Interview with Erin Augustine

Transcript

[Sheldon Young]

Welcome to the No Footprints podcast brought to you by Alfa Laval. I’m Sheldon Young.

[Jason Moreau]

And I’m Jason Moreau.

[Sheldon Young]

And we’re here to talk about impact and to share the efforts and people behind making sustainability real.

Jason, I’ve got news. You already know the news, but our audience doesn’t.

[Jason Moreau]

Oh, I know the news. It’s good news.

[Sheldon Young]

It’s good news. We are finalists for a signal award. It’s exciting stuff.

I mean, it’s great for the podcast. So I think if you guys don’t know a signal award, it is a something that the podcast world does and I’m excited that we are finalists in the environment and start sustainability environment category. So it’s pretty cool.

Pretty cool.

[Jason Moreau]

Just cool to say that we are nominees alongside Oprah, Jon Stewart, Amy Poehler, other luminaries of the podcast field, you know? I mean, I’m sure that backstage green room area is going to be crazy.

[Sheldon Young]

To be fair. Thank God. We’re not competing against those.

[Jason Moreau]

No, we lose. We lose for sure. We’d lose hard.

[Sheldon Young]

Well, it’d be close between us and Oprah. I think, you know, the audience sides is similar. I imagine.

No, but it was really, I mean, I was a little shocked and, you know, but pleasantly, obviously happy about our nominations and the fact that we’re finalists really makes it awesome. And so you can vote for us for the, there was a part that they’re judging by themselves, right? And then there’s a second thing like a listener’s choice award and that you can vote on.

I think it’s, um, I don’t have the website in front of me, Jason. I don’t know if you do, but it’s like vote.signalaward.com. And then you find the, um, basically go to categories, uh, genre, and then you look for a sustainability environment.

You’ll see like there’s like five or six of us here. You can vote for no footprint. So please do that.

Tell your friends, get it, get us, get us some recognition. We’ll get you the website corrected here in a sec. Once Jason finds it my fault for not having it in front of me, but hey, you know, you got flies on the fly.

[Jason Moreau]

Vote.signalaward.com and then yep. Just search or you can either do a search for the show name, no footprints or search under genre and you’ll. Yeah.

Genre categories.

[Sheldon Young]

And I think sustainability environment. So please. I was sad to Jason.

I was pretty cool to hear that. And that’s it. That was my initial kickoff news, but let’s do some, some real sustainability news.

Um, yeah, I went to climate week just with the climate week and we can talk more about this, maybe another episode, but just in general, uh, again, high energy, uh, a lot going on. I get the privileges to attend some sustainability, live stuff, a lot of talk in that around some of the big topics, like data centers, um, and, uh, water use for that. And energy use, obviously lots of discussion, a lot of really good ideas and, and, and big names on the, on the stage talking about it.

And I, I think I feel, I felt good when I heard it that I feel like progress is certainly being made on, on making these, uh, things more efficient and all that. Uh, you know, I’m not going to speak out of turn on it. I just listened and I would say, wow, I really liked what I heard.

I’ll just put it that way. Um, including stuff from our own people that were, they were involved in the, uh, the conversation as well. And then over at region house where, uh, I spent a lot of my time cause it’s very food based.

We had our event, uh, great go conversations, engagement, really pleasantly surprised and happy of all the people that were there, uh, playing along with my little, little game show that I put together. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.

I think people enjoyed it, but just hearing some really good stories. I, and also, but also some really harsh, harsh, um, realities in some cases, uh, attended a number of things with some of the farmers that are trying to work and be more sustainable, including some indigenous farmers, uh, that, you know, kind of the indigenous background that have always worked in this sustainable way, but then trying to, how do they fit into this food system that we have? Right.

And, uh, and work with the metrics that people want and the numbers and then, and the, all the, the credits and things that go with it, it can be very tricky and challenging, particularly for someone like a farmer, uh, that has, you know, doesn’t have big budgets to spend on this equipment that, to get them there. So what I heard, which is again, not different than what I heard last year, but maybe a little more evolved was around the just, you know, what’s the finance system look like for this? Right.

Just that’s the big challenge is how, who’s going to put the money behind it, who’s going to assess and understand the risks. I, what I heard and what I, excuse me, personally assessed was there’s a missing component or maybe it’s there. I just don’t see it.

Uh, but the insurance, right. It’s almost an insurance component. Like someone has to back a risk, right?

If you’re, if you’re putting money into something, it’s, it’s often some kind of insurance policy of some kind. And then I think people having trouble pricing out and doing the actuary mechanisms around the risk that these sustainable practices have, right. Cause they don’t have a lot of data behind them.

Uh, in some cases, in some cases, not all cases and make it very clear, but they say, well, we want you to try this, this new farming mechanism. We, we, we did it over here for a small plot, blah, blah, blah. That’s not a lot of data.

Right. So who’s going to go all in on something and who’s going to back that risk if it fails.

[Jason Moreau]

So it’s like, it feels like there’s a, I know they’ve done different, uh, like financial vehicles in like developing countries, like micro loans and things like that. Um, you could almost imagine some type of like fundraising crowd, you know, type of thing where it’s not one entity taking a big risk, but you essentially split the risk among maybe many, many, many small donors. I feel like, yeah, somebody needs to kind of step into that gap there and, and, uh, come up with, with a solution.

[Sheldon Young]

For sure. I definitely feel that could be part of the solution there. Uh, again, there’s lots of people talking about it.

And I think it’s just like, how do we get all the right stakeholders kind of pull in the same direction. Right. Uh, and again, I’m sitting from a seat that’s mostly in the audience for this.

Let’s be very clear. Right. Right.

I’m not the one that’s sitting at the table with the people negotiating with farmers and trying to move that needle. Uh, we have people on that are guests to do that. Right.

Um, and we’ll do more of that. I think I definitely got some new ideas for the show here. How do we start to bring people to have more about that conversation than that?

That’s really, if you talk about scope, three emissions, particularly food, right, that’s the big one. Um, and how do we find a move that forward and make it work? So I don’t know.

I thought it was really a great week. Um, I got to go to something like the water X prize. That was pretty interesting.

Get to kind of participate in a little workshop for that. Um, again, I think it’s tough. Uh, how do you put the right big questions in place?

Uh, and to get people to, what do you want people to solve for? I guess, right. It was really, they were trying to figure out like, where do you put your chips?

Uh, and, and act and ask for people to, uh, try to solve specific problems. That was what the workshop was around. Try to hone in on that a little bit around the water space.

It was kind of cool. Oh, that sounds really interesting. Yeah, it was, it was.

What do you got for me, Jason?

[Jason Moreau]

Um, well, this one is a direct tie-in to our guest today. It’s a story about Oatly. Uh, and it was, uh, I believe also announced or at least discussed during climate week.

So, you know, me as a marketer, usually mentioning the four P’s and one of the P’s is the product, which includes the packaging and Oatly’s doing something kind of cool with its packaging. Uh, they’ve already released it in Sweden and a few other European countries, but it will be coming to the U S in January. And the quote I have is from Caroline Reed, the senior sustainability director at Oatly.

And she’s talking about this and saying companies should be taking much more responsibility, not only in reducing their own environmental footprint, but really working out how they can use their platform to drive a positive future. And I think, uh, you know, not to be too much of a spoiler alert, but Oatly really lives its values from a sustainability standpoint. You will hear that in the interview coming up, but essentially what they’re doing on their packaging is giving a little bit more visibility to the 89% project.

Um, which is essentially, it’s, it’s sort of a hybrid journalism advocacy project, but it talks about it. She’ll talk about it a little bit. Yeah, correct.

Yeah. They take their name that like, you know, uh, they surveyed people in 125 countries and 89% of us would like to see more action on climate change. And so, um, Oatly again, living their values has that right on the side of their carton and is, you know, making us think, but in a, you know, kind of a non-confrontational way, but it’s there and it’s, you know, you’re eating your cereal or drinking your coffee, you’re going to sit there and read it.

So I just thought that was really cool. And also just very much tied into a lot of what you will hear in the interview.

[Sheldon Young]

Hmm. Yeah. Sounds like a winner to me, my friend, speaking of winners, this is tied it in baby.

I met our last guest, uh, at climate week, but a year ago. And we were both on a little game show team together. That’s how we met.

And our team was the champion, the winner, but of course, uh, and the one running the game was another prior guest, Christina O’Keefe from Carrie. So right away, I knew she was my kind of person in tune with the entire sustainability value chain, practical results, driven person. And she brought a really fantastic, uh, conversation to the table here.

And I saw her again this past climate week, uh, last week. And, uh, just great catching up with her and, and, uh, very excited to have her on the show. So what do you say we get to it, my friend?

[Jason Moreau]

Let’s do it.

[Sheldon Young]

I’d like to welcome to no footprints. Erin Augustine.

Erin is a vice president of global sustainability, totally the world’s largest, and I dare say most unique oat drink company. And at least she drives efforts to ensure sustainability is embedded in everything from strategy to operations, to messaging. She creates a space where goals are ambitious and sustainability impact is in fact, very real.

She spent her career lowering impact at places like Wolverine worldwide Kellogg company. She also worked with nonprofits and environmental education. We are very excited to welcome Erin to the no footprints podcast.

Welcome my friend.

[Erin Augustine]

Thank you, Sheldon. I’m happy to be here.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah. Erin and I have a very important history.

We, we are winners together from a climate week game show that we were a part of, this is where I met you. I met you in that event. And so it’s, it, uh, you know, I, I still have my little pin.

I know you couldn’t find it, but that’s okay. I, I, I don’t win much. I don’t want much of this world.

So I kept my, I keep this little pin close.

[Erin Augustine]

I’m going to find mine. Now I’m going to go find it. I’ll be wearing it this year.

Climate week. Yeah.

[Jason Moreau]

Sheldon keeps it close. Meaning he wears it every day. Trying to encourage people to ask him about it.

Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah. Yeah. Guys, in case you’re wondering, uh, uh, winner here, champion, uh, I might say just so in case you need some real advice, uh, no, but welcome to the show.

Thank you for doing this with us. Um, you know, when I think of making sustainability real, uh, you know, and I talked to someone like you at climate week and meet you, I’m like, okay, this is the definition. And it’s been a, you know, a year coming, uh, but we are here and I’m excited to have you on.

So we always like to start with, you know, give us kind of your journey to sustainability and how it kind of brought you to Oatly.

[Erin Augustine]

Sure. Absolutely. Um, I mean, I think, uh, funnily enough, I think my journey to sustainability starts years, like decades ago.

So I have a cute little story of a, of a high school, Erin, um, who, uh, was interested in engineering. And I went to a women in engineering, like event or week-long things sometime in the summer at Michigan tech universities, which is way up North and Northern Michigan. And we went from like classroom to classroom.

And there was a person presenting to us the different kinds of engineering and what it meant. Um, to be that kind of engineer and the man, I couldn’t even tell you his name or who he was, but the man that was representing environmental engineering, took us off campus, bought us lemonade, took us to a coffee shop and started talking about. Some bird.

I can’t remember the, even what bird it was, but this particular kind of bird that needs old growth forest for its nesting.

[Sheldon Young]

It needs to be at least an owl.

[Erin Augustine]

It might’ve been an owl. I don’t know. This was 25 years ago.

[Sheldon Young]

There was an owl for the paper mills of Maine. There was an owl that it was, that was just that thing. And I remember it very specific.

I can’t remember the name of it, but I got it.

[Erin Augustine]

And they need these, they need these old growth forests and they needed to be far from the edge. And he was talking about how, you know, the way we manage our forests in the U S there’s less and less places for this bird to nest. And I said, I want to be an environmental engineer.

[Sheldon Young]

Nice.

[Erin Augustine]

And then I went to college and I studied environmental engineering and I realized it was a lot of water chemistry and a lot of wastewater treatment and drinking water treatment. And I love my engineering degree. Don’t get me wrong.

I’m super glad that I got it, but I think I was in the wrong classroom that day. And I think maybe this gentleman was a conservation biologist, but I went from environmental engineering to environmental compliance, which was a lot of permitting, annual reporting, all of the good stuff to help keep companies in compliance with environmental laws and regulations to sustainability. And it wasn’t a straight line journey and I, you know, dabbled in conservation biology in college and said, I’m just going to stick with engineering because it’s a technical degree.

I love my technical degree. I love, I’m not an energy engineer. I’m not a mechanical engineer.

I’m not an electrical engineer, but in the energy work I do and in the sustainability work I do, I can have the technical conversation with those engineers and it gets my foot in the door to have the conversation with the really smart people who can design the projects and execute the projects that I need them to do in every element of my career. So yes, started in consulting while started in environmental education. Yeah.

Moved on to consulting. Then I worked for Kellogg at the factory, at the Battle Creek, Michigan factory, which is the biggest and oldest Kellogg cereal factory, at least it was 15 years ago. And that’s still maybe my favorite work experience.

The two years that I spent as an environmental manager on the factory floor gives me the perspective of what it takes to do environmental compliance and sustainability at a factory that has a long list of priorities, which of course include people safety, which of course include environmental safety and compliance, but also include production, delivering the product safely, food safety, people’s safety, all those things.

There’s a ton of priorities on that factory floor and I’m forever grateful for those couple of years experience trying to put environmental and sustainability in the mix.

[Sheldon Young]

Absolutely. I think it’s such an important aspect of anything, you know, the work that I do, the work that Jason does, and everyone I meet that kind of, in particular this food, farm and beverage space that we play in, right? It’s always about, look, people don’t do it for fun.

They do it because it’s attached to something meaningful and that, you know, honestly, projects don’t get done unless there’s an ROI. It’s just the way it is. Yeah.

So with yourself, how do you define, I guess, in your own world, sustainability, what does it kind of mean to you personally in your life?

[Erin Augustine]

Sure. Sure. I mean, at work, I mean, I guess there’s a personal life and at work both, but I really love the very basic sustainability definition of the triple bottom line where we’re considering people, planet and profit.

And I think it’s super basic. I think it’s lasted for years and years because it’s so basic. And I think when we truly talk about a sustainable company or a sustainable activity, it really means that whole doing good by doing well.

You should be able to do good on all three of those legs of that stool. And so, in order to be, what’s interesting is at Oatly, we, you know, have people and planet, very, very strong planet, very strong planet in that space. Right?

We can get into that a little bit more. We talk a lot about how you can’t have purpose without performance and vice versa. We have a very strong purpose and we wrestle that tension of we want to have very strong performance as a company and that means financial performance.

That means investor perform. That means stock price. That means, you know, all of the financial deliverables that sit under that profit part of the three-legged stool.

And we are trying to grow a bigger company to deliver more oat drink to more people and give them that opportunity to experience it and to consider oat milk instead of cow’s milk and save the avoided emissions and all the things that show up in the people and planet side. But we have to have all three.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah. So important. I mean the profits of what is what let things get done.

[Erin Augustine]

Totally.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, totally.

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah. So I really subscribe to that old school definition of people.

[Sheldon Young]

I love it. No, I love it. It holds.

[Jason Moreau]

I think I’m picking up on the thread about the planet. What’s interesting is in your marketing materials, I believe, and even in some of your videos, you talk about Oatly as a climate solutions company that just happens to sell oat milk. And I mean, I love that framing.

It’s very provocative my in the history of the company. If you frame it that way though, you could go in a lot of different directions, right? Like if you put the solution first before the product, so how do you and you mentioned it in your answer?

How do you how do you keep those tensions in balance? I suppose.

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah, I think it’s a great question. So maybe a little bit of the like origin story of Oatly. So Oatly was founded about 30 years ago.

I guess now in the 90s by a couple of researchers at Lund University and they were studying lactose intolerance. Lund University is in Sweden. I should say.

[Sheldon Young]

Yes. Right.

[Erin Augustine]

And they were studying lactose intolerance and they decided instead of studying lactose intolerance. What if they designed a solution? What if they designed a product for lactose intolerant people and they chose oats on purpose.

They chose oats because of its health because of the nutrition because of the taste and because of the sustainability because oats can be grown relatively widespread in the Global North without a lot of irrigation or other inputs. And so it is a low-impact crop that could form the base of this delicious nutritious product that can then compete against cow’s milk as what you said a climate solution product. So I think the I mean from the beginning it was grounded in science.

It was grounded in a solution to cow’s milk as an alternative to dairy and and that climate solution is very core to the value that we deliver to customers to consumers to the food system as a whole on its journey towards a net zero world the way we need to transform that food system.

[Sheldon Young]

Anyone had seen Oatly’s messaging and the story and all that they you it’s everywhere. It is prevalent in the messaging, you know, sustainability is at the core and you’re talking about it. You know, it’s like it’s probably deeply embedded in your culture as well.

So how do you how does your team in particular ensure that it stays that way? And how does it how does it show up in the operations and the decision-making process?

[Erin Augustine]

Sure. I think if we talk about climate solutions, maybe a little bit maybe I’ll explain what climate solutions are and then sort of help then come back to answer your question.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, please.

Yeah. So a climate solution is a framework owned by the exponential Roadmap Initiative and it’s part of what they call their five pillar framework and that framework includes, of course, reducing your scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions as all good sustainability climate programs and decarbonization programs do but then what I really like about this framework from ERI is that it the third pillar. I believe it’s the third pillar is this climate solutions as an innovation and basically the way the way I read it is we can make incremental change like all the industry is making incremental change, but a climate solution is a step change.

It is a fundamentally different and drastically better product that replaces an old product. So in order to be a climate solution product, you have to have at least 50% lower emissions than the category. So for example, we we operate in the in the dairy category, which includes plant-based milks as well.

So it’s all of the the milk category and then our products, the majority of them, the ones that are qualified as climate solutions product, we have to be able to use, we use life cycle assessment and we use our product climate footprints to show that they’re at least 50% lower emissions than the category. And then Oatly is also qualified as a climate solutions company, which means that at least 90% of our revenue, the major component of that climate solutions company qualification is that 90% of our revenue comes from climate solutions products. So the other part that I really love about this framework is that those thresholds ratchet down over time and as the category changes, so in order to remain a climate solution product, our products have to remain at least 50% lower emissions than the category.

Now, the whole category is going to reduce its emissions. It has to, it should, the whole food system needs to reduce its emissions. It has to, it should.

As those emissions reduce over time, therefore that threshold for us to stay 50% lower gets harder.

[Sheldon Young]

The bar keeps moving.

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah, the bar keeps moving. That is one of the reasons, of course, that’s not the only reason, but that is one of the reasons that our corporate climate footprint reduction commitments are so important and it’s a, it’s a commercialized incentive to deliver on those corporate climate footprints because when we go to a customer and we talk about our products or climate solutions, we talk about our products lower their scope 3 emissions. So if you’re saying, when I say customer, of course, I’m talking about a retailer.

I’m talking about a grocery store. I’m talking about a food service. I’m talking about a restaurant, you know, major restaurants, major retailers.

Absolutely. They all have climate reduction targets as well. We can come in and show them how by replacing cow’s milk with Oatly, that will reduce their scope 3 emissions and help them deliver on their commitments.

So it’s really fundamental to the, you know, the list of value that we bring, the list of commercial value that we bring to our customers, that climate solutions and those avoided emissions are part of it. So I love it because it gives us that extra incentive to keep doing the important decarbonization work that we all know we should be doing and we all really want to be doing. From a culture perspective, you’re right Sheldon.

Culturally, my colleagues, maybe because it’s of our Nordic roots, maybe because a lot of them are still in Sweden and the Nordics. I have a lot of colleagues that are very culturally focused on sustainability, no matter what their job is, right? Right.

They might be a finance person. They might be a transportation person. They might be an HR person, but a lot of my colleagues came to Oatly because of the sustainability values of the company and because of the sustainability value of our product.

[Sheldon Young]

Fantastic.

[Erin Augustine]

I’m not sure I answered your question though.

[Sheldon Young]

No, I think you laid the foundation as to why it’s so important. I think that is what’s really it, right? Because it has to be.

Your product essentially is sustainability, right? Because it’s your value proposition to your customers. You know, I go to a coffee place that I know uses your product and I know it’s probably part of their Scope 3 emissions policy.

And I’m like, that makes sense now. When what you’re producing has a fundamental value proposition of a sustainability impact, that makes it aligned. You know, your help would be aligned.

If you fail at that part, you’re not living up to what you promised your customer and that’s not going to fly.

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah, I would say sustainability has to be alongside taste and nutrition when we’re in the food space. Of course, we do a lot of work to help encourage people to make the switch. We do a lot of work to make change easy.

We talk about a lot of that. Like it’s our job to make change easy and I firmly believe that change, we’re not going to transform the food system. We’re not going to change worldwide diets through shame and judgment.

I firmly believe this. This is an Aaron, a deeply held Aaron belief, that shame and judgment doesn’t make people change or at least it makes very few people change. Most of us react negatively to shame and judgment and that doesn’t make change easy.

I think in order to make change easy, we have to do it through optimism, through joy, through fun, through delicious, nutritious things that, oh, by the way, you know, this your coffee, right, that you had made with oat milk is delicious and nutritious and also has lower emissions and also has avoided emissions and also is a climate solution. And to me, it’s an and. It has to be.

[Sheldon Young]

Thank you. I think, you know, I do improv comedy is one of the things that you for fun and the yes and concept is though it’s a mantra. It is like you have to go with that, right?

And when you know, it’s in, it’s like it does not have to crowd out everyone else. You can have dairy products as well as a product and it is okay right now. Everyone should be looking to drive that down and make an impact.

But again to say you have to have a war with with dairy is not fair, right? So it’s not a fair discussion is a you are offering an alternative that others can make a choice with and I think it is a choice that that works. Well, Jason will hop in with a question.

[Jason Moreau]

Yeah. Well, just I guess picking up on the fun thread that comes through pretty much everything that like I can find out the company like it’s just I mean kudos. It’s really amazing, but it it’s obviously not just marketing.

It’s a reflection of those internal cultural values. One thing I would be remiss not to ask about since I have the opportunity is so if we combine the threads of fun combine the threads of you know, sustainability and we’ll call it that like Nordic research engineering mindset start point. I think I see how they combine with for something like P for the planet, but I do want to know who comes up with that idea who gives it the thumbs up and then I mean once it’s a real thing, obviously people want to join in and do it.

But I just I I love that. That’s a thing because it’s still a research project. Yes, right and and so I think that’s exactly it but it is also fun is also sustainable, right?

It is all of these things that we’ve been talking about. So I just please please tell me how that comes to be and I just I would love to know more about it.

[Erin Augustine]

Sure. Sure. I think it’s a great example though because you’re right Jason.

It’s it’s very deeply scientific, right? It is a research project. It is born of the fact that you know, synthetic fertilizers are problematic and you know natural fertilizers.

We need more natural fertilizers in the world and you know agriculture agricultural systems today use fertilizers. And so it was actually brought it’s a brainchild project of our marketing department, which called themselves the Oatly Department of Mind Control. The ODNC.

[Jason Moreau]

Oh my god.

[Erin Augustine]

Publicly, publicly, but that’s not a secret. And they are these genius brains that are willing to take on ideas like this as a marketing opportunity as a partnership as a thing that we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about P for the Planet.

P-E-E, right? Yes, and we’re going to raise awareness about synthetic fertilizers or fertilizers in general and we’re going to participate in this research project and we’re going to have fun and we’re going to talk about Oatly and it is so interesting the things you know, never I’ve never ever worked for a company in which the marketing department is willing to take on campaigns like this, right? I mean if you think about our packaging it is lots of copy lots of words lots of things to say it is, you know, we have done campaigns around our product climate footprints and the fact that we publish our product climate footprints on pack and we’ve taken it’s been a couple years but but we bought two billboards next to each other and on one billboard we published our own product climate footprint PCF, which is a co2 footprint.

So kilograms of co2 per liter or kilogram of Oatly product and then adjacent billboard we buy it and we take out space and we offer it as free ad space for any dairy company who wishes to calculate their product climate footprint and publish it and it’s it is poking it is cheeky. It is fun and to date no dairy company has ever taken us up on that offer to put their billboard alongside ours with their product climate footprint for comparison to consumers, but we do things like that in a in a fun and funny way, but to your point Jason a lot of them are deeply scientific and or very much focused on consumer education to educate consumers about product climate footprints and how wonderful it would be to be able to go to your grocery store and look at your shelf and have a product climate footprint on every single dairy or dairy alternative on the shelf so that that could be a data point that if you care you can use that data point to make your selection and we do lots of education around those those things as well.

[Sheldon Young]

Amazing fun stuff. So your roles pretty comprehensive around sustainability, right? It covers a lot of different all the different aspects of it.

Can you talk about that? And I guess does that present any like challenges for you? Like you’ve got all the different things you’re accountable for in the in the vast bucket that can be sustainability maybe talk about that role how it how it plays out for you at Oatly.

[Erin Augustine]

Sure. Absolutely. So I think at Oatly we have a couple of different sustainability teams, although we do try to embed sustainability everywhere right and we try to embed it deep into the organization so that everyone has the appropriate sustainability accountability.

So our global sustainability community we call it a community is made up of three different teams. One team is very focused on our value chain our supply chain so we sit within sustainable operations. That’s the team that’s focused on sourcing and supporting our factory efficiency and our co-manufacturing our transportation sort of all the things packaging all the things that you would think about from an operations and a value chain.

Of course, we have a another team that’s focused on reporting because reporting and data is so critical to anyone sustainability work these days and both in terms of annual reporting. So our annual sustainability report, of course is really important a really important tool for communication. I would say and accountability, right?

We use it as a tool to communicate to consumers and customers and anyone else who wants to read about it, but it also is a really good tool for us to once a year look at our commitments our performance against those commitments and keep ourselves driving forward towards those commitments, but we also then I think data is super important for more real-time stuff. I love our sustainability report deeply. I also find it problematic that everyone then they’re not only but everyone who does a sustainability report is publishing an annual sustainability report mid-year 18 months after you’re like or at least six months after the year closed, right?

Those are retrospective reviews and they’re super important, but I think it’s even more important or maybe and I think it’s even more important that we use the data to drive real-time business decisions that we use it to look for opportunities to further reduce our footprint and other impacts, right? We’ve been talking a lot about climate, but I think maybe I should pause and say that our sustainability plans includes four impact areas. It includes climate nature on the planet side and people and nutrition on the people side.

So if you think about people and planet we have those four impact areas climate nature nutrition and people and so in our reporting we’re reporting against our commitments which are of course published in our sustainability plan and we’re reporting against those commitments every year in our annual sustainability report and then the third team is really focused on engagement and this kind of maybe goes back to your earlier question Jason about that marketing and consumers and customers and we do have a lot of external public conversations, right?

We do, we’re outspoken about our climate solutions products. We’re outspoken about our product climate footprints. We’re very transparent about our lifecycle assessments publishing those and sharing those.

We talk a lot with customers about the value that we’re delivering the sustainability value that our products deliver to them. So we have a team that gets to focus on that great work and think about how we can better communicate to the various stakeholders and how we can have again rooted very much in science with robust data behind it all the facts. How do we take that?

Robust scientific data and make it digestible for the appropriate audience.

[Sheldon Young]

Good stuff.

[Erin Augustine]

I don’t think it’s a conflict Sheldon. I think you asked about if it was hard to manage or hard to have a comprehensive sustainability program like that and I don’t think so. I mean, I think it’s very complimentary.

I think the work feeds in a nice like work loop of where you know we have to have the data and the reporting to drive the business decisions to drive the strategic plans, which is obviously those strategic plans are implemented and supported within our sustainable operations team and then in order to be able to talk about it in a meaningful and robust way we have to then keep working in that. It’s a loop, right? And then we take the insights that we learn from those stakeholders because it’s not just a one-way conversation with stakeholders with consumers and customers and other external stakeholders.

It’s a two-way conversation where they’re sharing insights with us about the food system, the industry, their perspective in their world that then comes back into our sustainability strategies and work.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, it’s what it sounds again. What I what I see here is a well-oiled machine with very important. I guess we call it ownership buckets, right?

And I think when those work well together and it sounds obviously what was invested in those resources, right? Because it’s an important part of your mission. Again, it makes perfect sense after I hear it and you explained it incredibly well.

[Jason Moreau]

Thank you. I’m going to read about the data. So it seems like for something like the sustainability report, like you’re saying like that’s very vetted.

It happened comes up months after the fact, but if you’re if you’re trying to use that data to impact more real-time decisions in the business, what’s the is there a rubric? Is there a like because you’re never going to be a hundred percent sure. So how do you like balance that?

Like we want to use data more real-time for decision-making, but we’re never going to have perfect fidelity of the data. So how do you square that circle a little bit?

[Erin Augustine]

I mean in my own mind, we’re talking about estimates and forecasts, right? Yeah, when we’re using real-time data, it’s always an estimate or a forecast and so you’re right. It’s never going to be perfect, but I think it gives us the direction of the right decision pretty quickly and easily and I would always want to take that direction from the data.

Because otherwise I’m operating blind, right? Otherwise, it’s like I believe this is the right direction. I believe this is the right decision and if I don’t have data to back it up, then I’m it’s just a belief or a feeling and so even if the data is not perfect, having the data that helps me formulate the belief and formulate the directionally accurate decision from a sustainability perspective is of course very useful to have.

[Sheldon Young]

You just have to work with the best available information, right? That’s all you can do. Absolutely.

Kind of wrapping up kind of the conversation around the world of Outlook. So I guess what are the most important sustainability challenges that I guess I’m going to say the industry or I guess your world are facing today?

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah, I would say the food system. I mean, if I look at the food system, we can go big here or we can go little here, right? Your choice, a dealer’s choice on this one.

Okay, cool. I mean, I think our food system is broken. I think our food system is using too many resources and not meeting our nutritional needs, right?

A third of man-made greenhouse gases is coming from the food system. You know, 50% of that is coming from agriculture base or excuse me, animal-based agriculture and it’s giving us something like a 20% of our calories. It’s coming from the animal-based infrastructure.

It might even be 17 or 18. 20 is probably generous. And so I would say that that food system again is just not meeting our nutritional needs and taking up too many resources in the process.

And so I think that is a big challenge. We’ve talked a lot about it that we’re going to solve it with Radical Optimism. I don’t think optimist that like in some ways that there are some days where I feel like that makes me unhinged.

But most days, I don’t feel that way. Most days. I think we should all be radical climate optimists and there are a couple of reasons.

I have a post-it on my computer that reminds me to be a radical climate optimist and most days. I think that is the perfect perspective, right? Like some people might say, Erin, that’s really naive.

Why are you a radical climate optimist? I think it’s completely reasonable and I’m going to tell you because it’s three things. I think there’s three reasons that I should be a radical climate optimist and you should too.

The first is that we have the science. So we know the planetary health diet. We know what it’s like to eat a diet that is healthy for both people and planet.

The second reason for the food system, you know, that’s the second The second reason is that we know that people want change. So there’s a group called the 89% Project.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, I think you posted about this, right? I saw a post from you on this fairly recently.

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah, I posted on LinkedIn recently. You’re right. So the 89% Project has studied globally about citizens and their desire for more climate action and every country, the number is quite high.

89% high 70s mid to high 70s. I think in the U.S. It’s 75% of people want climate action in Europe. It’s higher than that.

So we have the science. We have the planetary health diet. We know that people want climate action.

We know that people want change and we have the solutions. So we’ve been talking about climate solutions, right? We’ve been talking about climate solutions products.

We know that there are both traditional diets. Think about diets who haven’t been changed much by the Industrial Revolution and innovative foods like Oatly that are climate solutions, you know, created relatively recently and climate solutions. And so the change can be fun, right?

We have this these guidelines about how to eat for our planetary health and we know we want to make change and then we have these innovative delicious fun foods that will help us change our own diets and then change the food system transform it.

[Sheldon Young]

Love it.

[Erin Augustine]

So for those three reasons, I’m a climate optimist and most days. I don’t think that’s naive.

[Sheldon Young]

No, I think those days.

[Erin Augustine]

I think that’s totally realism because I mean, what’s the alternative?

[Sheldon Young]

I mean be a climate pessimist. I mean, we can’t do that. I mean, it’s like this unless we have a you know, you know, doomsday wish which I hope none of us do right?

I think we have to like look at some point it is. I was listening to a podcast about this and it’s like your why are we not make taking even more actions? It’s like I don’t think people the answer they gave was that largely because it has to be very personal to someone right?

And so how do we make it more personal right and do that connection? So I think that’s where the tipping points are going to happen. And it’s just going to get more and more personal is the reality of the impact that we have on this planet become a parent.

Yeah. Yeah. So last couple questions here before I ask you about knitting a lot of people early in their journey.

What advice would you give someone in the industry or whatever industry they’re in that is early in their own sustainability journey that would help them? I guess make sustainability real for them.

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I think the real opportunity for sustainability is when it delivers value across multiple metrics, right?

We talked about the low-hanging fruit. I mean, I think this is like if you’re early if your company’s early in your sustainability, right? This might not be so much about if you in your career, but you’ll have a more successful career.

If you can identify the low hanging fruit. So probably it works for everybody but find the sustainability opportunities that deliver on more than one metric, right? Find the energy.

We always talk about in energy, right? We talk about the best kilowatt hour is the one you never use or the most sustainable kilowatt hour is the one you never use. And by the way, when you don’t use that kilowatt hour, you also don’t pay for it, right?

Right. So the basic energy efficiency, I mean in Sheldon, you and I have talked about this probably on and on and on, you know, the basic energy efficiency or water efficiency or any other sort of efficiency where you’re saving resources and saving money. Is that great first place to start?

Gives everybody energy, get some early quick wins, then you can move on to the more complicated projects or the ones that are sort of like big hairy audacious kind of goals. But start small. I mean, I don’t think we talk about start small, start somewhere always, that’s one of our core values.

And so, you know, take an action, start somewhere small. Find the thing that works for everybody and then grow your momentum bigger and bigger.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, fantastic. I think it’s so important that when you just said there around, you know, just find something that you can grab on and make an impact with and and then I don’t think I would actually like quantify it for totally totally. Yes, because it’s it’s it’s so part of my job.

It’s so much about oh, yeah, we’re saving water. If we do that, well, you’re heating that water, right? Oh, what does that water turn into turns into wastewater?

And how do you do? What do you have to do that? Wastewater, right?

It’s a whole trickle-down thing. So big. Yeah, I guess finally we can’t let go when we first before we started recording you had this big thing of knitting that you said I’m like, oh, did you then you called it your work?

You called it your work knitting and I’m like, okay, it is. It is very nice. I don’t think it fit this frame.

But you know, let me give you some dimensions.

[Erin Augustine]

Maybe next time.

[Sheldon Young]

Okay, very good. Very good. Tell us about the work getting because I mean that to me is an interesting concept.

[Erin Augustine]

Totally totally. It’s almost like a meditation practice and my co-workers actually they know now after working with me for years that when they see my knitting, right? So if I’m on a call and I’m just doing this right like you might see the needle you might see the yarn my co-workers know that when I’m knitting it actually means that I’m paying more attention or better attention that I’m more present that I’m more engaged because I’m not accidentally checking my email or responding to that text message or getting distracted by that presentation that I is due in an hour and I’m not quite done with it.

Um, so for me I have a what do they say like busy hands quiet mind for me. It gives me like if I’m doing something with my hands and it’s I knit enough that I don’t have to think about it. I’m doing something with my hands and my brain can be fully engaged with the conversation.

And so it just helps keep me focused.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s so like it’s so easy. Like oh the phone sits here. You see it turn.

You know, okay, there goes my distraction, but I’m pretty sure my sweaters would have like six arms. If I if I try to do it. Yeah, I know.

It’s like I need something a little less complicated than knitting for my little people.

[Jason Moreau]

Start with the scarves, man.

[Sheldon Young]

Start with the scarves.

[Erin Augustine]

Yes, exactly. A doily.

[Sheldon Young]

I’ll do a doily. That’s right. Okay.

So finally, I mean you mentioned your annual report, which you had not read an Oatly sustainability report. You must. It is a it is a great read.

Definitely one of the top, if not the top sustainability reports I have read. But how will people learn learn more about Oatly and connect if they want to kind of dig in?

[Erin Augustine]

Yeah, please do. Please visit our website. So Oatly.com.

We have our sustainability plan is posted on there. So our the commitments are the commitments, some of which we’ve talked about today and then our annual sustainability report is there as well. And we do our annual sustainability report in two kind of formats.

There is a long 50-60 page PDF for people who want to just sit down and read all of it and have all the details and have all of that transparency and all of that technical content. There’s also summaries on the web page, which is more of a storytelling where it sort of takes the highlights in a narrative storytelling kind of Oatly way and tries to make them easily digestible and entertaining as well. So read both and then there’s lots more resources there.

There’s if you’re on that website, you can find more information about our product climate footprints. You can find our LCA is our life cycle assessment. You can find our climate transition plan.

There’s a lot of resources there on that website.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, I think it honestly felt when I when I read it, it’s a great I guess blueprint for someone that wants to I guess beg, borrow, or steal a way to go about a sustainability program. I mean just go start there and get inspired. I think it’s certainly it definitely creates that kind of vibe when you read it.

It’s like it’s all out there. It’s available. And if you want some great ideas, go check it out.

[Erin Augustine]

So thank you. Thanks.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Aaron, thank you so so much for joining us today. I think this is going to be an episode people will listen to over and over again.

Thank you.

[Erin Augustine]

I appreciate you.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. Through the magic of editing, we have returned.

We’re returned. We’re back. Erin.

Erin’s just an energy. It’s the right energy, you know, Erin is a vibe. Really love having her on and chatting with her about Oatly and all the things that made her career so far.

Incredibly fun person.

[Jason Moreau]

Indeed. And I think emblematic probably of a lot of people who work at the company. I think she mentioned it that you know, a lot of people work at Oatly because they really want to live and embody the values that Oatly stands for and I think she’s a great exemplar of that.

[Sheldon Young]

Definitely definitely, you know, she talked about a lot of a lot of things the five pillar program that they have that really kind of hit, you know, the climate solutions as an innovation, right? That whole concept to me makes sense in a way, you know, I kind of feel like you know, we live it a little bit here with our group as well. Like, you know, we make process solutions here, but they’re like, okay, you’re getting the climate value with it as par for the course because it’s good business, right?

Right. It’s actually not just good for not just good for the environment. It’s also good for business.

And so tying that together into the product is fantastic and that whole aspect of the bar that keeps moving right in order to call it a climate solution. It has to be like 50% better than anything else as other people move the bar. You have to keep moving the bar and to me that was a really interesting concept.

I mean, we don’t have we don’t have anything really like that in our industry right now that I can point to but certainly something that I think is is worthwhile of thinking about right? How do you compare? Like, how do I know when I choose something that it’s going to actually be better than other things in terms of climate and impact?

So I really like that concept that you talked about.

[Jason Moreau]

I like that as well. I like that. She called out that like that sort of a designation for all of their supply chain who are trying to reduce their scope three.

So it’s really important. But yeah, I like that baked into that was this sort of like it’s not static. It’s it’s constantly moving and dynamic and you know, what was good enough 20 years ago 15 years ago is not good enough today.

Like we can continue to find in advance more. I really liked that. Yeah, I actually listening back to the interview really loved and I think I think this is true with a lot of our interview subjects, but she explicitly called it out in her her background story, which was great.

But the power of just sitting and talking to people but especially young people and I just I loved that story. I not from a sustainability standpoint, but also have like a lot of memories of adults taking that time to just sort of like really explain something and it to them. It was probably just another day and they did that thing because I’ll do it and not realizing that the impact that that has and it carries forward and I think it’s easy to not really reflect on that a lot and I don’t know it just it just really hit me that story both in terms of like paying it forward a little bit in terms of talking to younger people and really sharing with them what you do and why it’s important and it might not seem like during the day. They’re listening, but I can guarantee you at least one or two are and she was she’s definitely an example of that. But I think also just like during our workday lives, like I think a lot of what happens in sustainability is could maybe fairly be called a grind.

You know what? I mean, like not every day is the, you know, Heroes Journey and I’ve defeated, you know, store on and the one ring is destroyed like it’s it’s you know, it’s it’s it’s small wins. It’s small battles, but realizing that people are paying attention to what you do.

And if you if you continue to show up every day and do the right things and give back a little bit, I mean the ripples out can be really really powerful. So I don’t know.

[Sheldon Young]

I just was really know that part of her story very astute Jason. I think honestly, it’s like I very much resonate with that when I hear her, you know, I nothing more. I love like I was just at WEFTEC or so after climbing week is WEFTEC, which is a water show and one of our partners that is a rep firm for us had his daughter with her and she was kind of interested in the industry and she started asking me should hey, you know, can you tell me about what kind of what else does and I you know, for good or better or worse.

I probably spent 30 minutes kind of walking you through it with her and I could just see like her eyes light up, right? And so it’s for the better. It’s 30 minutes was crazy important for her.

Absolutely. And like her dad came over after said, you know, thank you so much, you know, like I’m really trying to get her interested in this industry and and you did it was just very made me feel really good.

[Erin Augustine]

Of course.

[Sheldon Young]

So the more we can do for the youth and that was something I noted Jason. Sorry, I’m going jumping back to climate week. Yeah, one thing I noted and I’m sure there were there were some events.

I know there were but I didn’t see a ton of like youth involvement. Yeah climate week and I wanted I want to do something about it next year. I’m like, I’ve got ideas.

[Jason Moreau]

Oh cool.

[Sheldon Young]

Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell you more about later, but no, I just thought I think we have to start having those teaching moments in a way that engages them right can’t just be a lecture, but it needs to be something that how do you find a way to to start to bring the I guess the practical aspects of sustainability to people in a way that they can digest it and actually resonate with if we want to keep the momentum we have to do another can they can learn the way we did I guess is which is kind of jumping in and figuring it out and tripping over it cancelled. I did but I think if we’re proactive we stand a much better chance of it being long-term more effective and more widespread.

And so you spot on I definitely notice that with Aaron and her story and you can just tell the way that when anytime you talk to her about anything. It’s like she’s got that kind of passion that what you want to listen. And so we need more people like her.

Lifting that torch and speaking to people youth and up right right about about the important things and how do you how do you move the needle in a way? That’s not just pie in the sky wish wishful thinking but really act really progress-making action and you know, what’s going to really move the move the dot and move the needle one.

[Jason Moreau]

I think I mean it it was mentioned multiple times throughout the interview but making it fun making it engaging right. That’s absolutely you need that if you’re you know, if you’re whether it’s young people whether it’s anybody you’re going to get them interested in engaged enough to pay attention to what you’re talking about. I know I brought it up during the interview, but I just want to make sure people are clear like that whole like P for the planet thing, right?

It’s it’s pee it’s it’s urine urine. Yes, we didn’t really spell it out. But the we did at one point.

She did it.

[Sheldon Young]

Okay. Okay.

[Jason Moreau]

Yeah, the reason they were doing that project in the first place was because urine contains nitrogen phosphorus and potassium essentially the same nutrients in synthetic fertilizers. So essentially this whole test while it’s kind of silly and fun has a very serious side, which is if those we if we have those nutrients in a waste stream, how can you repurpose it in a way that’s beneficial, right? So I just and that to me really is kind of the heart in like the ethos of what they do.

[Sheldon Young]

100% that that yeah, that ties back that ties back to our Merrill Brothers episode, right?

[Erin Augustine]

Yes.

[Sheldon Young]

That’s what they’re doing. They’re taking that waste stream, which is our waste by the way, and they’re repurposing into fertilizer. That’s what they’re doing.

This is exactly what they’re doing. So it’s very, very cool.

[Jason Moreau]

And I think I mean, well, let’s be honest. I mean most of us probably don’t progress, you know that much further mentally and emotionally than like fourth and fifth grade. But if you want to get young people interested, you know, talk about pee and poop, you know what I mean?

And and you know, like you’re doing science experiments and you’re doing things that you know, make the planet better. I mean, I don’t know. I just I find all of that tremendously engaging and just very cool that that people are clever enough, not only to think of it, but also courageous enough and brave enough to actually move forward with it.

I think that’s right, right?

[Sheldon Young]

And again, and then, you know, it’s all about delivery. Yep. When the when you look at Oakley, it’s like the two things I thought you would love.

I thought you’d personally love the Oakley Department of Mind Control.

[Jason Moreau]

Yeah, I was a little jealous. I was going to say you were a little jealous if they were able to call it that I was jealous. Yeah, it’s really good branding.

[Sheldon Young]

It really is tip of the cap on that one. It really is. It really was and then just calling herself like the radical climate optimist, right?

Spell it out is what she is, right? She is going to just say it, you know, we have this science, you know that 89% anybody’s 89% things you talked about. You honestly that would be a little bit by surprise and you mentioned it earlier and I’m like, yeah.

Wow. I mean, I guess that does I guess I thought maybe I was in a biased circle of people because I would say if I pulled my friends, they would say the same thing.

[Jason Moreau]

But that’s what’s so interesting about the research. Is that people think it’s lower, right? By about 20 points.

It’s about like people. Most people think it’s like around 66% but it’s much higher. So there is that perception gap.

[Sheldon Young]

Very interesting. Very interesting. Indeed.

Well, now it’s I mean, I love that that I love all of our interviews, but you know certain ones just stick with me a little bit different, you know, Erin is one just her her energy is infectious to me. And so I think I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did for sure. I’m sure they will.

That’s right. All right. So if you did like this podcast, please follow like share subscribe.

Tell your friends tell everyone, you know, friends neighbors babies. We don’t care. Tell them all they can all listen.

Make sure to check out our website. Nofootprintspodcast.com. If you have an idea for topic or guest, you can reach out to our email, which is nofootprints.podcast@alfalaval.com.

And with that my friend, I’m going to leave you with some sage advice from Aaron start small start somewhere and let’s make a great day of it. What do you say?

[Jason Moreau]

Agreed.

[Sheldon Young]

Let’s do it. That’s right. Our guests come from many industries and companies as we’re talking about how the world makes sustainability real our company Alfa Laval is a global supplier of process solutions.

So it’s very possible that the organizations our guests are with may use Alfa Laval or even our competitors’ products. This does not mean that we the host or Alfa Laval are endorsing any of the company’s guests or the specific ideas that we discuss.