Reassessing The ESG Hierarchy With Simon Pringle (Podcast)

I chatted with Professor Simon Pringle about the future of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) for episode 7 of our Sense Of Identity Podcast. Simon is an expert on sustainability and someone we've worked closely with on our carbon impact monitoring and reporting.

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Professor Simon Pringle has 28 years experience in commercial strategy, innovation and sustainability. He is an independent Coach and Management Consultant and was formerly Managing Director of Project Rome, a consultancy that worked with blue chip organisations and CleanTech innovators across multiple sectors.

He served on the UK and Global boards of a large PLC and was a Partner at PIPC, an international change management firm.  He was then retained by BDO LLP, the world’s 5th largest accountancy firm, as Head of Sustainability and Innovation.  An Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Business School, Simon is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House and specialises in the alignment of sustainability and regenerative business models with commercial strategy, brand and reputation.

Educated at the University of Durham and Imperial College, London, he is a Fellow of the RSA and is a Director of Solutions for the Planet (a not for profit focusing on children’s innovation).  He is co-founder of the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission and was part of the team that evolved the Integrated Reporting framework.

He is author of the IMechE guide to commercialising clean technology and designed the CBI innovation model. Alongside his role on the board of the Leeds City Region LEP, he served on the UK’s Food Economy Task Force. Simon is on the advisory panel for Cranfield University and the Customer Engagement Groups for Northern Gas Networks and Northern PowerGrid.

TRANSCRIPT (AUTO-GENERATED)

Paul: Firstly, welcome, Simon, to this our latest edition of Sense of Identity. I always enjoy doing this podcast, but I've been particularly looking forward to chatting to Simon for reasons I hope that listeners will similarly appreciate as we trundle through the dialog.

But if I may initially, can I just do a bit of an intro?

Simon: Please do. Yeah no great to be here and I've been looking forward to it too Paul yeah, it's going to be it's going to be fun.

Paul: And I've got to say I was looking, looking at your bio before this in terms of how the hell do I introduce you So I'll do my best, but I can't do this justice at all but so Sim- Professor, Simon Pringle firstly a professor twice over from what I understand, including honorary professor of the University Edinburgh- Edinburgh Business School.

Yeah, an associate fellow of Chatham House. Obviously everyone uses this Chatham House rule well there you go that's where that, that's where they come from. Do look it up.

From our perspective as a business and well we've known you Simon, we've all known each other a long time and as a specialist in the sustainability arena, you know, we, we sought your expertise and input some time ago actually when we were putting together a report around sustainability, ESG, those letters- for some research you very kindly collated for us, which which was extraordinary actually and really interesting.

And we had an event last summer in Soho where the great and the good of the financial services industry came along to look at some of the outputs there. And that really started by way of this relationship just to sort of set the scene.

There can be very few people that can boast 30 years of experience and knowledge in the sustainability sector. When I've sort of looked this up before, in fact I'm struggling to find anybody else that can be able to can act as a reference point, you know, with such credentials as you Simon, so as I say, very grateful for you putting some time aside to.

Simon: Oh well I - no it's great and thoroughly enjoyed doing that piece of work with you and, and yeah, there are there are other people that have been around for as long as I have, but, it is a relatively small group and I guess we probably all know each other, or know of each other one way or another. So, yeah, very good.

Paul: And we had an interesting chat with a group circling around this topic before which I personally I thought was really interesting. Just to slightly continue that. Before we start, I'll start posing a few questions.

Yeah. You've been involved as far as understanding with the CBI you know, in terms of some of the toolkits they put together, how they, you know, how they help companies innovate but be green, you know, involved in IMech from a clean tech perspective, you know, UK Food Task Force and some of these things date back decades actually in terms of you know, talk about being ahead of your time.

But well really worthy of note I guess where I wanted to start if it's okay with you is that when I started reading up on your bio and this sector again one of the things that I thought was really interesting was the, the sort of requirements for companies to start really not just paying this lip service but to get real about this dates back a long time I think back in 2006 there were some obligations that started to be placed upon large companies in this area.

And I know COP26 obviously is the is the flagship, shall we say event that at least brought some, you know, some more emphasis to the topic. But there were no legal obligations that came out of it and yet for me, it still feels like, you know, there's a lot to do to help get the message out. And I wondered whether you could give us perhaps, you know, a bit of benefit of your experience over all those years as to what you have seen change what you haven't those sorts of things, just as a starter, if you don't mind?

Simon: Yes, sure no glad to I guess one of the consistent themes, you know, over that over that period is is the interplay between kind of regulatory and non-regulatory or compliance and non-compliance drivers. And you're right, you know, people tend to focus understandably on where the regulatory constructs are and what their reporting and transparency requirements are.

And we are going to be seeing you know, increased scrutiny and increased requirements around that as SASB and the sustainability disclosure standards come through as they're expected to in the coming months never mind coming years.

And so that's going to place, you know, far greater emphasis on organisations, not just on listed businesses, because these things tend to cascades down into non-listed entities in terms of expected behaviour and good corporate governance and so on.

But also, you know, what we have experienced is it's not just, you know, a here now piece. This is, you know, pretty much consistent over the last decade or so is that the non regulatory drivers are at least as powerful and sometimes more powerful than the regulatory ones.

And that would be in terms of supply chain pressure, the expectations that clients will, you know, will place upon their suppliers, that customers will place upon the providers of goods and services, the way that peer groups operate and, you know, basically raise a standard through sort of collective action.

You know, a lot of that can actually be almost more influential from a boardroom point of view, particularly when we're looking at the brand equity of an organisation, the way in which it's valued the legacy of a chief exec or leadership team you know all that sort of thing plays into this agenda really strongly. And I think what we're seeing right now is the kind of theme of the day is this kind of integration of thinking.

So a step away from well-intended but isolated initiatives into a much more joined up sort of commercially focused, governance focused approach. And that's where I think people's expectations are moving, too. And just picking up slightly on that hopefully for you to continue the cascading down piece.

Paul: We chatted about this briefly before. Yeah. That it it feels like, you know, there's definitely an eye towards this topic, a serious eye towards this topic.

You've seen people a lot of new posts intended chief sustainability officers. So, you know, companies are having to take this seriously because their customers or their customers customers care and want to see companies treat things in the right way.

Do you think that sort of cascading down is happening the way it should do yet? You know, is the message getting through to the I think you used the phrase boots on the ground, you know, do people that're-

Simon: Yeah. Right. So there's a couple of things in that, I guess. So if you think about a lot of the standards and the reporting frameworks and sort of GRI and some of the other standards that are out there a lot of those were designed around the largest businesses in the world. You know, the Rio Tintos of this world and then so on well.

That's perfectly understandable. I've got no you know, no implied criticism of that at all that's a, that's an important place to stand- to start and large fully listed entities have, you know, had the resource and the scrutiny and the transparency that's been required, not always perfectly, but you know, they've been very much in the spotlight for much longer than the rest of the market.

And, and they've got people like you and me and other colleagues kicking around within their corporate structures that allow them to have the capacity to deal with this complex agenda.

So what has happened recently, of course, is that the as you know, the scrutiny has fallen into the upper and to the mid-market in a way that it probably didn't do five or six years ago, six or seven years ago, and that's that's really just a function of the whole agenda maturing in to the top of the market, as it were then being manifest into the into the mid-market as well.

But the other kind of suggestion, I suppose, within your question is, you know, how consistent is this agenda lived, how you know, how to what extent does it sort of become a cultural norm within larger organisations and I think what we experience at the moment is that there are some clearly that are doing this really, really well and have interwoven it right across the fabric of their organisation.

But it's not uncommon to find some, you know, businesses across all sectors that are really strong, really advanced, really progressive right of the centre. So the, you know, the thought leadership that's put out the you know, the conversations that happen around the boardroom table you know that sort of thing, the stakeholder engagement that goes on can be really on point and relevant to the sector they're operating in and addressing material issues and so on.

But actually, it doesn't it doesn't permeate the organisation. And so the day to day experience that customers or other kind of service users or you know suppliers, whatever it might be, have is entirely different because, you know, the, you know, the experience of an organisation's commitment to sustainability, ESG and those two things are slightly different. We might pick up on that later on, if you like.

But it's really, you know, defined by the person that they're engaging with. And if that person isn't part of this conversation, then how real is it, you know, on a day to day basis? So we I think we have a situation now where we've got a bit of a, you know, a split between highly progressive core and less engaged sort of edge of business or customer facing edges of business in some instances.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess the other observation for maybe the chief sustainability officers that we've come into contact with directly. Yeah. You know, there's real passion. There's real passion in making a difference, you know, and there but that from their perspective, it must be hard because there's, you know, from an experience perspective, I mean it's great they're got people like you to be able to call upon, to be frank.

But, but at an experience level they, they need experience of their businesses to be able to drive those themes in the right way. But, but as a market, as an understanding there's a- there's an immaturity around is that it must be hard. I'm making an outside observation into- for them to make real change. There's material, you know, so I just I just wonder how you break that chain how you then get that communication, that cascading effect actually start, you know.

Simon: Well, this is where we shift the discussion into one about leadership, really. And as with any- as with any change, whether it's ESG sustainability or anything else, if that drive is not sponsored from the top of an organisation, and if the if the leadership team, you know, of the organisation is not fully vested in that and leading in their own particular areas, that it doesn't almost as a matter how good the chief sustainability officer is, that person is going to struggle clearly because they they risk being a kind of a lone voice in a cultural wilderness.

In that respect, So where we see real change happening is that person being a catalyst that working with, working alongside, supported by and advocated for by the chief exec, the MD, the departmental heads, you know, however the business is structured, in the absence of that, that's a real challenge. And so one of the things that's coming through now is, is a recognition of the need to help leaders almost unlearn some of what they've learned previously.

And start relearning what's going to be required going forwards across this whole agenda so they can build their proper legacy. They can invest in the you know, in the culture that they need and then the brand equity of the organisation and become a success story in the future rather than end up with a slightly shortened shelf life, which is.

Paul: Yeah, it's absolutely a bit of a project. Absolutely. Yeah. You hinted at something a second ago, which is the perfect segue, actually. So thank you. We haven't rehearsed this, which is brilliant but there was some and I don't take credit for something you said to me previously so I just want to make sure what I'm just about to say.

It's not my thinking, just to be clear. Everyone talks about environmental, social and governance. And when we ramble in our other discussions around the market that we are most prevalent in I guess, you know the professional services market where there's lots of sensitive data.

Yeah, you know, being used day to day people are dealing with people, you know, it's a very people, you know, culture ethos if you're in the financial advisory market if you're a product provider, in wealth, you know, you're an accountant, you're a lawyer, the truth is those markets are actually pretty heavily governed.

And something you mentioned, I thought which I'd really love you to take us back through, if you don't mind, was there's probably merit in reversing those letters This was you- this was something you said to me, not the other way around to be clear to everyone that's listening that this should probably should be sometimes GSE would you might just taking us back through your thinking.

Simon: Yeah. Oh yeah. I thought that was really interesting. No, that's fine. I just think you know, the fact that we refer to ES&G and you know for folks who are listening who are not entirely familiar with this, you know, we think we talk about sustainability, we talk about ES&G and the, you know, the sustainability agenda tends to be sort of best understood through a bit of a strategy lens.

You know, how do we reconsider business models. How do we look at our supply chain How do we look at the circular economy in the context of this business, whatever it might be. So whereas ES- environment, ES&G stands for environment, social and governance and you know, oftentimes that's easier to understand through a risk lens.

You know, how do we take the business model we've got but make it as effective as possible, de-risk it, you know, reduce any sort of negative impacts that it has, enhance the positive impacts it can have and so on and so forth.

So whilst they're often used interchangeably there is a- there is a subtle difference there. I think, you know, we tend to use ES&G just because because we're in the habit of putting it in that order. And also to some extent because there have been some primacy around environmental data. And that's because, you know, a lot of the aspects of, you know, reporting from an environmental point of view are quite tangible.

You know, buildings are easy to measure. They have- they have the good grace of standing still and letting you measure them right. Carbon is a currency unit in essence, it's the same in the UK as it is in Argentina, as it is in Thailand. Doesn't- doesn't make any difference where that carbon molecule is emitted from and so on.

And so forth. So to an extent, the E part of the ES&G is a little bit easier to get into a spreadsheet and report than this, than the S part, and the S part's harder because we look for proxy indicators and ways of measuring social impact. Sometimes it's real data, sometimes it's indicators and so on. And I think that was really brought very firmly to the fore during the pandemic years.

Whereas previously some people might argue that, you know, we had a capital E and a capital G and a lowercase S. Oftentimes in terms of in terms of ES&G, but we only put them in that order for the habit.

And because it's easier to say actually in some respects and I think there is a really valid argument particularly in certain sectors, FS professional services and others to say actually, you know, you can't have a meaningful social and environmental program unless you've got your governance in order, particularly the social side of things, actually.

And so thinking about the governance side as a kind of foundational stone upon which we build the social and the environmental makes a lot of sense. And it's just a it's just a running order, isn't it. And we've seen this happen in the past, right. So folks who've been- been around this agenda for a long time will remember that we used to talk about environment, health and safety.

Sometimes we'd talk about health, safety and environment. And sometimes we talk about safety, health, environment. And actually what that what the author of those letters did was just gave you a clue as to where the primary focus of any given organisation was so a chemical industries would probably talk about safety, health and environment because that was primary to them you know an environmental sort of contaminated land business would probably talk about environment, health and safety now that's not to say that one's right, and the other's wrong. It's not they're just contextual aren't they.

And so it's the same with this. So in a kind of FS professional services space governance has to come first. You know we've got to have that bedrock to build on. And actually, you know, given the value propositions that you and all your, your clever folks in Beyond Encryption have been evolving, the social side of that is going to have almost certainly have a greater impact on the environmental side including there's going to be an additive benefit environmentally in terms of carb- decarbonisation of, you know, of mail and you know, print and post and so on.

But actually the, you know, the potential upside from a social point of view in terms of data protection and identity and the way in which people can live a life that's sort of unaffected by attempts to sort of hack them or you know steal our identity or, you know, skim their money or whatever it happens to be. That's a really strong, positive social impact.

So it sort of makes sense to go, GSE in that context. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: And I think also, I mean, and again, particularly thinking on our stalwart industries as I say we touch lots of different industries, which is which is great. But you know where we started this whole story from our perspective was very much in a in a highly governed market.

You know, the advisory market is not it's not easy to be a financial adviser these days. You know, you've got to be as with the legal market and accountancy what, you know, adequately qualified experience and all those things. But I think as a market, it's more used to dealing with governance as a lead topic.

And if that governance process can lead to the envir- positive environmental and social impact, then it sort of almost feels that that's maybe where you're going to get you know a bigger bang for your buck if you know what I mean, you talk briefly about about the sort of decarbonisation piece and at a government level and obviously with COP26 that I always refer back to that one because it seemed that you have again had the loudest voice from a marketing perspective.

And I know there's been obviously subsequent pieces, but, you know, at a government level, do you think do you think that's going to evolve do you think the teeth-, they're going to get sharper teeth in terms of, you know, all of these themes and forcing companies to to act in the right way?

Simon: Yeah. Well, gosh, that's a that's a question that we could talk for an hour about on a alone, actually. But, so it depends on where we're talking about. If we're talking about from a UK point of view or a, you know, UK and EU perspective, then, then yes, you know, a lot of people are focused on the, the Net Zero 2050 target.

What's easy to overlook is that we have a 2030 target, now 2030's really not that long away and looking at decarbonisation of 78% I think it is by 2030 is huge. That's, that's more challenging than the 2050 target we mentioned before. We have the, we've had some outline sort of consultation drafts around sustainability disclosure standards which are likely to come through during the course of this year into early next.

On a practical level, statutory audits are requiring an increased focus around carbon around decarbonisation. So as soon as we've got those points of leverage in play reporting, auditing the way in which, you know, banks price their, you know, price their cost of capital, all that sort of thing, layers on in a way that's sort of you know points in the same direction as the overlying sort of statutory obligations that we have.

The thing to sit alongside that I guess is initiatives. I mean one of the big changes there is around this whole concept to Science-Based targets and that came through from, from COP26 very strongly where there was a more consistency around the guidelines for, you know, the guidance documents around how to set Science-Based targets.

And from a corporate point of view, the expectation has really shifted that you know, if you are telling a decarbonisation or carbon reduction story without a science based target associated with it, and a Science-Based target means that it's aligned to the Paris agreement and the, you know, the restricting temperatures to 1.5 or substantially below two degrees and so on that is a that is a really meaningful and robust and rigorous piece of work that needs underpin claims that organisations are making.

So very soon we are going to be a long way away from kind of slightly aspirational, arbitrary, ambitious sort of claims about how quickly an organisation will will be decarbonising to a place where it's saying, well, show us exactly how you're going to do it and link it to the Paris Agreement, and that has to be independently verified and so on and so forth.

So that expectation shift, that's one of those non regulatory changes, right So you've got a regulatory piece and you've got a non-regulatory piece coming through and then you've also got, you know, governmental entities showing different types of leadership I mean, in your world, the one that I was reminded of is of course, you know, Norway's in some really quite interesting things I mean they've kind of made Oslo car free first I mean it's a bit easier.

I mean, they've got slightly fewer people living in Norway than we have here in the UK. But, but also they from a government post point of view, they've digitised their entire postal service and well, that's that's an intervention. It's- it's one thing, but it has a really meaningful impact and it also stimulates change elsewhere. And of course, I guess it's something that would be quite helpful from your perspective as well to see that type of leadership from state actors.

Paul: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, circling that piece there where you talked about claims organisations are making, there's something else. We haven't spoken about this before, but yeah, I was reading about I mean, we've been going through the process of B Corp, which has been in flow for quite some time. Actually, I think we joined- we joined the queue, as it were, at a point when there was a particular, you know, bubble or burst of activity.

We were part of that too And I think we're close, which is great. And you know there's a real as a business, I would say, looking into our business there's a genuine drive and appetite at an individual personal level for the people in our business. They've totally and utterly bought into the whole fact that we need to be part of the solution part of the positive piece.

One of the things that I thought would be just quickly interesting to talk about was that there has been some adverse comments around B Corp I attended a meeting recently and actually they- they very fairly explained their position on I think there was a particular coffee company that had achieved B Corp where it's prevalent in its plastics usage.

I think without going too far down that line, the point they made when they were questioned on it was the fact that that company had and was making very positive strives to change its business model with that backdrop in mind and therefore it was justified in being part of B Corp because it was it was on a path to change in a positive way.

Nonetheless, that keeps coming back. People you know, people love to wave a red flag at things and and poo poo ideas, you know, you know what the world's like what are your thoughts around B Corp and some of those challenges they face and companies face when they're getting involved with B Corp.

Simon: That's a good question. Actually, I think we'll come back to B Corp in a moment but I think actually it sort of almost provokes a slightly wider question, doesn't it prompts a wider question in some respects. And as you know, as this whole agenda has become more visible to more people, I'm not saying it's become more important.

It was really important a long time ago. It's just people thirty years ago when we started they just weren't listening. It's just become more visible and more and more audible to a lot of individuals. It does. It does prompts lots of different responses. And so the old adage that quite a lot of quite a lot of strategies to sustainability fail because they're not strategies in the first place they're just a loose assembly of aspirations and ambitions and there's a bunch of data that happens to exist but doesn't necessarily speak to the material issues an organisation needs to address.

And that's that is still the case. We're still vulnerable to greenwashing. And there's been some excellent work done recently, actually, not by me, excellent work to identify the different types of greenwashing. So it's not just out and out overt lying. It can be kind of almost like green distraction. So having an initiative a bright, shiny thing over here to distract you away from what's going on in the core, it can almost be about a gaslighting version of sort of greenwashing, which is to say, well, don't worry about us as a corporate. Think about what you can do as a consumer.

So there's all sorts of things like that going on that people are sensitive to, quite rightly, the temptation then is only to sort of place, focus or- or kind of celebrate. To an extent, those organisations that are entirely pure and there are very, very few of those. And so I think for me, where I get passion from is working with organisations that are genuinely committed to it.

So if there's an integrity gap, i.e. if it's kind of well we're going to deal with this bit but over here we're just going to carry on belching out pollutants and spewing carbon into the world. But over here we want to get this bit really right. So can you help us with this bit No, no, absolutely not. You know, this has got to be thoroughly well intended. It's got to be packed full of integrity. It's got to be joined up thinking it's got to be something that will over time transform. And a lot of organisations are moving from this why thinking to what, you know, why do we have to do it well if you're still asking why probably you need to do a little bit more reading on your own.

Well, that can be quite a difficult question for some organisations, but many organisations are now into this sort of space of how how do we do it and then critically, how fast do we do it. And so that then brings us to the question you were asking in many ways, which is that how fast can companies realistically transition. And, you know, if we aren't always only just preaching to the choir, then actually we're losing the opportunity to help organisations that are making a significantly negative impact change in a positive way.

So I do have sympathy for that, that mindset, as long as it's underpinned by a genuine sort of genuine real commitment and integrity. And sort of you know leadership appetite and a long term strategy and critically a meaningful plan, ideally one that's got, you know, some deliverable aspects to it.

Paul: I have a suspicion that might be something that you're called upon quite regularly to to provide counsel on. If your plan is not credible and is distracting, ultimately that will be damaging when you're found out, you know, you are you either you know walk the walk, as they say or don't bother, because otherwise you're going to you're going to probably do more damage than good.

I thought the explanation they gave was actually a really good one, you know, just just yeah. Like you say, looking at the success stories alone is not going to change the need, you know, not going to move the needle. You've got to be working with the companies that are on a journey to improve maybe a poor position.

And in this particular instance, I think but I thought I thought the argument that they were committing to make change in a positive sense is equally important. And so, yeah, it made sense and they need to do that as quickly as they realistically can but then, you know, we are we are now in a space we're now in a world of trade offs, right. So we've run out of time.

It's a bit, it's a bit like one of the the kind of analogies I've used in the past. It's a bit like people sort of saving for their retirement. And, you know, it's fine being told you should put money into a pension when you're in your twenties. If you get into your mid-fifties and you haven't started yet, then you could still do it. But it's going to be financially very painful. Well, we've been talking about dealing with you know, climate and environmental issues for the last 30 years. So that analogy works and, and people have been ignoring it and there's still time to do it, but you're going to have to do it really quickly. And it's going to be a bit painful if you haven't started yet.

Paul: Yeah, simple as that makes sense. Yeah. Listen, talking about running our time is quite amazing. Just how much time we've gone through. So, so I'm going to, I'm going to use that as a good segue into a couple of things bringing this back to that sense of identity because I was thinking. Yeah, the feedback we get from people on these sessions it's actually nice to get to know the people.

I learnt a couple of things about you which, which I didn't know about. So one we've both got a passion for music, but I understand you're a bass player I think you play, you sing in a band or have sung in a band and tell us a bit about that just quickly, just so-

Simon: It's true, I must have let that one slip at some point. Yeah, I do. I do play bass and I do sing. What sort of music is that well at the moment, I mean, really quite a large rock gospel choir. There's a 120 person choir, so I sing in the bass section of that and it's, it's great. It's really, it's a fantastic energy. Yeah. So I do I come from a family of musicians. So I am, I am the least talented of my family.

All of the, all the rest of them are much, much, much more talented than I am. But it's a very it's a very musical family in a very noisy house as well as a result of that that's a good thing. And then the last one, if I may, I genuinely would like to carry this on for a lot longer, but keeping things in check.
Paul: Yeah. The question I always ask people at these sessions and they've been really insightful, the answers is if you could give your younger self a bit of advice, maybe not just one. By the way, if you think of a couple of then please feel free, but what would be what would be that piece of advice you'd give your younger self with all the knowledge you've accrued over the years?

Simon: It would be to not to be scared to focus on the things that really drive a passion and create a really sort of positive energy for, you know, for the younger Simon. And, you know, in many instances I guess I did. But clearly there's always more that we could do in that respect and to and also to speak really openly and to and to be bold in terms of sharing perspectives and views.

And I think for people who are perhaps in the earlier parts of their career, sometimes that can be that can feel a bit challenging. And I don't think it's too early to start expressing a view and really leaning in with passion and energy to things that are sort of inspiring and, you know, keep you driving forwards because you do that, you're going to you're going to succeed much more quickly, I think, because it's just going to be a in a really, really sort of positive, energising experience.So that's the sort of advice I'd give.

Paul: I think that's great advice. It's there's been a similar note on another point, which was that people that are really passionate about a subject tend to be brilliant at it. And to be frank, to close out this conversation personally, I think that and, you know, perfectly, perfectly describes you Simon. I've never met anyone who's as passionate about this subject to you. And and these these sessions are always really insightful for me.

So thanks so much again for today. And I hope we'll be able to get you back some time to talk about a little bit further but for now. Thanks.

Simon: No that's very kind. Thanks I've enjoyed it. Thanks Paul.