Ask ME: Recent Episodes
Mitsubishi Electric
The Ask ME podcast is brought to you by Mitsubishi Electric's Corporate Solutions Team. Join your hosts as they speak with a range of fantastic guests discussing a range of topics including sustainability in the built environment, decarbonisation of public sector buildings, indoor air quality and the importance of building ventilation, and the industry changes that are needed to achieve netzero.
Join Dan Smith, Martin Fahey, Chris Newman, and Mark Grayston as they discuss the problem of stranded assets in the built environment and how companies & building owners can avoid the impending pitfalls.
In this episode, Mike Egan and James Harman are joined by Marin Fahey, Head of Sustainability for Mitsubishi Electric UK & Ireland to discuss the topic of decarbonisation. They discuss Mitsubishi Electric own developments in this area and its Decarbonisation pledge and how other companies can kick start their decarbonisation journeys.
Mike Egan 00:11
All right. Welcome to the new series of ask me 2022. Myself, Mike Egan, Business Development Manager for Corporate Solutions.
James Harman 00:19
And myself, James Harman, also a business development manager in the Corporate Solutions team,
Mike Egan 00:25
and our guest today,
Martin Fahey 00:26
I'm Martin Fahey, I'm the head of sustainability for Mitsubishi Electric, UK and Ireland.
Mike Egan 00:34
Well, first of all, thank you guys for turning up today. So we're in the sunny Birmingham office. And the reason we're here is to talk about a topic of decarbonisation. Something which is talked by widely now. But if I go back when I joined nine years ago, Mitsubishi Electric, something which I never came across, I don't know. Same with yourself terms.
James Harman 00:58
Yeah, really, really interesting topic. Up until the last couple of years. It's it's something I hadn't come across. But it's something that clients are asking us how we can help their business, what solutions we can offer. And they're also interested in what Mitsubishi Electric are doing for decarbonisation within our organisation.
Mike Egan 01:18
Yeah, that rings true self, in fact, so you know, moving into this new role, and being more client focused is that this is the hot topic. It's the nothing, no conversation will not will always have this in mind. And one thing which I was conscious of, we've just been through last year ended last year there was COP26. So that raised the stakes in terms of people understanding about decarbonisation, and what that's around around the UK. But I think what we're, you know, what the idea of this day is to, is to look basically, inwardly and look at what Mitsubishi Electric have been doing. So we have the the pleasure of Martin with us today. So what we're going to do, Martin is going to, you know, have a few questions of fire here. And tell us a little bit more about what Mitsubishi Electric has been up to.
Martin Fahey 02:07
Of course, yep. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. We've been on this journey now as Mitsubishi Electric for a lot of years, I was the sustainability manager, we call it the Green gateway manager role within our living environmental systems. Business, some 13 years ago now was the first time we we set ourselves out the ambition, I suppose to say, look, we could see this was a growing issue for us in our markets within that part of our business at the time, we are a solutions provider to buildings of every size, whether you live work or play in it. And we could see back then, that the discussion was evolving very much around how can we make these buildings at the time it was a straight discussion about efficiency. But that has grown. As your introduction highlighted there, Mike, I was fortunate enough to be at the copy events in Glasgow. And I came away from those with fired up really with a very clear understanding that governments, the UN bodies have set us the trajectory, we know where we need to go. Now we need to radically reduce our impacts as civilians as companies and as countries. But what I came away very much with was an understanding that it will be us as companies who are going to have to lead this lead this charge and make the changes required. So delighted to be here and looking forward to the discussion.
Mike Egan 04:04
So just just touching on cop 26. Did you find that do people go away knowing how to go ahead and look at this approach, you know, in terms of d carbon and net zero? Is there any you know, strategy you already had in mind? Or will people kind of ask them questions, so I know what we need to do. But how do I do it?
Martin Fahey 04:26
Well, it might be worth just highlighting the cop process. A cop stands for Conference of the Parties. And it brings together the countries of the world some around 200 Different nations all together every year to look at this. This problem that we all face, and cop 15 was in Paris and that is often referred to because it was there that those nations all agreed that we need to work together to make sure the global temperatures do not rise above an average of two degrees above pre industrial levels, and preferably keep that to be within one and a half degrees. And that was very much the focus in cop 26. They talk in terms of a ratcheting mechanism, whereby countries have a look at their plans and their targets. And are they robust enough? And are they following the science and what people left cop 26 with wild, they're saying, which was keeping 1.5 Alive was a sense that we can, if we all buckled down now and rally behind this as an effort as a global effort, we can keep global temperature rise to within that one degree 1.5 degree apologies. Now, recent reports tell us that we're very close to that already. So whereas we're looking to achieve what they call net zero in 2050, that may seem like a long, long way away. But we need to be halfway or more than halfway there by 2030, which as we sit here speaking, today is eight years away.
James Harman 06:18
I've found mine a lot of our clients, since cop 26, have kind of jumped off the back of that and made plans to be net zero. And probably the most common number for most of those clients is 2030 to be carbon neutral, but a lot of them as you say, haven't really got the actual process in place to get there. They've got the plan, but they haven't got the process. So it's just wondering kind of sort of steers down the route of what sort of steps they might take to get there. Yeah, of course,
Martin Fahey 06:48
what might be best is to highlight where we are in a global business. I mean, I have UK and Ireland responsibilities, but we have a far bigger team looking at this as our global footprint of some 150,000 employees, many factories, many offices, and different operations all around the world. Our environmental vision 2050, as we call it puts us on a journey to be net-zero by 2050. And I understand James, from what you're saying that a lot of people are pushing to go sooner than that. Yeah. But at the moment, that's, that's where we sit. So we we have put our plans in front of a body called science-based targets, they have independently verified that we do the things that we have laid out and plan to do, we will achieve net-zero and we will be where we need to be by 2030. Now you you've spoken about other companies that we're dealing with, are going at a quicker pace than that. Yeah. And that is a big subject of discussion in the community sustainability community. If you're like, at the moment, which is, do we need to go quicker? Do we need to go deeper is the two ways I would characterise it. So do we look to achieve Net Zero? Before 2050 2050? Is the absolute backstop? And should we be making sure that we do that with a one and a half degree trajectory as opposed to any other?
Mike Egan 08:35
So just Interestingly, though, is sometimes what I've come across is term carbon neutral. What's that one? That's confusing. Sometimes people talk about these and I'm a little bit. Yeah, can you help us?
Martin Fahey 08:48
It's a fair, it's, it's fair to be confused by them, because there's a lot of different terms out there. So you've mentioned carbon neutrality, carbon neutral, that is different from net zero. So it's probably worth just very briefly explaining that. So you could be in theory, carbon neutral, if you gather all the data of all your emissions for whatever your operation is, as a business, or as an individual. You can, there's lots of tools out there where you can count your carbon footprint now. And then you could offset that. And you we've had different ways of offsetting plant and trees being the most common one. And then that would create neutrality you because you're you're absorbing, if you've done it in the right way, the amount that you're emitting, so that's where neutrality comes in. Net Zero is different. It's a more stringent requirements. Because what we need to do as a globe is reduce our emissions stressed At least we need to drop those right down by doing lots of things differently. relevant for this discussion is heating up buildings, controlling our buildings differently, for example, because buildings have such a big footprint 30 to 40%, depending on where you get your figures from. So, net zero means reduce down those emissions as much as you possibly can. And then when you still are creating some emissions, but a far smaller amount, you then absorb those emissions. And that's why it's net zero, as opposed to neutral zero.
Mike Egan 10:40
So that might spend some times you know, recently you look at adverts, and you hear about, you know, where it will plant a tree for everything you buy. So are they do you think they've already at that point? Or do you think they're just kind of didn't haven't made that decision to look at reducing their actual energy use, because that's a little bit misleading to one. So it seems like it's they're trying to be green, but they may not be being the greenest Avenue.
Martin Fahey 11:08
I mean, some, some companies are genuinely doing that. We, you know, we won't pick on individual companies at the moment. But others do very much might fit the mould of what you're talking about there, which is we've measured, we will offset and then and then we will claim our neutrality, which is fair, you can do that. But what what we need to do as as societies, companies as a globe, is go further than that, as I've explained it, reduce our emissions are doing things a lot differently, travelling differently, switching away from fossil fuels, and you can using electricity as primary energy in buildings, for example, and then look to offset what's left.
James Harman 11:57
So when obviously, you sort of set out the targets that Mitsubishi Electric has have in store for Net Zero mine, and obviously, kind of carefully explained sort of carbon neutrality, would you be able to go on and give us a bit of an idea what was happening in our head or fish in terms of the products we have there, some of the measures we've put in place on that roadmap to net zero, of course,
Martin Fahey 12:19
by, by all means. So our head office is a great example. And many of you listening now will be faced with the same challenges that we are. So our head office is, is the space that we own as a business. So we have far more control over what we can do with it. It was built in the early 80s. Originally, it's had lots of interventions in it over those years. But we have put a concerted effort into driving down the energy that that building needs to operate effectively. So some of the technologies that we've applied, we, we used to sell solar power voltaic panels, across Europe, we've, we've since pulled those back to Japan, the US. So we applied about 50 kilowatts of our own PV, to the to the building, we have removed gas completely from the building now. And we use heat pump technology, both air source and ground source technology. And we completely revamp the fresh air energy recovery system and their handlers in the building. And that may that allowed us to move the building from notion Li and energy performance related certificate level of C to a really good be at the moment. And we believe with some of the other plans that we have for that building, we can operate it as an A rated building, probably we won't reach, you know, much better than that, given the constraints of the quality of the structure, and that sort of thing. But there's a few more bits that we can do. And I think it's a good example, because there's lots of existing infrastructure buildings in the UK that is going to need addressing and the journey that we've been on with our own building, I think will be typical of many others.
Mike Egan 14:34
Yeah, I'd say that was one of the first impressions one of the first things I noticed when I went to head office and was the solar array. And the fact that we've already made that advancement into the renewable area and I'm wondering as well is the the pretty much all the facade is is glass, so good. It must be like a greenhouse in there. But then of course, you know, we see that we've we've kind of put kind of blackened some of the Windows is that in terms of trying to reduce the solar gains, and it is, yeah,
Martin Fahey 15:04
it is, the next steps that we're making at the moment is a completely revamp of the air conditioning system that's being designed. And that's underway now that we will apply our latest hybrid VRF solutions into into the building for that. And we're also upgrading our server room. And that will have lower cooling requirements. So that'll be another step forward. For us. That's where I think we'll step into that a rating. And we'll put out a full report of that when it's complete.
James Harman 15:42
So So Mike, what sort of life challenges are you kind of experiencing at the moment? And what are you really kind of drilling into in your, your role and what you find it? Yeah,
Martin Fahey 15:52
so at the moment, like many other companies out there, country to country level, even, it's all about data at the moment, we need to fully understand all of our emissions from whatever scope that they're in, when you talk in emissions, he's talking terms of scopes, one, two, and three, the emissions that you are in control of yourself from the choices that you made the energy company, you choose whether you go on a renewable tariff, etc. But then, pretty rapidly, you find yourself in the long grass of scope three, which is everything else. And we like many other businesses from our analysis, or thinking something like our total amount of footprint that sits in scope three, typically going to be around 75% of our impact. So I'm spending a lot of my time at the moment, pushing our requests into our supply chain, both upstream and downstream, to try and understand that better so that we can get a get a handle on that. But the other main challenge that we're getting at the moment, and you're right to use that word is because our clients in there and we sit in a lot of other people's supply chains, is they're asking us a lot more now around what's known as embodied carbon. And just to explain that a little bit more for my entire career, really, we've concentrated on the operational phase, on selecting our products that give you an ownership experience, and then efficiency level through selecting and using those products. That's the operational phase. Now, that phase of a typical buildings, life is shrinking, because buildings are getting more efficient. Existing Buildings are going to be refurbished to be more efficient higher insulation levels, selecting better equipment, such as, as what we manufacture, all of that is driving the operational phase of a building's impacts lower, that is creating a focus on the embodied carbon elements of a building now. So the way to think about that is it's like an ingredients list. So a building is a repository of many, many different materials to make that building the bricks, the steelwork, the facades, the wiring, everything that's in that building, is a material and needs to be counted, and has some level of embodied carbon in it, because it's going to have to be manufactured, it's going to have to be shipped, it's going to have to be installed. And then ultimately, it will reach the end of its life. And those materials should be recovered, so that you can manufacture something else. And we're putting a lot of effort at the moment. And if you go to our digital library, for example, Google, Google us and find the Digital Library and look for in cupboard and embodied carbon data politics, you will find lots of products where we've gone to a very finite detail to explain to our customer base, what the equivalent impact in co2 equivalents is of a given product. So yeah, that's my short answer in what we're concentrating on at the moment. And body versus operational is, is a big one at the moment. And we've taken a lot of our time.
Mike Egan 19:40
Thanks for that, Martin. I can say that I've learned so much already in the last 15 or so minutes. James and myself there.
James Harman 19:48
Yeah, some really insightful information.
Mike Egan 19:50
So I think I think what we're looking at is, you know, what is it we all need to be doing then, you know, we had to say and tell people, what would you say it's
Martin Fahey 20:00
Yeah, um, in my opening comments I talked about countries, companies and citizens, right because CZ to remember it that way. And that's really the scale of, of of what's before us, we know where we need to be, which is a netzero. World by mid century 2050, we know that we need to be halfway there towards that by 2030, which is a date people can associate with a lot more, because that's a lot closer than 2050. So we've seen the country level pledges, that's what carp is for, that's the mechanism for that. And the UK has took a leadership position in that they have stated, they will reduce their emissions by 78% by 2035. And, importantly, they've included aviation and shipping in there. So in fairness, they have not shirked their from, you know, a bold, strident sort of target that we can all get behind and understand. Then there's the company level, which what we're talking about more of today. And I've highlighted what we have laid out, and the fact that we're looking that's not set in stone, we have to challenge ourselves on ongoing with that, are we going quick enough, are we going deep enough, and that is a process that we're doing. But I firmly believe having been a cop that it will be the company level that is going to make a huge contribution towards this. And then we've got all of us as As citizens, we we make individual choices, we will make those choices, moving on the food that we eat, the way that we travel, the frequency that we travel, the way we eat, and run our homes. And these three levels are what I see in my day to day life of concentrating on these issues within the company that I work for. I'm fortunate that we have always been a company that's been willing to look very long term at these things, we've just passed our 100th anniversary, we've got our long term plan out to 2050. And we are just starting now to use our footprint, if you like our sphere of influence, probably a better way to describe it in a positive way. So we're talking to our supply chain about their own journeys on to net zero, we're about to embark on training for all of our colleagues to bring their knowledge levels up. So I would say regardless of your company, your size, your scope, record everything at the moment, make a plan and understand things are going to be different. But we can achieve this. I'm very positive about it. Because I see such a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm behind it. So exciting but challenging times ahead.
Mike Egan 23:21
Great food for their marketing. So I'm just thinking countries, companies, citizens, we all play a part and the three C's, yeah faeces, the three C's. That's brilliant. Yeah, but I think that that was that stick in my mind three C's. So what we get really is that we're all striving to do more, we're always gonna have to push push ourselves to understand the roots of decarbonisation, the net zero as we move forward towards our targets of 2030 or beyond 2050. So it's a big thank you. Thank you, Marty, for today.
James Harman 23:55
Thanks for joining us Martin
Mike Egan 23:57
And thank you for listening, and we look forward to our next podcast to follow
In this episode, Mitsubishi Electric's James Smurthwaite was joined by Simon Pyne, Founder, and Director of Greener Energy Futures, to discuss how businesses can take the first steps on their NetZero journey.
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In this episode, James Smurthwaite is joined by Martin Fahey, Mitsubishi Electric's Head of Sustainability. Together they take an internal look at Mitsubishi Electric's own NetZero and sustainability journey, and discuss the ways that the goals and targets have changed in the 17 years that Martin has been at the company. They also talk about the legislative changes and the impacts that those have had on carbon reduction across a number of industries.
To kick off the second mini-series of the Ask ME podcast, Mitsubishi Electric's corporate solutions team discuss all things sustainability, NetZero, and the decarbonisation of the built environment. Together they look at the small changes they make in their home lives, to the increased awareness and huge changes they are seeing take place within their sectors.
In this episode, Mitsubishi Electric's James Smurthwaite is joined by colleague Mark Grayston, Product Marketing Manager, to talk about embodied carbon. Together they discuss what embodied carbon actually is, how it's calculated, and what it means for companies on the NetZero journey.
In this episode, Mitsubishi Electric's James Smurthwaite and Kevin Pocock continue to look at Indoor Air Quality and are joined by Francesca Brady and Adam Taylor from AirRated. Together they discuss how air quality is measured, what qualifies as 'good' air quality and what impacts it. Plus what commercial building owners and tenants should be doing to improve the air inside their buildings.
In this episode, Mitsubishi Electric's James Smurthwaite and Kevin Pocock are joined for a second time by Nathan Wood, managing director of Farmwood M&E, Chairman of BESA, and Chairman of the IEQ Clean Air Taskforce at GCP Europe. In this follow-up episode Nathan, James and Kevin look again at Indoor Air Quality and delve into ways that it can be improved. They also speak about the benefits good air quality can have on our health, as well as the market opportunities this brings to buildings in the UK.
In this episode, Mitsubishi Electric's James Smurthwaite and Kevin Pocock are joined by Nathan Wood, managing director of Farmwood M&E, Chairman of BESA, and Chairman of the IEQ Clean Air Taskforce at GCP Europe. As part of the first episode of the Indoor Air Quality mini-series, the trio discusses exactly what good indoor air quality means, what is it impacted by, who's responsible for it, and what can be done to improve it both in the home and in the corporate environment.
Meet the other half of the Mitsubishi Electric Corporate Solutions team, Dan Smith and Kevin Pocock. They explain the steps that they are individually taking to improve their own carbon footprint, from using bamboo toothbrushes to switching to renewable energy providers. They also discuss the shift to sustainability and building decarbonisation that they've seen their clients embracing over the past 12 months.
To kick off the new Mitsubishi Electric Ask ME podcast, we meet Tom Hall and James Smurthwaite; two members of the Corporate Solutions Team. Together they discuss the challenges the last 12 months have created, both for individuals and for businesses. They also share the ways that they've been adapting to the new normal of home working and how they keep their sustainability and low carbon living in check with all the extra time they've spent at home.