In this episode, Beth, Dan, and Lee talk about the issues around sustainability in technology. From rare-earth metals to the human costs of technology we will examine the high-level points.

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TRANSCRIPT For this episode of The AI in Education Podcast Series: 5 Episode: 4

This transcript was auto-generated. If you spot any important errors, do feel free to email the podcast hosts for corrections.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the um increasingly confusingly titled AI and education podcast where we very occasionally will talk about education and AI sometimes even in the same sentence but always talk about something fun and interesting I hope. Um look it's been a while for me personally um since I wasn't able to in the last discussion on Girl Geeks. Um, it's great to be back in the recording studio and welcome back to my two co-hosts, Beth and Dan. Say hello. Hello, Lee. Hi, Dan. Hi, Beth. How are you? It's freezing in Sydney at the minute. I got my You know, if this was a video podcast, you'd see me in my uh hoodie freezing in the corner. I think that might be better than if it was really cold and we were you were sitting there in your shorts and your stubbies and nothing else. That might be not so good. Eh, that's very true. turn off your camera in that in that context. And it's it's glad that there's no video footage accompanying this podcast, I've got to say. No, no, it is. It is so cold. It is so cold. I know it must be cold because the dog who normally will just sit around is now sitting on my bed curled up under my bed sheets. It must be cold for them. So, wow. It's cold in Adelaide as well. I'm I'm trying to warm myself up. I'm actually in the office today where it's Tim Tam Friday. Um so, we are doing uh some Tim Tams as just me and one other person. So, it's uh about 12 Tim Tams each. That's a good ratio. And being in the office is great as well because I was in I I traveled to see some customers. So, I went to Adelaide uh last Wednesday and then to Melbourne and then to Tazzay to to catch up with people you haven't seen for ages. And it's great to be out and about and and talking to people and and just uh you know being around I suppose and actually seeing people face to face. I don't know about you so much. I I just can't believe how much you miss that human face to face contact. And it whilst it's amazing to be at home and to be connected from to everyone wherever you are, nothing beats that ability to to see someone face to face and to give them, you know, a co safe hug or a the touch of the elbows. Is that sort of a one one and a half meter distance hug? Is it where you don't actually touch but you Show them that you're hugging them. Yeah, I can see how that works. Exactly. Well, look, you know, it's quite interesting. We're talking about how cold it is and the climate. We're talking about traveling and the impact of getting back into planes, which probably leads us to our topic for this uh for this podcast. Beth, do you want to give us a bit of a where are we going today? Yeah, sure. Thanks, Lee. So, today what we wanted to to explore and discuss is the the um interesting area of sustainability. And I don't know about you both, but certainly in South Australia um with a change of state government as well as national government, there seems to be a real point of reset around the climate um climate issues and looking in a more um you know proactive, I would say perhaps more positive outlook on what we can do to use uh the climate emergency as um an opportunity for our state and for our country and look at the ways in which technology can play a role in um tackling some of these challenges and certainly um you know with this recognition that that we're facing some fairly significant challenges but I think technology as a lens through which to look at this is one way that we can really put our problem solving hats on to to look at what what are the things that we can do to tackle some of these issues. Uh what we have also seen overnight was the launch of the cloud for sustainability that Microsoft has made available to people. So, I'm personally looking forward to getting to know a little bit more about that offer over the next couple of weeks. And this it's it's really good that we're going to be be talking about this actually because I think this is going to lead into a series of discussions based on what we talk about today. But the the interesting thing for us like really resetting back and Lee, I hope we can talk about Kate Crawford's book in a little while because um It was a bit of an epiphany for me because we're talking about AI and she really uh dug down, excuse the pun, into the earth and and precious metals and the things that are needed uh to actually create the technology. Um and I know you mentioned a couple of times Lee and Beth when we're talking about things like Bitcoin and crypto and things the cost of actually maintaining things like the blockchain. So when we're talking about sustainability, it has has a kind of juxtapositional effect for us because we're talking about AI but the amount of compute you need for AI can also connect the dots together. So it be interesting to see how where we going to take this Lee. Well I think and you're right Dan I mean and Beth you know great the fact that it is becoming so important but what I'm finding personally about the whole sustainability narrative is the broadness and the complexity of that topic when we say sustainability and it's almost not so it's become a buzz word but it's become this thing we we talk about it's on our you know ESG policies. It's in there as a part of one of these things. But what does it really mean? Because there are many ways you can go down that path. And Dan, yeah, we'll certainly talk about the the impact of AI in a world of of uh of sustainability from a carbon point of view. But then Beth, you know, I know you've been, you know, your work in social value gets you in all sorts of conversations that aren't just about sustainability from a carbon perspective, which is I think is where we largely land on. So I don't know, maybe Beth, you're a maybe let's start with you because I know you've got a kind of viewpoint that is perhaps a bit broader than just the traditional, you know, tech and carbon footprint story that we always hear. Yeah. So, I think I think there's a greater appreciation for a broader interpretation of what sustainability might include. So, yes, of course, carbon emissions and and understanding, managing and measuring and reducing carbon emissions is core to what needs to happen at a global scale. But you look at Microsoft's uh sustainability commitments and includes elements like water and waste um and and we have some incredibly ambitious um targets and you know when they were announced I was actually blown away by what it was that we were intending to achieve in the world. Um deeply thoughtful approach to in our environmental impact and going beyond what we have uh created in terms of um a detrimental effect to the to the environment to to think about what else we could do in a proactive and positive way. So um so I have spent a lot of time looking at um some of the colleagues that we have around the world and some of their thoughtful ways to um tackle issues like water, waste and carbon. And then we're also looking at ecosystems as well and this fascinating in um ambition to create a planetary computer. So looking at how we might combine data sources from around the world to to better understand how the planet works and use that data then to be better at preserving the important things that we have um that and you that we frankly rely on to to live. But um I guess in in terms of sustainability conversations that we're having in Australia, it can it can extend into things like how we might uh better understand and mitigate elements of our supply chain, which might include things like human slavery. And um and then also uh diversity in the in the supply chain all the way through to um employee education and advocacy and um you know what we can you sometimes these issues can feel overwhelm overwhelming and so we spend a lot of time at Microsoft and also in the community in in relation to supporting people to um understand what's happening, but to use it as an opportunity not to be overwhelmed, but to feel like positive and practical action is still worthwhile and that we can all play a part. I It's interesting you mentioned that overwhelming thing, Beth, because that's something I think that, you know, I talk to kids about it and talk to people around this idea of sustainability and everybody has the the desire to want to do better. You know, I mean, nobody would ever say, you know, I want to do more damage, please. But the kind of the overwhelming scale of the problem must be a really big challenge for people and you know the work that you do working in in sort of that more of that social impact of tech and social impact of uh the work we do generally what like kind of do you see examples of that do you hear people just kind of not knowing where to start because there is so much to do in this in this space absolutely Lee so I think it's it can feel overwhelming to a lot of people and and a lot in fact actually again overnight there was an event event that has been recorded that I'm keen to catch up on that touches on things like um uh mental health and sustainability and and climate change and some of the elements um relating to that. So it was an event for Microsoft staff and it it does worry me that um you as a parent with a child who is still in primary school not only what might she inherit by the time she finishes school, but also what are the messages that she's hearing at school because I don't want her to feel necessarily like there's no hope and that um you know things we can't still turn this around. But at the same time, I think the narrative around a sense of urgency is is it's impossible to um it's impossible to avoid. It does make me think that that language um you it all has to come down to positive practical action that we can take and as technology can play an interesting role in trying to capture that activity, gamify that activity and share that activity with peer networks as a way of incentivizing people to do more. But I also wonder as human beings who are motivated um back in the time that we were living in caves perhaps to respond to more immediate emergencies if we have language that makes this feel more immediate. Perhaps that will actually encourage us to to actually do something about some of these challenges and um you we as a international community have faced challenges before and we have stepped up to address these challenges. I I still remember we were worried about the the ozone hole um when I was at high school and that seemed to be Armageddon at the time. when I was at school and I fully appreciate that this is a lot more of a complex issue but I I feel like it's there's still room for optimism um and and I'm looking at focusing on that certainly for the sake of my my daughter. That's a really interesting point that you bring up the ozone because of course I mean I remember at school and this was you know the the the holes in the ozone were this kind of this world ending catastrophe but but your point around language is is maybe the key thing here is because when we talk about these things and I know this has come up in a lot of the political rhetoric as well. It's the words you use define the way in which action is prioritized, you know, and people can make something seem incredibly important by the right words and by right actions and you know often we we fail on that. But it's interesting you make that because I I never really thought about it from that point of view of you know all those years ago the the the starting of what was the climate change challenge of you know breaking up of the ozone and these issues um which are all connected to the problems we're now facing. you know, around around carbon emissions, but because we didn't talk about it in that way. We didn't talk about it in that kind of it was a thing that was happening, but we didn't really kind of put the urgency on it. So, yeah, it's it's great you bring it up. Thank you. Yeah. And I Yeah, I agree. And I think when you when you step back as well, it's good to see from a a thousand foot perspective, isn't it? Because I know we recently released a report, didn't we? Um uh you know, about Australia and the businesses, uh I think it was about a third of businesses were going to miss they are net zero targets by 2050. Um you know there's it's about everybody the complexity of this and we look at it a bit a little bit later but the complexity it's on everybody isn't it you know one one person you've talked about there water you know it go it goes so far you know um waste you know the electricity production that you know I know I'm I zoned in on the on the kind of technology and the kind of lithium and all this kind of stuff in my mind at the beginning but actually you know seeing that and thinking about that fuller context is really really positive. Thanks Beth. And scary actually. Uh yes, of course. And look, I'm not I I think we also come at this angle from the point of view of being incredibly privileged to be living in a country where um we have the resources to protect ourselves and our families from the worst effects. And it it goes, you know, it's important to note that the tragedy that climate change will wreak on the people who have had the least role to play in creating this problem in the first place. You that is deeply unjust. But for me, I think um and working in the technology industry, necessity is is the mother of invention. And you we know and we have the the benefit of working with some of the most creative problems solvers. Again, the problem can't be solved through technology alone. But with companies like Microsoft and other organizations swinging behind this with the political will with a sense of emergency, it is creating a movement and a um you know I I think the energy has moved from this political football perhaps that has been historically especially here in Australia to a an acknowledgement that we can't we can't stuff around with this anymore. And um and people are acting and you know every single time I open LinkedIn you know sometimes you get um information about jobs coming through every job that that is coming through that you know pops up on the feed is a sustainability job at the moment. You know the there's such a lot of energy and focus in this area and and that for me indicates that corporate Australia and and governments are looking to invest um heavily in the space to to drive activity and actually just in South Australia this week there's all this energy and enthusiasm for what we might do as a state in the hydrogen space. So you know not only is this um yet well I guess we have to acknowledge that climate change is a deep deeply worrying situation But I think Australia has an opportunity to um seize this this challenge and turn it into a a huge positive for our country and for our children and hopefully for the world to reduce the impact on some of our most vulnerable people. Um to to to actually, you know, avert some of the worst um cases. There was I think you said in in what you were talking there Beth, you talked about kind of the privilege of being at Microsoft and the fact that we are, you know, in in a company as a company we're in a position to be able to make material change and material investments in these kinds of things like you say the jobs we're hiring a lot of them in that sector. Um, but one and and for me, you know, it's not necessarily associated with the sustainability piece, but there's a I talk a lot about responsible AI. In fact, I think I've talked about in the show before, Ben, Dan, when we've done sessions on this, and there's something that we talk about there which Brad Smith always talks about which is you know when you when you build the technology that shapes the future of the world then you take a responsibility to to understand and and take action where that you know that changes is impacting on the fabric of society. He says it much better than that but that's the intent and I think it's a kind of similar sort of thing you know for it's that moment that recognition that when you have when you're part of the problem you need to be part of the solution when you are and you have and certainly when you have the means to be part of the solution you know like you said tech isn't solving the problems. Tech is part of the process of solving the problems. There's a lot more that goes to go into it, but I think you know that's and that's that's something Microsoft does, but I know that there are many other organizations and and and we always talk to organizations about, you know, when they think about their ESG commitments. It's not just about saying what you're going to do. It's actually then putting that stuff in practice and investing in things that that land in that in that meaningful way. Acronym call out ESG. Oh, um Oh, you know, I'm saying it now and I can't remember the it's well, it's your um environmental sustainability Is it ESG goals or is that Yeah. So, yeah, environment, social and governance. Yes. Right. Yes. See, I Yeah. You know, that's why that's here. I think one of the things about about this reporting is is a level of transparency that needs to happen and a a a level of humility in sharing the data and not having to have all of the answers, which um you know, perhaps I've I've want too much Kool-Aid today, but I I do think Microsoft is doing a really really good job in setting ambitious moonshot targets with some of our sustainability goals, but then being deeply honest to in in some of the reporting to not only capture where we've got to and say, you know, this is on target, this is off target, and here's what we're going to do to try and tackle these issues. But they're actually creating white papers and publishing the processes they're undertaking to tackle some of these challenges in the recognition that we can't do this alone and in sharing these processes in in an incredibly transparent way and and acknowledging where we're making mistakes or acknowledging where there needs to be better coalitions of the willing. You know, hopefully we are part of a movement of organizations, governments nonprofits that can um you know this can't be a greenwashing exercise. We have to we have to move from uh you promoting this as a as a glossy brochure and saying you this is a problem and who in the world can help us solve it. You I think um I think I I have to admit to being a massive fan of Mike Cannon Brooks also in terms of the way he's ling some of these issues um in in in a completely different way. And obviously he's in a a position of being able to influence things with his financial um abilities now. But you know what an incredible um role model he is to focus on where he feels he can make a difference and to use all the levers at his disposal now to to be driving an agenda that is um really going to be trans transformative in Australia and in corporate in the corporate world you know I think it's a very interesting to see what happens it is isn't it and it's like it's interesting to see where you know I suppose any publicity is good publicity right and is you know there's lots of people now I think it's interesting how people like Elon Musk are thinking about the future and thinking about you know but then at the same time you know uh are pushing the boundaries but you know polarizing large sws of the population as Well, at the same time, you know, I think people go from hero to zero to, you know, to hero to villain, um, quite regularly, um, and and any publicity is good publicity in this space, I suppose, where, you know, wherever you land, you know, when you look at a Tesla car, I suppose this is one of the things with like I don't know. I'm not sure if in the world of Elon Musk any publicity is always good publicity. He has a habit of being, I suppose, either end of the of the spectrum in terms of his uh his outre. But I get your point. I mean, absolutely. Yeah, talking about it is is never a bad thing. Absolutely. And and like you know it made me think when I was looking at the Tesla cars and you think in your mind and you and I was going back to my right right at the beginning when I was thinking how is this impacting you look at you know electronic vehicles and things and then you don't think about the deeper level of of connection I suppose to rare metals in the earth and I suppose that that segus us in Lee to Kate Crawford. I I heard you speak speak to some of the other team across the world about this book and I I read AI um the AI book from the Atlas of AI. Yeah, it was it was absolutely fantastic. Um I was listening to in the car and the way she splits it all up uh around, you know, AI and the metals and the and the earth elements and all of the different sections that she goes through is a really good journey to make you really think um I suppose holistically about how this this all connects together. Have you got any thoughts on on on that? uh what would how would you kind of take this to the next level? Look, it is an interesting book. Uh and you deep respect for for Kate and the work she does. You know, obviously she's a researcher here as well as the work she does independently. Uh and it does kind of bring you back to that point. You know, I was going to as Beth was talking about it, you know, you think about this word of sustainability and we kind of our minds immediately go to, you know, sustainability means climate change. Um but of course, sustainability by its very definition just means a long-term sustainable practice. or process that you know has limits the harm it does and provides a part you know continual opportunity to grow in the future and so you have to kind of look at in that bigger way and that means you know how you treat people how you treat process how you treat and all of the things that are required in that supply chain and that's where Kate gets to in the book um the atlas of AI she's done a couple of books but the atlas of AI where she kind of says you know you think about what it takes to get to AI I mean you I think previously the book she wrote was about she sort of deconstructed things like Alexa and that but you know But if you kind of start to deconstruct AI and you really follow it down the supply chain, you are talking about, you know, the multitude of things needed to build the the technology needed to do the computational requirements to get to that point. And then we build these devices that, you know, our phones and our other things that have all these rare earth metals and other things that in them that are clearly non-sustainable. The clue is in the name. They are rare earth metals for a reason because they are rare on earth. We don't have many of them. Um, you know, lithium being a great example and and of course if you've seen the TV adverts I think it's quite I mean like it's clever advertising but you know you see the the large mining corporations I won't name names talking about the importance of the work they do in the continuation of our electric future you know in order to continue mining for lithium for example you need that in order to build the electric cars you need and that's often a mis point that sustainability by electric electric means actually has a significant footprint elsewhere and that's the point and if you look at the book you know she does talk about this um the various pieces of the puzzle, whether it be about the the people and when we get into human slavery and poor work practices in many of the countries where these things are mined because unfortunately because of the way it was built, our planet seems to be set in a way that all of the really important things we want happen to live in some of the poorest countries and difficult to reach places on the planet. There's a there's a sort of an irony there, I guess, in the in the in the ridiculousness of that. Um but I think look what's really important if you look at the book I mean There's a couple of things I'll I I I personally take from it, which is I love the fact that she opens with this posit that says we talk about AI, but it is neither artificial nor intelligent. It is very physical and visceral. It comes from the earth's crust. It comes from our bodies. It comes from the work we do and the physical things we dig out of the ground to create this sense of artificialness that is actually very physically and viscerally real. And then we think about it as being intelligent and we sort of pursue the ambitions of AI because It's intelligent, but is it really intelligent or is it actually just a sort of an extension of a very simple childlike processing, less than childlike processing? And it's really automation. It's really simplifying human tasks. Now, there's a lot to be said, and she does talk about this, a lot to be said about, you know, taking humans out of the, you know, the the the key areas that we talk about, you know, it's where dangerous environments, um, you know, places where humans are putting themselves physically at risk in order to work, uh, processes that are not safe. for humans to do. There's good reasons to build autonomous or AI based systems to get into that. But I love how she got I love that principle of, you know, it's not actually AI because it kind of grounds you in the okay, you know, there's more to this. And then the other one which I thought was a really it's one of those moments in the book where you just go, oh, yeah, that's really yeah, that's kind of stupid that we do it that way. But she talks about how if you think about the way AI works today, we, you know, essentially you get a data set, you classify a data set by defining what's in the object in the picture, and then you teach a machine to remember the classification and learn from that classification. Here's a thousand pictures of dogs. Here's a thousand pictures of cats. Now, Mr. Computer, you can tell the difference between a dog and a cat. You know, go run crops. That we use that basic model, but you kind of if you look back to how humans used to do anthropological studies of the world as we extended our footprint as Europeans or other invaders around the world, you know, we kind of did this and we were the great story she talks about is a guy um there was a guy called Sammy Morton in the 19th centur is a cranologist and he used to collect the heads skulls of of people from around the world that that they would use the then and then objectively divide these skulls by based on their physical measurements. So classifying the data into the five races of the world and this is 19th century thinking so you kind of have to take it with a pinch of salt. African, Native American, Caucasian, Malay and Mongol Mongolian and these are the five classifications of people in the world. And we just sort of said there's the data classify it put in those boxes and that's it. That's how we define the people. of the world. And that's exactly what we do with AI today. I mean to a very limited extent. We take all the data sets that we have, we classify them by gender, by post code, by wealth, by some other measure within the data and then we teach a machine to tell us more about other things based on the classification of the things we've already told it. It's we sort of haven't learned anything from the very basics of poor data into the future. So it's really good. I mean, yeah, I look up there's a lot more I think for me the things talk about and then I'll I'll I'll I'll stop talking because I talk too much is the AI piece of it and the and the okay so yes we get it AI has a huge carbon footprint I mean if you go look at some of the stats around environmental sustainability you know various numbers of it but I'll tell you now the you know we talk about air travel we talk about uh cars as being huge carbon contributors it's like you know 5% for a plane 10% for a car and then 200% for some of the large computational models around terms of the carbon because of the need for computation efforts to run you know you know and it's hard to not talk about that and be realistic about things like GPT3 and other big language models DAL and other things that are hugely computational but of course we know that and we can probably fix it and what I really love that what she does talk about and what we see in our world is this focus on how do we fix that problem so how do we get AI to be better at this and there's a movement out there I think Dan, we might have talked about this before called green AI. And so we traditionally measure AI's value by its model accuracy and this power power of the tool and how we're going to play it. And the green AI measure says okay well actually why don't we also measure it by its footprint by its efficiency as a model and actually drive people to not just think about what's the biggest model and the greatest result I can give but also what's the balance of lowering the impact of that model. And there's a lot of work happening that and it's it's Certainly not a easy area because we're kind of going against the Mo's law principle of the more you more you throw at a problem the better you can solve it but I think it's really interesting and it just what what her book for me Dan to answer your initial question is it opens up this conversation by telling you about all the things that you probably didn't realize you know the about the the sustainable impact of AI but it does point the way to technology innovations to new thinking and research that is looking at that and going okay well before this becomes so big and and it becomes our new, you know, um, ozone problem of the of the of the 80s. Let's try and figure it out now. And we're getting smarter at optimizing memory modules, optimizing algorithms, optimizing data models, trying to do more better, accurate AI with lower data sets, so we're not using as much carbon. So, look, yeah, for me, it's an interesting book. It kind of takes you on a journey of, you know, oh my god, everything's terrible. Oh, okay, I can see a way forward. Oh, I now I realize there's much to do here. So, Yeah, it's it's a great book. I I look forward to trying to get a my hands on a on a copy of that. As you were speaking, I I was just thinking about how cloud computing has contributed towards a move towards more sustainable computing as well. And I I think there are some fascinating things happening as organizations are investing in uh um uh data centers but placing them in strategic places to make the most out of um renewable energy and and using um you energy to um green energy to power those data centers is is definitely how we need to look at this. For sure. One of the most interesting models I've seen is is Microsoft's own underwater uh data center where they've been experimenting with um locating machinery in the ocean. I I can't remember which ocean it is and in it's in Pacific Northwest outside and and Seattle. No, up in the Ornes up in north of Scotland was the other one. They did two so far. But you're right. I mean, yeah, it was very well it was that one of the interesting points was testing different water types and differentities and other things. But you're right, both of those places were chosen because of the access to renewable energy sources as is the case for nearly all of our data. Well, all of our data centers now is on that. But I I wanted to touch on because you mentioned the cloud computing thing, Beth, and of course, you know, one hand you can look at the cloud computing being this massive conflation confl configuration of computers in a single place that has this huge footprint and of course that you know by the offset of that is renewable but the other thing to bear in mind is cloud computing actually does allow us to distribute the use of computing and so whereas before you might find discrete organizations had to invest in a more significant yes infrastructure at cost carbon and technology whereas we can make those things available which is one thing but The other thing that you know about I mean you mentioned the cloud for sustainability earlier on being released but because we're building these cloud services we're also seeing things like um and I forget the exact name of it but there is a now a a function inside of Azure AI's machine learning uh studio tool sets in the ML studio uh that lets you measure the carbon impact of the computing you're running in there. So not you know this sustainability does that broadly across Azure this is specifically for AI and so you kind of got look at cloud as this interesting, you know, it has its problems because it is this concentration, but it is also opening up new ways to think about some of the problems which is a solution which is awesome to see. Yeah. And and and one of the one of the things I was listening to an interview with Kate actually in um through Sydney Uni because she obviously connected there and um there was a great conversation she had that that I was watching and she was one of the questions was around uh bringing into education and how early we should be teaching kids about some of the con concepts and being familiar with some of these things and it's quite an interesting spin on that and she was talking about the fact that um the way that kids already interact with AI as we all know you they interacting with toys you know I was thinking of my daughter who's got toys that she can press and go near and move away from and talk to and they repeat back and they they're a kind of virtual assistant uh element and you know thinking about when we start to introduce those concepts to kids and and also you know it's it's accelerating really quickly because it goes into her ethics elements in her book, but um you know the fact that kids are now on their iPads quite a lot from a young age and a lot of those apps are free and they're collecting data and um want to want to kind of drive more personalized experiences through. So it's it is really interesting. I find all that the entire conversation with younger generations, you know, we do that AI for good and I know it was in the last um caller podcast we had and it was really interesting. because I ran an event in one of our local schools here and it's really interesting to talk to kids about it and they've sort of lost that discernment with technology. They they do trust um you know vendors you quite quite a lot uh and and are and not really thinking in a lot of ways about why things are happening and and and why they're using particular types of hardware. You know, it was it was very very interesting. I think she's she's she brings that up quite a lot as well in the ethics side. in a book. Sorry, Beth. No, no. I I again I have to read this book, but one one thing that I h often hear in the sustainability space um especially as it relates to mental health is that and coming back to your earlier point Lee about things being the problem and the solution. I often wonder if technology and the role it has played in detaching human beings from their living environment and you know this move towards working in offices, working in a knowledge based job, spending hours in front of a tech, you know, your technology in the day and less time outside, less time in the natural environment is also a a driver of a deep disconnect that we have to our own environment. And if you if we if we as a society or as citizens spend more time in the environment, do we have a greater appreciation for the natural environment and thereby are we more inclined to try and protect it because we spend more time enjoying it? And yeah, so I I look at my daughter and she got a um a a little kind of iPad thing for for from Santa. Actually, Santa was ridiculously generous. Um and and every moment she spends on that iPad sucks her deeper into the technology vortex and she might spend less time outside as a consequence. And you kind of think, well, what impact might that have on the way that she might interact with her natural environment if she spends more time with, you know, bush walking or looking at ants or spending time with birds? Will she want to protect the environment a little more when she's older? It's a it's a really interesting uh question. It's very philosophical and you could probably dive deep down a rabbit hole on that. Uh especially if you're outside you might find a rabbit hole but you know you can get down to that point. Look and you know it's in for me I've always rackled grappled with this idea that it's you know the world that I grew up in and therefore the world that I'm used to experiencing as a kid is just frankly not the world my kids are going to grow up in. And and part of me wants yearns for them to have that world where I went outside and played all night and then came home and that was it. Part of me doesn't want them to just do what I did just because I did it and I want them to experience the world they're going to grow up in. And that's a the dichotomy is do we like the world they're growing up in? Well, does it matter if we like it or not because they like it. And I and that doesn't you know address the issue as you said of the environmental connection. I think that people will always hold a there's a I don't know there must be something innate in humans around the physicality of the world we live in that need to get back to it because I certainly find as I get older and I'm in the IT world I'm I'm sort of less interested in sitting in front of a computer and doing than I am being outside. But you know, for me what it actually comes back to, and it's an interesting segue back to the point you made very early on, Beth, which is about the overwhelming nature of it all. And there's just so much to solve, so much to deal with, so many things that we all individually would like to do. Dan, I'm going to make you wrap it up, bring us home, smash it out the park. Oh, great. And kind of give us some like, you know, let's get probably a bit more practical because that's probably useful for people. What are what are things we could do? Yeah. And I see this I see this every day I suppose and it's becoming more and more more and more prevalent. You know I was asked I think about three months ago by one of my customers they said can you tell us about Microsoft and the modern slavery connections and how we can support uh conversations around uh to a board around hardware because they were already asking other suppliers. So they were starting their conversations around sustainability and you know they realizing very quickly that these scopes suddenly start to get really wide. and they they they they come into us with with all kinds of things. This landing on the CIO or the IT manager's uh door in a lot of times now you know the CIOS are coming to us asking about this because they're often procuring the technology they're often implementing the clouds they're implementing the hybrid work technology so it's adding another degree of of um I suppose specialtity to an IT manager's role whether they should or should not but it seems to be landing there Similarly through hybrid work people were thinking about well-being and that landed in the IT infrastructure as well and your teams you know and and that was quite an interesting one. So so where we've started to settle now and think about this we've bringing our strategy from Microsoft point of view together but I suppose there's three phases. One would be assessing where you are now and you you alluded to it earlier on Beth you know uh so well you know it's about assessing where you are now and we are producing tools to allow you to do that from a Microsoft point of view and the vendors will come along as well. Um, and some are doing that already. But it's about assessing where you are because you can't uh identify your progress going forward if you don't know where you are now. And then, you know, we got this big scope of what are we assessing? Are we assessing our suppliers? Um, are we thinking about uh the software we're running, the data centers we're using, the electronics and electricity that we might be using, where are we using renewables? So, it's all about thinking about where you are now and and starting to get that data together. So that would be the first step to start thinking where we are and and whether that's at us us at home as well. I suppose we did a thing recently uh in Microsoft to a global eco challenge and we would we were encouraged to kind of think about our own footprint and we can have conversations with our kids and it's a similar thing to start to do with an organization. So assessing where you are step one I suppose the second step then is to start thinking well I'm now now I know where I are how am I going to accelerate my progress. So how you do that is by thinking about a plan. So you then put a plan together and say, "Well, where are we going to be?" And you can look at the Microsoft plans online, other companies plans, government plans, and and putting a five-year plan together, a 10-year plan together, and then you can start to see what you're going to do and then break that down into actually something that's actionable rather than, you know, we we'll be carbon neutral by 2030 or whatever it might be. You can see where that really can be done because it's all very well looking at Microsoft or any other company and saying they're going to be carbon neutral. by whatever but when you get in the detail um and that's what you said as well Beth you know it was great you know the fact that from Microsoft point of view we've been open and transparent with our our kind of goals and some we are hitting and some we're not and some we need to accelerate and some you know you have to change as you go and that's a good plan right so um so you do your assessment you then do your plan and then also you start thinking about what are the areas you might want to transform on in a in a bigger way so it might have a knock on effect to the way your your teachers or your your um nurses or your employees, you know, actually do hybrid work. You know, can they do that? Do we have to bring people together? Can we change room settings when we make new buildings? Can we kind of have um a thought about where where we are moving to the cloud? Can we accelerate that? Because you know there's a lot of statistics about moving to the cloud. I think the stats from Microsoft is receive 95% on our emissions by moving into into Azure for a lot of our tools and tech. technologies. So, you know, when you look at it from a product point of view, and I don't want to make it too Microsofty here, but when we look at Azure, you know, that's got a big uh push towards sustainability. There's an emissions uh dashboard inside there as well, which I tell all my customers to to have a look at. You can install that and and you can see all your your emissions ticking over and and what your carbon footprint is using the Microsoft stuff. Um Beth, you want to say something there? Oh, no, no, not at all. I'm I I'm glad that you're sharing that conversation with your customers. You know what I was thinking actually was that um you know in in the journey to eating an elephant which is a terrible analogy for the conversation we're having that you you start with a single bite. You need a single step and you're kind of breaking it down and the fact that we are empowered as all employees of this organization to take this on as our own as part of our own job I think is is one way to I'm speaking to a school on um it was last week when I was going around the grounds um like I said at the beginning and one school was using a million sheets of paper you know just in one one particular area you know they're still doing that so when we thinking about the s all the sustainability elements there's there's process automation as well so when I looked at when I said about cloud there it's also thinking about well how are people using other to you know their CRM systems the ERP systems their finance systems how they using that to modernize and and become paperless is another really good way to start to drive that. Um, so really try to think think about the the impact of those and that has a knock on effect obviously to the software they use or they using Dynamics or other types of CRM tools like SAP and the like and then also utilizing that hybrid you know I think that's where people are going to see a lot as well and I think Microsoft are thinking about what's going to happen here because we used to travel to the US every year for a kickoff event which is you know you're shipping a lot of people in we have big part events on and what we do locally in Australia. You know, people love face toface events, but you think about well, how can you make that more effective and more sustainable in your practices? So, it has a knock- on effect. You know, teams meetings and things like that have a knock on effect. And then right down to the the other one that lots of people are uh are pushing on is is hardware. So, you know, obviously, you know, even simple things, I know in schools, you know, every year they have a thousand devices the land if Phil skips up of of hard you know, packaging. Yeah. Uh, so we've done things to to actually ship out in one box, you know, 50 machines at a time, do the do the mice and the plastics based on, you know, the the recyclable um ocean plastics and things. So, there's lots of things that you can start to do to map out as a as a person in an enterprise to say, well, these are the little things that I'm doing, and they all add up, but you can then compare back to your assessment and say, well, how is my now new choice to supplier or vendor impacted on you know our original assessment of our our knowledge of modern slavery and sustainability and our emissions. So so the three things assessing your impact accelerating your progress and thinking of new areas to transform would be the three things to kind of start to drive on Lee to answer your question. Awesome. Love it Dan. Great to have those uh practical things that you know that actually can be done and uh I appreciate you sharing it. So I think we're almost done. types. Yeah. Yeah. But but but hold on one last thing. My little Columbbo moment for people old enough to know what Columbbo was. He was a copper on the TV. Um so copper now I know if for English people are policeman writing on the TV. So confuse everybody in one sentence. Sorry all our listeners. But what I was thinking we should do is just have a top tip of the week if anybody's got one to add a little bit of fizz to the end of the and it could be anything. It doesn't even have to be technology related if if if you don't want to. So Lee, have you got a top tip of the week? I do. And it's just it's perfect. You said fizz. So, we all talked at the top of the show how cold it is, and it is cold and it's miserable, and it's winter now, but there's one good thing about winter. Winter means it's okay to drink red wine, and I like red wine. So, my tip of the week is, everyone talks about whether you should or shouldn't decant wine, and my tip of the week is you always want to let wine breathe. Regardless whether you decanted it or not, you don't always have to decant it, but if you're going to drink red wine, particularly this time of year, let it out. Sit it in the glass. Give it five minutes in the glass of swelling before you drink it. Trust me, your taste buds will approve. Brilliant. That's a great tip, actually. Oh, yeah. That that decant or not decant is always a always a weird one, isn't it? Always on Friday. In fact, now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True, Beth. Well, aside from uh requesting that everyone drinks South Australian red wine, I mean, that's that's another point. But as you're drinking that wine, open your laptop and go to a charity of your choice. In the leadup to the end of financial year, we uh have the opportunity to make a donation to a charity in climate on your tax deductions. There's a lot that we can do in regard to sustainability, but actually if we have jobs that are focused in other areas, why not think about making a donation before the end of tax time to support the organizations that can help more on the on the cold face. So, I am going to donate to a local charity that um focuses on planting trees in South Australia and I'm also going to take some time book my volunteering leave and spend some time actually getting out planting some trees during the school holidays with my daughter as well. So, it's uh it's a win-win here. Um certainly, you're feeling incredibly generous after a couple of glasses of red wine as well. I like that. I like how you did that. That's that's so good. Go. If if you can if you can combine those two things, then um so much the better. Absolutely. And my top tip would be um just cuz I've been back out on the road recently and and seeing people. I've I've take my daughter to her first theater experience in the in the city. So I took it to see Mary Poppins in Sydney and uh you know it's just phenomenal to see the way that people people perform. performing is just phenomenal whether it's a band or whether it's something local and and just seeing the the performance there and I uh when I was in Melbourne I was lucky enough to stay there overnight and uh I went with my colleagues Monica and we went to see the Harry Potter uh and the Cursed Child in in the theater there. Wow, that was absolutely phenomenal. An amazing use of technology, amazing story and just just to see people perform and be out and people enjoying themselves, you know, I think uh if you can get to the theater, go do And if you can see Harry Potter, even better. Awesome. I've heard good things. So, great for that. Thanks, Dan. So, I think I think this is going to take us into nicely into some of the next sessions coming up as well around sustainability. So, um you know, there's a lot of the space we've got here. We're going to talk about some of the uh things in build coming up. We're going to talk about and and interview other people about sustainability in their uh um journeys. So, you know, super keen to kind of keep that conversation going and thanks Beth and Lee for for joining us again today. And uh have a Great week. Thanks, Dan. Hopefully, you're a bit warmer after that conversation, too. The red wine is warming me up. Not that I'm drinking it now, but I'm thinking about it. It's 12:00 somewhere, Dan. It's 12:00 somewhere. As long as it's South Australian, I think they they can they can allow that. Very true. I love it.