Description

Join us for our Sustainability Summit, a key event for those dedicated to eco-friendly practices in the veterinary field.

Sessions include Bova: Our circularity story with Lizzie Barnard. Regenerating hope and Ceva's work with Martin Mitchell. Environmental sustainability in veterinary clinics with Ellen Brostrom & Xavier Rosso. Helping vets understand, begin and maintain their sustainability journey with Mike Curran. Green surgery- what can the medics teach us? with Susan Paterson.

This year, we're excited to present four prestigious 'Green Awards': Green Individual, Green Practice (Small), Green Practice (Large), and the International Green Veterinary Award. These accolades celebrate the extraordinary efforts in sustainability and climate action within our community. We invite you to share your sustainability stories and be inspired by the innovative approaches of others. Don't miss this chance to be part of a greener future in veterinary care.

In the final section of this webinar, see the winners of the 2024 Vet Trust Awards announced in partnership with Vet Dynamics.

Transcription

Welcome to our 3rd annual sustainability summit, which we've named regenerating Hope because of course that's part of the reason why we need to be having this summit to actually give us hope as well, and I took some time this morning to walk down to the beach. I live on the estuary, the Mersey Estuary. We're very fortunate where I live because literally within 5 minutes I'm in a landscape area which is really being managed by lots of different agencies including the Lancashire Wildlife Trust.
For biodiversity, and really fortunate to be there and and one of the reasons I went down was to see this lovely spectacle. So from about October till about March, we have the beautiful pink-footed geese that fly all the way down from Iceland and spend most of their time on the North Septon coast. They roost at the beach and then they fly inland and land on the fields, and of course there are many of them also at Martin Mere in Bursow.
And, and that really, these sort of events, going down to the beach. Give me great hope for the future, and it's been fantastic to see the work that All of the veterinary profession, or much of the veterinary profession is doing to actually improve biodiversity, to improve our carbon footprint and also circularity and recycling. Webinar vet was started in 2010 and it was set up, we, we set it up as a mission to make veterinary education more accessible and more affordable to vets and nurses across the world, but definitely a side part of it at that point was also that we recognised that people were often taking journeys to go to CE, sometimes by plane, sometimes by car.
And so we recognise that over the last 14 years we've probably saved many thousands of miles, many millions of miles in fact, off the roads and off the airways by creating webinar vet. In 2010, there really wasn't a an online presence, and nobody really knew what a webinar was either. And then a couple of years ago we sat down as a, as a team at the webinar back and said, but how can we be doing more?
And two of our initiatives were the sustainability summit, so in other words, training and encouraging practises, individual vets, businesses as well, on their sustainability journey. The BVA did a survey which stated that 89% of vets and nurses are interested in sustainability, but they are lacking, the wherewithal to know how to go forward on this journey. We also do the veterinary discussion forum, and last year we raised over £5000 for the likes of Wildlife Trust, and then, this year, or, or 2023 we raised just over 2000 pounds for the charity.
Rory is gonna be speaking to us shortly about an opportunity that's come up, a massive opportunity to, to really help improve a tract of land that has low biodiversity value. But due to a grant from a landfill company, if we can match fund that with 5000 pounds, it will allow us to release over 50,000 pounds from the, from the landfill charity. So Rory's going to talk about that, but it's real, .
It's real environmental work in action, and this was me the other day at Cut Acre. I went down to have a look at the sites and Francis was helping to teach me how to pleach sapling trees to turn them into hedges. So, the beauty of, of this opportunity is that what we're gonna be doing today to try and raise the 3000 pounds to get us up to the number of 5000.
Is to offer anybody who, who joins today, there is a 30% reduction on membership. And there's also . All of that money up to the 3000, so any memberships that we sell today, up to 3000 pounds, all of that money will go to Lancashire Wildlife Trust, and if we sell over 3000, then 20% of anything extra, will go into a pot for us to use for other sustainability, charities and works that we think are appropriate.
So do make a note of that green 30, webinar vets. Has fabulous training and information on it, we've just spent a lot of money on the site to make it even more user friendly, and I. I just encourage you to to go on and have a look at it and if you haven't ever bought a membership and you've been thinking about it, then this is a great opportunity to, one, get a discount for yourself, so there's a win-win in all sides, but also to help us to raise that extra money for the Lancashire Wildlike Trust.
This also applies that there are businesses listening who perhaps want some help with some promotion of their products. Then please do email us at office at the webinar vet.com, and we can pass that on to some of our corporate membership team.
We are having the virtual . Virtual congress at the moment, but our, our only physical event of the year is the Veterinary Green Discussion Forum which is taking place this year, 18th and 19th of June. The first two years it took place in Preston, we worried that some people found it difficult to get up north, what with the Avanti trains and things.
So we're actually doing, this year's veterinary green discussion forum at the the WWT London Wetlands Centre. And in fact, you are invited to contact and chat to us if this is something that would interest you. But our winners of the Veterinary Green Awards, which are coming up later, will also be in attendance there.
These are some of the companies that have been involved in the veterinary green discussion forum, in fact, all of them over the last year. And I'd encourage you to look out for maybe the companies that aren't at it, maybe that you work for or that you use as a supplier, maybe for your vaccines or for your flea treatments, and encourage them to come along, because I think the more we that we work together, the better we will be. So.
Thank you for all coming along, thank you for making that commitment to the planet. I'm gonna pass over now to Rory, who works for the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. He is a reserves officer for the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and, and he looks after the cutacr .
The cutacre nature reserve that we're talking about today, and he's gonna talk a little bit about this really fantastic opportunity that we as vets and nurses have got an opportunity to assist him. So Rory, it's over to you. Thank you very much, Antony.
I'll just share my presentation. So like Antony said, I'm Roy from the Lang to Wildlife Trust, and I'm just, very quickly gonna talk to you about, the wildlife Trust in general, and a bit about Kaka and this project that was mentioned. So, so the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, we're part of the Wildlife Trust movement in the UK, so every area has its own dedicated wildlife Trust, and we cover Lancashire, Greater Manchester and North Merseyside, and we are the leading conservation charity dedicated to all wildlife, and we work to improve wildlife in every area, and also improve it for people.
So we've been going over 60 years, and since then in our area we've become the largest conservation body and we're changing the region, working at a local level, while also being part of a strong cohesive movement. And we saved many special places and we acquired lots of land, and we managed many of them in nature reserves, and we look after nearly 1300 hectares havens for rare and threatened species. And we have over 800 active volunteers who help us on a regular basis, and we have over 30,000 members who support what we do.
We have three strategic goals. So they are nature, people, and connected solutions. So number one, nature, we want to have nature in recovery with abundant and diverse wildlife and help create natural processes for wild landscapes and seascapes where both people and nature thrive.
So our aim is to have 30 by 30, so 30% of nature protected in incovery by 2030. And number 2 is people, people are better connected to nature, and in their lives and taking more personal action for nature and wildlife. So this is our aim is one in 4 people taking meaningful action for nature, and finally connected solutions to work at a landscape scale with partners, landowners and businesses and people such as yourselves to create nature recovery networks and create nature-based solutions for society.
So moving on from the wildlife Trust, let's talk about cut Are Nature Reserve, what Anthony visited on Sunday. So it's a bit different nature reserve than our typical ones, as it's a former opencast coal mine and horse pasture, so it's really been through the ringer, it's a landscape. It's located in Tildeley, which is on the border of Wigan, Bolton and Salford, and we've owned it since 2012, and it is 65 hectares in size, so it's a fairly decent size.
And this site is a grade A sites of biological importance, it's ponds, class invertebrates and amphibians. So all inland amphibians are found at Kaka, most noticeably great Cressy newts, and it's really important for aquatic invertebrates, as there's one species of mud snail that is only found in one other site in Greater Manchester. And then over the last 12 years we've spent a lot of time getting our infrastructure standards, so things like paths, gates, and fences.
As we have, we have conservation grazing at site there are English Longhorn cattle currently, so we need a a space that is safe for them to do so because we've been focusing on that and establishing links with the local community through events, volunteer opportunities and education as well. For example, only last week we had a school come out to help plant hedgerow, and our long term aim is to increase our infrastructure so we can have allow breeding site for our grazing animals and so we can. Have more grazing animals across all our sites in Lancashire, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside, as well as create some wildflower meadows and improve our hedgerow network.
So on the site we have three main habitats these ponds, grasslands, and hedgerows. So the focus of this sort of project is the grasslands and the hedgerows. So grasslands are hugely important, and since the 1930s, 97 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost, that's over 3 million hectares, so a huge amount.
A typical meadow can be home to over 500 cent flowers per square metre. So for this project that would basically help create 72 million flowers in the fields we want to restore, and these can support over 1400 species of invertebrates. And for carbon capture as well, flower rich grasslands and meadows can store 500% more carbon than fields of pure grass.
And so cut Acre has over 55 hectares of grassland, so it's quite a significant amount we can help improve, and we're currently going do this by managing it with cattle grazing and manual cutting. And then our other habitat for this project are hedgerows. OK so again, hedgerows in a bit of a sorry state in the UK.
50% have been lost since the Second World War, and 60% of those that are remaining are in poor condition, much like the ones currently could take what we've not helped manage. They're a haven for all sorts of wildlife, bad habitat, they provide, food, and they also connect existing habitats together, so woodlands and ponds, things like mutes and things and. And different amphibians will use them as well as birds to get between woodland safely.
Cutak contains over 6 kilometres of hedgerow, so a lot of hedgerows, and through the last 3 years been laying them by hand as Anthony helped out on Sunday. So we do this with volunteers with hand tools, as you can see in the photo, so it is quite a labour intensive process. So the next part of our .
The presentation is about a project that we're looking for funding for. So this is dubbed pastures new because we want to create some pastures on site, we don't want to create some pastures, we're going from pastures to create wildflower meadows. So it'll be a transformational project for Kaka, and it'll be a real shot in the arm for the site to help biodiversity at the site and sort of get it up to speed and get it up to a good standard.
So it's managing nearly 13 hectares of species rich grassland. So first of all, the, the plan is to cut and collect it twice to get it on a really good basis, a really good sort of level playing field where we can sort of really implement real change. Our plants, so yellow rattle, which is a wildflower, and it is dubbed the meadow maker, as it is a hemiparasitic, plant, so it parasitizes grass, which helps stunt its growth and which is the main competitor of other wildflowers, so hopefully it basically establishes other wildflowers in the landscape.
And we're going to plant 7000 locally sourced blood plants. Going to clear nearly 1300 metres of ditches which are vital for our amphibian populations and lay over half a kilometres of hedge, but we had never been done, it's never been laid before, which will help link up our existing habitats. We also want to purchase new tools to help streamline our processes from seed collection and mainly hedge laying and coppicing which allow us to lay a lot more hedges .
In the in the coming years and also train up our volunteers to lay even more with us. We want to install new signs and education signs, so we can educate the local the public, local users, as well as anyone visiting the site. And this sort of culminates in creating a new donor site for green hay within North Greater Manchester, and it'll be the only one of its kind, so we can help establish other wildflower meadows within the landscape.
There we go. So finally, the funding we need, so like Anthony mentioned, we're looking for nearly 5000 pounds, so just over 4000, and then basically this figure on the left would unlock a landfill tax we've applied for, which is 10 times the amount, and then this will feed into already committed, LWT so the Wildlife Trust contribution of over 30,000 pounds and 4 days a week of dedicated staff member time to the project. So hopefully, with your very generous donations we'll be able to unlock a lot more money and create some real change for biodiversity at the site.
Thanks for having me, and if there's any questions, you put them in the chat or send me an email and I'll, I'll answer them. Thank you very much. Rory, thank you so much.
It's I think a really great. Project to to support because of course it's all about grazing grazing livestock and a breeding programme for, for the cattle as well. So it's very much an area that I, I think is is interesting that there is a a movement that says that we don't need cattle anymore, whereas actually cattle on the grass, with a a rich pasture of wildflowers actually helps with carbon capture as well, so.
I'm not sure we have all the answers to that, but I, I'm, what I'm certain of is that black and white answers don't really apply. This is a very complex organism called the planet. And I think we had all the answers we'd we'd have sorted the problem by now, so there's a lot of grey out there, but I'm sure projects like this will only help to increase our information and our understanding.
So thank you so much and hopefully we'll be able to raise that extra money. It obviously releases over 10 times the amount. So it's a great way of showing conservation in action within the veterinary profession.
We don't want the sustainability summit. From the veterinary Green discussion forum to become a talk shop. So having the opportunity to do something really concrete is fabulous and thanks for giving us this opportunity, Rory, that the vets and the nurses can can show a real interest in the sustainability and regeneration.
So thanks for coming on to help us with that, Rory. Thank you. We're gonna move on now to our first presentation of the day, from our veterinary speakers.
We're very fortunate to have, Martin Mitchell on the line, who is the chief sustainability officer at CIA. He's been really, really supportive of all the work that we've been doing at the Veterinary Greens discussion forum and the sustainability summit. And Martin did present some of the work that SEA were doing at the last veterinary green discussion forum, and I just thought some of the work was.
Amazing, I was hoping that he would share some of that today. So Martin's topic is regenerating hope and Siva's work. So Martin, if you want to share your screen, I think actually I think Dawn is doing the screen sharing, isn't she?
So Dawn will or Kyle will move slides forward, so you'll just have to remember the next please thing and then I'm sure it will all go swimmingly. So over to you, Martin. Thank you very much, Antony.
And, wonderful to be back with you. I had the opportunity, obviously, to come to Brockhos last summer. And, it was an amazing event.
And I think what we've just seen from Rory is a great example of, of, regenerating hope. My first slide, please. Reasons to be cheerful.
Reasons to be cheerful. 12. I'm sure not many of you will remember, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, but when I saw the regenerating Hope, 2, it reminded me very much of, of that song and, the reasons why we need to be cheerful.
You know, why is there hope? I, I also, saw a presentation recently. I'm, I'm getting towards the end of my career.
And I, I saw this slide. And if we look at life expectancies, You know, being 50 in 1963, life expectancy in, most countries was around 60 years old. So you could expect to live another 10 years.
If we project that through to 2023, we're looking at 78 years. So, deduct, 18 from 50, it equals 32. Since I'm 60, you can do the maths, but, I feel more like a 40 year old than a, a 60-year old these days, so things are getting better, there is hope.
Next slide please. But I think, you know, often when we, we look at sustainability, and we look at the, the debates in, in public, on, on, online, on, on TV, I just often wonder whether we haven't turned Maslow on his head. And, you know, whether our current consumption patterns really match those of a sustainable future.
We seem to question a lot of things, but when we look at this pyramid, You know, do we really question the the transport, the, the planes that we take to go on holiday, the streaming that we're constantly doing, next slide please. And, you know, we look at agriculture, but at the end of the day, we need food, water, and, and good health. That, that's essential to life.
That was, Maslow's pyramid. And if we look at livestock where we're active, in relative terms, you know, if we just look at greenhouse emissions, 12, FAO have just updated their calculations. They say it's around 12% of the total on a, a life cycle basis.
And IPCC, in their calculations, say, say it's 5%, which when you look at it in relative terms, is not a huge figure when you consider that, we need to, to live, we need to live. Next slide please. And again, looking at why we should be hopeful.
This is just a figure that I, I, I, I, I picked up recently, and one that I wasn't aware of. But if you look at agricultural emissions in the EU and the UK in the last . 30 years.
We've seen a, a 20% reduction, which is not enormous, but it is heading in the right direction. FAO estimate in their recent, COP roadmap that we need to increase that speed, and we need to target a drop of another 25% by 2030. And that, but that's also offset against productivity increases that are required of 1.7% per annum to meet the rising 20% demand from a a growing global population.
Next slide please. I think sustainability's such a, a vast subject, and Anthony, you talked about it as being very grey, . I think one of the issues that we have is the race to net zero.
I, I think we, we're in danger of having this carbon tunnel vision and, and focusing, purely on, on emissions, which obviously are important. I mean, clearly, methane levels in the atmosphere are increasing. We have to do something about it.
Why that is, is not particularly clear. I don't know if any of you have, have studied atmospheric chemistry, but, you know, you start to look at, how methane is broken down by hydroxyl radicals, which are only present for split seconds, and it's incredibly complex to to measure. But we really need to look at it in, in a, a total context.
We've just seen Rory talking about biodiversity, but all these other issues that are part of sustainability and not just carbon emissions. Next slide please. So, you know, where should we be focusing our efforts as a veterinary sector?
Next slide. Well, I'm a great believer in, in starting and ending with science. And, I've just made reference to two documents here.
I referred to the recent, Pathways document that, FAO presented in, the last COP 28 meeting. But just over a year ago, actually, in October 2022. For the first time, I think a lot of scientists working in this area got together, and, they produced a series of documents around livestock and sustainability, and which have been summarised in the so-called Dublin Declaration.
That has been now signed endorsed by 1200, or almost 1200 scientists all around the world. And I'd encourage you to have a look at that because I think there's some very useful science there. Next slide, please.
So, but if we go back to emissions, and we do look at where we can have most impact, again, I pulled this document from. That, that recent FAO pathways document. You know, you, you look in the, the media over the last month, and we have this huge focus on Vannuary and, you know, the need to, for dietary change.
But when you look at it in real terms, dietary change will have very little impact on overall emissions. Next slide, please. So what do FAA say?
What, what are the three top actions where we can reduce emissions and the sustainability of livestock? Well, you know, they're maybe not surprising. Productivity increases, improved animal health, improved breeding.
These are, this is exactly what we do as a, a profession. And, you know, this is a further reason for hope. You know, I suppose it's quite a, a, a conundrum for some people, but obviously.
If you look at a high producing Holstein, cow, it's far more, productive, far more efficient in terms of, emissions than a typical Barran cow that you would find, you know, maybe wandering around on, on the steppes in Ethiopia. But they're not comparable. And, you know, as FAO say in, in this quotation here, we've got to look at things in a, a holistic way and we've got to look at it on a global basis.
Next slide, please. So where do we start as a company? Well, we started by reformulating our, our, our vision, back in 2020, and we came up with this simple statement.
Together our passionate people drive innovative health solutions for all animals contributing to the future of our diverse planet. What do we mean by that? Next slide, please.
Well, one of the things that we did was we consulted very widely, both firstly with our own employees, and then with our external stakeholders. And in fact, there was a huge overlap in the areas that all those groups believed that we should concentrate on. And they were one hell, sustainability, animal welfare, one Siva, which really deals with our internal community, wildlife and biodiversity.
So that really drives, what, what we do in terms of our purpose and, and where we place our, our efforts, including sustainability. Next slide piece. I think again, looking at the context, what we seem to have lost sight of, and this is going back to the sustainable development goals, and this is a document that the United Nations update every year looking at food security and nutrition in the world.
And you know, when you look at it, the figures are quite shocking. You know, over 3 billion people in the world still cannot afford a healthy diet. You know, 12% of the global population faced food insecurity, and 22%, nearly a quarter of children under five, are stunted.
They will never achieve their full potential. Aside from that, we have a problem of obesity in, in many countries in the northern hemisphere with 6% of children that are overweight. Next slide, please.
So, again, going back to what can we do about it, the Global Association of Animal Health, Health for Animals, produced this sustainability report, commissioned by Ox, commissioned by Oxford Analytica last year. And again, when we look at it, the figures are quite astounding. If 80% of global livestock were vaccinated.
The amount of land needed for farming those animals would be reduced by 11%. That would feed another 1.6 billion people.
Next slide please. And reducing global disease levels by 10% through vaccination and other preventative health measures would, would save 800 million tonnes of emissions. That's equivalent to close to 200 million people.
So when we talk about innovative health solutions as being part of what we do, clearly, this is, this is critical for a sustainable future. Next slide please. You know, people are often sceptical about visions and setting targets and for, for, for what you want to do as a company.
But if we look back on where we were 10 years ago, when we, we started with our original vision, what it, what it's meant is that we've changed our product portfolio from being around a quarter based on, preventative health products to, over 50% today. That's a huge, huge shift. And, Clearly, with the figures I've just shown you starts to have a major impact in terms of sustainability.
Next slide please. And it's not just large scale producers. The, this is just some figures taken from the, the poultry sector, but the innovative, poultry vaccines we have now that we can use in hatchery can be applied to the biggest customers both in the UK.
And this is a programme called Prevent that we have in 9 countries throughout Africa, where we're, we're constantly improving levels of, of, of. Preventative health and as a result, performance, which starts to have the impacts that we, we, we saw in the figures I just presented. Next slide please.
This is a slide I'm, I'm very proud about. We, our, our, our managers in Asia, over 8 years ago now, started this programme. This is the, our younger emerging managers, the Gen Zs and the, millennials.
They decided they wanted to focus on stunting in children. And, you know, they looked at this figure, adding an egg a day to an infant's usual diet. Can halve stunting rates.
That's a major thing, and they've rolled out programmes constantly, to, to try to improve this, this whole, situation with child stunting. Next slide please. So, what is our impact on, on the planet?
Well, in the first place, we've measured it. That's important. I think it's fairly typical that, for a company like our own, it's really Parito's law.
About 20% of what we do is, scope one, scope 2, direct emissions. And, the 80% lies in, our scope 3, our sourcing, and so on. So, you can't measure, you can't manage what you can't measure.
We've done that. We have, key indicators to look at our energy, water, waste usage, and we've begun to establish sustainability, scorecards, and I'll talk about, about that a little bit more in our purchasing and product development. Next slide, please.
You know, when we look at biodiversity and we, we talk about science, what amazes me is how little we really know. At the moment, only about 1% of species that are at risk are currently monitored. We don't even know how many species there are in the world.
The latest estimates are about, there could be, 8.7 million, 6.5 million in the land, just over 2 million marine, but it could be as much as 100 million.
It's astounding. I talked about science and And staying with science, but you know, what we don't know also amazes me. Next slide please.
This is, so one of the things that we have done, and I think this is the most important thing when you start to build consensus, is it, is to involve your employees. And here, you've just got some of the examples of what they've produced, to start to have a, a, an impact on biodiversity. And there's a, a short video here that shows what we're, we're doing in the UK and a few other countries.
The leader of Siva's biodiversity working group introduces the programme on his home campus in Juatuba, Brazil, highlighting the objectives for the team in Brazil and other areas of the globe to first conduct a biodiversity survey around their own locations before adopting specific biodiversity and wildlife programmes at Ridgeway Biologicals, the CIA-owned company based in the UK. The biodiversity group meets to discuss progress. The team there has enthusiastically embraced the project.
And although Siva's facility in the mid-rand region of South Africa is located in an urban area, the team was amazed at the results of their survey. It's great to know that it's not just Siva making a product to help an animal, we are really helping the environment naturally. I think the business purpose project is definitely making a difference, going above and beyond, not just knowing what we've got here, we're helping the next generation know the importance of biodiversity and conservation.
It's also brought up the morale around the Siva campus. It gives you something different to do, it's exciting, it's something new, so yeah, I do, I think people have really been enjoying it and are seeing a difference. I'm not quite sure how much time I have left.
You've got about a couple of minutes left, Martin. OK, can we let me carry on then? Yeah, sure, carry on for a couple of minutes.
We definitely want to hear about the koalas. It's more than koalas now, Antony. We've, so we're, we're a year into our, wildlife Research fund.
So, in terms of what we're doing, for wildlife and biodiversity, we set up this fund to, to look at where we could have impact, where we could, and it's not really, pure research. We want to try and, help things that are closer to market, where we can have a A faster impact, but you can see some of the projects that we've been working with here in terms of developing a vaccine for chlamydia in in koalas, but I, I think, you know, just the, the pangolin, which is the most trafficked species in the world, we, we've been doing a lot of work, especially in Africa, looking at, well, with the African pangolin, Network, but also looking at ways to reintroduce pangolins back into the wild. Next slide please.
We're constructing a, a, a new office, as, as you know, Anthony, on a 10 acre site in a wetland in, in, in Lebourne, which is in the, just off the Dordoyne River, down in the southwest of France. The whole, site will be, totally, provided for with geothermal, Energy and, photovoltaic panels, and will be environmentally certified. So every building now that we construct is, is, is done so, obviously, in a, in a way that is mindful and as far as possible, carbon, neutral or even positive.
One of the things I'm, I'm really proud about, and again, it's great to do things at a corporate level. But this is a project that is being run by our sustainability Working Group in the UK, but also in France. We're working with a, there's a, a project called School Lab that started in, originally in Berkeley, California, where they took, MBA, master's students, both in business.
In design. And they started to look at things like deplastification. So we've been working, with a number of major, veterinary practises in, in the UK over the last, month to look at ways that we can, develop our, the, the, the environmental footprint of our products.
We've got a prototype, I can't, probably can't say too much at the moment, but, EA scoring system that we, we want to try and, develop with the practises. And I think this comes back to my title and, and to, to your point, Anthony, that we can only do this together. You know, we have to work across sectors, we've got to work together if we're gonna have any improvement in terms of overall sustainability.
So, I think I can, I can stop there. Thank you very much for your time. Oh, my last slide.
This was my Piece de Resistance. Maybe I've got time to do that. Why the, why the chameleons?
Well, I always believed that chameleons, had the potential to blend in with their background. But, in fact, that's not the case. They don't, they blend naturally with their background.
When they change colour, it's because they are excited that they want, they want to defend their territories. They want, a sexual mate, but that's the only reason that they change their colours, apparently. So, I, I just feel that when it comes to sustainability, we hear a lot of noise around.
I, I feel that a lot of what we see is unscientific. So, you know, are we chameleons, do we really want to commit to things that we believe in, which is what we try to do as a as a company, or do we just want to blend in with the background noise? Thank you.
Thank you so much, Martin, for the fantastic presentation. A lot of food for thought there, you know, everything that's said, part of the reason for the veterinary Green discussion forum is that we don't necessarily agree with everything that everybody says, but so important to listen and then to begin to develop that evidence-based, that science based approach which certainly came across in your presentation, so. Thank you so much for that, Martin.
We're now gonna move swiftly on because we've got a lot to cover. We're gonna be, introducing you to Lizzie Barnard, who is the head of marketing for Bover Group, the, compounding, company that I think was started in Australia, but now is all over the world, and Lizzie and I talk often about sustainability and particularly for the veterinary green discussion forum in June, we're going to be talking about secularity. And Lizzy's really passionate about all areas, but I think this is an area that she's particularly passionate about.
How do we get rid of our addiction to plastic? How do we start to reduce the user cycle, and this is Bova's story. So Lizzie, thank you so much and over to you.
Thank you, Anthony, and thank you for having me join this event. I feel hugely privileged to be here today and to share our story, so. This is our circulator story, and today I'm going to be discussing the problems we face with Bova and also some of the steps that we're working on to solve those problems.
So I think to start our story, I need to give you an overview of Bover and its history, to set the scene on some of the problems that have arisen in the way we operate as a manufacturer. So Nick Bova, our CEO, took the keys to his parents' Sydney-based pharmacy in 2008, which had been in operation since 1968. Inheriting his parents' passion for business, Nick started to look outside the box to offer something else to their loyal customers, and a compounding service was introduced to the local doctors and the veterinary market.
Over the next few years, countless hours were spent researching, studying, training in the fine art of compounding. The business continued to grow and in 2010 the retail pharmacy separated and Bova emerged as one of Australia's few stand-alone compounding facilities. By 2016, the business had grown to be the largest veterinary compounder in the country, servicing thousands of vets throughout Australia, from having only eight medications to offer in 2008, Bobo Australia has since developed a formulary of over 30,000 lines, refining each formulation over the years and becoming experts in the regulatory environment surrounding the business.
In 2016 17, Nick launched Baby UK, a specials manufacturer dedicated to bringing quality specials or extemporaneous medications to the UK veterinary market. Bovi UK is led by a team of experienced pharmaceutical manufacturing professionals who bring their experience from across the globe and have exposed, have been exposed to the European medicine standards which are implemented at Bova. The veterinary medicines directorate authorised the facilities for the Mansa manufactured Specialist authorization in 2017 for sterile and non-sterile medicines.
By UK was the first company to receive BMD authorization to manufacture sterile products in the UK, and since then, Bova has expanded its formulation range, built on its research alongside key opinion leaders. In 2022 Glover joined Next Mean Group, which are also part of the Viman family, of which the lovely Ellen and Xavier are presenting after me, so you've got that excitement to look forward to. With all the years of hard work and the culture Nick had created, this has shaped our goals and our beliefs of great solutions for vets' needs, the pet, and also the pet parents.
The product has to maintain the highest quality and the condition in order to be a focus. Some of the forms we make include liquids and pastes, tablets, capsules, including our cytotoxic range, transdermals, otic preparations, and steriles. All of these come with different packaging, often plastic.
With different requirements such as storage conditions. We've got a well established quality culture, it's really important to us to have quality, good quality products. So we ensure that the business remains compliant with our current good manufacturing practises, our good laboratory practises, and the European Medicine standards.
Bova has invested in superior analytical laboratories to perform stability studies on new and existing products to monitor and improve product quality and patient safety. We invest heavily in R&D through Loder Parma, a virtual biopharmaceutical company that closely aligned with Bova, but with Nick also set up. As a company we've invested in our quality department, the team is growing massively and our training is extensive and ongoing.
Our quality assurance team ensures our products are maintained to the premium standards that our customers expect. So what are the problems we face, and this is where we come to today, and the reason why Anthony has invited me along to talk to you about some of the projects that we are working on. But some of the issues we face as a specialist manufacturer.
We don't sell our products via the wholesalers. Many of our products are made to order based on the vet's request. This presents massive issues for us with shipping.
We don't have cold chain services with our courier, so in order to get our products to our customers in the right condition, we have to use disposable polystyrene call boxes, often with a tiny, tiny little vial in it. And when I actually sat down and analysed the data, it's really rare for a practise to order our capacity box, which is 25 vials to to fit. They generally order 1 to 5 vials, and it's sent in this absolutely massive box.
Our plastics are virgin and non-recyclable or reusable, so they're often ending up with the pet owner, at which point we have lost control. The realisation caused a massive shift in our mindset at Bova. We're still quite a young company, so we were growing and growing and developing, but then we started to realise that we needed to invest in alternatives so that our customers aren't left with the problems that we have created.
So part of what makes those really unique is having a problem and solving it. We do this with our medications every day to support vets and their clients, so why not the wider business? We started to look at our quick wins.
We've set up a sustainability team. They're working on internal changes at our manufacturing sites in both London and Sydney. We changed to compostable bags.
Probably thinking why compostable? Why, why do you have bags to process? But during our manufacturing process, we have to put our made to order products in plastic bags so that the prescription and all the paperwork goes with that product throughout the manufacturing chain.
Whereupon it's then sent to the customers. So that was plastic, more plastic, so we thought, OK, we'll change that to compostable. It's a nice quick, simple way to reduce down our plastic use.
We provided all our staff with metal water bottles. This meant we could cease the use of our big water dispensing units and also the plastic cups, encouraging a reduction in waste within our internal use. We've introduced water philtres, we've introduced recycling, we've changed LED lights.
We're looking at a paper reduction plan. We're very heavy on paper because we don't have efficient systems in place. So this is something we're also addressing.
All the while we are educating our staff on our changes, which is really key. Our staff come up with great ideas every day, so we want to educate them to empower them to think of new ideas. But what about the bigger picture?
We, we are looking at the bigger projects. We're working on our scope 1 to 3. Lucky, we are working with Vivian and the lovely Ellen, who is guiding us through and educating us, cos it's not something we really know a lot about.
So with the support of Vimian, they're helping us with all of this. We're changing our fleet to electric and hybrids so that our sales team are not increasing our carbon footprint. We're looking at solar panelling.
We are in a rented building, but this is something we are trying to investigate. And we've recently joined the Investors in the Environment, which has been really exciting, so we're working towards our bronze level. But now we get to the really exciting stories, which is another reason Anthony got wind of, so we're gonna talk about our circulatory projects.
And one of the exciting projects we have been working on is Volcom. So I've talked about the quality issues and we've talked about how we have to transport our products because of the way we are as a manufacturer, a specials or compounding manufacturer. So walk call is our alternative for coal chain transportation.
Australia is struggling. We do have issues with Australia, so we are, we can't export our wool packaging over to Australia for biosecurity reasons. So they are currently working on this, so this is a mainly a focus on the UK if we've got any Aussie people there, we haven't quite rolled it out there just yet.
So polystyrene packaging, it's absolutely fantastic. It does the job that we want it to do. It guarantees 72 hour temperature regulation.
This ensures that our product arrives to the vet in perfect condition, fulfilling our goals of quality. But what of the negatives? We've got really grumpy customers.
We were sending out huge boxes of polystyrene, and our customers were getting really upset and quite rightly so. So we looked at it and it takes hundreds of years to break down. It can be recycled, but it really depends on the local council.
It could be reused for blood transport, maybe in the big hospitals, but how often is this done? We even look to implement a reuse and recycle programme, but this was cost prohibited to us and it put too much pressure on our customers in their busy day. Our customers just simply aren't set up to deal with this.
So I started to look for the alternative and came across fulcrum. And our journey to investigate this would suit our needs began. We needed to spend time ensuring that the product would remain at the correct temperature over a required time period.
Our ultimate goal has to be 72 hours for shipping to the hard to reach areas in the UK such as the Shetland Isles. But then I came across some interesting facts when we introduced the wool, and the price of wool in 2023 to the UK to the farmer is between 68 to 97 pence per kilogramme. And I've done some further research looking back to 2021 and it dropped down to about 14p per kick.
Shearing the sheep can cost more to the farmer than what he makes on wool. Some years the cost to shear can be 4 times more than the return on the wool per sheep. So a great resource is now being wasted or burnt or buried.
But to me, wool is awesome. It's been used for building materials and clothing, but we're just seeing such a decline now. No.
Introducing Wor has seen a 65% polystyrene or plastic reduction for us. This is just for phase one and phase one is a testing that we've done up to 24 hours using a compostable envelope and wool combo. Phase 2, which we are working on, we've just had a few more projects that have gotten the way of it with our quality team.
The phase 2 will include a box and wool combo. So for the bigger orders or the further we're shipping it, we'll be able to introduce a 72 hour and therefore be completely 100% free of polystyrene, which is really exciting. And the cherry on top, we've seen a 45% cost savings just with phase one.
So not only are we saving the company money, we're supporting our farmers. And we've got happy customers as well. And we're also maintaining our quality products as we expect them to be.
So where does circulatory come into it? I had a look at the UN Environment programme. Just to demonstrate where we are, I'm not an expert on this, but I just thought it was quite a useful tool to guide me through on where we sit and where the walk all sits.
So Wolco has many post-shipping uses. We can repurpose it, we can reuse it, we can recycle it, but there are a few issues that I'm gonna talk about in a minute. The product itself is reduced by design, especially when you compare it to polystyrene, cos we're sending out smaller packaging versus the polystyrene massive box that we were sending out.
And the customer finds it easier to dispose of it as well. But we've been asked loads of questions. How do I recycle my wool, and this is a really challenging question for us because currently the wool itself is not widely recyclable with the local authorities.
Which presents a slight problem, but the layers surrounding it, so there is a plastic layer around it and then a compostible around the actual wool, they are fully recyclable and compostible. So that's a great thing. The next question we've been asked is how do I reuse my wall call?
And this is where it just gets really, really, really cool, which is why I love the wall call idea so much. You can use it for animal bedding, as you can see with the wee cat and the kittens there. You could use it for crafts.
It might be something that we look at getting in with a school or a craft set up so that we can send our wool to these craft places so that teddy bears can be made or felting, there's so much it can be used for. Gardening as well as a really exciting thing and composting. So it's really, really versatile.
But the other really exciting thing is it also comes from the Herdwick sheep, and I've turned into a bit of a sheep nerd recently myself cos I've actually got 7 Welsh mountain sheep out of my field. So I do quite like my sheep. And I also live not too far from the Lake District, which is actually where these sheep come from.
It's the Herdwick sheep. And so we automatically know where the sheep has come from. We know it's not been imported from other countries, we know it's been in the UK.
And that was just a, an added bonus for us to have that traceable element to the project. So I'm gonna do a deeper dive, and this is something that is being a little bit passionate of mine, and I've been quite excited about starting this project, but it is very new, it's very in the infancy, so I'm probably gonna create more questions discussing this point than, I dare say. But please be feedback, please add your comments, please email me, I'll put my email at the end and.
I really am open to your ideas because it is a big project for us and I really hope it does work well. So biodegradable plastics, why? We've got no control over what happens to our plastic packaging.
After we sell it to the vets and the vet prescribes it, it's often lost. I'd be really, really keen to know if other companies have done a replace and reuse scheme, whether it's even possible. Please, please add a comment in there cos the more feedback we can get the better, but from our perspective, we discussed it briefly and we thought, well, maybe the safety, the quality and the practicality variables we've kind of ruled that option out.
Which seems a shame, but it brings us back to the biodegradable plastic plastics, so. Our current plastics are not easily recycled or used, so exploring alternatives to single-use plastic can now become a global project. We are working between both the UK and also Australia to try and see if we can get this project off the ground.
So what steps do we need to take now? It's a huge project. We need to think about where we're gonna go.
So we're looking to assess the safety of using biodegradable plastics. Our current plastic packaging is great. It's really good.
It's leakproof, it's tamper proof. We've been able to maintain stability with it. We've run tests on it.
We're really quite happy with it, apart from the fact it's taking hundreds of years to break down. So we need to ensure that the product within the new bio biodegradable pots is gonna be fit for purpose as intended to be prescribed to the client and the pet. It needs to be safe for them and also their families, so it has to be tamperproof and it needs to have all the premium quality expectations that we put as a business on our products.
Currently the product is just the project is just looking at our bigger pots, which if it is successful, we're going to then look at doing our diid dose syringes, our transdermals, we've got small tablet pots. We're gonna look at our infusion bags potentially, bottles, and so on and so on. So we've got a huge range of plastics that these products are going out in, so there's a lot to consider if we can get past this space.
A really, really high percentage of virgin plastics are going out. We're gonna look at our supply chain and analyse it. Currently we're looking at our supplier to be in India.
Is this the right thing? I've often thought about probably not for the UK, but then you think, well actually it's kind of smack bang in the middle between Australia and the UK, so we're we're shipping either side, so. It might not be a bad thing.
We do mean well, but we've just got to ensure we are win-win on all these different perspectives. We also want to be assured that the length of time it's going to take to degrade and how it will degrade. We're looking at 5 years.
If we can get 5 years degrade and that's great. Any less than that and we start running the risk that our product is actually not stable within it. So there's so many things here that we have to think about before we hit the green light on this project.
But on a positive side, we've estimated that around. 44% of reduction in our plastics will be attained, and this, this is just in the UK at the moment, we're struggling to get the data on Australia because they have got 30,000 lines, it's a bit hard to work out the amount of plastic and the types of plastic that they are using the easier in the UK. We also haven't ascertained the cost savings.
That would be the ideal if we've got cost savings on this similar to what we've seen with 45% with Walco, that's gonna keep everybody happy. So we want to achieve that as well if we can. And that's the end of our circulatory story, or should I say maybe the start of our circulatory story.
I really hope you've enjoyed some of our solutions to our problems, but we're also really open to suggestions. We are also new at this, so we relished the feedback, and we relished the support of Vivian and Maxine, who you've got the lovely Ellen up next. So thank you for listening.
Thank you so much Lizzy, that was excellent and, and the passion comes through on it, and I think this is the key sometimes . There's a lot of people out there who are really concerned about the whole biodiversity and the sustainability issues, but they really don't know where to start and, and my tip is just start, do something, you know, change the low energy lights, have renewable energy as your, you know, electricity supplier. So I think it is just starting, so Lizzy, thank you so much, and you're doing more than starting, you're doing lots of things, but very humble.
But that was fantastic just to hear that story because I've heard it, but to put it together in a PowerPoint was fantastic. While we're start changing over, just wanted to, I'm always fascinated, it's a little bit of a, a craze of mine to know where everybody's listening in from, and do feel free to tell your stories on the chat box. So what you're doing for sustainability, that encourages all of us where you're listening in from as well, so.
Do that throughout today and I will read some of those out at different periods. I've set myself up downstairs to run the summit today and I'm looking out at the birds on my bird feeder, so that's keeping me entertained and our CFO was sitting on my lap until very recently, he's just walked out. The CFO is of course the chief feline officer who, Buddy, who you've seen on some of the documents, he's, he's wandering around at the moment.
So moving on, we're going to move on now, for our next presentation, which is, as, Lizzie said, is with Vivian, and we're very fortunate to have Ellen and Cavier on the line, bother. Well, Ellen is the sustainability manager for the Vimean Group and Cavier is the CEO of Family France, which is part of Vivian, as well as Boba. And Ellen and and Javier are gonna be talking about the environmental sustainability actions that they're doing across their veterinary clinics across Europe, so really looking forward to the talk and over to you, Ellen and Javier.
Thank you so much, Anthony, and thank you, Lucy. I'm a very big fan of the local story and how it's quantified in terms of the savings on both plastics and cost. But today, and I'm also so glad to be part of the virtual veterinary congress on the topic of sustainability and regenerating hope.
And yes, my name is Ellen Brostrom. I lead Vimian Group sustainability agenda, and with me today I have my brilliant colleague from France, the CEO of that family there. Hi, Xavier.
Thank you, Elaine. Hi, everybody. And after we have introduced ourselves, we're going to take you through 3 different chapters.
Number one is a survey covering 600 clinics in 6 European countries and their motivation to become more environmentally sustainable. The second one is Xavier is gonna take you through an initiative called Death Echo programme. And the learnings after running that for 2 years.
And lastly, we're gonna go through some guidelines that we hope that we can agree on together to accelerate change. I hope you're as excited as we are. So, Let's start with Vivian.
We are a global animal health company improving animal health through science and technology for better lives, and we have this, we're divided in four segments. We have this specialty pharma where you have the brilliant Liy from Bova as an example. You may be heard of Vexmune and, and you may be using every day the Otoine air cleanser that comes from, from our specialty pharma segment.
We have medtech where we do orthopaedic implants, such as total hip replacements. We have veterinary services which will be our focus of today and also diagnostics. And we serve around 15,000 veterinary clinics globally with 1000 colleagues, and our ambition is really to create a global sustainability leader in animal health where we focus on our people, animals, and the planet, and the planet we mean our journey towards net zero climate impact.
And when I say leader, it's not about winning the race, it's about taking the steps forward and inspiring others to follow suit. Xavier, can you present this to that family? Yes, yes, I do.
Well, once again, thank you, Helen. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Antony, to give us this opportunity and Lizzy, it's nice to see the, the family here, the Vimian family.
Well, who we are, finally, a vet family, when it started in Denmark, a few vets. We were cha chatting together and say, well, we need to do something because we will have more impact together. So it was, it was the beginning of that family.
It was in 2000 and the family, the family is growing day by day now. We are supporting 8000 independent clinics, so it's . It's, well, every day we have new clinics will join us and we are now in different continents.
So it's we are very proud of that. So it's it's a great adventure all together. Finally, our mission, and I know that in the UK you have a lot of corporates, and it's great.
And we think also that independent clinics, they have also their their way to have, they can have many opportunities or so. So our job is to help them to have a a nice life, I would say as independent. Clinics and how we work with them, we are providing also the best price in terms of purchase, but also we are, we can do audit, we can do consulting we we help them to be more entrepreneurs in their clinics and and also we, we like.
Gathering all the vets and the nurses because you know that nurses are also very important in a community to exchange to well to share good ideas and then we are growing all together. That's the idea behind that family. Thank you, Xavier.
So I hope you know us a little bit better by now, and let's move to chapter one where we look at the survey covering 600 clinics in 6 European countries, and the aim was really to understand the current demand for environmental sustainability in the clinics and what's driving the demand and what differences can we see in different countries. And the country's in scope here, well, it's Germany, Spain, France, and then 3 northern countries, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. UK is not here, and I know many of you are located in the UK.
And I understand from speaking with, with Anthony that clinics in the UK have truly come a long way when it comes to the environmental sustainability agenda, and I've had the pleasure to learn about your initiatives with that sustain and the investors in in the environment. So when we go through the numbers, you can ask yourself where on this scale would my clinic be? So firstly, we asked the clinics how interested they would be of different types of support.
And If you know, on a scale from 1 to 5, how interested are you? And on top of the list is really training for improved efficiency of clinic workflow. But we can see the 4th initiative that they'd be interested to get support in is really support to develop environmentally friendly operations.
We can say that half of the clinics are interested to get this type of support. It's very similar across regions, but Denmark expressed a slightly higher demand to get this type of support. And just to contrast with not the exact same number but similar in the UK, the one Anthony mentioned earlier about the BVA survey done in 2019, it's a long time ago, but then 89% of vets would like to play a more active role in in the sustainability agenda.
If we look at the overall demand from pet owners to request environmentally friendly products and services in the clinic, I was quite surprised to see these results that 69% said no, rarely or never. If we then look at the ones that experience requests weekly or a few times per month, it was around 9%, where we can see that France is standing out, they express a stronger demand for environmentally friendly products and services. But we know from other surveys such as the one at Frontier in that Science that 52% of pet owners would be willing to to pay a more premium for clinics that are actually reducing their negative environmental impact.
Thirdly, What's the motivation for clinics to reduce their negative environmental impact? We wanted to, to understand what what's driving this. The main one is to save costs, for example, reduce the cost of electricity that many of us were facing last winter specifically.
But the second, motivation, and I, I would draw the conclusion that the people responding were very honest that saying that I want to do this because I want to feel good about myself for contributing to the greater good. A third motivation was really to have more loyal, pet owners where we can see that Denmark really sticks out in terms of 93% would have a big motivation to get more loyal pet owners from from reducing their negative environmental impact. We can see that Spain stands out to, to attract new pet owners, and Sweden would stand out to become a more attractive employer.
Last question that we're gonna go through is, we asked the clinics, what would you, within environmental sustainability, what would you find most valuable to get support with? And we have a clear winner here when it's connected again to saving costs, becoming more energy efficient and reduce the cost of electricity then implementing consistent waste management. And both of these two are very Sort of a low hanging fruit.
Anyone can do it. It's quite standard in terms of the actions and measures you take. So it's, I think that's very positive.
We can act from, we can act today if we want to. And then we had offering sustainable or organic products to pet owners as the 3rd most valuable support and there we again see Denmark, truly stands out. But from this survey of of the 600 clinics in 6 European countries, we conclude that there is a high demand for clinics to become more sustainable, and it's great to see that every other clinic would like this kind of support.
And they are facing the same type of of challenges, it's energy efficiency, it's waste management, it's sustainable procurement. But their motivations differ. They might agree on the saving cost, but then it comes to more loyal pet owners or attracting new pet owners to their clinic or becoming the employer of choice.
So what we take with us when working with the clinics that part of the family is really regional adaption is needed to provide the most valuable support in the clinics on their journey to become more environmentally sustainable. So let's look into a specific initiative and in France, the VET Eco programme. Well, thank you, Elaine.
I think the good news regarding all the study is that well the interest to have a more sustainable practise is growing day by day. So I think that's the very good, the very good news. So I think most of you know one health and the idea is that 2 years ago we were thinking, OK, now we have a number of clinics in France.
What can we do? To, to, to change the way we are doing the practise, how we can be more sustainable. So we created this programme and I created with one consultant, his name is Danny Marcia, and with this, we, we, we, we were thinking, OK.
What, what kind of service, we will, we need to provide to be sure that we will help the clinics and we know that the vets are very busy. You are very busy if you are in your clinic right now and you don't have the time for many things, so we have to simplify the life in order to, to become more sustainable, but that doesn't take too much effort and too much time for that. And what we know is that the new generation and you know that is very keen to, to see that, well, I prefer to, to be recruited in the clinics where they are taking account this sustainable topic than a one we don't.
So I think it's also a good opportunity for clinics to, to, to take seriously, I would say this this topic. So, what do we do? Finally, we, we, we, we found those four pillars and we, we, we thought at this time that it was the right one.
The first one is reduce carbon emissions. You were talking just before Een that it's good that. It can save, it can, we can do some savings, but also if I, if I can be with an energy provider more green, that will be perfect.
So we, we, we start to work on that and we do some simulation for our clinics to say, well, you should perhaps switch to these suppliers to these suppliers in order to to be more sustainable, I would say. And also we have some suppliers for example, about solar panels. So we, we propose to our clinics to to use solar panels in order to reduce their classic energy.
Consumption, I would say. So the first one is energy. The second one is reduced pollution.
So that's why it was impressive, the figures that you say, Lizzy regarding the plastic reduction you were mentioning. And here what we say is what what can we do of the medical plastic that has been used in a clinic. Today, 90% of this plati are putting in the soil or they are, they are burnt.
So we say, well, we need to reduce it. So we, we use, we, we contract with a company that collects this kind of plastics and then give a new life of the plastic. So this is 11 example of what we do in this in this pillar and well, it's it's very well received, I would say by the vets.
The third part is how can we have more responsible purchase and we promote, for example, this product that you can see blue, which is a startup in France, but I know that in UK and everywhere there is great people who are creating new stuff and this one is no chemicals and you do it your liquid in order to clean all the The surface, I would say in your clinics, and it works very well. So it's one example and also to give a second life of your equipment. OK, I don't need my scanner anymore.
I want to change. OK, we use a company who help the clinics to have this second life, so we think that it's more sustainable sustainable that way. And the last one is biodiversity.
And we, we work with a company, the name is UA. It's a French association, but I know that there is great association in UK and everywhere in the world. We are working on biodiversity.
And what do we do finally with them? We, we are, we, we launch micro donation. So each time people came in the clinics, they can give €1 or 50 cents for 1 or 2 or 3 actions.
And you will discover on the next slide, different kind of action that we do with with you care. So there is one you, you, you can. Save lives, lives of animals.
Another one is more to pick up to collect the plastic in the ocean, and we know that there is a huge amount there. And the last one is reforestation, so how to to plant new trees, for example, so. There are posters in the clinics, and each time you do the donation and when you reach €500 but you imagine that if your clinics and all the clinics together did that, you can see the amount of money that we can have to do this kind of activities.
So this is one example what we can, we provide to the 800 French clinics part of vet family. So when we say that, when finally, practically, what happened? Well, it starts, as I say, 2 or 3 years ago.
Even if we have a lot of clinics who are interested at the end, finally, the number of clinics who do actions is not so much. But the good news is, is step by step, there is more and more clinics who say, well, I want to play this role. I want to be part of this VO programme, so it works in the right way, but there is still some work to do to convince, I would say clinics so.
50 clinics active in this in this operation. What do we do finally, we do webinars, we do trainings, we have a WhatsApp to exchange all the ideas, sustainable ideas, of course, and we have, we have clinics who finally work with clean products, we, we change the energy and do microdconnection. But as you say, you can say 800 clinics and we have this.
OK, it's it's tough, but day by day, things are moving. So that's, that's the point and perhaps the learnings we have also is that we have to focus perhaps on one or two actions, otherwise they could feel overwhelmed because they don't know which one to start. So let's say, OK, let's do micro connection in 2024, and this is exactly what we, we are focusing right now.
And I think on the next slide, what we, we have here, so Martin from CEA, I hear what you said before and I see all the the work you are doing on sustainability and we are partners together so. I think there are also things to do together regarding how can we reduce the carbon footprint in the clinic because 2/3 of the carbon footprint comes from our partners, our partners from the pharma or the pet food. And I'm very happy to see that things are moving and in France we create this group of actors and we, we, we, we, we take action in order to be more sustainable, for example, reduce plastic.
In the package like you did Lizzy, and this is the job we do and because we are stronger together, that's why we create this group to be to move to a more sustainable world, I would say on the French market. Thank you, Xavier. And I, I hope it was interesting for many of you who are in the UK, you know, the state of your your clinic, maybe your engagement with other clinics and, and comparing that to, to the state of Europe and and what's it like in other countries, specifically the deep dive in France.
But let's say, chapter 3 is our guidelines where we want to team up with you to accelerate change together. It's 51, take ownership. If not you, then who?
Don't wait for your colleague or the clinic owner or the supplier. What can you do with what you have where you stand, even if you come a long way, OK, what's the next step? How can you inspire someone else to do even more?
To inspire, encourage colleagues and owner to, to engage, I, I think sustainability has a tendency of, of pointing fingers. There's a lot of vocabulary and words that should not be used in, in certain, in certain contexts and, and rather to point fingers and say that's wrong and keeping someone out, rather coach them and guide them and invite them. Then 3 measure quantify the impact.
I think Lisi did that perfectly in terms of how much plastic is saved, how much cost is reduced, which can also be measures that help convince another person, and then we're one more on this agenda. Fourth partner up like with Siva like Xavier said with the with the full full team because it's not about winning the race and being the best in sustainability, it's about inspiring and having others follow suit and being brave enough to ask for help. And lastly, be patient because reforms take a lot of time, specifically if you're in pharmaceuticals and it comes to a packaging exchange, and that has to go through a lot of testing before that can be put in your hands and and on the market, but with anything, be patient.
And again, Sair, is there anything you'd like to add? No, I, I think, I mean, you, the conclusion is very clear and perhaps about inspire. Definitely sustainability, it's not that, OK, now let's be a sustainable clinics.
It's not top down. You have to inspire the people, you have to To be convinced, and if you are convinced like Helen is for Vivian, then all the group is moving and who is the people who can move in your clinics? Perhaps it's you, so well then take the lead regarding that and inspire the other people by doing by yourself and start that way.
Thanks, thanks Cavier, thanks Ellen, that was a brilliant presentation and I think a very inspiring presentation as well, . What was really interesting was this whole idea of just saving costs, because there are more and more people now realising that actually environmental improvements are worth doing because they'll save money, and if that brings more people onto the bell shaped curve, you know, at the moment you're 50 practises. Are, are the early adopters, the ones who are really passionate about it, but more and more I think we'll join in.
So, thank you so much for that. We really wanted to make the summit and the veterinary Green discussion forum, an international affair, and it's lovely to have somebody, from France and somebody from Sweden and our next speaker. Is Mike Curran, who's going to be speaking from Ireland.
And Mike is a is a is a LinkedIn friend that I, I, met up with on LinkedIn, inspired by some of the posts he was making as part as the CEO of Excel vets in Ireland. And we've had a few chats, not just about sustainability, I think football gets mentioned occasionally as well, doesn't it, Mike, but . Really inspirational figure, the work that the whole Excel vet family are doing in Ireland is is really exciting, as is the work that Vivian and and vet family are doing in those countries across Europe and Australia and Brazil, I think as well, so all over the world, so.
Thank you so much to to Javier and Ellen, but now Mike, over to you, taking ownership, helping vets understand, begin and maintain their sustainability journey. OK, thank you, Anthony. Good afternoon to everyone and thank you to the webinar vet team.
You might have to excuse me. I'm, I'm 3 hours after return flight from New Zealand. we were over in New Zealand for 10 days visiting practises and really interested in sustainability measures over there and it was a fascinating trip and I've probably weeks and months of work to come from that.
Look, in talking with Anthony, we started with a small idea in Ireland in a project, and I'm going to explain through it, and it's really about what we can actually do within the four walls of our practise. So Excel vets in Ireland, we're a cooperative of 27 independent veterinary practises, 46 clinics across Ireland. We share many resources and services, and we work with our members to really educate, whether it's clinical, business or other.
And in this sense it's about sustainability. But in that we want to identify, well, what, how can we help our members and what subject matters that we have to go after. And this began discussions and for us, it became clear that sustainability was a real buzzword everywhere I went, it was like, Mike, we need to be more sustainable or member said veterinary needs to be more sustainable.
And the one question I kept going back to people was, what do you mean by that? Define sustainability for me. And that became a challenge.
And then it became a challenge you go, what does it actually mean? What does it mean for us within the four walls of a veterinary practise? We do know and we're all aware of the international messages that we're hearing and the national messages and what's going to happen at 2 degrees and 5 degrees.
And as humans, we all believe that there is something we should be doing, but we found more and more and even conferences we were attending here in Ireland. It was international speakers talking about global numbers, some national speakers talking about national numbers. Again, when you're looking from the outside, it feels like the top of Mount Everest, these numbers of millions or billions of carbon tonnes, but it all comes back down to individual actions and all of us doing something at some point is starting our own journey.
But the question kept coming back as well, where do we start? And we started with the questions and going, what is sustainability? What does it mean?
And Ellen, before I actually hit the the note there that there is a jumble of words and meanings here. But it all comes down to, you know, well, what really is it? And what can I do about it?
You know, what can the veterinary practise do about it? Plus in it, there's a perception of this is more work or additional work. It's going to cost me time and resources.
So we wanted to go from perceptions and assumptions to maybe understanding a little bit more and helping our members and in that helping the wider veterinary community understand and do something more. So we started developing some project objectives to better understand sustainability within veterinary, try to be an industry leader here in Ireland and help hopefully contribute to the wider veterinary community. Have something that's evidence-based, something that we can is measurable and could be tested.
And actually something that's going to help us identify, tools and training and maybe some greener models. We wanted our project to be real life, real world. We know those big numbers I mentioned, those top of Mount Everest numbers, but we wanted to have site visits completed, audits with members, audits of energy consumption, water usage, interviews with staff within practises, manufacturers, the vets, the business owners.
Surveys and we wanted some focus groups really to help us inform on the project. Again, the goal on this was to understand what are the simple things we could do, but we want it to be measurable and at the same time identify those training opportunities as part of our function here in Excel vets in Ireland is actually identifying training opportunities both from our members and non-members. So we have a national training organisation as well.
So, the approach is to complete a project with real world outcomes. So at the end of the project, a practise could go on a journey measurably and be rewarded for that. At the project again involving desktop research, individual interviews, online surveys, focus group discussions, reporting and presentation.
And in that came that we felt that well we are not eco eco certified in any way as an organisation. We're not eco experts in any way or emission experts. We're involved in veterinary.
And in that we decide, OK, why are we trying to reinvent the wheel here? Let's find industry relevant people or other organisations that we could bring in. So we went through a search and we were looking for somebody relevant to SMEs or veterinary practises where there are between 5 and 25 staff.
And we found a company called Eco Merit here in Ireland. . We found really interesting because they would come into a business and do exactly what we wanted, interviews and audits over a six month period.
And at the end of the journey is a list of works. I've got to explain as a guinea pig for this, we decided to put our office through it. If we're going to go out and ask our members to do this and non-members as well, we've got to lead by example.
So we put our office through this, and it was 6 months of interviews and audits and reviews. And at the end of that, we had 2.5 pages of projects that we could take on that would reduce emissions.
And the agreement is that we sign up for 5 years. We take projects and we complete them every year. The office, the business itself is independently audited every year to measure the emissions, and what we want to see is a reduction in emissions.
Annually and for that we get an ecommer certificate. That helps us market what we're doing. It helps us prove that it's independently audited and measurable, and that seemed to resonate really well with people that an outside organisation can come in and it's cost effective to do it.
Already 4 member practises of Excel Vets are completed. Our 5th is commencing and we're trying to get that wheel of people interested to speed up on it. Why do we pick this organisation?
Well, they're relevant and it's achievable for SMEs. They comply with current environmental and policy law. It's measurable, which is really important.
It's tangible. We can see things that we have, we can do and we go and do them, and we see the output for that which is a reduction in emissions, really important. It's a credible plan and something that's defendable.
The organisation Eco Merit, they issued it, and you can see on the graph there, their reduction in emissions that they've proven over the last 10 years, 10+ years is ahead of Ireland nationally. And for our real target is, and especially for our office and the members that already started this, we're going to surpass our 2030 emissions reduction targets and hopefully two years early on this. So it's the nice part on this.
It is both good for the environment and good for business. E-commerce would, you know, comment that a lot of the reductions have been cost effective and reducing costs of running business, but there's also other elements on it, especially when we look at the recruitment and retention of young vets within the industry. And it's important for them to select practises, businesses that are doing the right thing.
And that has become quite powerful for us. So initial findings of our surveys and the report, good level of interest and motivation. It does vary between practises.
The journey has started with some, some individual action, but not on a wide scale. No real pharmacy, formal policies or plans within practises. They do need guidance on what to do.
And like every veterinary practise I've ever met, very busy people and sustainability is a complex issue. Really looking at phased approaches to it, go for the low hanging fruit now, be more ambitious later. Cost and time are major factors.
Leverage with suppliers and farmers and customers, suppliers being the main one with the amount of packaging that comes into practises. Group support, learning from each other, leading and power of example, certainly from our point of view, because we started in the office and then we have a number of practises that have followed through, a lot more a lot more interested. And it certainly becomes a lot easier to go out to farm-based practises and go out on a farm and talk to a farmer about sustainability when you're already doing it yourself.
So a couple of the survey responses and actually looking at Ellen and Xavier's slide deck there, there's some similarities, which are really good to see. So a couple of simple questions, you know, how important is it to you personally? How important is it to your practise?
We can see there's a high interest in there that it is important to people to be more sustainable. It is important to veterinary practises to be more sustainable. Interestingly, when we look at the other side, well, what are you actually doing about it now?
And are you measuring it? It's way down the other end, and we're behind on that. So we, we have the good intention and the will to want to do it, but we're behind at the moment.
And certainly the measurement of that. So we may be doing some actions, but are we credibly measuring it? Are we guesstimating?
So credible measuring is more defendable, and certainly we'll have longevity in any project. Interesting to see the barriers. This was quite an interesting one.
So initially it was cost and time. Time is number one, knowledge and support that came out ahead of time, the head of costs, sorry. Knowledge support and that came really back from our surveys is I want to know more about what sustainability means and what I can do about it.
And I want the supporting tools and training and resources to be there so I can, I can actually start my journey and continue it. These are some of the areas, the main areas that people are looking for more information, technical support, training, and easy win solution list. I think any business, any industry would always go for that, the low hanging fruit.
You know, tell me those quick wins I can get for my business, my practise, and I can start my journey on it. So from all of the practises that are completed, there are 6 months of audits, we took all the data and we really wanted to know what we could do about it. Now, don't get too scared on this because clearly here the biggest carbon footprint is travel, but company vehicles and business travel.
So that is. Travelling to and from work, staff using company vehicles in their day, going to farm or or other, and business travel, going to conferences and so on. It's a vast amount.
So all the practises we measured, 72% of emissions come from vehicles. Now be clear, that's not saying that, you know, be wary of our paper use or use of plastics doesn't have big value value. Every little change we can make has a value here, but it's really interesting to see if there was one big change that we could make in our practises, it's about business travel.
Whether that's taking the brave move to go to EV or actually looking at vehicles, maybe the fuel type fuel use and having a change on that. So we're aware of scope 1, scope 2, scope 3, but we really wanted to simplify it a bit more and actually start a kind of a journey. And what we find in a lot of projects.
You need to get that buy in and early adopters with your staff in a practise and start with easy, those low hanging fruits. Maintenance, repair and recycling within in practise is easy, reusable and energy audits, and then moving on to the deeper, harder, more in depth, longer projects as we go along. But generally by 12 and 3, our team should be embedded in the project and committed to it.
And that's what we've seen with the practises that I've completed already, and they're well on their way to step 5 and 6 and beyond. So, practises have completed, beginning or contemplating their start, which is great news for us. We've identified non-clinical skills and supports that are needed for our members and non-members.
We took all of this and we published a white paper back in June 2023. And we made this available to everyone and myself and Anthony have spoke about it. I think that kicked off a discussion that we had and It is interesting, but it's valuable information that we felt that is worth more than just for our membership that we wanted to share with all of veterinary.
It's our journey, our start, but actually it's very credible and it's working for us. So much so that we were nominated as a finalist for the National Green Awards, which we're hoping to get good news at the end of this month. And what they've recognised on that was the process and and how we've gone about this.
That we understand that having an independent voice, eco merit coming in, adds credibility to it. How we have identified training needs and tool requirements for our members and then opened this information to a wider audience. So that's where we are now.
We've looking for a lot more members to join our journey this year. And certainly we'd love to see other non-members and any other jurisdictions out there that want to reach out. Happy to have a discussion and share anything that we found.
This is for all of veterinary, and we've all got a part to play on that. We've completed visits to the UK, Holland, Denmark last year, just come back from New Zealand. For many other reasons, always interested to see what people are doing in veterinary in other countries, but key to the sustainability.
And actually, can we have a voice at a more international level? And we go from that singular practise to organisations to national, but actually a voice at an international level is a lot more powerful. So where are we going to go with our project?
We want to look at the examining the carbon footprint of individual practises. And really looking at recycling. We know there's a vast amount of work that needs to be done with suppliers because at the moment, certainly in Ireland is we end up with a lot of plastic and cardboard that has to be recycled or disposed of.
It's quite a lot of work. So we have we have been effective with our main, our preferred wholesaler at the moment and reducing outers because we seem to have an outer for an outer for an outer and actually a huge project we've done with those is, do you know what, can we order singles and if it's a large item, we don't need outers for it. We want to investigate companion animal practises more and the work's done on that use of gases and other items, are there opportunities for us to measure that and look for reduction opportunities in it?
The big one of course is a farm animal practises. We're going to spend 2024 building the framework of a project that will run for 2025 and 2026. That's two universities.
An agricultural organisation here, farming groups, industry, and ourselves, and we're going to look to run a pilot project for 2 years. Something that is measurable, where we can select vets, a defined number of farms, and through audits and diagnostics, we can measure the work's done and And hopefully, we're looking for reduction antibiotic use, reduction of reactive calls, more on farm, more regularly completing more diagnostics, and looking at a more consultative relationship between vet and farmer. And of course, the, the desire to output here is a healthier herd that has higher productivity and lower emissions.
So we're about to start the planning for that and we want to begin that project live for 2025, 2026. And then finally, really looking at veterinary practise in the community. Veterinary practises are key in communities.
So that involves your clients as well and the works. And we have a bit of work to do there as well. So we a lot of projects lined up.
We're hoping to get through them. The first one has worked for us. We're delighted with it.
We do want to get more of our members on board. I certainly will be willing to share any of our information with anyone that has any interest in it. Thank you.
Mike, that is above and beyond, 3 hours sleep, just or 3 hours back from New Zealand. 28 hours on a plane, it's not the most comfortable. You, you were, well, I don't know, you've still got to maybe answer questions in a, in a little bit, so don't fall asleep quite yet.
And you're looking remarkably pucker for it, so. Strong coffee. And the Irish air.
Irish air, it's all good stuff. And it really, this is the benefit and I think it's lovely to hear from everybody saying. You know, this isn't stuff that we want to hold on to, this is stuff that we want to collaborate on, cos as I say, if we're going to compete on sustainability, we have to be the worst of fools.
So thank you for everybody who's been on sharing, you know, in such an open way about what you're up to and and be very happy to share that with others as well. We have a final talk, which is from Sue Patterson, who is the Royal College president. She's also the Royal College Council's sustainability lead.
I've just seen, and you'll see it, you stay with the Veterinary Green Awards that there are now, there's a a sustainability award as part of the practise Standards scheme. And Sue, really liked the look of a paper that came out of the NHS. It's so important that we do learn from other sectors, we don't think we have all the answers.
So Sue is unfortunately very busy as our CVS president, so she has recorded this session. While that is going on, please do tap in a little bit about where you're coming from. We, we, heard somebody's from Tamworth in, in Australia, where it is ridiculous a clock now, so well done for staying awake, .
Till then I'm just seeing if I can see the name Claire. So Claire, thank you so much for listening in from, from Tamworth in New South Wales. But do put down where you are listening from, because I, I think it's been really good that we've got this really international flavour from the speakers and also the attendees as well.
But I'll let Kyle push the button. And let's listen to Sue and then after that we're going to have some questions. A short pause while we get ready for the Veterinary Green Awards and the Vet Trust Awards, which we hope you'll stay on for.
And yes, let's enjoy Sue's talk, over to Sue. Hello everybody, and thank you so much for inviting me to talk at your conference. It's really exciting again that we're actually spending this time to sustainability, which is so important.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Doctor Sue Patterson. I'm actually the president of the Royal College, but I'm really here today because I'm also. For the Royal College.
And what I wanted to do was just talk to you a little bit about the new green surgery report that's been produced by the NHS in England and just talk about some of the findings from that report and how they can potentially be applied to what we do within the veterinary professions. So this is the, that report, it's a very extensive report. If you're interested, and certainly it's a really excellent read, I would recommend you to go and find it.
It's open access, it's on the internet, and there's a whole range of different subsections. And what I'm going to do is give you a little bit of a top line from each of those sections and just really perhaps hopefully seed a few thoughts as to about how we can apply that to everything that we do as veterinary clinicians, both as vet nurses and as veterinarians as well. The first bit really is about the introduction.
I'm not going to talk a lot about that, but there is a lot of really useful information there. And some of the key things it picks out in that introduction is the fact that human healthcare accounts for 4.45% of all greenhouse gas emissions globally.
We certainly know that the operating theatre is a hotspot in human medicine, and I'm sure it's the same in veterinary medicine and things like anaesthetic gases, energy, and of course the products that we use in the theatre are important, especially the single use ones. And what the report says is that sustainable surgery should involve high quality, high value surgical care in a way that is environmentally, socially and financially sustainable. The other thing it picks out as well in the report, which was a little bit of an eye opener to me, was about some of the labour rights that exist as far as the supply of medications and surgical equipment is concerned in the human field, things like sweatshops and child labour and forced labour, identified in many of the countries that supply things like surgical gloves and masks and gowns.
So if you're interested, do I say, pick it up and have a read, there's lots of useful stuff there. Let's start though by going through the main headings relating to the surgical er er our surgical approach. And this is the first of the chapters looking at preventing and reducing the need for surgical care.
And of course when we look at the human factors that that drive the need for surgical care, big things like obesity, inappropriate diets, sedentary lifestyles. Cigarette smoking, air pollution, and UV light are all big factors that contribute contribute to disease, and there's a lot in the report about ways in which we can, as humans become an awful lot fitter to try and reduce the need for things like, of course, orthopaedic surgery. And the same is true for the, the companion animals that we treat.
And I've put up a picture there of a rather large westie, but it's not just westies that we see that have weight problems. We see weight problems with dogs, with cats, with horses, with rabbits. So obesity is a really good way and very easy way to prevent the need for surgery.
The human report also talks about cosmetic surgery and things like redefining cultural norms to try and accept people for the way that they are. And again there are perhaps parallels we can think about in veterinary veterinary surgery where perhaps again we need to redefine what is a normal dog and looking at breeding dogs that are fit for function. If we had fewer bracephalic dogs, we there'd be there'd be less need for things like boas surgery.
Things like neutering is a really hot topic. It was discussed at the BVA congress last year. How often do we need to neuter a dog?
I mean, certainly when it comes to cats, there's very definitely a need for population control, but how many pyometers do we actually save when we undertake routine neutering? And I certainly know in some some some Scandinavian countries that's not done as a routine. And things like lump removals, how many lumps do we remove that don't need to be taken off?
How many histiocytomas, perfectly benign, resolving lesions, do we take off through surgical intervention where perhaps some, some, just some fine needle cytology would actually tell us that's not the case. So thinking about ways in which we can prevent the need for surgery and justifying which routine surgical procedures we need to do. What about things like surgical care pathways?
Will the humans start to talk about telehealth, which helps to reduce the carbon footprint both preoperatively and post-operatively. And these may be things that we may want to consider ourselves in veterinary medicine. We already know we're starting to do it.
We've got virtual triage systems in place. What about pre and post-operative tests and pre-operative medication, imaging, histopathology and blood. Things we often do around the time of surgery, both before and after.
How necessary are they? How necessary is it to use intravenous fluids. It's important that we have an evidence base to support these things, so we can't just stop doing pre and postoperative tests.
We can't just stop giving animals intravenous fluids. But there's a real need for us to get an evidence base to support these informed decisions that we. Made around client care.
And what's really interesting, one thing that they mentioned in the report from, from the human evidence base was pre-op bloods and ECGs in cases of cataract surgery, did not reduce the risk of adverse events perioperatively. We need more sorts of studies like that in human in veterinary medicine, so again, we can try and reduce our carbon footprint. One thing that really struck From the report as well was diagnostic imaging.
And when you look at the carbon footprint of diagnostic imaging, there is an absolutely massive difference between the carbon footprint of something like ultrasound versus the carbon footprint of MRI. And there's some data in there taken from the Australian study and OK, the data is human. Data, but we can very definitely apply that I'm sure to our veterinary sphere.
If we look at the diagnostic imaging, the carbon footprints of ultrasound, and we look at that in CO2 emissions per scan, for ultrasound, it's 0.5 kilogrammes. For a chest x-ray, it's 0.8 kilogrammes.
If though we do a CT of that chest, it leaps up to 9.2 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide. And if we do an MRI scan, it jumps up to 17.5 kilogrammes of CO2 emissions per scan.
So again, should we be thinking about which diagnostic imaging modality we're using? Do we overuse CT and MRI? Can we justify our decision making choices when we're looking at what we're going to do?
Other things they also talk about in the report is, is, do you always need to take a person into theatre? Are there situations where perhaps we could do something in my Ros without going into the theatre and using all the facilities and the energy usage that is associated with theatre use. And then of course minimising hospital.
Planning your surgery to make sure you've got a lean operating list whereby you get animals in, they can get into theatre, they can be recovered appropriately and go home. So we don't have animals sitting about waiting for surgery, animals whose surgery potentially is delayed because we're not organised enough in our surgical lists. What about the operating theatres themselves?
And again, there's a lot of really useful information in the report when we look about the operating theatres. We know an operating theatre is very energy intensive. There's things like heating, there's things like ventilation, there's things like air conditioning that are really.
Contributing to our carbon footprint, and so they talk about things like generation of our own energy sources through the use of solar panels, ground heat pumps, and if you haven't got the opportunity to do things like that, then they talk about green energy suppliers, things that we can very definitely do within the veterinary sphere. They talk about innovative design, and one of the things that I found was looking at these big barn theatres, which are these new open plan design main surgical areas that they're developing in some of the human hospitals. And this is where we get patients treated in a huge dedicated space alongside the next patient.
And what they have is specialised air canopies over each station to prevent the spread of infection by pulling away the air from that particular patient. And these have adjoining anaesthetic routes. Traditional recovery areas.
And what they find from these large new barn theatres is they lower the infection rate, they improve safety, they enhance team working. So is there an argument we should be creating these huge multi-use spaces in our own veterinary hospitals that can be used for multiple patients and that can be used for different functions. A really important thought.
Staff engagement, that suggests is really important around sustainability. And again, we know that's already happening. In the veterinary field, but they mention things like, you know, making sure that that everybody's aware of the use to conserve energy, so perhaps signs up by the light switches to make sure that the lights are turned off, and potentially having little staff lists shut down checklists to increase energy awareness.
So at the end of the day, people go round the operating theatre, and of course it would apply equally to the consulting rooms and turn off electrical appliances to make sure that we're not user wasting energy. What about other things like infection control? Well, rather than using perioperative antibiotics and of course antiseptics which themselves have got an environmental impact, what about the use of ventilation systems?
I've already mentioned that ventilation system developed for these barn operating theatres, ventilation systems rather than using physical ways to control infection. And then the NHS has got guidelines set down for net zero hospital design, and this looks at a whole range of things to reduce the carbon footprint of new hospitals as they're built. So lighting sources, heat recovery, water use and recycling, insulation, etc.
So again, lots of learnings perhaps we can take away to use ourselves when we're looking at our own surgery designs and our own theatre designs. As you would expect in any big report on surgical intervention, there is a lot of information on anaesthesia. And again, a lot of this aligns beautifully with the work that's been done in the veterinary sphere, and some and people like Ellie West, who I'm sure is known to many of you, is a real pioneer when it comes around anaesthetic use in veterinary medicine, and much of Ellie's work has been done in collaboration.
With the human anaesthetists. And it starts off by saying, of course, is an anaesthetic necessary? You know, there may be situations where we don't need to anaesthetize someone, or indeed anaesthetize a per a dog or a cat.
Could we do this perhaps just with sedation alone? What about reducing the anaesthetic times? What about prolonged use of unnecessary anaesthetics?
It also A lot of discussion around the type of anaesthetic that you might consider using. What about a local anaesthetic, a regional anaesthetic, a partial or total intravenous anaesthetic versus using the inhaled agents? We know that there is a massive greenhouse gas effect of the inhaled agents that we use.
And although something like of coursevo fluorine is a potent anaesthetic agent compared to something, for example, like isoflurane. It has a significantly lower global warming potential. And again, there's data in the in this report, if you're interested, looks at Siva fluorine, which is a global warming potential of 130.
Ioflurane, in comparison, has a global warming potential of 510. And then desfluorine, which is used still in the NHS in England, but is going to be phased out throughout 2024, has a global warming potential of 2540. So again, rational choices of these inhalation agents can help reduce our carbon footprint.
And of course nitrous oxide, many veterinary hospitals I know already have stopped using that again has got a global warming potential of 265. What I thought was really interesting as well in the study is there's a little bit about the use of capture of volatile agents in anaesthetic setups, and they suggest that there's no proven evidence to show that it's useful. They suggest that as little as 25% of anaesthetic agents can be captured, post, post.
The surgeon breathing post the patient breathing them out, and they suggest that the balance of recapture versus the manufacture of the system, distribution and processing isn't actually worthwhile. So anaesthetic choice is important, and then the other thing that they also suggest is minimising flow rates. And again, if you go to Ellie's article, which I've suggested here, there's a really.
Some excellent tips and tricks there about appropriate monitoring using things like capnography, using things like soda lime containing breathing systems, so things, for example, like circles and the use of non-re breathing circuits with low fresh gas flows in order to allow us to reduce the amount of gas that we're using when we're anaesthetizing our veterinary patients. What about products used in surgical care? Well, again, there's a huge amount around this and particularly, of course, the use of single use products versus reusable products.
And when we're looking at single use products, of course, we're looking at everything instruments, gloves, caps, drapes, tubing drains, and of course the recommendation is going to be looking at switching to using reversible products, switching to from a single use to re reusable products. The report says leads to a 38 to 50 cent reduction in car. Footprint.
But of course what you have to do when you're looking at using reusable products is factor in, of course, the carbon footprint and of course the financial implications of re-sterilizing reusable gowns and things. And of course it's not just the financial cost, but it's also things like the environmental impact of the products that are used to sterilise those products. So things, for example, like ethylene oxide, things like ozone systems have got their own environmental impact.
Things like sterilisation of fabrics, of course, chemical detergents again, have got an environmental impact. And if you consider using high temperature as an alternative, of course it can damage the fabric. So again there's a real need for the development of products that are reusable but can be reused and re-sterilized in a safe way.
The report talks a lot about the circular economy. It talks about what it describes as the five Rs, which is refusing less sustainable products. We need to stand up and get our manufacturers to justify why they're supplying us the product that's they they're supplying us.
Look at reduced number of products, looking at reus, looking at renewing products, either by repairing or remanufacturing products to extend their lifespan, and then recycling materials to capture that material and reuse it again. There's also talk about open versus closed loop recycling. Open loop is where that product is recycled into a lower quality product, and closed loop recycling is where it's recycled into a product of the same quality.
So again, lots of really useful information there. There's quite a bit about the use of sustainable frameworks, and there are two sustainable frameworks which are mentioned in the study. One of those is designed for the environment, and this is a framework.
It looks at the whole life cycle of a product, right the way from the raw material extraction and sourcing to production and distribution of the product, the use and reuse of the product and the end of life and disposal. And actually, the NHS is urging the suppliers to actually take up these frameworks. In order to supply products that are as sustainable as possible.
The other one is the green engineering framework, which looks at a whole range of criteria, but, but one of the main criteria is encouraging designers to ensure materials and energy inputs are renewable and inherently non-hazardous to the environment. There's also a whole section on waste, and this is something I know that many, many veterinary practises have already embraced. We know that waste contributes to the carbon footprint of our surgery, and so they urge to use waste firms who recover energy from burning waste, recover the metals after incineration.
There's also a whole section in the report about waste audits. Something that's a really important part of SSQI looking at a waste audit to ensure you're segregating waste and making sure that you're only the waste that needs to be incinerated is incinerated. I have a couple of slides for you, barriers and facilitators for implementation.
We certainly know that the public is very concerned and is supportive of more sustainable healthcare, and I think we can certainly cut and paste that when it comes to our veterinary professionals as well. Both our veterinary professionals are engaged and also the pat. Owning public is also engaged.
It's important that we have leadership within the professions, both top down leadership working with appropriate subject experts, and we're seeing this through all of the veterinary associations in the UK certainly BVA, BSAVA, B BEVA and BCVA. And then bottom up leadership as well, which is really important, through sustainability champions in the practises and networks. And again we see this through people who take on the practise standards scheme, looking at the sustainability criteria there, particularly the sustainability awards, and groups like Vet Sustain who produce a huge amount of resource.
Student education is really important, and we know the GMC, the medical regulator in the UK, has mandated sustainability as a core outcome. And it's now also included in the new Royal Colleges accreditation standards. Sustainability is now being incorporated into the education of our students in the UK vet schools.
Veterinary professionals again need to embrace SSQI, the ability to improve the way in which they work with an evidence base to support it, and people like, for example, our CVS Knowledge are doing a lot to support that. Infection prevention and control again is really important. Look at the way in which we use things like perioperative antibiotics, we need an evidence base to support that.
And of course decarbonizing the whole medical supply chain is also really important as well. And sustainability. Isn't just being bought, shouldn't just be incorporated into the gloves that we buy and the surgical equipment that we buy, it should be in absolutely everything, every product that we use, whether it's the furniture, the office supplies, they all should be built into producing low carbon based products.
Final slide, what about areas for further research and development? We need a lot more evidence to support sustainable practise. We're in evidence-based professions, both medics and vets.
How can sustainable sustainability be used to look at safe reuse of equipment? How can we achieve more sustainable procurement of medicines and equipment? How can we improve the efficient use of operating theatres to reduce the environmental impact?
How do we measure and compare the short and long term environmental impacts of surgical and non-surgical treatment for the same condition? What is the environmental impact of different anaesthetic techniques used in the same operation? We need this sort of evidence in order for us to to provide the sort of care that we want in a safe and sustainable way.
How should the environmental impact of an operation be weighed against its clinical outcomes and financial costs? And what are the most sustainable forms of effective infection prevention and control during surgery? So hopefully that's been useful.
Lots of little nuggets of information in this report. I'd certainly refer you to it, and thank you once again for inviting me to do this presentation, and I hope you enjoy the rest of this wonderful sustainability section. That was Sue Patterson from the Royal College, with some really interesting insights from that report.
If Mike Cavier Martin. And, Lizzie, if she's still here. I can't see if Lizzie's still here if she wants to come on and see if there are any any questions to answer.
So Ellen Martin, Lizzie, yeah, and Martin, I think that's everybody, and maybe Lizzy's had to, had to go, . Just so people know, we, we've had somebody listening in from Camden in London, so nice and local. But we've also had Tamworth in, in, in Australia.
Jeannette is listening in from Bangalore in India, and then Maryam, who, I've connected with recently is listening in from Uganda, was doing amazing work at the recent COP in Dubai, but was a bit disappointed we didn't have a . More of a presence as as the vets, so this is something I think we need to look at how we can raise profile all the time because I think we have a lot of good things to say as well, . There were a few questions, let's see, are they not, they're not no longer open, .
Just really a question maybe to throw out to, to people, . One of, one of my campaigns for last year was to encourage practises to take solar panels because it just now is making the real economic sense to do that. How are you doing, Cavier and Ellen around the actual er.
People taking on solar panels, particularly in in France, Javier. Yes, well, we, we work with a supplier, the name is Monabi. And finally, the work we, we have to do is to, when we go to a clinic and they say, well, I want to be more efficient in terms of energy.
We say, well, we can, we can provide some services or some suppliers, partners, and one of them can propose some solar panels for the clinic. So then the, the, the company will do an audit and then will be will do a proposal to the clinics to, to see if it's possible and the price for that. And because they are from that family, they will have a special specific discount.
So that's the idea how we work. This is the business model. Because if you look at the way that we have to reduce carbon in the next 7 to 10 years, we have to reduce by 50%.
So if there are 300 practises each year, maybe 500 practises across Europe that do it, that's probably the target we need. So as much as we can say we have to be patient with people, I think there now is a need to just move quicker, isn't there? I don't know, Mike, what your situation is.
I know there's a few of your practises. They've taken on solar, haven't they? Yeah, and, and I think every jurisdiction is going to be quite different.
Interestingly, I was in New Zealand and I expected to see solar everywhere. I mean, it was, I left there was 32 degrees. But South Island, I didn't see solar anywhere.
And in the North Ireland it was very patchy, and I asked the question on it and there's really no supports there. Whereas in Ireland we've no VAT on solar products and there's grants available for businesses. So we're seeing more and more.
We've one veterinary practise that has the the 1st 4 by 4 EV for a vet, and, and they're trying the best. The second vet in that practise is going changing as well. I've just installed 20 panels in my own house two weeks ago.
So, yeah, and I, I've been the guinea pig. I got rid of my diesel last March and I'm coming up to a year on EV. It is a change.
I've never gone back, by the way, I love it. But someone has to start somewhere and we're seeing it. There's a lot of conversation in the media.
Now it's going to be hydrogen and suddenly going, no, it's not hydrogen, it's going to be electric. I would envisage electric will be here and certainly solar panels. A lot of our veterinary practises, especially rural, ample amount of roof space and the opportunity is there.
They are looking to expand and a good number of our sites are moving from 1000, 2000 square foot to 8000 square foot in a rural site and expanding and in that planning phase, they're putting panels in. It's just part of the business sense right now. I was quite pleased.
I just wandered out to get a quick coffee and my solar, . My, my metre was telling me that the house was not actually taking any electricity off the grid, which in early February, you know, I've had solar for about 14 years, but looking at the economics of it and really trying to encourage practises to do it, I, I, I'm a landlord of a practise for one of the corporates, we're about to get solar panels on the the roof there, but I do think it is an area that we just need to To move quicker on because this is a really decisive decade and Martin, it was so nice to see your building which is taking shape and is you know, is a carbon neutral, if not a carbon positive building that's being put up. Any, any thoughts on, on that?
Well, it's, it, again, it's, it's quite complex, because it depends on the country that you're in. Yes. You know, if we, our offices are one thing, but clearly our, our biggest energy consumers are our, factories.
So whether we're producing vaccines or pharmaceuticals through bioreactors, you're using a hell of a lot of energy. If we're in France, where we have 5 sites, it's, we're basically, taking electricity from nuclear. So, we're quite green in, just by definition.
If we go to Hungary, where we have, and the states where we have two big vaccine plants, it's a different situation. And, the options there are not so necessarily available to us. So, every circumstance is different, and, you know, you've got to, you've got to work with what you have.
I, I'm a bit sceptical sometimes about, you know, just transferring to green energy and, and saying that you're going to a green energy supplier, because as we know, a lot of it just goes into the grid anyway, and you, they've got some sort of certification for whatever reason. So, are you actually really creating a benefit or just, assuaging your ESG strategy and, and making yourselves feel better? You know, more and more people are using that particular tariff, obviously the energy has to come from somewhere, so there's microgeneration is important.
We've got Joanne listening in from the sunny but snow covered Berkshires in western Massachusetts. And I know in some of those, in some of the states, you know, they're just not set up for having solar bringing their energy back into the grid, so obviously we need to have governmental support on this in the areas. Countries as well.
Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick here, welcoming you to the Veterinary Green Award ceremony, and I wanted to introduce you to Our three judges, Anna Judson judged this as BVA presidents and unfortunately can't be with us today, but I know we've got Anthony Gough and Martin Mitchell here who's Martin's just spoken earlier, and Martin is going to go through the awards, so I don't know if you can change the next slide. Kyle or or Rebecca or whoever it is controlling the slides. So this is the 3rd veterinary green award ceremony and .
Really pleased we had two outstanding winners for the green practises of the year, which we're going to go through, and then we've also got the Green individual Veterinary Personality of the Year and the International Green Award, and these awards have been made possible thanks to the kind sponsorship of Excel Vets Ireland. Siva Animal Health and the Royal College who particularly wanted to support the awards because of their sustainability unit that they've added to the practise standards. So sustainability is becoming more and more woven into the practise standards scheme in the UK.
And finally we have an inspirational vet who has been doing amazing work. Globally based in Australia and we'll be introducing you to her at the end and we'll we'll be having a little chat to finish off the awards. So they're fairly quick.
Vet Trust awards are coming up as well and as I said, Adam unfortunately can't be with us today. She is very busy, as is the Royal College president doing BBA things, but she was thrilled to be asked to be involved in the judging panel. Martin, as you know, is the chief sustainability officer at CIA, and Anthony heads is head of sustainability at PET, which actually is the organisation that runs the investors in the environment scheme, of which many of you are probably enrolled as practicess or businesses.
I know BVA and ourselves are Green members, the the highest category, but many of you, you know, have enrolled. Some of you to green level, also to silver and bronze. So we had a a fabulous judging panel, and if you move on to the next slide, Kyle.
We . Well, I'm gonna move over now and let Martin take over because he's going to announce the winner. Unfortunately, .
They are not here today, but they will be informed and we will be, sending them their prize and their certificate at a later date. But this is obviously being recorded, so Martin, if you want to announce this award and the next award, and then perhaps Anthony can run through the nominations for the veterinary Green Personality of the Year. So Martin over it to you for the next 2 awards.
Yeah, sure. Thank you, Antony. I think one of the, the great things that you did this year was to actually split the award in, in terms of the practise of the year, to practises with under 20 employees, and those with more than 20 employees.
I mean, clearly, what can be done with a smaller staff is perhaps, more limited than, than with a larger practise, but. I think as we see from the winner of this smaller practise, even if you're relatively fewer people, there's so much that can be done. So the winner is.
Drum roll drum roll. The main, veterinary clinic. And just to give you a little bit more information about Maine.
Next slide, please. So, based in, in Colchester, the, a, a practise that has worked over the last 5 years to, reduce their carbon usage. There's no point in me, reading out everything that they've done there.
But it's, and actually, you know, just to have that focus within the practise, I think, is exceptional, and all the judges, Anna, Anthony and myself, found, that their, their work was just absolutely outstanding. So congratulations. If we move to the next award.
00, sorry. And this is for the, the green practise with over 20 employees. The winner is, and probably, this might not be a big surprise to a lot of you.
The winner is, Drumroll. The Paragon Veterinary Group. Not being particularly, although I'm a Brit, I work in France.
So, I'm, I, when I saw the applications, I probably knew a lot less than Anthony and Anna about the, the nominees, but, Peregrine is a, a, a, a veterinary group, based in, in Cumbria. They have a, a long track record, and they've all already won several awards in terms of the, their, sustainability. It's an absolutely exceptional example of both what you can do within your own practise and taking steps, as we saw from Excel vets in Ireland.
But also, I think what they've done beyond that is, is reach out into the community. Into schools to to be able to, to spread that ethos, so, absolutely outstanding work and all the committee we we really we're just blown away by their application. So maybe it's over to Anthony now.
Yeah, and so if you want to read out the nominations if if Kyle or Rebecca will move the slides forward of the the people who were nominated as green individual vet personality of the year, and they could be a vet or a nurse, obviously. Thank, thanks Anthony, and thanks Martin. So, going through the, the, the, the nominations, and I think we had 6 or 7 in total, so we had, Lindsay Raven and Emrick, from the main veterinary clinic, and we've just heard that they won the, the small, the small practise award.
Nicole Der from Ashtree Bets. Mate, Ma, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Maite P Padu from Vet to you. Laura Binney from the Paragon veterinary Group, who we've just heard of on the, the Large practise award.
Ivan Kroass from Dentonomic, if I'm pronouncing that right. And the winner of the green individual vet Personality of the Year is. So I think this is a first for, for the awards Ante, if I, if I remember correctly.
So we're actually awarded joint winners this year in recognition of these two, amazing individuals and all the really hard work that they've been doing at the the veterinary practises that they represent. So Laura Binney, and Lindsay Raven, Emmerich are are two joint winners for 2024. And it may not be appropriate, Martin, but I've, I've got a, I did open it, and I, I opened a little, bottle of organic Sauvignon Blanc.
So I'm, raising a glass in the honours of the winners, and, taking a quick slug of, of white wine. It's, it's half 4, I think we're allowed, aren't we? And it'll be later somewhere else in the world.
I hope it's from Bordeaux. Well, you'll have to bring me one of those, Martin at some point. So thank you so much, Martin, Antony and, Anna, for, for, judging those awards and well done to the winners.
I think we might have Laura Binny here, so perhaps Laura, if you're in and you don't mind opening up your video camera and and turning your mic on. Then, I just wanted to add in, I had nothing to do with, with the judging. We want to keep it as independent as possible, but I know speaking to you, you were at the Veterinary discussion forum last year.
I think you've done a podcast for us as well and you're really, really inspirational. The work that you're doing there is fantastic and I. I know actually your inspiration has reached further than Paragon Bet Group because you're now doing some sustainability work for the whole Excel bet group in the UK.
So congratulations for the award and congratulations, I think I can call it a promotion. Congratulations on the Excel vets promotion at work as well. Oh, we can't, can't hear you.
You might have I'm not sure why you can't come through, you're, I don't think you're muted, but for some reason your, your mic isn't working. But you look pleased. Is it a thumbs up?
And of course, both of our winners will have a ticket if they wish to come to the veterinary green discussion forum in June at the the London Wetlands Centre, which is a gorgeous setting just just across from Fulham's football ground on the river, so . I've been a few times and it, it will be a great setting and hopefully some really good discussion this year centering mostly around secularity, we've done a year on carbon and climate, we've done a year on biodiversity, so . This year we'll be trying to concentrate on circularity and seeing how we as a profession can reduce our waste, which is such an important area, but good luck with the with the small forest.
And yeah we we've also had an opportunity, Laura, I don't know if you've heard before to support a Lancashire Wildlife Trust grant that potentially is, is gonna help to rewild and make more biodiverse an area that they they've had for a little while, but have struggled to find funds for. So, again mentioning if, if people want to buy a membership green 30, it gets you 30% off and the money raised up to 3000 will go direct to the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. So a good opportunity to do something really, really practical as well.
So thank you so much Laura, well done Lindsey. We unfortunately couldn't get through to Lindsayer on email. So, but we will I'll make sure we phone her up and let her know and let her know the good news.
And I think we may also be coming round to present the award and get a video. With you as well for the for the veterinary discussion forum, so we'll organise that as well. Fantastic, the final award is the International Green Award.
And I've been really blessed to run the webinarett's vet chat podcast for the last couple of years. With a big focus on sustainability, and we've, we've interviewed many people all over the world, . But I have to say that I was really, really impressed when I spoke to our winner, just with the fantastic work that she's doing.
So if we can have another drum roll. The winner is with a glass of wine in hand. Jeannette Castles.
Jeannette, if you want to reveal yourself, I think you're on the video somewhere. You're on, you're online. Jeannette, thank you for staying up so late and you're not, I know in, in Australia, you're in India at the moment, so it's not stupid o'clock, but it's it's still pretty late and I know you're doing some amazing work, just trying to raise the profile of our profession in the Southern Hemisphere with the, the Indian vets that you're speaking to, but .
I know you want to say a few words, so I'm gonna pass it over to you, and those of you who want to can obviously reader some of the fantastic work that Jeannette's done with her veterinary practise, but very much gone bigger than that in the last few years with the Vets for Climate Action, which is a a super action group obviously based in Australia. So Jeannette, over to you. Oh, thank you very much, Anthony and everybody in attendance today and the webinar vet team, for your generosity of having me here.
And to Martin, Lizzy, Ellen, Javier, Mike and Sue, I'm sorry I missed much of your presentations, because I am in India with Vets for Climate Action at the moment. I'm really honoured to receive the award as part of a growing community acting urgently on climate change. In Australia, as you know, we are feeling the impacts with fires killing or displacing 3 billion of our precious wildlife, and more recently, 9000 emperor penguin chicks perished in Antarctica.
They have baby down feathering which equips them for the cold, but not for the wet, and with the melting sea ice they froze, 9000 of them. And in Australia, in Queensland where I live, we had the economic and welfare impacts of 600,000 head of cattle, who were weakened by drought, and then extreme weather events, caused them to either drown or die of cold exposure in our tropical north. And vector-borne diseases like Japanese encephalitis are moving south with the changing climate.
So climate change is an animal health and welfare issue. And an escalating one. And I know that you already know that.
So my message is that we must choose not to get depressed. We need to get active and to use our powerful influence as a profession. We need to move fast, with hope, and take active steps to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
This is the decisive decade, and I invite all of you as veterinary surgeons and veterinary support teams to join the hundreds and thousands of people, like-minded people around the world, visionary people, brilliant, ordinary, hardworking people who are single-mindedly focused on creating a world that we can be proud to pass on to our children, because the decisions that we take now and the actions that we take in our practises. Will influence humanity for over 1000 years, and we don't have the luxury of despair. We must make hope our strategy.
So I'm one small representative of Vets for Climate Action, which has 2000 supporters and many active volunteers. Vets for Climate Action is nonpartisan, scientific, trusted, and influential in our communities. Our strategy is to educate, collaborate and advocate for our animals who have no voice to speak for themselves.
Our growing climate care programme, which is a sustainability programme in 6 modules, a very terrific structured programme that you might want to investigate, is helping practises become sustainable and ultimately carbon neutral or net zero. And just like mental health is now a regular consideration for vets, and it wasn't before, sustainability and climate care should be all a part of our daily rhythm, a normal thing to do. Our volunteers have released a paper on the pathway to net zero for vet practises, and several Australian vet hospitals, including my own group at Greater Springfield Veterinary are carbon neutral.
We're working with universities to bring climate and sustainability into the curriculum, and we're working in advocacy with drug suppliers as well. We've been visiting Parliament House and politicians together with medical doctors, to advocate for the stopping of fossil fuels. That actually is the most important work of all.
Climate change is indeed a veterinary problem, we're on it. The solutions are at hand. We've talked about many of them, you know, today, and together we need to advocate for the implementations of these solutions, and we must start that now.
We absolutely can influence public action, and we absolutely can influence global policy. We are involved with the IPCC. The World Veterinary Association, the Commonwealth Veterinary Association, and we deeply welcome international collaboration.
Please be in touch. I want you to stop and think just for a moment, what a privilege it is, really, a real privilege to exist at this exact infinitesimal slice of geological time. That we're all here together on Zoom discussing this, where we have the capacity to influence, the capacity to influence the futures of many generations to come.
That in fact is an immense privilege. So on that note, I'd like to leave you with a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macey. Live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one, but I give myself to it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I've been circling for thousands of years, and I still don't know.
Am I a falcon? A stool Or a great song. Thank you.
Thank you, Jeannette, and thank you for all the great work that you're doing on behalf of the planet.

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