Defining a Clear Pathway to Net Zero with Chris Lewis of EY

May 16, 2024

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At EY, Chris Lewis leads the global infrastructure team, working closely with governments as the key advisor to major projects in nuclear, carbon capture, water, road, rail and renewables. With more than 25 years of industry experience, he is helping private and public sector organizations take projects from inception to financial close.

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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian. I’m so lucky to have with us today Chris Lewis. He’s the Global Infrastructure Leader of Government & Public Sector at EY. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Chris.

Chris Lewis: John, thank you. It’s fantastic to be here.

John: It’s so lovely to have you. I thank you for staying, hanging around in your wonderful library a little later today. I know you’re taping this in your library, a little bit outside of London, your library office. I just love the background. I told you, before we started taping, literally, it’s my favorite background I’ve ever seen in any of the interviews I’ve done. I’m dreaming of one day having a library like that in my home. My wife and I have talked about it for many years now.

Chris: Thanks, John. I have a lot of books. I’m an avid reader. So it’s worth to store them all.

John: Oh, my gosh.

Chris: Thank you very much.

John: Before we get talking about all the important work you’re doing in government and public sector at EY- for all listeners and viewers, EY, of course, is Ernst &Young, EY, ey.com. To find it in any of the links, we’ll put in our show notes today, of course. Before we get talking about all this important work and very timely work that you’re doing, share a little bit about the Chris Lewis story. Where did you grow up? How did you get on this fascinating and important journey?

Chris: Sure. I’m English. I was brought up just south of London, a place called Surrey, a little village in the country. My father was actually an accountant. I am a son of an accountant and now works for a big accountancy, although I’m not an accountant. I went to school in Surrey. Then I went to university in Cambridge and read economics. After doing an economics degree, I then went straight into management consultancy. I really loved the idea of the variety you get from consultancy. I joined what is now Accenture. It was Andersen Consulting then. I did probably 8, 9 years working in the oil and gas industry which was fascinating on some really international projects. Then I switched into EY in 2006. I’ve been quite a few years now at EY. When I moved to EY, I focused in on the UK national infrastructure. I did a number of years on some of the big national infrastructure projects that we’ve got here. That meant some of the new nuclear projects, the transmission grid upgrades, the distribution projects, a lot of the energy system as well as some rail and road projects. Then a couple of years ago, I took on the global infrastructure role. Now, I spend a lot of time talking to people all around the world about the transition. Pretty much then, the focus really was around sustainability and net zero and what infrastructure we need for that. That’s been my journey to get here.

John: Do you have colleagues and counterparts at EY in all regions around the world that you get to work with? Or is it outside of the EY group also that you talk to experts and leaders around the world? Or is it a mixture of both?

Chris: It’s both. EY has nearly four hundred thousand people globally.

John: Wow.

Chris: It’s such a huge number of people around the world. About twenty-five thousand of them work on infrastructure. We have leaders in countries all around the world who are focusing on how do you set up; how do you finance infrastructure projects; and how do you get them enabled for delivery? There’s actually a huge network. One of my jobs is just to connect those people as to everything that’s going on which is fascinating. It’s an amazing network.

John: I want to go into that connecting part a little bit. Let’s set this up. In the United States, we are very familiar with now what Joe Biden and his administration put in, the Investment Recovery Act. Talk a little bit about the genesis of that. Was this as new as it felt in the United States? Or is this something that you have been tracking around the world in numerous other countries including the UK for many years, and this was just the American version of something else that’s been done somewhere and our administration here trying to do it just better?

Chris: I think this is a global trend. Climate change has been with us for quite a while. We’ve seen the rise in carbon emissions and the associated temperature rises. I think, now, you’ve really seen the climatic events. Here, we had our wettest February ever in Southern England. I know that many people have had their driest so far weather. Actually, I’ve been told [inaudible] colleagues down in Australia. Actually, it’s been going for quite some time, these initiatives to try to decarbonize. I switched out of oil and gas into the decarbonization projects in 2006. We were involved in some of the early closure of coal-fired power stations in 2008. There were limited, running [inaudible]. There’ve been various regulations coming in to try to address it. But I think a combination of factors have happened: the continual rise in the total level of carbon emissions even after all the initiatives around Paris and the COP – we had the COP28 in Dubai – the continual rise of emissions even after all of those initiatives and then we have COVID. There was quite a lot of focus about, “Well, what is the recovery? What does the new world look like?” Actually, emissions did drop, because people traveled less, and people moved around less. There was some reduction. I think there was quite a lot of thinking around the globe, around what does the future look like, this combination of returning back to normality, and we need an economic recovery, but we can’t do it in a way with further damage to the planet. We did a report that showed between 2020 and 2050, we have to invest $139 trillion to hit net zero, to meet the goals that we’ve got to stop putting more carbon emissions into the world. Of that, seventy-five trillion is already committed in schemes around the world. There’s a huge number of different initiatives. It could be the Inflation Reduction Act. There’s an EU Green Deal. There’s UK Equivalence. There’re the basic initiatives from governments all around the world to try to meet their net zero commitments.

John: Walk me through this a little bit. First of all, that report, can you send us a link, so we can link to that back in our show notes for all our listeners and viewers?

Chris: Absolutely. We did it with FIDIC of the International Consulting Engineering organization. We were celebrating their one hundred and tenth year.

John: We want to give our listeners and viewers a link to that in our show notes, because that’s a very important report. But talk about it. How do you look at it on a macro basis? Walk us through the behind the curtain at EY. Do you have sort of a dashboard that literally you can pull up on your screen at any time and your colleagues at EY who work in infrastructure with you, and you can look at all, track all the different international programs that are working towards these goals for 2050?

Chris: Yes. We do. Actually, we have a database of big projects.

John: Wow.

Chris: What you pretty much see is most countries in the world try to set out then a net zero plan. How are we going to decarbonize our economy? That then sets out a pathway with committed projects, projects in the development phase, idea-type projects, or areas of need. So you have this pipeline. Some of them published them through governments where you get a really clear, “Here’s our decarbonization plan.” Some of them are revealed through the projects that you can see. But yes. We have a database of the projects from all around the world. They cover a huge variety of technologies – be it onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, hydrogen, carbon-capture storage, new nuclear power, transport, diesel to electric trains – a huge, huge variety of different initiatives to try to decarbonize.

John: Talk a little bit about the behind the scenes in a day in the life of Chris Lewis. This is a fascinating world you’re living in, because it’s literally, arguably the most important issue of our times. Because if we don’t solve this, we don’t have the luxury or the ability to go talk about a lot less important issues if we don’t have clean air to breathe and a decent-weather planet to live in without tragic hurricanes and all the massive vicissitudes of weather changes we’ve seen over the last ten or fifteen years. If we don’t solve this by 2050, the rest of the problems become minuscule. You’re in the middle. You’re in the eye of the “solve” of one of the biggest issues, if not, the biggest issue of our lifetime. What’s your day look like? Are you working with world leaders and members of every administration imaginable around the world and then connecting them with solutions that they’re looking for, that they can announce? How do you go about your day?

Chris: We work with government. We work with the major companies who are trying to develop the infrastructure future. What does it look like? You start with what is the need? Our role in EY is as a key advisor into the sector. The first thing is what’s the case? What’s the strategic need? What’s the commercial need? Is there a viable project out there? That might mean a very hard to update sector that’s creating loads of emissions. The question is how do we continue to create steel or cars? Or how do we continue to produce? Or the energy sector. In many parts of the world, we’re still, as I said, building coal plants in the world, gas plants that still produce a lot of the energy. It starts with that. What’s the strategic need? That can be, “Okay. We need a new nuclear power station. We need 50 gigawatts of offshore wind in this.” It starts with that. What’s the case? Then you get through to then getting the development budget if you like, “Okay, now we need to develop this project.” When you get into the next stage, you’ve got to look at, “Okay, we actually need to make the project a reality.” That’s getting planning approval, getting the support, getting the sponsor funding for the development stage, making sure you’ve got the finance in place, making sure you understand and who’s going to deliver – the procurement and organization of the delivery of the project – and then setting up a capable owner for the project. Each of these major infrastructure initiatives needs a really strong client organization who can own the delivery and operations. Then you move into the delivery stage which is when you get to what we call final investment decision, when you get through [inaudible]. That’s the point when you’ve got the finance in place. You’ve got the suppliers who are going to deliver. Everyone’s bought into the commercial value, strategic value. Then you get on with the delivery of the new asset.

John: It’s multi-phase. Multi-phase is you’re working on and EY has specialties that cover all those different phases. Let’s go back to the beginning though. You’re contacted by the administration. Walk us through a couple common macro themes. I would assume – but I want you to disavow me of this if I’m wrong – that one of the common themes that you’re approached with from different administrations and leadership groups across the world is the race to achieve net zero in any given country. Is that one of your top 3 or 2 macro themes that they’re trying to achieve?

Chris: That’s right. When you set out on a journey with a country, you look at, 1, what is environmental goal and then also the prosperity goal? How is this economically viable? Finally, also, there’s society and equity. Where can we put it that makes it good for our broader society? Often, where we start with governments is how do I create a net zero plan? How do I move from a high-emitting world into a lower-emitting world? That starts off them with how do I transfer my energy system? How can I stop my energy system? Then the simple steps: get coal out of the system; how do we transition away from gas; how do we put more renewables in the system; how do we create more baseload power? I also talk about step 1 is get the generation energy system to net zero. Step 2 is electrify everything.

John: Wow.

Chris: When you’ve got that net zero system, then people say, “Okay, we want to electrify our transport, our trains, our cars. Now, we want to electrify some of the heavy industry. We want to work out how we electrify our heating systems.” It’s often how do we deliver net zero? How do we create a low carbon emission energy system? Then how do we start to electrify everything?

John: On a macro basis, that’s the beginnings of a great 3-step process right there in the beginnings of laying out a master plan with it. Does it ever happen behind closed doors, coming as an advisor, they know you’re one of the top experts in the world? Because as you say, twenty-five thousand of your four hundred thousand employees are working in infrastructure. They know you have more experience than anybody else at this stuff. Do they go off on a tangent you have to roll them back in a little bit and say, “Guys, ladies and gentlemen, this is wonderful what you’re talking about. But let me put you on the right path.” Do you have to sometimes have gentle conversations like that with some of these world leaders and tell them which way to go here? Is this what you do?

Chris: It’s not an easy task that the [crosstalk].

John: I’m not saying it’s easy. [crosstalk] it’s a part of your reality.

Chris: Often, people go down the wrong path.

John: Of course.

Chris: Or they’re not just aware.

John: Fine.

Chris: Actually, there’s a really fantastic- I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Solar Impulse Foundation. The guy that created the circumnavigation with a solar plane, they created a foundation that looks at all the technologies in the world that are both good for the planet, sustainable, and are commercially viable in today’s market. I think a sweet spot is how do you find things that actually can be net zero without having to increase prices for everything? In many cases, Europe, we’ve got wholesale prices of eighty, a hundred pounds for a megawatt hour of power. Actually, you can deliver onshore wind at 30 pounds, offshore at fifty 50, always-available baseload at seventy. It’s how do you find the most commercially viable projects that are net zero? How do you build them into your system? How do you avoid going down some of the heavy, heavy subsidy routes? That’s the trick, I think.

John: I nominate you to fix our problems in California, because we have energy problems in California. Our prices are sky high. We need Chris Lewis and your team to come over here and fix us over here. I’ll tell you that. I understand the macro, and I understand what you’re doing. You and your colleagues at EY are truly one of the great experts in the world. For our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’re so excited and honored to have with us today Chris Lewis. He’s the Global Infrastructure Leader at Government & Public Sector Work at EY. To find Chris and his twenty-five thousand colleagues that are working in infrastructure besides their four hundred thousand colleagues at EY, go to ey.com, ey.com. Also, we’re going to link to all of his reports that he’s working on in our show notes and all the important things that we’re talking about today. Now, you’re advising these governments. You got them on a good path of macro understanding, “Let’s go to net zero. Let’s electrify as much as we can. Let’s do it in the most commercially viable way that makes sense.” Barring from some of your other learnings from around the world – because you’re doing this so much around the world, you truly get to be the subject matter expert here – what comes next? Bringing together all the right people and you facilitating, being the great connector and facilitator of putting private with public to make these electrifications and make these goals achievable?

Chris: That’s exactly right, John. Firstly, you lay out a pathway, and that has a set of projects within it. Then you get into the, “Okay, who’s going to pay for these projects? Where are we going to get the finance from it?” What you’re seeing around the world, the level of debt that each country has taken on after the various different events that have happened over the past few years, most countries now are faced with the position where they actually have very high public debt. The question is are we going to pay for this on the public debt? Is it going to be a government-owned asset? Or are we going to get the private sector to fund it? Or do we actually think we’re going to defer and do this later? That’s usually the choice for governments: public debt, private sector enablement, or defer. Most people, most of the countries are looking at how can we get greater private sector involvement? How do we make these projects really appealing to the private sector? What is needed in order to get investors to come in? That is done through a whole different set of mechanisms. But all of them, essentially, are trying to incentivize people to go and invest in new infrastructure that will deliver net zero and [crosstalk].

John: Are you [crosstalk] with that now? Are you the one tasked with coming up with those incentives?

Chris: Yes. We will either work to help design and organize the incentive structure or the companies trying to work out how do they encourage and offer a structure that can work for them but will allow them to finance it. Often, it starts. If you have a really big infrastructure project, you actually need to have a credit rating for the project. You need to be able to get money into it. The challenge we often have for our clients is how can we create a strong credit rating for this project? How do we create it so that it’s got revenue stability; it’s got certainty of delivery; it’s got a strong operational support? That is often the trick: getting private finance in so that it doesn’t all go on the public balance sheet and so the private sector can get a return from it.

John: But then how do you do that? Since you’re on trotting ground where steps haven’t been taken before, it’s fascinating what you’re doing, Chris. But how do you go about doing that? How do you rate the risk of a project, rate the creditworthiness of a project, so you can attract more investors to privatize these projects and accelerate these projects happening, so we can accelerate our net zero opportunities around the world?

Chris: You got to look at the revenue system. Is it a user-based revenue system [inaudible] they are? Things like contract for difference, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the contract for different structure.

John: No. Talk about it. Talk about it.

Chris: The contract for difference has been used for a lot of renewables. For example, big offshore wind industry running on contract for difference. There’s actually been 7 rounds I think in the UK where I’m sat today. What you get offered there, if you’re going to go away and build an offshore wind turbine, you get offered a guaranteed price based on an auction. Let’s say I get given $50. Sorry about that. I start again. If you run a contract for difference auction and you get given $50, say, to go and develop, that guarantees you an energy price of $50 a megawatt hour. If the price is above it, then you actually only get $50, then twenty goes back to the consumer. If the price is below it, then it gets popped up to $50. That certainty a price allows you to go and build an asset that you can then spend a year and a half, two years building and then you know will run for ten years on that certainty of revenue. That’s the user-based revenue support model that allows people to go away and invest in long-term assets.

John: That’s [crosstalk].

Chris: There’s the government mechanisms as well. There’re tax-based systems. There’re value-capture systems that looks at using improvement in the land values around it. But we often look at those user-based models.

John: Chris, you’re truly one of the subject matter experts on these topics in the world in these very important topics. Because really, the balance of the future of our planet is in the work that you’re doing. I’m not trying to overstate it. But I also don’t want to understate that what you’re doing is so important. That’s why I want to have you on the show. But when you go to bed at night and you’re running the algorithms in your head about the work that you’re working on, beginnings of work in certain countries, more advanced work in other countries that you’ve been working on for longer time, where do you come out on? Where do you feel that the gaps are today that you wish could get filled faster so we can make more progress towards the greater good now?

Chris: We came up with 5 commitments after this report that we did with FIDIC. Commitment 1 was around the sustainability rating standard. Actually, in the process of building new infrastructure, we are in itself creating a lot of carbon emissions: the concrete, the steel needed.

John: True.

Chris: The first is how do we actually rate these new buildings so that we can say, “This is a gold standard building. It’s going to be built to absolutely the lowest carbon emissions.” The second one is the commitment to work with governments around the world to lay out this net zero plan. Some governments are very advanced and clear. Some are in the early stages. It’s hard for policymakers to try and identify where are the best ideas. Then the third one was this global repository of best ideas, if you like. There is a huge number of projects, that vast number of technologies that sit that are really effective. There are many that aren’t commercially effective or haven’t been proven to work very well. But there’s a lot of great ideas out there from around the world and innovations. That’s the third area. Also, if you look at the carbon emissions, most of them come in the developed world. Then the developing economies are going to follow a development path that’s probably going to lead to their emissions. How can we help multinational development banks? How can we help the international organizations to get investment support into those new areas so that they follow a decarbonization path rather than emissions and then decarbonized route? Those are the things we’ve been talking about.

John: Let’s work it backwards. Let’s go back to what you just brought up. How do we get more developing countries to follow, to get private investors to get on a better path faster? What’s the answer there? How do you attract more investors and entice them to get involved with nascent projects?

Chris: You’re going to try and de-risk the projects, because what investors want is certainty. They want a stable environment with certainty. We published this report called the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index. It says, “What are most attractive countries to invest in?” You’ll see that there are many big, stable, strong economies at the top of that. If you’re a country that is on a development path, you’re going to face a lot more risks: political risks, credit risks, environment risks, higher inflation. You’re going to need more support in order to create a low-risk project environment. I think that’s where the role of the multinational development banks really plays in. That’s where things like the emergence of the Blue Dot Network and the OECD are trying to drive towards all about helping to get more common standards and more understanding and sharing of what are the risks that you face to mitigate risks for new investors into those [crosstalk]?

John: That’s interesting. That makes total sense, de-risking it. Go back now to the thing before that, the repository. That’s fascinating. That’s why I asked you right up front of about your dashboard. It’s like a dashboard. What projects are winning? Which are not? Let’s focus on doing more of the winning projects around the world. How is that global repository likely to happen? Is that a problem of the winners trying to hoard their good ideas or just lack of ability to put it together and to create an infrastructure to put together a global repository? What is the gaining factor there? How likely is that to happen? Because that sounds a brilliant idea to me.

Chris: There are some ideas. You go to the LED light bulb, clearly much more efficient than the old light bulb. Massive adoption that’s actually made a really big impact in the amount of energy we use. That is a very simple idea that has gone massively around. I think if you look at all the technologies you can deploy to reduce carbon emissions that could be more commercially effective, most people probably only know 5% of them. I think there’s a lack of knowledge and awareness just sharing what are the great ideas? There are clearly commercial advantages that companies are promoting them. But it’s often a lack of understanding about what all the different options are and how you go about accessing them. I think on that point, sharing the information, getting that well known, getting the design communities, the policy setting, the people that are choosing the projects to understand all the different options available, what the costs are, what are the benefits, and what are the potential impacts of them? That was the intent for the global repository. That was the commitment from the FIDIC group.

John: You agree; you are right on the front end of this. You are leading the charge that if we put together that global repository, that would accelerate our net zero around the world markedly.

Chris: Absolutely. It could be you’re designing a new building, the best technology [crosstalk].

John: Sure.

Chris: It could be you’re designing a new energy system, the best way to produce the energy to transmit and distribute it. It’s just about understanding where are the best systems in the world? Where are the best technologies coming in? What do we need to deploy?

John: Chris, it’s like having the answers to the big examination there you have to take up front. It’s like having the answers up front.

Chris: It’s like that.

John: Is that going to happen though? Because you have such great coverage around the world. Are governments or some form of UN or World Bank going to say, “We’re going to hire EY. EY should put that together.” Because it makes sense that your group should be the group that puts together that, because you have more visibility than almost anybody else on all these multifaceted countries, international countries, and also projects that are going on.

Chris: I think we have really good insights. It’s often our job, as I said, the key advisor to set up a case and to do the commercials and the structure of the financials. You’ve also got the whole design and engineering community who’ve got all the engineering knowledge. Then you’ve got the whole policy community. I think it is a collaboration across all of them, us with the engineers and with the development companies to try to bring the best project possible. But the way we focus it often is by focusing on the outcomes. It sounds simple. But what is the outcome we’re trying to enable? Can we get really clear and define the project outcome, as you said earlier, the environmental outcome, the prosperity outcome, the social equality outcome? Then what is the outcome we’re seeking? Then simulating the best ways. Actually, you’ve got technologies. Can generative AI do more to actually design and take all the IP in organizations and actually apply it to the outcome problems and say, “There are twenty different ways in which you could do this.”

John: That’s fascinating. You bring up a great point. I’m so glad you brought up those 2 letters, AI. How has that changed your practice in EY? How is that going to continue to evolve your practice in global infrastructure work with government and public sectors?

Chris: If you look at the the infrastructure and construction industry as a whole, it actually hasn’t been a great adopter of technology. It hasn’t gotten much more productive. There’s been a big trend around building information management which actually has quite a low adoption rate, even though it’s a technology that’s been around for a number of years. AI obviously has accelerated and got massive adoption in a very short period of time. We’re in the early days of this. The potential impact is huge. We’ve been collecting ideas actually around how is AI influencing. We did a session at the COP28 event, the Climate Focus, which asks the question, “How can AI deliver sustainable infrastructure?” We’ve been building on that, again, with the community of engineers around the world to try to look at, “Okay, AI has huge potential. Where is its best potential to help? Is it in the design? Is it in the definition of the outcome?” It’s actually in many different potential areas. Huge, huge potential. I think we’re just at the start though of how we can use that technology.

John: Chris, you’ve been doing so much for a long time now. You’re sitting in a very important leadership position at EY and also in terms of the future of the planet. What are 2 or 3 of your favorite projects that you worked on that you like to highlight when you sit down with a new leadership group that’s looking for inspiration, aspiration, and some real tangible work that’s been done historically?

Chris: Firstly, net zero infrastructure doesn’t have to be huge and hard. It can be simple. In the UK, I think we talked about 58% of energy we produce is actually wasted. If you take a building, you can make a building 80% more efficient in its energy usage by focusing on the [inaudible] and the lighting, the heating. There’s quite a lot of micro changes that could be applied that we can all take ownership for, be it putting solar panels in, the conversion into electric cars, or the way in which we use public transport. There’re small changes in the home, in the infrastructure that we have that can make a big impact. It’s not something that is just governments and major companies. That’s the first point. The second one is there are some fabulous technologies that are delivering onshore wind, solar, the renewable technologies, and also the always-available baseload. I’ve done a lot of work with nuclear power. I think the potential for nuclear power is it has this thing where for years, we had a massive drive. It was almost 20% in the UK. It’s been up at 70% in France. There’re some countries that have really gone heavily into it and have very low carbon emission energy systems. Then for a number of years, we haven’t really developed it. Now, there’s going to be these new nuclear relations especially in Europe at the moment, a lot of Eastern Europe, a lot of people looking at how do we move off gas? The nuclear technologies, I’m really excited about. I think that both the large-scale ones have got great economic returns, same projects like Hinkley Point, [inaudible], Sizewell C, as well as the small module reactors. All the new emerging technologies coming in there are really exciting projects.

John: Wow.

Chris: So the home and the building efficiency projects, the large-scale-always-available baseload and this emergence also of renewable and other technologies. It’s a really exciting area. It’s hard to keep up with. You were saying we know all about it. I feel I only know a very small percentage of everything that’s out there.

John: That’s messy. Chris, talk a little bit about the future ahead. Are you hopeful that we’re going to get there? Are you hopeful? When we see that Charlie Munger just passed away thirty-four days before his hundredth birthday, God-willing, with technology now and all that we know about science in the body, you and I are going to be around a lot more time, and we have families that are going to be around us. How hopeful are you? You’re doing some of the most important work on the planet right now with your colleagues at EY. How hopeful are you about the years ahead? Are we going to make the progress that we need to make?

Chris: I am very hopeful, but I also think we need to address the challenge. Emissions are still rising. We’ve been years and years and years on this journey to say we’re going to reduce global emissions, and yet we are still emitting more today than we emitted yesterday, and we will emit more tomorrow. We need to not shy away from the fact that that we’re not making the progress we need to. But I’m hopeful. The government commitments – phasing out the fossil fuel commitments that we saw or the commitments to net zero – I’m hopeful because of the level of technology and the innovation that we’re seeing in the sector. I’m hopeful because we see really commercially viable projects coming on board every day that are making a big difference. But there’re challenges ahead, definitely. There’s also the challenge of this development path that we talked about earlier. We can’t just focus on how of the developed world had gone through this journey of heavy industry and emissions and then trying to decarbonize. We have to find a sustainable path for the developing world.

John: I’ll tell you what. We’re lucky on this planet to have you, Chris. We’re lucky to have your colleagues at EY doing this very very important work in global infrastructure between the government and public sector. I’m so thankful for your time today. I would love you to keep coming back on the show to share your continued journey as we know. There’s not a finish line here. This is going to be a continued journey in the years and decades ahead. I’d love to hear updates as you go along. I want to thank you again for your time staying up a little later. I know you’re on south of London. It’s coming to the supper hour there. But thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for your inspiration. Thank you for all the work you’re doing. Thank you to you and all your colleagues at EY for making the world a better place.

Chris: Thank you, John. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I really appreciate the time I spent with you. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity. I’d be delighted to come back again.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ENGAGE. ENGAGE is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, ENGAGE is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on ENGAGE or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cyber security focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

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Link to EY Sustainable Report: https://www.ey.com/en_us/services/sustainability