55: Scottish Power's role as a decarbonising leader
Scottish Power's Robin Cathcart and Owen Black on the company's role in helping Scotland and the UK to decarbonise. Scottish Power is part of the Iberdrola Group, which recently announced a target to be net zero in all scopes by 2040 - 10 years sooner than had been previously aimed for.
Episode Transcript:
[Music flourish]
Owen: What’s been ruthlessly exposed this year, to your point, is that had capital investment moved quicker into renewables, our customers wouldn’t be feeling the pain to the same degree that they are now.
Robin: At the end of the day, we’re all using energy. My laptop is plugged in and we need energy. We’ve got a decision, as a big company, to say, ‘How are we going to do this? Are we going to do this in a responsible way?’ I honestly feel like I do work for a company that is trying to do the right thing.
[Music flourish]
Rebecca: Welcome to Local Zero with Matt and Becky. This is the place to be for all things local, smart and community energy.
Matt: So today, we’ll be joined by Robin Cathcart and Owen Black from Scottish Power to explore the role they’ve been playing in helping Scotland and the UK to decarbonise.
Rebecca: But before we get into our chat, if you can, please do subscribe to Local Zero which will very conveniently direct all of our episodes to your phone, computer or any other device that you’re using. Also, we’d love for you to get in touch with us and let us know what you think about the work we’re doing or if there’s anything that you want us to focus on in upcoming episodes. We’re @LocalZeroPod on Twitter and you can also email us at LocalZeroPod@gmail.com.
[Music flourish]
One of the things that really warmed my heart last year, and I guess this year as well, is seeing that regardless of what was happening at the national level, we saw huge leadership from the cities, from businesses and from industry signing up to the Race to Net Zero and setting targets that were far more ambitious than national-level targets. In some instances, they can be more ambitious because it’s easier to decarbonise sectors but I do think that there is a real need for action by a whole raft of folk that are not at the national level because we’re not going to do this with national policies alone. We need to see action in our cities. We need to see industry leading the way. So I’m really excited for today’s discussion to hear about what Scottish Power has been doing. Energy is a huge sector we need to decarbonise and they were the principal partner at COP26, so a big player in this space.
Matt: Yeah, I completely agree. If you haven’t got industry and government around the same table doing the same thing, you’ve got a problem and I would agree that industry were some of the loudest voice from COP26. Obviously, I’m not on the ground at COP27 but normally, there are huge delegations. Some of them, we might add, are arguing for a slowdown or a reversal of some of this [laughter] but somebody like Scottish Power is very big on renewables. I was on a panel just the other day with Keith Anderson. It’s renewables, renewables, renewables and if it isn’t renewables, it’s the stuff that supports that like the networks, the batteries, the storage and the EVs. They get it. I’ve no doubt they get it and I look forward to hearing what they have to say.
Rebecca: Yes, and you will have to hear what they have to say because you can’t join us for the conversation, unfortunately.
Matt: I will be listening to what they have to say afterwards but unfortunately, I can’t be there and so I wish you all the best and look forward to learning more.
Rebecca: Well, we’ll let you hop off, Matt, and I guess we’ll bring our guests in for a really exciting conversation.
[Music flourish]
Robin: Hi, my name is Robin Cathcart. I’m Senior Corporate Affairs Manager at Scottish Power. That doesn’t really tell you much but I’m on the Policy & Regulation Team at Scottish Power and I focus on policy matters, mostly from a Scottish perspective across all of the renewable sectors, network sectors and retail.
Owen: Hi, my name is Owen Black. I work in Scottish Power’s energy retail business. I also volunteer with the 2050 Climate Group and I’m a director of a local community charity, The Ecology Centre, in Fife, Scotland.
Rebecca: Fab! Well, thank you Robin and thank you Owen for joining us. I’m really, really excited to be talking to you both today and particularly, as we are recording this, we are still in the throes of COP27 but what we’re really trying to do is as well as looking at that and looking forward, also looking back because COP26... it doesn’t feel like a year ago actually [laughter]. It really doesn’t feel like it was that long but it was a huge thing for Scottish Power. Scottish Power was a principal partner for COP26. It was all going on in our hometown of Glasgow. Just casting your minds back, what was it like to be involved in COP26 from the perspective of being involved in Scottish Power and being a principal partner of the event?
Robin: COP26 was amazing. As somebody with an environmental background like myself, it was really amazing to be a part of it. Yeah, it was a small part, my personal part. I can’t say that I did huge amounts but working for a company that was a principal partner and playing such a high-profile role was really good for the company and morale to be honest because I think a lot of us in the company... yeah, you could feel proud that we were having such a central role on the big national or international climate scene. It was great but it was also kind of crazy at the same time because there were events all the time and it was hard to just keep track of things and also realise, at the same time, that it has this kind of festival feel to it but at the end of the day, they’re trying to save the planet [laughter]. It’s a pretty big responsibility. It was great and amazing all at the same time but also we need to do more. So hopefully, with COP27, we see forward progress in the right direction at the right speed.
Rebecca: I know. I hope so as well. Owen, obviously, you were coming into this with your role in Scottish Power but also your role in that kind of community energy space. What was COP like for you?
Owen: I thought it was fantastic. There was really that feeling of Glasgow opening its doors to the world; that feeling of something truly significant happening on the doorstep which I thought was fantastic and to be able to see that happening from within Scottish Power, to see us be so relevant within that and to have such a visible presence within the Green Zones and the Blue Zones at COP26. Everything in the lead-up to that as well... we had such a fantastic programme of events for all of our staff and within communities as well, including the Connect With Climate Change events that we had in partnership with the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde. It was absolutely fantastic. There was a real buzz and a real feeling of people pulling together and feeling the significance of what was going on.
Rebecca: Do you think it was very important for Scottish Power to be playing that role in COP26 and to be that principal partner? What was it that you think made Scottish Power want to take on that role and have that? Was it about that visibility or does it go deeper than that?
Owen: I think it goes deeper. Look, I’m not going to lie that there would certainly be brand benefits to us, no question. As Robin kind of alluded to there, climate change is the most significant challenge currently facing humanity and it’s a crisis of many faces and many connections. Businesses like ours are very much the lifeblood, I think, of the global economy and the way that capital moves within it but we also have to show more responsibility towards societies and far, far more effective stewardship of the natural resources on which the planet relies. Personally, I believe that Scottish Power and the energy sector, in general, have an opportunity and I’d go further and say a responsibility to do more than most. All of this is an energy issue regardless of whether it’s heating buildings, transport, consumerism or food. However you want to subdivide it, the driving force of carbon emissions on the planet is energy and every single bit of it has come from that realisation that we can use one form of energy to create another. From industrialisation to deforestation, to the internal combustion energy... all of it... it starts with energy. So for me, energy is the defining story of how we got here. Why wouldn’t we want to be the defining story of how we dig ourselves out of this hole?
Rebecca: That’s such an important point, Owen, and I’m also incredibly distracted by the sound of the very, very heavy rain going on in the background where you are [laughter]. Is this up in Fife, in Scotland?
Owen: It’s been a crazy, crazy week. Honestly, to use a good Scottish term, it has pelted down on the window above me all week and do you know even more crazily, I was sitting in the sunshine in my back garden on Sunday in November. It’s madness.
Rebecca: It is actually madness, isn’t it? It brings us right back to climate change there. I can’t believe how warm it’s been at the moment with the rain, the warmth and everything. Just coming back to what you were saying about energy and this notion that it’s not just something that needs to be done but something that energy companies might have a responsibility to do. I was remembering a very early episode that we recorded. I actually think it might have been the first-ever Local Zero episode that we recorded and was a year to go to COP26. Matt had put together a bit of a quiz around things that happened in the year when I was born because we happened to be recording on my birthday. We were talking about how long some of the energy companies – and I think we were talking particularly about Shell – had known about climate change and climate change being an issue and, more importantly, that their actions were driving some of this long before it was publically acknowledged. I think that mentality that you’re talking about now and that it’s the responsibility of an energy company to be doing something like this, it feels like we’ve come a very, very long way. Robin, I know you’re in the corporate part of the business. Have you seen that mentality shift over the years?
Robin: Definitely. First of all, I have to say, I’ve not been with the company that long. I’ve been with it for three years but, again, because I have this environmental background, honestly, I wouldn’t have taken the job had Scottish Power been involved in any thermal generation. I tell the company that the only energy company I would be willing to work with, honestly, is a company that is 100% renewable. So I did feel like I could apply for the job and it’s a company I could work for. That being said, I know from talking to people that there’s been a huge drive for us to achieve what we have. We’ve done that. We’ve completely changed our generation portfolio. We only have renewables and we don’t have any gas or any coal. We’re just focusing on renewables which is, I think, where everybody needs to go. I wish every single energy company, to be honest, made the same decisions that we have already made going forward because that’s what we need ultimately. I think there’s a good level of corporate responsibility and there’s an awareness and knowledge that we used to have Longannet power plant and there was a very large coal-fired... I think it was the largest coal-fired power plant in the UK. We’re on a journey. We don’t have a perfect past and I think no one is trying to sugarcoat that but we’re going in absolutely the right direction.
Rebecca: Do you think there’s a reason that Scottish Power is moving in that direction perhaps over and above some of the other energy companies? Do you see yourselves as leading the way and if so, what is it that has enabled Scottish Power to make that move when others haven’t?
Robin: Good question. I mean this is going to sound cheesy but I do think it’s strong leadership. These kinds of decisions are made at the top, so there’s definitely a corporate driver. Our CEO is very strongly in favour of renewables. He used to run a renewables business. Our parent company, Iberdrola, is really vocal to say that climate change is a huge issue and as an energy company, we’ve got a responsibility to try and address this. I think huge energy companies get quite a bad rap, particularly now, and at the end of the day, we’re all using energy. My laptop is plugged in and we need energy. We’ve got a decision, as a big company, to say, ‘How are we going to do this? Are we going to do this in a responsible way?’ I honestly feel like I do work for a company that is trying to do the right thing and is really responsive to people questioning and wanting to do things a bit differently.
Rebecca: Yeah, and I think you’ve got goals. You mentioned Iberdrola and Scottish Power is part of that Iberdrola Group and I think there’s a goal across the Iberdrola Group of being net zero by 2040 now, isn’t there?
Robin: Yeah, absolutely. That was just announced last week and that was a decade earlier than we had previously set our targets for. That’s huge for us as a company and for a large international company to be net zero by 2040 but we realised it was something that we had to do. I think it’s something that all energy companies need to be realising that they have to do. Hopefully, it’s a trend that goes further but even within Scottish Power, we also have our own emissions targets. We’ve just had our Science Based Targets initiatives plan approved just in the last week. We’re going to be reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions in line with a 1.50C and well below 20C across all scopes by 2030. Just to give you an idea of what the scopes are, Scope 1 and 2 tend to be your direct emissions that, as a company, you say that you’re emitting. So if you have petrol and a car, that’s Scope 1 because you’re directly emitting those emissions. Scope 2 tends to be more indirect emissions like your transmission losses across a transmission line which is very technical accounting for us. Scope 3 is everything downstream like your business travel and the largest Scope 3 emissions for us, as a big energy company, are customers’ emissions. They’re my emissions or your emissions. When we purchase electricity and we purchase gas for our gas boilers or for cooking, there are emissions that we have to account for. As a company that sells electricity and gas, we own that bit of carbon emission from our customers, so we’re committed to making sure that our customers are reducing their emissions because, ultimately, that’s reducing our corporate emissions which we’ve made commitments to.
Rebecca: That’s a really important point and Owen, I can see you’re despite to come in on this but that’s a really important point that I want to emphasise because sometimes you might think, ‘Why is an energy company driving forward things in this manner?’ Actually, that makes a lot of sense. It’s because your corporate policies and targets rely on what I, as a Scottish Power customer ultimately do. Actually, for full disclosure, I’m not a Scottish Power customer. I’m an Octopus energy customer because...
Robin: It’s alright, we still like you.
Rebecca: ...they have a fantastic EV tariff [laughter]. Yeah, you still like me [laughter]. I can see you’re chomping to get in on this.
Owen: Yeah, I thoroughly agree with what Robin was saying. I think the level of ambition of what was announced by Iberdrola this week is absolutely huge. It’s one thing to replace fossil-fuel-burning generation assets with renewable generation. That’s the smart choice. It’s the lowest aggregated cost of energy. It’s quicker to do, so that makes sense. The energy revolution involves a lot of downstream impacts. There’s an enormous amount of materials involved: wind turbines; solar panels; electric wiring, EV networks, battery storage, land use and then the customer element that Robin says. The supply chain impacts of all of it are so significant. I think the fact that we’re looking across all of our activities is so ambitious and making sure that our sustainability isn’t someone else’s disaster is such a huge part of the puzzle.
Rebecca: Let’s talk a little bit more about what’s happening with your customers because the context and the wider landscape have changed so much since COP26. How are you dealing with that? How are you engaging with your customers at a time when you’re trying to decarbonise and support them decarbonising? At the same time, in Scotland, when you looked at figures pre-energy crisis, I think something like 25% of households were in fuel poverty. Now, with bills effectively doubling since those measures, that number is going to be shooting right up. How are you coping with this on the retail side of the business?
Owen: It’s a challenge and it’s been a traumatic year for sure. I’m not just talking there, I suppose, about international geopolitics, although my thoughts go out to everyone in the Ukraine. It’s been an extraordinarily self-destructive period in our domestic politics as well. Now, to repeat what Robin said, Scottish Power only generates renewable electricity and so our strategies, our values and our people are all aligned to driving the transition to net zero. We want to decarbonise the sector and the economy as quickly as we possibly can. It is frustrating for us to see short-term solutions like firing up coal generation and to see rapid increases in the cost of borrowing which obviously has an impact on the ability of investors to back renewable development. What’s been ruthlessly exposed this year, to your point, is that had capital investment moved quicker into renewables, our customers wouldn’t be feeling the pain to the same degree that they are now. By the way, with regard to engaging, if there are any Scottish Power customers listening and you’re struggling this winter, please contact us to discuss how we can help. Yes, it is creating challenges but I have to believe that there’s something positive that can come out of this; not for our customers who are suffering right now, clearly, but what I will say is those record high energy bills you’re speaking of, empty fridges and vulnerable family members are truth-telling goals in terms of what needs to happen next. Clearly, there’s no exact formula but we’re already hearing and seeing a lot more than ever about supply self-sufficiency and about unpairing renewables from fossil-fuel generation in its journey to the end customer. We need to stop getting mired in the language of this as a cost and see it as an investment. The cost of living crisis is so vividly showcasing the need for a just transition. We need a massive reduction in emissions and we need a massive reduction in injustices as well. We’re all confronted by a problem and we need to take this opportunity to grasp the nettle and think about how we can be more resilient for planetary reasons and also for social reasons for our customers.
Rebecca: Yeah, bringing us on to talking about a just transition I think is a really nice place to sit because that’s such an important part of the strategy. Definitely in Scotland, and we’re seeing it in other places, there’s no doubt that Scotland is a leader in this space. I think one thing that I was really pleased to see was the bringing together of the just transition strategy with the energy strategy by Scottish Government. It’s not just Scottish Government that is leading the way in this because during COP26, Scottish Power put out a series of just transition principles and you’ve been working on that, Robin, over the past year, haven’t you?
Robin: I have, yeah. It’s been great to be working on it. You’ve helped us definitely, Becky. It’s great to have external challenges to make sure that we’re on the right track and we’re not just talking amongst the choir. When we’re trying to do things, we definitely want to have a good challenge externally. Like Owen said, you can’t have an energy transition if it’s not just and sustainable for everyone and for the planet. I think it’s something that really does need to be thought about in a much broader sense and I think that’s what the just transition strategy is looking at. It’s making sure that when we’re making decisions, we’re taking account of how this impacts our customers. How does this impact the communities that we’re working in? How does this impact our employees? These are questions that we need to be asking ourselves all of the steps along the way and hopefully, our just transition plan is going to be doing that and making sure that these principles are embedded across the company and they’re not just something that we’ve said during COP26. Lots of people said lots of things during COP26 because it was a convenient time to launch things but we really are committed to making sure that this is something that is long-term in the company and it’s not just a one-off kind of report that you put on the shelf and then it gathers dust. We definitely want to make sure that we’re engaging with people much more broadly going forward.
Rebecca: With this idea of things happening across the company, the word we haven’t used is culture but I do feel like the company culture is so important in this. You did say earlier about one of the reasons you think Scottish Power is leading the way in this space is through that strong corporate leadership or that strong company leadership but it’s got to trickle down through the whole company. We haven’t really talked about this but you’re not just really one company, are you? You’re a series of companies that work together and I always find that hard to get my head around. You’ve got the network business, the retail business, the generation business and then corporate and how that all fits together in my head is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle [laughter]. I mean that’s probably not quite right [laughter].
Robin: It is. It’s complicated.
Rebecca: Really. Sometimes I talk to someone and I can’t believe they might not know someone else or I think that they’re working with someone else and then realise that they’re in completely different parts of the business. One thing I think that COP26 really did, and I guess I saw this a little bit through being involved with the Moving for Climate NOW bike ride that was led by Iberdrola and Scottish Power played a huge role in that so I got a bit of an insight, it felt like folk from across the company and across the companies in different sectors really came together around climate change through that COP26 in a way that they almost stepped away from traditionally what they were doing. This was something that sort of pulled people together. It was a glue that pulled them together.
Robin: It was bigger than one company, yeah. It was all of us.
Rebecca: Has that continued? Has that momentum and that engagement continued across the company? Has the company culture shifted? I know you have Climate Action Network to engage with employees. Has that company culture changed and are you seeing more people that are maybe from different parts of the business who might, on the face of it, be doing jobs that seem to have nothing to do with climate change? Have you found that they’re engaging differently following the journey that you’ve been on?
Robin: Most definitely, Owen and I sit on the steering committee for our employee network, the iCAN network or Climate Action Network.
Rebecca: I love that – iCAN!
Robin: It is. No, it’s great. Our whole ethos is about bringing people together across the company and challenging ideas both in our personal lives and also professional lives. A lot of our members have said, ‘This has been really valuable.’ In any big organisation, you get silos. Whether you’re in government or a big company, you get stuck in your own little group or your team and what you’re focusing on and what you’re doing and because we’re this large company that has, very legitimately, some very strong business separation units within our company, there’s not that much cross-pollination or cross-dialogue. So I think this network has been great because it brings people together across all business units and it’s a safe space where you can talk about climate. There are no business separation issues and it’s quite nice to bring everybody together. You get people who, potentially, wouldn’t be speaking to each other on a work basis but because there’s this kind of external group of engaged employees, it’s a great place to find out – ‘Oh, this side of your company is doing this on climate change. This is a measure we can implement on the renewable side if this is something SPEN (Scottish Power Energy Networks) is doing.’ It’s been quite useful for that.
Owen: I so agree. When we started the iCAN network a couple of years ago in the lead-up to COP26 actually... I mean I don’t know about you, Robin, but I didn’t see it having more than 200 members which it does now and having such a broad range of activities from people just using it as a community space, as Robin speaks of there, to just talking and flagging up issues that are important to them inside and outside of the company. The ones inside the company allow us to then take that forward and talk to people in leadership positions about whether there’s something that we can do here. We’ve had some really great successes in that space as well but also it’s a chance to showcase people’s actions and show what people within the company are doing and let people learn from each other across the business. It’s been fantastic.
Rebecca: Oh, give us some examples.
Owen: Of what people have been doing?
Rebecca: Yeah.
Owen: In terms of things that people have flagged up to us that we’ve been able to take forward, it’s things like green pensions. That’s been such a great thing for us to talk with our colleagues in the pensions department about and communicate the importance of this to people within the company, otherwise, you might not have a forum to do that. That’s been really gratifying. I guess you’re probably better to talk about this than I am, Robin, about the Pass-It-On sessions where people come together in short, digestible, 10-15 minute presentations. That may be someone from our renewables, from our networks or from our retail just to showcase what they’re doing and let people understand across the business and think, ‘What is that? How does this connect to the climate emergency? Is there anything that I can do to support?’
Rebecca: Is it helping employees make changes directly? Obviously, pensions are a great example and that’s something that, at a leadership level, Scottish Power has a direct ability to try and implement and to create changes there. Do you find that this is a space where folk are able to share things that they’re doing within their own lives or their own work lives rather than in their role in the company and sharing that kind of personal information as well or is it mostly corporate-focused?
Robin: It’s a mixed bag. For instance, one of our next Pass-It-On sessions is a colleague of mine who is a very passionate vegan and who said, ‘I would love to talk to more people about how you can make the switch to become a vegan because there are huge carbon implications in the food that we eat.’ With January coming up, and I’m going to make sure I say this correctly, it’s Veganuary. They’re trying to challenge people to maybe try something that they wouldn’t normally try and realise that cutting out meat and dairy is easier than people think. We’re going to run a session and, again, it’s for colleagues and by colleagues. We’re going to run a session to talk about that and just have a very informal chat among co-workers to see what they can do. We’ve had people talk about EV cars because if you don’t have an EV car, you kind of think, ‘How difficult is it to drive from Scotland to Cornwall and charge your car?’ These are questions that if you haven’t done it, you can tell yourself that it’s insurmountable and very difficult to do. Maybe they are.
Rebecca: Well, no, I feel this is one thing that we are going to have to talk about but maybe not here. I had to stop at six chargers because one of the ones I stopped at was not a charger that I could use. It was for a different brand of car.
Robin: Oh no.
Rebecca: So I had five in total. Two of those weren’t working and in one instance, I had to phone the company who managed to get it working remotely and in the other instance, after 15 minutes on the phone with the company, they couldn’t figure it out and I had to go and find another charger that worked. I talk to people at charging stations because you’re there for a very long time [laughter] and overwhelmingly now, the people that I talk to hate the fact that they own an EV, have to drive it and have issues with charging. It is the charging stations that are causing all of these issues by not working. I’m moaning about my drive from Scotland to Cornwall but the biggest challenges I’ve had have actually been in Scotland. I remember reading an article in the paper recently saying that around one in four chargers in Scotland don’t work.
Robin: Wow!
Rebecca: Yeah, it’s shocking. Sorry, I realise that’s not necessarily a Scottish Power thing to fix [laughter] but it’s challenging.
Robin: It’s something we can potentially try and fix. I mean we do have charging facilities and so we need to be making sure there are more and they’re well looked after.
Rebecca: Yeah, and I think this is part of this element of just transition, engaging people and getting people bought in. I think we need to make sure that the alternatives that people are being asked to shift to are seen as better and not as worse quality because it’s going to be really hard to encourage people to shift in that way.
Robin: And affordable.
Rebecca: And affordable, yeah.
Robin: I mean that’s part of the problem. It’s very easy for middle-class people to say, ‘I’ve bought an EV. I’ve put in a heat pump,’ but a lot of these costs are out of reach for a lot of people and we need to make sure that that’s not the case where if you’re middle income or higher, then you can have the luxury of having a smaller carbon footprint and if you’re not, you’re stuck to a higher carbon footprint and potentially also longer-term running costs. It’s something we need to be making sure is built into the decision-making process across the board with governments and companies. There’s a collective responsibility there. It’s not an easy one.
Rebecca: No. Maybe you won’t want to answer this [laughter] and feel free to say you don’t want to answer this. Do you think that, as an energy company, Scottish Power (whichever part of the business) has a role to play in supporting the uptake of these clean energy technologies and the shift from gas to heat pumps?
Robin: Absolutely, yeah.
Rebecca: Some might look at that and say, ‘Well, Scottish Power might see a benefit in more people buying their electricity.’
Robin: Well, we have to. We’ve got targets and if we want to meet our emissions targets, we can’t meet those alone. We rely on our customers to make that decision for us because, like I said, all of our Scope 3 emissions are from the customers’ decisions and our supply of energy to them. So if our customers don’t reduce their carbon footprint, then that’s the carbon footprint that we maintain going forward in our Scope 3 emissions and so we absolutely have a responsibility to help our customers try and reduce their emissions because it’s helping us. It’s a win/win situation, to be honest.
Owen: The solutions are there, Becky. No, it’s not an awkward question to us at all. This is absolutely part of our core strategy, particularly in the retail space. We’ve really rapidly accelerated our move into air-source heat pumps, solar panels, battery storage for solar panels and electric vehicle chargers. This is absolutely at the core of how we help to decarbonise the energy sector and the economy. We recognise there might be a move away from centralised gas and electricity and certainly on the gas side, there has to be but it’s not due to a lack of solutions. The solutions are there. It needs meaningful action.
Robin: And government policies to make sure that it’s an easier thing for customers to do.
Rebecca: It’s really difficult and I think some of the challenges in there are ultimately down to the business models that sit behind all of this like not qualifying to get a heat pump unless your home is insulated.
Robin: That’s a bit of a fallacy, I have to say. It’s the same thing with the gas boiler. If you’ve got a gas boiler and your house is not insulated, you’re leaking heat outside of your house.
Rebecca: You are.
Robin: So the idea that you have to have an overly-insulated house for your heat pump to work scares a lot of people off and it definitely scared me off. I did get a heat pump a couple of years ago and I was really worried, I have to say. I live in a 1930s semi-detached and I thought, ‘Oh dear, it’s not up to a particularly high standard.’ I got the heat pump and it’s absolutely fine. I think there’s a little bit of worry out there that maybe you don’t necessarily need to have.
Rebecca: Okay, that’s good to know. I was looking at it recently and even with the government grants at the moment, it’s still price-prohibitive. I’m lucky I have an EV through a lease scheme. There is absolutely no way I could afford to buy one. I would consider myself in that middle-class bracket. I do think that some of the biggest challenges are not that the technologies are not there but how people are possibly going to be able to afford to change what they’re doing in their homes with the business models that we have right now.
Robin: Yeah.
[Music flourish]
Rebecca: We could probably keep going on about that [laughter]. That’s a topic that I think all of us are probably quite passionate about and I don’t think we’re going to solve it today. As you said, it needs collective action, certainly leadership from the top and real input from government. I guess it is worth reflecting on what’s happening moving forward. We’ve got COP27 going on right now as we speak. By the time this episode goes out, it probably will have finished and maybe some things will have changed in the international or national landscape.
Robin: Hopefully.
Rebecca: It seems to be changing on a daily basis at the moment in the UK, doesn’t it? [Laughter] Do you have any personal or professional hopes for what you’d like to see coming out of COP27 at the international level, the UK level, the Scotland level or even what you’re seeing going on in your local communities? What are you both hoping for? Owen?
Owen: I’m not massively hopeful at this second in time over COP27. I am hopeful about the climate crisis generally but I don’t think that hope and obsessive optimism are necessarily the same things. I’d be lying if I ignored some of the trends that I’m seeing at COP27 and that I’m not particularly hopeful about but what do we want to see coming out of COP27? Everyone wants every practicable effort made to limit climate change. Every single point one of a degree bakes in untold suffering for so many, so that needs to be kept front and centre. In terms of Scottish Power, we want governments to uphold their commitments. We want them to scale up efforts to create a long-term vision that enables credible pathways to net zero and that accelerates the energy transition. We’re trying to make sure that renewable energy grows more quickly than any energy source in history. We want to have stable investment and regulatory and political frameworks that encourage investment and that let us and companies like us get on with the business of decarbonising all economic sectors. One that’s really close to my own heart, I suppose, is that we want that to advance the just transition and the deep injustices of the climate crisis or that the climate crisis exacerbates. The crisis, unfortunately, is not just a technical issue of emissions. We know that. It’s one of many, many connections. It’s an economic crisis. It’s a racism, gender and justice crisis. It’s a crisis of land use. It’s a crisis of agriculture. It’s a crisis of borders. Once we appreciate that magnitude and all its connections, hopefully, we can converge on it from all angles and we have to see this coming out of COP.
Rebecca: Awesome and, Robin, you get the last word.
Robin: Oh, the last word on COP27. Well, I’ve been looking at COPs for years and I mean, let’s be honest, the scientists have all told us that even hoping for a 1.50C planet is vanishingly small in the best instances. I think a lot of climate scientists will probably tell you that’s just not going to happen to be perfectly honest. So it does kind of put a bit of a damper on the international negotiations because, among themselves, they’re saying they’re trying to keep the 1.50C alive. I just don’t see international government action anywhere, to be honest. I think we’re very progressive in the UK and in Scotland and I think we’re doing a great job as leaders for lots of other countries to be following but the truth of the matter is nobody is moving fast enough and that’s a problem that we’re all going to have to deal with. It’s a bit of a downer, especially when you have kids and you want to be handing them a world that’s better than the one that was given to you and I don’t know that we’re there. I think we all just need to be doing a lot more a lot faster and it’s difficult.
Rebecca: It is hard and I think, for me, that’s one of the reasons that things like... I guess this is a bit more specific to the UK than other nations but looking at some of the city-level climate targets and corporate climate targets is heartening in a way because we’re seeing more ambitious action or ambitions targets and hopefully, the action will follow by businesses, industry and cities than perhaps we’re seeing at that national or international level. I guess it really points to the reasons why the targets that we were talking about across the Iberdrola Group and within Scottish Power are absolutely critical sitting alongside the national and international policy landscape. So all that’s left for me to do is to say thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been a really interesting discussion and it’s so great to hear about what Scottish Power is doing in this space and why organisations like yours can and should be leading the way. Thank you Robin and thank you, Owen. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking with you.
Robin: Thank you. It’s been great talking to you too.
Owen: Yeah, it’s a real privilege to be here. Love what you’re doing with the pod and your work beyond that as well. Thanks so much.
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Rebecca: You’ve been listening to Local Zero. Big thank you to our guests for this episode; Scottish Power’s Robin Cathcart and Owen Black and a reminder that you can follow us on social media. Find us on Twitter @LocalZeroPod to get involved with discussions there or you can email us at LocalZeroPod@gmail.com if you want to share some longer thoughts. If you are enjoying Local Zero, make sure you subscribe, by the way, and if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, please take just 15 seconds to leave us a rating and if you’ve got a bit more time, a review. It really helps us out and gives us a huge boost when someone does that helps other people find us so we can spread the word about local energy even further but for now, thank you so much for listening and goodbye.
[Music flourish]
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