Hello Anthony Chadwick, introducing and welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat, and we're very fortunate today to have Doctor Hannah James, who is the sustainability and ESG manager at VET Partners. Hannah's also a chartered environmentalist, did masters and PhD in the whole area of low carbon technology and microgeneration. And has had a varied career, but is now Ave Partners, really pleased to have you on the call.

Hi Hannah. Hi, Anthony, yeah, thanks so much for inviting me. Yeah, a very interesting background working for, for some big companies also for I think it was Yorkshire Water.

So what, what brought you and what got you interested in getting involved in, in the veterinary industry and sustainability in general? Oh gosh, well, I mean, sustainability in general, I think, goes back a long way, you know, I was, as a, as a child, quite a, quite a warrior and always wanted to, to solve problems and I think . Growing up in the 90s, people were just starting to talk about the hole in the ozone layer, and you know, Blue Peter were doing their big aluminium can challenge.

So it was, it was always in my mind. I went to university and did environmental sciences and then I, I kind of moved through my PhD into, the renewal, the renewable energy side of things, . Was, was kind of going down the engineering routes, in, in the energy side with AO, and then realised that perhaps I was just getting a bit too, I was really going down that path of being an engineer and I thought, I don't really want to be an engineer actually.

I want to get back into more what I'd call the rounded sustainability side of things. So I made a bit of a move, you know, as you said, worked for, worked for a couple of different companies, including most recently Yorkshire Water, . And, was having a great time, but really, in all honesty, I was just ready to take the next step in my, in my career, take on a role where I'd maybe have a bit more.

A bit more influence in, in kind of the direction the company was taking. And, and I saw, the opportunity at Vet Partners. I'd never considered working in the veterinary world, I have to be honest.

But I, I did a bit of, I did a bit of research into Vett partners, and I, I really liked what I saw, you know, they, they had on their website all the, the kind of values that they worked by. I, I didn't know a lot about the veterinary industry, but I do, I do have a cat, so I was familiar with the, the great work that vets do. And yeah, went for it and that's how I, that's how I ended up at, at that Partners.

Yeah, and I think this is, this is the thing, isn't it, you know, ESG is now becoming more and more important even for investors, they want to see companies that are actually trying to make a difference that are purpose centred, and I know, you know, I've, I've met Jo and she's very inspirational. The values are so important, being purpose centred as well. And it's really been interesting to see some of the, the work you've been doing around recycling during the pandemic.

I, I saw in in that times the work you've done on Tera Cycle. Perhaps talk to us a little bit about how that all came about and and what you've actually been doing to see if this is something that can help other practises as well. Yeah, of course.

I mean, so it's interesting you mentioned Joe actually, because I think, Joe, Joe was the one who, who said, you know, she kind of had this realisation. We were mid pandemic chaos, people were, we just asked, all of our colleagues in practise to wear full PPE at all times. So that's, you know, mask, goggles.

Apron, gloves, obviously not very comfortable for people, but, you know, we had, we had to do it because, we had to protect each other. But actually people kept saying, we, it really doesn't feel good, chucking all this stuff in the bin at the end of every day or the end of every shift or whatever. What can we do about it?

And despite everything else that she has on her plate, you know, Joe kind of came to me and said, can you look up, Whether there's anything we can do about this. I'd had some dealings with Tera Cycle from a previous role, so I knew that they, they did really good work and they're really legit, you know, and they, they do all this amazing work, recycling stuff that can't normally be recycled. So we, yeah, basically, I, I just said to Joe, look, we can use this company, we can do it.

It's gonna cost us a bit more, but can we do it? And she said, yes, yes, absolutely. He gave me the go-ahead.

And as soon as we started doing it, the response from practises was just amazing, really, you know, people, people have been really happy about it. We've had almost universally positive response to it, and people said, you know, at least it feels better that we know this stuff's getting recycled. It's not just going straight in the bin.

I guess my advice to, to other practises on that score is it. It does, it, it does cost a bit more. So one thing to do is to talk to your existing waste provider and see if they can provide a solution for you, because often they can, and if, especially if they know you're thinking about, you know, paying some money to someone else to do it, they might be able to do something for you.

But yeah, if not, you know, Terra Cycle is a great company. There are other companies out there who are starting to do it now, so worth shopping around as well. But, yeah, I think that one was it.

It came at the right time. Morale was very low because people were and are still, you know, incredibly overwhelmed with what they were having to do in the pandemic. So it was something positive and, and maybe something to think about that wasn't just COVID all the time.

So it was nice. It's nice to have some good news stories, isn't it? Absolutely.

Hahari was talking at our virtual conference in, in. February and we're saying that only 8% of medical plastic is recycled, so it is a huge area isn't it, that and then we had Craig Bennett speaking at one of our earlier vet chats on, on sustainability. The whole area of plastic is, he, he has a quite a And it evangelical approach, which is just get rid of all plastic, which I think is the ideal, but it's gonna take us some time to, to reach that, isn't it?

But it's a great initiative and thanks for the great work that you know, you and Joe and the rest of the vet partners guys have been doing on that. I think it's been a great. Lead for other practises seeing it on on vet times.

Again, using Craig Ben as an example, you know, when I asked him what did he think that should be doing, he, he very much recognised that we are at the centre of the community. We're often respected in the community as well, so the actions that we take actually are seen by others, aren't they, by by the clients that come in, and that also has a massive effect, doesn't it? Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, I can't, I can't remember now who it was, whether it was the DVA or someone, one of those, bodies did a, did a survey and said basically vets are one of the most trusted professions in the UK, at the moment. So yeah, you're absolutely right, and I, I've had quite a few, queries from colleagues in practise actually about how they can, do better at communicating with their clients, what they're doing, . Becky, who's just, joined our team actually in, in that parts as a sustainability advisor, she was talking to me the other day about, let's, let's talk to, colleagues about how they can give advice to clients on, you know, responsible, and, sustainable pet ownership, and, and companion, companion animal, ownership.

So yeah, it's, . I think vets have got a huge role to play, like, you know, and it's, they've got a huge role to play and for whatever reason, the, the veterinary profession seems to attract people who are extremely kind of dynamic, very proactive, really, really engaged in these topics. Like that's something I noticed moving into the, into the veterinary sector as a sort of relative newcomer, .

The engagement and response I've had from my colleagues has been way more than I've ever had in any other, in any other job, so it's, it's interesting. There's obviously something about vets and nurses that they, they're, you know, super engaged, super proactive. Well, I think we love animals and therefore one, you know, if, if the environment degrades, then clearly animals and obviously humans also suffer, we've seen that in the last week with the terrible floods in Germany, this is all connected and if we have a.

Holistic approach to it, we're more likely to make some success, aren't we, rather than, you know, see it as individual things and not piece them together. Absolutely, yeah, it goes back to that one health then, that one health idea, doesn't it? Which I think is really important.

Yeah. Just talk to me a little bit about any other initiatives that that partners or anything we've got to look out for, anything you're, can you give us any sneak previews on anything? Sneak previews, yeah, well, our big, big focus this year, well, we've got a few big focuses this year.

One is. Investors in the environment. So, it's been a goal of ours for quite a long time to get, to encourage and to help our practises, start working towards some of those investors in the environment accreditations.

You know, we're seeing at, kind of shout out to Davies, Davies, and, to some of the practises that Linnaeus, we know they've had great, Success with that and we've expanded the sustainability team a little bit here that, so I've got a bit more resource to start focusing on these things. So we're doing a big push on that, basically building up a bit of a set of internal resources to help support our our practises both with investors in the environment and more generally. So we've got a lovely, we've got a lovely new e-learning platform actually that all colleagues have got access to.

It's really lovely user friendly. I've done a few things on it. And, we're just about to go live on a kind of big, big guide to sustainability in practise for vet partners on that.

I'm really excited about this, because I've been, I've been telling people for ages that we, I'm doing this big guide and I haven't managed to launch it, but now, Becky and Harriet have, have joined my team and helped me out with that. We're, we're gonna go live on that soon. The other thing which kind of doesn't sound quite as interesting at first glance, but I think will lead to really good things, is actually just getting a, A really, really solid baseline for VET partners as a whole on our energy use and our carbon emissions.

So VET Partners has, has grown so quickly over the last few years. We've kind of gone from being quite a, you know, relatively small company to quite a large company, and it's been really difficult to get hold of kind of high quality information on the energy we're using, you know, the amount of fuel we're using to fleet vehicles, water consumption, stuff like that. But our procurement team has done some amazing work on, kind of harmonising some of our contracts.

And I'm now starting to get really, really good data on exactly how much energy we're using, across the business. And that means we can get a really good, baseline of carbon emissions and then look to the future and say, OK, what, what is our, emissions reduction target, you know, for the next 5 years, 10 years and beyond. Brilliant.

Hannah, we, we did, invest in the environment last year, so we're we're a silver business and obviously we want to go green as well, but part of the green, thing is that you do have to calculate the carbon, so we're, we're going through a similar process as well, which is, which is fascinating yeah. I, I noticed, when I was reading up about on you that you, you also do some work, voluntary work for Lifescape Project, or you're interested in that area and rewilding. One of my favourite books of, last year was definitely Isabel Tres rewilding, talking about the Nepa state.

Tell me a little bit about what you're getting up to there. Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, like quite a few, like, like a lot of people, I was actually furloughed for some of last year, .

During the pandemic, and I, I started to, I was looking for volunteering opportunities and, and Lifescape actually is, it's a fantastic charity. It's quite a small, it's quite a small charity, but they've got a massive reach and it's grown out of this sort of partnership between a law firm and Acon, which is the company I used to work for, and they've got a few branches of activity, one of them is kind of using the legal might of, of, Clifford Chance and this, this law firm to. To kind of use environmental law to help push forward conservation and things like that, which is really cool.

And then the one of the other branches is this rewilding initiative, they've got a partnership with an area up in the Scottish Highlands called, Birchfields, and it's, a, a couple, Roger and, Emmy, who are absolutely fantastic. They, they, they own this land and they've started to reforest it and look at rewilding. Doing all sorts of cool stuff there.

They're kind of, you know, all the like taking soil samples, looking at what effects it's having on the river and like, Different, endangered species starting to come back to the area like eagles, they've got red squirrels. My role in all this is quite, is quite minor. I essentially do, some social media for them, so I, if you see a tweet coming out from LiveScope or a LinkedIn post, it's, it's probably about a 50 to 60% chance that I've written it and, it, it was just a really nice thing to get involved with, you know, well, especially while I was furloughed, but I've carried on with it now to feel that I'm.

You know, make a small amount of difference in that area as well. Yeah. It, it was again fascinating to just bring Craig back into the conversation there.

Focus wildlife Trust is 30 by 30, so 30% of the country's mass, you know, being put back to to nature use and even in. The, the natural parks, you know, the, the, the national parks rather, a lot of that land, yes, it looks like it's good for nature, but actually it's very monocultured and isn't really very good for nature, so it's also gonna be the farm side, isn't it, which I know that partners as a farm side, so it will be interesting to see. How farming can contribute to, to rewilding and, and change some of maybe strategies and things as well, which is probably a bigger topic, but yeah, it, it is, we're we're doing some work, we're doing some work with some of our farm vets at the moment, actually.

We've got, we've got a few farm vets who are really, really passionate about like regenerative agriculture and, . Both, both on the kinds of, veterinary side in terms of how you can, how you can look at the, the treatments you're using, the way you're approaching it, and also in the broader side, you know, I think there's a big opportunity, with the new, Elms. System and some of the things that are in the new environment bill, you know, if it, if it works as it's intended, there's a huge role for farmers to play, you know, that so much of the, especially the UK's landscape is, is agricultural, and I think, a lot of farmers are really taking on that initiative and doing some great stuff.

I mean, when I was at Yorkshire Water as well, they've, they've got, What they call beyond nature, they have a lot of farm tenancies and they're working with farmers there to kind of have these modern tenancies where, they're supporting and encouraging farmers to start rewetting peatlands and, and putting some areas back to wild. So yeah, massive opportunity. And like you said, it's a huge area, probably a whole separate podcast, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. Just as a sort of thing. Finish up, obviously, trying to bring this very practically into what can we as vets be doing, you know, to become more green in our practises or in our personal life.

So have you got maybe 2 or 3 tips, something that we can be looking at. So, personal life, something that I really focused on at the beginning of this year, actually was, looking at where I invest my money. And invest sounds very grandiose.

So it's not like I've got a great share portfolio or anything like that. But even, no matter what, you know, no matter what your financial situation is, it's having a look at, who you bank with, who your pension's with, who your savings are with, because actually that can. When you look at the amount of money that people have got in pensions and savings that can really, that can be an absolutely huge .

You know, huge impact compared to, compared to your day to day spending. So I switched my bank over. I mean, I, I wouldn't, everyone should look and decide on, you know, for themselves what brands they're using.

I switched my bank over to Triados, for example. I looked at some of my old pensions that were sitting in, in pension pots that may be worse than investing in fossil fuels, moved them over to, ones that, that were investing in, in the kind of more ethical and environmental ones. And, if people want to do that, I think, There's a website called Ethical Consumer and even like money saving Expert and stuff like that.

They've got some great guides on just how to look at your money and and start and start using it ethically. So that's my kind of top personal tip. And then for people in practise, I mean, Again, I, I think when you start thinking about, right, how can I be more sustainable?

I feel a bit overwhelming, like, there's so many different things you can do. So maybe just pick one area at a time and say, OK, well, I'm, I'm concerned about waste. We'll start focusing on, just say, OK, I'm gonna look at how we can use less single-use plastic, start looking at where you can use reusables or If you've got an outside space, have a look at, the Wildlife Trust website, bring it back to Wildlife Trust.

They've got some absolutely fantastic tips on how to make even small outside areas, you know, more nature friendly. Just take it one step at a time. Don't feel like you have to be perfect, you know, just start with something and you'll start to see results.

And I guess again, pointed to some brilliant resources, Vets sustain have just brought out a kind of greener veterinary checklist, that's available for free on their website. Take a look at that, just start working down a few of the, a few of the items they've got on there and see, see what you can do. Fantastic, Hannah, it's been so good speaking to you.

It is something that, you know, I'm very passionate about and obviously at the webinar vets and and Alpha Vet International in general, but it's great to know that there's lots of other people doing great work because I think, As you said, it can look as if it's, it's too big a thing to do as an individual, but as you see people coming together, industry, you know, as well as hopefully governments starting to, to move the needle, I think we can do great things. So thank you for all the, the great work you're doing at Parts. No, thank you.

Like, thanks so much for inviting me to, to talk to you. It's been really interesting and yeah, absolutely, like. Everything you do, even if it's really small, it's, it's part of something bigger and I think collectively, we can have a huge impact.

Thanks so much, Anna. Take care, thanks everyone, and we'll be another podcast very soon. Take care, bye bye.