be if you walk around any of 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.919 the cops cities and the most recently Glasgow billboards posted 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:02.120 across the city, you know, really pulling out brands like NatWest, 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.559 like Shell, like Standard, Jot and Jagua Landerer. So they're 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.640 you know, what's perceived or conveyed to be their greenwashing, 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.920 and they're a false script on the action they're taking 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:16.280 on climate change. There actually was a Twitter butt on 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:21.000 International Women's Day when people activated the butt by tagging 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.560 it to a Twitter feed where someone said Happy Women's Day. 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.920 Their gender pay gap number was automatically inserted by the 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.720 Twitter butt. That be considered a discursive action, yeah, I 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.360 would think. So, you know, they're really innovative, they're engaging, 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.520 they're normally comical. They're not going to appeal to everybody. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.280 They are really just about getting a message out there 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.800 to they already believers. Uh and potentially highlighting a problems 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.600 outbuts so on discursive actions, they're almost always intended to 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.840 send a signal to the company that they're specifically talking about. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.640 And yes, there is a public sentiment element to it 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.160 where you're trying to rally others, but you're also sending 0:07:56.160 --> 0:08:01.560 a very deliberate message to either consumer or political group. Yeah, 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.360 I think that's right. So clearly the main audience here 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.040 is the climate engaged and the company being targeted, and 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.320 it's the pressure there c suite and executive to make 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:15.280 it just the change the behavior. As you said before, 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.440 they're monitoring their socials to see how much negative feedback 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:23.280 there is. If these you know, engaging billboards and tweets 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.920 and marketing campaigns get picked up by mass menia and 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.200 center and viewed by by thousands or hundreds of thousands 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.360 of millions of people, then suddenly that's extremely powerful and 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.000 potentially more powerful in their own brand in many cases 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.000 their own marketing efforts, and there's the expectation that there 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.600 will be a response. It's a distraction to their core 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.760 business and the way of avoiding that is the change. 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:50.360 Now for a very short break, stay with us. One 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.680 of the things that I read recently was about the 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:59.000 tagging within social media. So let's say Instagram and negative 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:03.080 Instagram post, and it was in the tens of thousands, 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.920 not hundreds of thousands, where a negative reaction to something 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:12.000 actually started to get a response from the marketing team 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.000 essentially at that company, and then would escalate it upward. 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.680 So getting the eyes of a company on their consumers, 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.000 which you know, the most important stakeholders in many respects, 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.200 is actually something that happens more quickly than you might 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.160 think because they're quite sensitive to what it is those 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.320 consumers think about, particularly in the consumer discretionary space, how 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.520 they're tied to that brand. But let's talk a second 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.200 actually about the boycotts and bycotts. So we're thinking boycotts 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.080 are the things we don't buycots are the things we 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.400 do buy, and what sort of market signals those may send. 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.559 But how about lifestyle choices? How would you say lifestyle 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:50.679 choices differ from these boycotts and bycotts. They generally bit 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.160 more all encompassing. So it's not just about buying a 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.559 certified componutral products. It's about changing your loss job obviously, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.520 and being inconvenience in order to make your point at 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:03.800 the slight shaming movements out of Northern Europe is a 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.240 classy example here vegan and vegetarians and where it is 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.640 tied to a driver are examples of lifestyle movements. As 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.720 I mentioned earlier, you could trace this back to far 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.400 more fringe groups, you know, living off grid or in 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:22.840 isolated communities, living an environmentally friendly lifestyle. So in this 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.920 we have identified the different things that people are and 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:31.000 can do within within this space in order to influence. 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.400 But my question really is how do we measure it 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.640 and what sorts of things do you look at to 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.160 see whether or not these are significant things to be 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.320 watched by the political and corporate environment. I tend to 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.200 measure things through survey, and surveys are fraud beasts in 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.480 that you know what people say and what people do 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.080 is not always the same thing. Certainly, there's an agel 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.640 saying that the perception is reality. So really, as a 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:00.240 forward indicator, perception of how people view companies of happy 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.440 with your policies and politicians will shape their reality more 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.400 so than data of what has happened in the past. 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:09.679 And through that lens we can be a number of 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.120 people who are adopting different technologies for different reasons, for example, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.000 through survey or the number of people who have positive 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.680 or negative opinions of a politician, of a policy, of 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.720 a corporation, of a corporate action. And it all informs 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.000 a view of can you consume a driver and how 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.600 much activity and behavior might just be economic and rational, 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.440 and how much might be taken to us into account 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.320 some sort of other X factor or disengagement of the 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.640 political discourse. What are some of the more interesting surveys 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.400 that you've looked at as a fleet? I highlight the 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.679 surveys have flagged a couple of problems in the way 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:48.880 we talk about climate change. Generally speaking, the surveys highlight 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.760 that climate change in the environment are conflated and one 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.720 of the same water pollution is treated the same as 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.840 coal emissions, and therefore the symptoms, causes, and solutions climate 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.480 change are really not abvious to people and their actions 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.920 they're spending. Their actions might be totally misdirected towards what 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.280 they feel activities that will benefit the climate in some way. 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.040 There's certainly willingness or increase willingness to pay for those 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.679 products and solutions. But if you don't know where to 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:16.319 spend the money or if you're misdone and a way 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.839 to spend the money. We're obviously getting some poor outcomes. 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.720 Let's talk a little bit about the political part of it. 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.000 The term is political consumer and what we've talked about 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.560 thus far. You brought up politicians, but I'm really seeing 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.800 this is much more sending signals to companies in particular 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.480 again in the consumer and consumer discutionary space. How does 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:41.760 this influence politicians and how closely are they watching boycotts, 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.720 by cuts, lifestyle choices in terms of how they're not 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.320 just formulating policy, which is really important, but also forming 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.000 their platform for election and re election. To talk about 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:57.199 companies first and clearly, within political consumerism, the company can 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.640 be the antagonists. It can be That's how I got 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:01.480 on all Board that he has made a mockery of 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.000 because of their green washing. They can also be the consumer. 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.679 And in the final stage of put consumerism, really, when 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.319 you're going through those fringe groups society into a larger 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.640 minority into the majority, the corporations ultimately change as well 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.240 and pressure their supply chain, and they become the catalyst 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.160 that change. They become the force here. I think political 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.360 consurers is pretty apparent to me. Within my time of 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.559 being effort I have recalcissant governments have followed me around. 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.280 I suppose you know. I started here in Australia shortly 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.760 within a year or so, the Tony Abbott was elected 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.480 Prime Minister and quickly tore up the carbon pricing regime 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.560 that we had in place at the time. I moved 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:37.920 to the US. Within a year, Donald Trump was elected 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.560 to up a clean power plan and drew from the 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.720 Paris Accord. With each of those advance the immediate local 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.679 reaction was we're moving enormously backwards. There's three or four 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.559 years of backwards stepping on climate change and climate policy 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.120 before there's any hope of change. And actually, what we 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.360 saw in both cases, in Australia and in the US 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.600 some of the most recalcistant administrations were seen in the 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.960 Western world, is that some slack and not all, but 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.440 some slack was taken up by consumers and corporations taking action, 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.400 and cities and organizations and others as well. But they 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:11.880 took up the slack as a message to those politicians 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.200 that we still care. In Australia, you know, when their 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.640 carbon pricing raising was torn up. We had no carbon 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.960 policy there for a while, we had front page news 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.040 story saying that we had the highest power prices in 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.360 the world. It was attributed by the politicians to carbon pricing, 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.080 but really it's pretty obvious to everybody now that it 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.640 was network spending and a very high exchange right, very 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.640 strong dollar that was leading to those record of power prices. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.440 But that didn't change the social impression that it was 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.480 the climate policy and the action that was taken by 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.160 many consumers to say, we're still going to invest in 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:46.920 solar an investment solo, either because we don't like our 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.200 power company for price gauging us or for not taking 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.880 climate action, or we don't like this government again for 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.560 not taking climate action. That wasn't everybody installed solar. It 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.680 was around a fifth percent of customers installed as a 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:02.440 political message. Around four fifth was economics driven and they admitted. 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.640 So it is a significant minority twenty of the population 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.160 in the US. You have very similar stories when you 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:09.640 have the kind of the we are still in it 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.920 movement that was started up the Trump announced you would 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:17.360 withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, and you've got city states, colleges, churches, 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.160 everyone's saying we will commit to a pathway consistent with 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.280 one and a half degree warning and take action toward it. 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.320 And some of those actions work economic anyway, but many works, 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.800 many were two or three years ahead of the economics 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.800 really making sense on such a pledge, and yet they 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.920 made that decision anyway, and that maintained the political pressure 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.920 such that not all was lost. Now for a very 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.680 short break, stay with us. One of the things I 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.720 think that we see very clearly in our analysis across 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:48.960 the varied deems that we have at being the efforts 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.840 that there is no one single thing that is the 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.200 most important thing. There is this kind of concept that 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.720 generally you have this archway and each stone is interdependent 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.280 on each other to hold each other up. And I 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.520 know that this is definitely one of those the political 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:09.080 consumer space as it interrelates then with politics and with companies, 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:14.240 but specifically as we head now into what is a progressed, 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.080 high inflation environment, and some of these technologies, as you're 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.360 pointing out, technologies are actually products that are considered to 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:25.920 be greener, cleaner. Adoption may slow down as people have 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.560 less discretionary income to spend on these things or spare 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.560 income to spend on kind of things that are more expensive. 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:40.320 How important is the political consumer space in driving change 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.440 because you referenced that at some point it picked up 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.120 the lap when you know the politics backed away from 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:51.000 looking at this in certain geographies. Will we be able 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:56.080 to have the same progress on reaching certain climate goals 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:01.520 if this ends up becoming a decrease in element of 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.760 I guess the change nexus that we're looking at inflation 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:06.840 is a good place to start. Actually, it was obviously 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.600 contemporary topics, and I think it will drive change. When 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.000 people drive past and see fuel prices they haven't seen ever, 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.280 or haven't seen in at least ten years, they're going 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.399 to make decisions. Very few, I would argue, we're going 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.119 to do the calculation of workout whether an e V 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.680 makes sense of its day. But enough will be outraged 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.439 at the fact that politicians are still levying fuel exercises 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.760 on them whilst petrol prices are so high, or outraged 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.280 that fuel companies are a price gouging them, you know, 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.560 oblivious to the greater macro picture, and they'll make a 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.159 decision to purchase electric vehicle regardless. Now that might not 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.200 be driven by climate, maybe it will be a factor. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.160 I'm sure there is political consumerism going on right now 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.200 around inflation and particularly energy inflation with climate benefit. That's 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.280 a really good point because I'm thinking about the high 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.560 gas prices at the moment, and then this whole discussion 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.439 around heat pumps and how difficult in some geographies they 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.560 can be to install. And actually I know a few 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.160 people who are essentially pushing extra hard through that paper 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:06.119 were given the current economic and political crimeate around what 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:10.080 is you know, fraught pipelines of natural gas from eastern 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.399 to to western Europe. I was thinking about it as 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.080 people probably would spend less on greener things. But you 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.639 raise a really good point. A may spur additional action 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.359 in other areas. They need to be able to afford it, 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.960 so certainly, so that's that point is not lost. But 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.239 given the capability to afford to make that decision, and 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.760 we're talking about you know, fringe to to to larger 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.720 minorities of the population here, action will not always be 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.439 driven by economics. That we've driven by a political statement 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.000 or a statement to corporations that the status quo isn't 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.399 working and change needs to happen. So you've got a 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.320 couple of case studies in here that I think are 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:45.760 worth highlighting. So maybe we could go into those in 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.719 some detail. But let's talk about California households and the 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:54.200 bi cuts of pv SO photovoltaic home solar and backup 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:58.160 batteries and some regards which I know have become useful 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.080 as a alternative of two backup generators. There have been 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.640 some power outages that have continued over the last few 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:09.359 years in California, specifically due to things like buyers and winds. 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.440 What has happened in California that that's a sophisticated by 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:16.800 cut market, is it not? I think it is. I 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.000 think it is of multiple technologies. But you know, the 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.880 conflation of different events around, you know, around the period 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:30.960 was really interesting California because clearly you had solar already economic, 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.040 and for most consumers you had storages really being pushed 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.280 and new intenses in place, so economic drivers improving. But 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.879 beyond that, the political landscape had just changed. Trump is 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.040 in his second year in office and in becoming he's 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.920 announced he's going to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.680 and meanwhile California face its most destructive wildfire season ever 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.560 forty seven lives or lost. Ten thousand buildings or more 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.080 were destroyed, and there was a bit of a movement there. 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.200 You know, there was a strong uptake in all the 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.920 storage to go after those fires. Plus some other liabilities 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.880 incurred by the local power company, Pacific Gas and Electric, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.760 ultimately led to their bankruptcy. So suddenly you have these 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.200 two antagonists. You're PG and E, and you had a 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.119 federal government who was moving backward on climate change, and 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.240 meanwhile you're facing what you see as the most destructive 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.200 and cataclysmic climate events in history. It was only a 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.719 year later there were more wildfires and more damage than 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.000 the political response was to the Trump criticized the California 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.720 authorities for not breaking the forest. So when there's that 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:32.560 sort of political discourse, there is going to be a 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.320 consumer action. It helped that the economics were great, of 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.639 course it did, but you saw these other nudges. And 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.800 in consumer behavioral science we always talk about nudges, and 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.639 the political nudge here was actually to do nothing or 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:46.920 to pretend it wasn't a problem. And that was enough 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.439 of a nudge for the engage and the educator to 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.280 make a decision to adopt technology. Then let's talk also 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.600 about another case study that you referenced a little earlier 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.840 regarding in the Nordics flake shaming, and some airlines have 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.520 seen it as a threat, other airlines have actually taken 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.960 it head on. So KLM lunch this Fly Responsibly campaign 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:10.320 that actually addresses and embraces a little bit this flight 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.680 shaming mentality that's going on at the moment. What sort 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.239 of changes have the surveys that you looked at, how 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:20.040 people responded to this, and is this pressure or potentially 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.000 virtue signaling, is it working and is it changing people's patterns. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.359 Flight shaming or at least flight avoidance is larger than 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.400 people expect. And the flight shaping movement was a very 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.320 Northern European movement at first, a little bit elitist. It 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.400 was a bunch of local celebrities talking about their boycott 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.240 of plane and travel because of emissions. It's spread across 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:41.840 Western Europe. But really we're seeing science that all around 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.639