Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick from the webinar Vet, welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat. I'm really, really pleased to have Niah Byrne on the line today. Niah is a vet er qualified from Dublin and spent some time in the UK and then went back and kind of discovered that there wasn't maybe as much going on around sustainability as she'd seen in the UK and has has helped to found the Veterinary Sustainability Network, isn't it?
That is correct. Good. So Niah, first of all maybe just tell us a little bit, fill in those gaps about er you know why you wanted to be a vet and what was the particular interest around sustainability, was that something that happened while you were in the UK or does that just go back a long time from.
When you were young, so I guess I wanted to be a vet from as long as I remember, really, like probably 4 or 5. I just decided this is for me. I loved animals.
I just grew up absolutely adoring them, really had a strong bond with like any of my pets, and I just loved being out in nature as well when I was a kid and luckily I grew up in the countryside in Ireland, so I was able to be in nature and kind of one of my earliest memories is like walking through fields with my dad on a sunny day. I think he said I was maybe about 3 or something and we were walking up to a forest behind our house. So like I always had that grow, that love for nature, and then I decided I want to be a vet at 5 years of age now.
Don't know how a 5 year old decides that, but I did, and like many 5 year olds, I suppose, like many in our profession, and I never really changed my mind about wanting to be a vet in trout secondary school and everything. I just was gung ho. Let's go for it.
Even though everybody kind of was like it's very hard to get into, it's a really tough profession. So I just studied really hard, got the points I needed, and managed to, to get into University College Dublin and to to qualify as a vet. College was great.
Like, it's a great university, and it's, you know, they're small classes they're. My class, I think, was 80 when we started and it was just a really lovely class, really just tight knit group, and I made like friends for life there and it was such a wonderful experience. I kind of, I actually like, on reflection now I'd say I even lost connection with nature from maybe the age of around maybe 1718 when I started studying really hard for my leaving cert to get into college and then throughout college I wasn't really in nature that much.
I never spent a huge amount of time in nature. I was living by the sea, so like we'd spend a bit of time there, but I'd never even noticed like the birds or any wildlife or anything like anything like that at all. And so I really do think I lost connection with nature.
And in my early career as well, again, didn't spend a huge amount of time in nature at all. And I guess it's a tough profession, isn't it? Like it's, it's a challenge.
I work as a small animal vet, and I've worked as a small animal vet from the start of my career, and small animals, it's challenging because you're constantly in the clinic. You're constantly met with a new person every 15 minutes. They have, there is obviously a large emotional burden.
There's lots of pressure and I went through a few cycles of kind of burnout and I did my certificate in small animal medicine and I got all the qualifications, moved to the UK so I could work in a hospital over there, and at this time I was starting to reconnect with nature, like doing some hiking and everything, but I still wasn't like really, you know, enamoured with it like I used to be. But when I was over in the UK, that's, I think it's 3 years ago or maybe, yeah, about 3 years ago now. I was in the South Downs National Park and Storrington was the clinic I was working in down there.
And I was really burnt out and I was really disillusioned with the career and I just felt like something was missing and I just couldn't figure it out. And the south of England is wonderful for bird watching. Like it's absolutely spectacular, and I used to just go to Chichester and Pagham, Pagham harbour just outside Chichester, and I just literally stand there for hours looking at birds.
And this really brought back to me why. I wanted to be a vet in the first place. I was able to reconnect with that whole love that I had for for the world in general rather than just, you know, seeing those clients every 15 minutes, which obviously is important in itself, and I, you know, I like that aspect of it, but there was that aspect missing, that kind of bigger picture aspect.
So once I started reconnecting with nature again down there, and I was kind of thinking to myself like, how can I make a difference in the way that kind of suits me the most, and I started volunteering with some of the wildlife hospitals down in Chichester and Wildlife Aid as well. I just did a couple of shifts. It wasn't anything huge.
And when I was with them, they mentioned to me about Vet Sustain because I was feeling quite Quite worried about the climate and about biodiversity loss and kind of like how is vets, are we so intertwined with animal health and one health but not making a huge difference in terms of the overall picture and biodiversity and everything or that's what I thought and that's why I believed at the time so they told me about Vets sustain. And I looked them up, found Jen Gail's carbon literacy course, signed up to Jang Gs carbon literacy course, and she lit a fire inside me. It was brilliant.
I absolutely loved it. It's very, you know, it's not like really in depth in science or anything. I'm sure.
Probably Jen has spoken about this maybe to you before other people have spoken about it, but it's not in depth in science, but it gives you the knowledge that you need, but it also gives you hope and it gives you ways that you can act as an individual as well, and you feel a little bit more empowered. And this really, I just felt so much better with this, you know, my climate anxiety was still there, my biodiversity loss anxiety and everything to do with environment, I suppose it was still there, but I felt more hopeful that I personally could make a difference and that we as a as a population could make a difference as well. So then I became more involved with Vet Sustain and attended some of their webinars, chatting to them, and Then I signed up to their course, a sustainable Approach to clinical veterinary practise, and again, this was just brilliant.
It showed us so, so many different ways that the veterinary profession. In small animals this was mainly focused on how we have an influence on the environment, have an effect on the environment, and how we might be able to mitigate these, and also how we may, we can create change for a more positive outcome as well and use our, our kind of expertise and our influence as veterinary professionals to create a change in this area. It was that summer that I returned to Ireland, and when I was returning to Ireland, I basically reached out to a couple of my friends and was like, oh, like love vets sustaining over here.
Are you involved with Vet Sustain in Ireland? Me assuming that there was something going on, they were like, No, there's literally nothing that we know of over here. So I reached out to University College Dublin, the veterinary side of that.
I reached out to Veterinary Council. I reached out to the Veterinary Ireland just being like, how can I get involved with sustainability in Ireland? And all of them were like, there's actually very little going on, and UCD has, they have a sustainability committee in the hospital and in the vet college, but they were like, there's nothing kind of, you know, for the wider profession in Ireland to get involved in sustainability.
So after that conversation and the conversation with the Veterinary Council of Ireland, I was like, right, well I guess somebody better set something up and start working on this area. So I guess that's me. So that's how I ended up in sustainability.
It started from a love of nature and that nature kind of being in nature, soothing me as a child and everything to, I suppose, losing connection with nature, feeling completely at a loss because of that loss of connection. And then refinding it and then getting more involved, and here we are. That phrase we, we studied or we did a webinar on it with the psychiatrist solesstalgia, that environmental angst that you've been talking about.
Oh, I didn't know there was a word for it. It's a posh word solesstalgia, there you go, a new word for the dictionary for anybody listening. And not nostalgia but solestalgia, you know, so it's that sort of angst that a lot of people feel.
And then we've also got that whole thought around green and blue prescribing which is, you know, actually just put yourself in nature, volunteer in nature, and it really can raise spirits, you know, we do like the Wildlife Trust do a lot of work where they say if you put 1 pound in. You get 7 pounds back, you know, from people not going to the NHS, taking maybe less antidepressants, etc. Etc.
I've had the summer where I think I'm a very hopeful person like yourself, but you see the terrible er disaster in Nepal, Tibet, you know, we've had the hottest summer on record last year was the hottest and now it's this year, this year. We still have people who kind of wonder if climate change is, er, anthropogenic at all, you know, I think it probably fairly clearly is. So.
How are you feeling sort of several years down the road, are you a lot more hopeful and have you felt that that actually has improved sort of mental health and a burnout because if you're you know in a small animal practise perhaps without a window you're not getting any light in, you know you're busy busy. It's so important, somehow you've got to fill up the battery, haven't you? 1100%.
I guess as to how I feel now, it's mixed. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I am, as you said, like, like yourself, a very hopeful, positive person overall.
I am really, really hopeful in that we can, you know, help mitigate and adapt to climate change and the same with biodiversity loss. We have the technology there. We know what can happen.
I guess we need the policy to change. I really do think that it will change, and I think it's coming now. Maybe, I don't know, people might tell me I'm wrong, but that's what I believe, and I think, you know, that whole tipping point of where you need to get to 25% of the population before it becomes like, you know, it kind of, you need those early adopters first, and then it starts escalating, and I think we're really near to that 25%.
Like nobody ever. Can see the points of change in history before they happen. It might be easy looking back, but I really do think we're nearly at that change.
I think the majority of people are waking up to actually the reality of it. So that really, really gives me hope. I also believe in humanity in general.
Like I really, yes, look, there's a huge amount of negative things in the news. But we have a negativity bias and the news loves negative press as well or kind of negative stories. So they're going to be the ones that get the most kind of airtime and everything, but like there's so many positive stories out there and I try to seek them out as well, whether it's like, you know, farming.
For nature in Ireland or different initiatives in Europe and worldwide as well like we don't hear about those enough, but when you actually start reading into them, you see that there is a huge amount going on, a huge amount of people that are working on this interested in it, and we are making progress. I guess the reality of it is, like, yeah, we're, we are, it's an anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss and everything. But I think we know now enough to kind of start, start reversing it.
And some of it isn't difficult, is it, you know, now it makes sense to put solar panels on your roof if you're a best practise from economic as well as er you know, cos it's the right thing to do. Even, you know, nursery areas in, in oceans, you know, if you leave some areas undisturbed, the er stocks will, will improve pretty quickly, you know, that was something that David Attenborough was talking about recently, so. As you say that we have the solutions, we just haven't maybe got the political will but also the will as an individual and as a business, you know, I think sometimes.
I I'm less positive about government because they take so long to do things, so I think it's, I, I think most of the big changes in the world have happened because of. Individuals or small groups or you know businesses doing things, so I'm hopeful that er. We can start seeing those changes as well, so tell me a little bit about what's going on, how is, the Vet sustainability network developed over the last two or three years?
Yeah, so the Veterinary Sustainability Network, it has grown quite quickly, much quicker than I anticipated, really. So it started, so it's 2 years ago it started, or kind of as an idea, probably around this time 2 years ago, and I just met a couple of my friends and some industry leaders. Yeah, like, so 2 years ago was when the kind of idea came to me about the Veterinary Sustainability Network, and then I met with some friends about it and then some other kind of industry leaders or people.
That I knew in the profession as well and it started out very small, just like literally a meeting with a couple of us just kind of hashing out the idea and everything. I think that was like maybe September or 2 years ago we had our first meeting, kind of it was just a kind of invite to whoever wanted to go really back in October or November, then 2 years ago as well. We had about maybe I think maybe 20 people on the call and everybody was super interested and really enthusiastic.
It was like this is really needed. So then we set up the social media and we started getting a nice little following and there was a lot of supporters like Vet Space Ireland were were helping us in the veterinary veterinary Ireland as well and the Veterinary council like just to kind of raise awareness about us. So we grew nicely as well and they about just over a year ago now we actually set up, we were incorporated as a not for profit.
So we're a formal organisation now just over 1 year, and with that we developed a website, we developed webinars as well. So we had 2 webinars last year, one and basically kind of like an introduction to sustainability and veterinary practise, just guessing, I chatted a little bit about kind of what sustainability was. In veterinary practise, but then we had 3 people from veterinary practises in Ireland who were making changes.
So like solar panels and air pumps or heat pumps, and then one guy who was using an EV as a mixed practise vet, which everybody has told me cannot be done, but he's like, yeah, I can. I do. It's fine.
Range anxiety. Yeah, range anxiety. That's it.
And also will it tow a trailer. They're the big, you know, for, for mixed practise vets in Ireland and plus a lot of mixed practise vets, they love their Toyota Land Cruiser and they just, they have, they have, they have an attachment to them. So they don't want to they don't want to give it up, but we'll we'll show.
Showing them that you know this this can be done whenever people are ready to to make that transition that they can, you know that. One of the things that mixed er or large animal vets can do is just not let all of their stuff go out of date and waste. Stuff that never gets used, that's kind of simple when you've made something, you know, it's not even linear economy, it's you make it, you don't use it.
You throw it away. Exactly. I mean that is even worse than linear economy, isn't it?
100% like and I think that yeah circularity for drugs probably isn't going to be a thing at all, but I think stock control is a huge thing and I think you know that can be a thing in veterinary practises as well, not only just mixed practises. Vets in their, their vans, but like, even in the practise I work in, like, thankfully the Lisa, who was on reception, but she manages our stock is very much like, hates things going out of date. So she will be always checking, is there too many bottles open ahead of time and everything, so.
But yeah, I think that's really important. And I think all these little things that we chat about on the webinars on this podcast and everything, I think all these little changes will accumulate to create, create, bigger changes, I suppose, in time. So with our two webinars, then we, I, I started lecturing.
I reached out to the universities, and some of the nursing colleges, and like, do you want, do you even on sustainability in your courses? Yeah, I think it's really important. It's, you know, part of the It is part of the profession really, and we need to start introducing it.
So I have given lectures to the 2nd years and 4th years in the University College Dublin and vet students and then to MTU nursing students as well in Ireland, and I will be lecturing on the SETU course, the new 2 new veterinary courses in Ireland, so that's all part of our work this year. We haven't done as many webinars. I was hoping to do 2 webinars at the kind of latter end of the year, but as I'm buying a house.
That has kind of gotten in my way a little bit. It's, it was more and more admin intensive than I realised, so I haven't been able to run the webinars just yet this year, but we have published some resources. So we have 3 main resources so far.
One is our guide to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in practise. The second is kind of our easy wins for reducing greenhouse gas for those practises that aren't ready to make that change to solar panels and EVs and heat pumps, that they can start with this easy win checklist. And yeah.
LED lighting and so on, yeah, like those easy ones in themselves, they're probably not going to like, you know, solve climate change or anything, but accumulated changes will make a difference and also they're a stepping stone, they're kind of a mindset shift for those practises to get on board. I think you know I've read a lot around this area and and you know even big CEOs in you know big companies, they, they talk about it and they do reports, but it's more difficult for them to know, you know where to start and actually act and action, you know, speaks louder than words. So even that, you know, one step, that first, you know, the journey of 1000 miles starts with a with a single step.
Right, you know what, we will start using reusable drapes, we'll put LED lighting in, maybe we can have some pollinators at the front of the practise, you know, to encourage the bees to come, we'll think about our health schemes, these are all small things that you can do very quickly and as you say, I, I'm, A big believer and a big encourager of make, make one change, you know, do something because. It's better to do something, it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness, isn't it? Yes, and I think, I think the thing that people tend to forget about, and I'm a terror for this myself, is that ripple effect that, you know, I like with the VSNI sometimes I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh, I'm publishing all those resources and am I even making a difference, but you kind of forget that you're not going to see the actual influence that you might have.
So if you set up a pollinator friendly area in your practise and your clients are coming in to see that. They're going to, some of them are going to actually maybe be inspired by it and actually maybe make little pollinator friendly zones themselves at home and those kind of accumulated effects again are are really going to make a difference in the long run. Yeah.
We had just to give a very quick example of that, we gave out seed at the veterinary green Discussion forum when we were up in Brockholes and one of the er participants just put a a picture, you know, sent me a picture on WhatsApp. He finally got to plant the seeds this year. And you know lovely sort of showing of corn marigolds, poppies, corn flowers, you know, so those little things and and as you say sometimes, you never see, you know, sometimes seeds are sown but teachers often say that you know they sow seeds but they never see the.
The fruit of it, do they, you know, we don't always go back to our junior school teachers and tell them how important they were. So it's all those things we, we don't need to see that, but you know, as you say those ripples sometimes can take years before you're even aware that they've had a diff made a difference, so it is something. I think with sustainability you've got to be in it for the long term, haven't you?
You do, as tough a sphere as it can be sometimes, you know, it can be really mentally taking its toll. You know, it is a, it's a challenging sphere because I suppose as we've discussed, sometimes the government policy doesn't change as quickly as we needed to, and sometimes you're asking yourself, well, why do I have to do all this like. You know, why, why is this coming down to me and those mere individuals like why can't our governments take a stand.
So it can be disheartening at times, but then also looking back even just in the last year since we were incorporated as an organisation like. There has been a huge amount of, you know, positive changes in the veterinary profession in terms of sustainability, even just introducing it onto the courses and everything. And if we, if we can start sowing the seed early on into vets, you know, vet students, if we can sow that seed about sustainability, then they'll be thinking about it because, you know.
I talk about sustainability to people and vets are like, but like what do we have to do with this, you know, and some of the bigger ones is like, you know, say the topical antiparasiticides, and yes, myself and yourself, we, we both know the effects of those and you know, Rose Perkins and all her research and everything, and But there's so many people out there that don't actually realise it. So when you're actually saying this, then they start thinking about it and changing their own practises. And the big one that I, you know, people didn't realise is that isofluorans are kind of, you know, our anaesthetic gases are such potent greenhouse gases.
So then with that knowledge, then They're going to be able to change kind of to make sure that they're reducing their amount, but if we can get that started from student level, it doesn't have to be a new thing to them. It'll be part and parcel when they go into practise and they'll actually just automatically think about, well, actually this thing that I'm prescribing, like the topical antiparasiticide, is this actually the best option for this patient and think maybe a little bit more deeper rather than just the blanket treatments. Yeah, I, I think we all think that everybody knows about isoflurane and then again I was reading about communications and.
The communications expert said until you are sick and bored about talking about it, you haven't talked about it enough because sometimes you know even in business. We talk about something once and we think, well, everybody's got that now, we can move on to the next thing, whereas it actually it's just repetition, repetition, repetition. And I guess that I'm not, I'm not talking about it enough because I am not anywhere near sick of talking about topical parasiticides or isochlorine.
A couple of other things I'd like to cover. I know you did, a survey, we did a similar one last year which was really good across a couple of countries, but Ireland, what were the sort of main sort of points that came out from that, maybe you've already covered some. So I don't think we actually have covered any of them, to be honest.
So I, we ran a survey as the VSNI they're about, it's probably a year and a half ago now. On the kind of attitudes and approaches and current levels of awareness, I suppose, of veterinary professions professionals in Ireland on environmental sustainability. 105 people responded, which is relatively good, you know, for a small little.
Organisation, I was pretty happy with that. We got a huge amount of help from other organisations to actually spread this around, spread the word about it. One thing that struck me was that about 2/3 of the participants in the survey considered sustainability extremely or very important to them, but less than 1/3 of respondents actually felt that their, their clinics, their employees actually matched that level of concern.
And I think this is a really important one because in Ireland at the moment, there is a retention crisis for veterinary professionals, and we've opened up the two new colleges have just taken in their first cohort of students. They're literally probably this week or maybe next week. So we're we're getting more vets on the ground, you know, in a couple of years.
But if we're looking at sustainability of veterinary practise and people aren't. Thinking that their employees are matching their own values, like that's, you know, that's going to be it's not going to really incentivize people to really want to work in those practises if they're not matching their values. So I felt that was quite a quite an interesting one.
There's such a mismatch between the the the actual practise themselves versus the employees. We found exactly the same thing with our with our survey that er a lot of people, you know, across the various countries were really interested in it, but again. Practises weren't perhaps doing it and as you say that's .
Potentially a retention problem. Exactly. Like, personally, I prefer working in a practise that matches some of my values.
Yeah, you want to work for a business that you think cares, don't you? 100%. I think it's hard.
I don't want to, you know, obviously say like, oh, it's the practise owner's fault. It's probably a mismatch because practise owners are so stressed and everything and under-resourced for time and they're trying to meet the bottom line. And it's a hard profession to work in, you know, to.
To get enough money coming in and everything to pay all the bills and pay your employees, so unfortunately sustainability is going to be down at the bottom for a lot of them, but. It's an education thing as well cos I think if people don't know about, you know, isoflurane and different issues, so and and you know simple stuff, you know, putting solar panels on the roof. Will save money, as well as you know, keeping your vets in, obviously as you've said clients also go, oh, this practise cares, therefore I'm more likely to go to them than perhaps the practise down the road that isn't doing anything.
Exactly, and like that is the other part of it, isn't it, that like often these sustainability changes like solar panels and heat pumps and everything, like they do make good business sense as well. It's just trying to get that information. Information out there and having the time to do it because you know if we're at the coalface all the time, we can't think strategically as a as a practise, can we?
And that's in that is part like on this survey as well. I asked about the the different barriers to actually implementing sustainability in practises. Time is the biggest one, the biggest one by far.
You know, we're all time poor in veterinary practise, aren't we? Like me working as a small animal clinician, I'm always time poor like. It's so difficult and even when you get that little bit of time, you're usually like researching a case or reading up on something or trying to catch up on CPD or catch up with your clients or whatever.
So it is, it's, it's really challenging for the profession to try to become sustainable and because of that lack of time. Other barriers interestingly were knowledge wasn't that big a one. Now, obviously that depends, I suppose, on the people that responded to our survey.
Was it people that were responding because they were interested in environmental sustainability already? So maybe knowledge isn't that big an issue for them. But I think overall I'm still focusing on trying to get that knowledge out there so people can learn about sustainability.
Cost was another big one as well, and a lack of government support unfortunately was another barrier to to actually implementing sustainable changes in practise. So yeah, it was a super interesting survey. I think we've kind of used it to try to develop some of our guidelines and everything because.
Initially when I went into the VSNI, I thought, oh, we'll just run webinars and I'll write articles, and sure that'll be great, that'll change the world. The actual survey itself showed that people didn't necessarily want articles or the webinars and kind of showing real life examples was really important to them, but one of the biggest, the two biggest things that they said were easy to follow guidelines. So that's why I've written, we've written the, you know, the guidelines to actually reducing greenhouse practise or greenhouse gas emissions in practise, and then the two easy wins on waste and on reducing your waste and reducing your greenhouse gases.
The other one was information on grants available because it can be challenging to figure out what grants are available out there for like putting solar panels in for retrofit. And so in the guide to greenhouse gas emissions as well, I've put all the information on the grants available in Ireland for practises so that they literally just have to open up that guide and be like, right, that's what I'm going to do. I literally log on to this website.
Here's the list of approved people supplying the solar panels. This is what I can get from it. All the information is there rather than them having to go searching for it.
So. And I think what you're doing in Ireland, you know, having spoken to a couple of other Irish hats is much better than what we're doing in the UK cos as far as I'm aware. People correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think we have any real grants for business for solar, so, it, it was 1015 years ago, David Cameron started sort of, he wanted to do more greening stuff and then I think, because he saw how much it was taking off and probably some of the big companies, who were losing money, you know, because of course once you put solar panels on your roof and you've got 20-30% saving then, Somebody's losing money somewhere and I think er lobbyists kind of stopped it, which was such a shame cos we, we lost a decade there that er.
You know, it would have been best not not for us to lose. That's crazy. I didn't realise that we have a similar situation in that there's solar panels going up in farmland around Ireland, but one of the big areas that has been kind of missed was solar panels on farm buildings, and sheds and stuff like that would make a lot more sense, you know, and they had a grant available, but I'm pretty sure that grant has gone for farm buildings now to actually put up their solar panels, and it's just, it's a no brainer like.
So yeah, it is, it's hard, isn't it, trying to fight against the lobbyists. So Niah, brilliant on the survey, you're talking about being time poor, you're in that practise, you're moving house, you're getting married probably in the next year, and you're doing all these lectures. I mean you really can't do anything else, but you've decided to do a master's, so tell us maybe just to close about the master's and what you're gonna cover in that at er at University College Dublin.
Yeah, they don't they say if you want something don't ask a busy person. I love being busy. I also like, I'm a fiend for like I make my own bread.
I make my own preserves like I sourdough. I go foraging, like I just everything. I just need to be doing something every day.
So the Environmental masters, it's with University College Dublin. It's starting next week. I'm super excited about it.
Now it's part time. I'm not doing a full-time master's alongside working and running the VSNI and all of these things, but yeah, it's a Master's in Science in environmental sustainability. I don't know how long it will take me, probably maybe 3 years or so.
I could do it over 2, but I'd say it'll be 3 or 4 just so I don't burn myself out. And my partner Patty is very much like, you know, he'll be cracking the whip now if I try to take. Take on more modules that I can squeeze in this semester.
I'm starting on ecology and its application, which is an area I've been fascinated by. I love ecology and I started doing a local biodiversity course. It's a year-long course with Tipperary County Council, and we're learning just the basics of ecology and going out and about and actually just looking at all nature around us in our county because it's underappreciated when you're in the local area.
And there's ecological concepts in it, and I was really fascinated. So I picked ecology and its application as my first module and also carbon and sustainability, which is talking about like sequestration and different things, which is super interesting. And also my third module is on data analysis interpretation, which is dry enough, but I, I kind of like the statistics and the computer science of it.
But I'm really excited to start. Niah, you know, you're a real inspiration for, for me the amount of work that you're doing in this area, it is so important, you know, we can carry on talking about it or to, to knowing not to do is not to know, so the fact that you're getting in with these useful guides, the webinars, and I think just having, You know, if, if it makes a difference for 2 or 3 people, it's worth doing it, isn't it? 100%, that's what I always tell myself.
Yeah, I'm sure it's more than that, so thank you so much. In your very busy schedule, I feel very privileged that you've squeezed an hour in to speak to me. And thanks for having me.
I always listen to your, your podcast, so it's, it's, yeah, it's been a joy chatting to you. Ah thank you so much Neve and thank you so much for giving your time and thanks everyone for listening as well and I think the key is, you know, if you're listening and you're going, I need to get started on this, you know, do something simple, just maybe as a first line say to to staff team, you know, let's not bring in single use plastic bottles, you know, our soda bottles, our water bottles, you know, if we have a tap in the, in the practise probably that if you turn it a few times, this water comes out and it's probably. Just as good as the stuff that comes in the er plastic bottles from the supermarket, so there are very small changes that we can make to just get us started on the road and you know bringing all the team together in that as well.
Exactly, small changes lead to to collective action which leads to policy change in my mind anyway, so very small. Brilliant. Nia, thank you so much, thanks everyone for listening and hopefully see you on a podcast or webinar very soon.
