Daniel Gribbin of Deloitte - ESG Regulations, Clause Zero, Sustainability and More #008

James Taylor 0:00
Hi, I’m James Taylor. And I’m Alison Burns. And together we are The Ethical Futurists. Now, you’re listening to the ethical futurist podcast where we dive in to the world of sustainability, ethics, and why these ideas today are more important than ever, ever before. Now, join us as we engage with leading thinkers, with business leaders, with academics, with entrepreneurs with investors, and changemakers. To uncover the latest ideas shaping a more ethical and sustainable future. We’re going to be covering a lot of different things in this podcast as well.

Daniel Gribbin 0:41
Indeed, from sustainability, innovation to future trends and ESG. Our conversations

James Taylor 0:47
span a wide array of topics, including renewable energy, we’re going to be looking at Clean Tech, ethical investing,

Daniel Gribbin 0:56
food systems, and much more. Yep,

James Taylor 0:59
in each episode, we explore really crucial issues such as carbon emissions, the circular economy, we’re going to be talking about rewilding net zero carbon goals and the future of food and energy, something else and I are really passionate about.

Daniel Gribbin 1:16
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James Taylor 1:46
Just go to MENA-speakers.com That’s MENA-speakers.com. Alternatively, you can drop them an email at [email protected] to book the perfect speaker for your next event. Daniel Gribbin is the sustainability and climate growth lead and ESG Risk Advisory leader at Deloitte Middle East. He is an ESG and sustainability advisory expert with extensive experience across Australia, South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East in sectors including construction, natural resources, transport, food and beverage, government, financial services and manufacturing. In 2021, Daniel was ranked as one of the top 20 sustainable manner real estate professionals here in the middle east by cityscape manner and in 2022, was named as one of the most influential ESG leaders in the Middle East. Daniel joined Deloitte from the industry where he was the chief operating officer and head of sustainability and ESG. And prior to this, he led ESG teams in the Middle East at both the Big Four and W. SP. And it’s our great pleasure to welcome Daniel Gribbin on the show today. Welcome, Daniel.

Daniel Gribbin 2:54
Thank you, James.

James Taylor 2:55
So share with us what’s going on in your world just now what currently has your focus? Look, it’s

Daniel Gribbin 2:59
it’s very busy, I think, as you can tell, with all the activity and everything that’s happening around the world. So, you know, the I think to be honest here that the MENA region as a whole was probably a little bit behind where Europe, North America, Asia is in terms of their response to sustainability and how they’re going to manage that. So what we’ve seen, you know, I’ve now been in the region for six years is, in the last 18 months, a really big uptick in how companies are trying to manage this. We’ve seen, you know, big conversations happening at CEO levels at board levels, you know, culminating in COP last year, in Dubai, that are starting to, you know, create a lot of action. You know, the UAE having another year of sustainability, I think is really big, in terms of the emphasis it’s putting on the need for change. So for us in the Deloitte world, that’s clearly creating a lot of activity, you know, we are trying to activate across our various service lines. So whether that’s our audit and assurance service line, our risk or our tax offerings, how we actually respond to this and how we mobilize our own people, how we work with our colleagues in Europe, to really bring the best of Deloitte and the best of our resources to the solution. That’s really probably what’s keeping me busiest at the moment, as we sort of go on this growth journey with our clients as well, a

James Taylor 4:14
lot going on a lot going

Daniel Gribbin 4:15
on a huge opportunity here in this region. Absolutely. But today, what would you say are your top three accomplishments in your career so far?

Look, I mean, coming from Australia, we were one of the early movers having a big era and I and mining, sort of sector there. So in 2012 13, we were one of the first ever carbon tax. And I still do the prime minister for calling it a tax. But we were one of the first ever carbon tax and as a result of that, we got to work with some of the largest companies in the world the likes of BHP and Rio Tinto and others around how they actually measured greenhouse gas how they actually monetized and brought in things like shadow carbon pricing and things like this so that they could actually manage the tax properly. And the feedback we got at the time was this is great, the government actually set a, you know, a regulation that we can adhere to, then of course, there’s the way politics work to three years later, they rolled that back and it was gone. So there was a lot of uncertainty again, so, but I think that two three year period where we had a lot of clarity from government was a really good thing. And it was really good for me I visited, you know, a large number of mine sites help them start to understand their impact. That was really key. I think one of the other sides of me is some of the digital tools that we’re starting to bring out. So the lights of our green light solution at Deloitte was developed, again, by an Australian team for the Mining and Metals industry. But it really helps them to quantify greenhouse gas, which there are a lot of solutions out there to do that. But then not only that start to help them abate and what sort of abatement mechanisms, they can bring in and plan their netzero journey. And it offers, you know, up to 200, different pathways that are all accredited under sbti, and various other frameworks. And that was a really cool and innovative solution that we have. And we’re starting to bring that to our clients here in the Middle East. And I, I can see that as a really big growth opportunity and pathway for us and something I’m very excited about. And then lastly, I think one of our biggest accomplishments, particularly at Deloitte is our our zero clause, which is clause zero, which is goes into all our contracts. Now it was released last year. And it’s a clause which actually puts pen to paper in terms of a contractual perspective around what it means for our clients to be acting in a responsible manner from a climate change perspective. So it starts to, you know, ask questions of our contracting departments around how they’re managing climate change, it gives Deloitte an opportunity to exit a potential contract where we see our customer not working in a sustainable manner, or not operating the way that they should be. And it’s a really tangible way that we can sort of, you know, engage with our clients engage with our customers, even if it’s not a sustainability related contract, it could be as simple as a financial audit. It goes in and it opens the door and has a conversation. So it’s something really new here in the Middle East, something they’ve been doing in Europe for a little bit, but something I think we’re really proud of, and I’m really proud to be rolling out here. We’re

fans of climate change,

James Taylor 7:15
change losers, yeah, it’s been

Daniel Gribbin 7:19
awesome as well, we’ve started to put them into our own contacts. And just and people are sometimes taken a little bit taken aback, and they’re surprised. But actually, if it moves the needle, in terms of the conversation, I think that’s got to be a good thing. You know, just to get a little bit pushback. Have you found that? But yeah,

no, I don’t think at the moment, it’s we’re probably not getting pushed back. And there’s probably a gap, I think, in the education awareness levels have taught. So people, particularly on the legal side, look at it, I don’t think it’s maybe much of an impact at this point in time in our region. I think in Europe, there’s a little bit more conversation that’s happening. You know, the big four, do work a lot with, you know, your likes of shell and others. And we have a role to play in the transition to the low carbon economy going forward. So we need to make sure we’re doing that in a sustainable manner. And we also, you know, from a greenwashing perspective, we want to make sure we’re actually doing it in the right way as well. So yeah, it’s not so much pushback, but it is certainly creating, I think, key conversations and moving the dial a little bit. That’s got to be good. Yeah.

James Taylor 8:14
Now, part of the role of the work you do at Risk Advisory is helping your clients understand the regulatory environment they’re having to operate. And that was, what are the regulatory requirements here in the region when it comes to sustainability and ESG? Yeah, there’s

Daniel Gribbin 8:26
not a large amount at the moment. And we know our region is really driven by regulation, you know, that we can see we don’t have a a big capital market in the way that we do in Europe or in North America. So regulation is really key for us. There are some voluntary requirements that come out through the likes of Dubai, financial markets, or Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange, or today, while they are strongly enforced, and it is emphasized that companies comply with them, but they’re not mandatory. We see some listing requirements start to come through them as well. So, you know, there are relatively new requirements, for example, in the Dubai stock exchange about having female board members and increasing your transparency levels and things of that nature, that are starting to move the dial. We’ve seen Oman, Bahrain, others start to come out with again, requirements for listed companies around sustainability reporting and disclosure. But I think the big one that’s coming for us is the IFRS issb requirements. There is a working group within Saudi Arabia, there is a working group here in the UAE, understanding the implications of it and trying to get the rollout there is an expectation of course, that the large entities the likes of SABIC or Aramco will be first to comply with these. And so they are looking at them. And that’s sort of driving a lot of activity, particularly internally. They may not be much you can see externally at the moment, but people are trying to get their house in order in terms of how do we actually get sustainability data to a level that can be reported publicly to the same level of rigor as a financial state. And and so you know, how do we have the right control environment to do that. And so whilst these regulations may not be actually enforced yet, because we’re still waiting for that to be embedded by each country, there is a lot of beside behind the scene work that is happening and needs to happen by every company to ensure that you get that level of comfort, because your auditor at some stage will come looking at it. The other one is really the affecting a lot of clients here is the CBM, the climate, carbon border abatement mechanism in Europe, which is effectively, you know, taxing goods that come into Europe based on their carbon footprint. And that’s affecting a lot of suppliers. You know, I’ll use Subak, for example, or Aramco that export their product into European markets. So that’s we’re starting to see a lot more questions around how do we comply with this? What do we need to do within our own systems to make sure that we’ve measured our greenhouse gas footprint appropriately, etc. That sort of truck static drive a bit more activity there as well?

That’s, that’s good. How do companies as your company’s gone from big goal aspirations to measurable actions and the implementation of sustainability programs?

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think a lot of the challenge people have with sustainability is trying to chunk it down. It is when you talk to someone about the future of humanity or the future of this world, it almost seems like a too big problem. How can I impact that? How can I sort of affect it going forward? And that’s no different to a corporation as well. So they’re sort of looking at each other going, I’m only one company, how am I going to, you know, move the needle on climate change, or biodiversity or whatever it might be? So I think for companies, it’s really important to one think strategically about it. So how does it actually interlink with your corporate strategic position? How does it link with you know, your duty to investors who are starting to ask questions on this? How does it work with your customers at one level, so you actually get that understanding at your executive and your management level first, and then start to chunk it down a little bit, and actually bring this into smaller bite sized pieces. So you know, things like net zero commitments at the moment, we’re seeing a lot of companies here in the Middle East, commit to net zero without actually understanding the building blocks that need to go in to get into net zero data, the data, you know, what are the little pieces that I need to do? So having that top down, and that bottom up approach, I think, to this topic of sustainability is really key. There’s also a lot of other things that we need to do right in the region from just from a hygiene perspective. So whether that’s diversity, health and safety, worker rights, some of these other topics that, you know, we also need to make sure we have that sort of in order before we even start to tackle climate change to a perspective. And I think that also needs to can’t be ignored at the same time as we sort of go forward and companies start to get their head around this and, and start to measure and get data and then actually mitigate and reduce impact.

James Taylor 12:57
Just to be transparent. Deloitte is one of our clients, because we have spoken at the Deloitte ESG Summit in Washington DC, last year at great event had a lot of Chief Audit officers, chief financial officers, chief sustainability officers there as well. And that focus on that particular event was around disclosure. And the importance of the changes that are going on disclose, especially the new US markets, sec, and in UK, in Europe as well, in this region, what is going on around kind of disclosure requirements.

Daniel Gribbin 13:27
Yeah, sort of similar to what I had before. But there’s not a lot, really, there’s a lot of talk, particularly at a government level at a central banking level that, you know, the stock exchange level around disclosure, particularly with the IFRS requirements, so the issb, s one and S two requirements, which are leveraged off the back of the tcfd. There’s a lot of acronyms coming out. But that’s sort of the key one that companies are looking at at the moment, we, in our region, probably not going to be as affected by the likes of the European reporting requirements, the CSRD. The SEC ruling as well was was quite watered down in terms of the use of subsidiaries and sort of remote offices, and things like that. But I think one thing I encourage companies to do is actually look at this reporting landscape. Too often, we wait until the regulation comes and it’s a very last minute knee jerk response by organizations to comply. And if this comes particularly from an IFRS issb perspective, it will become part of your auditors remit. And as soon as that happens, you’ve got the opportunity for an adverse opinion or something to occur there which can affect your credit ratings, your various other things that happen with you know, adverse opinions there. So I really encourage companies to actually have a strategic look at all these regulations go through almost a mapping process to go okay in FY 2829, when CSR D becomes active, you know, for subsidiary clients, do we have an operating company that may be picked up by that, you know, how do we need to set up our organization, probably from a legal entity perspective to actually comply with the various reporting requirements. I expect the region to adopt something like an IFRS sometime soon. But in terms of timeframes, I think we still have a bit of gap between the collection of data, the government, and the regulators know this, we need better data, we mean real robust data. And we need that to be disclosed. And then we also need a really healthy audit environment to make sure that we got a level of auditability of that

James Taylor 15:27
that was selling, we noticed that there have been in Washington when there was the big ideas, big targets by the Chief Sustainability Officer, the Chief Executive Officer, and then you had the Chief Audit officer put your hand up going, we do not have the data for this. We didn’t we’re not collecting it. So yeah, sooner sooner rather than later. Elsa, hand over to you.

Daniel Gribbin 15:44
Yep. Well, I was my next question is, what’s the hardest part of your job, but I would imagine that, that the degrees of that have changed since you’ve been in this region?

Yeah, they definitely have, I think the hardest part, I mean, I’ve been fortunate enough to do sustainability now for 16 years in Australia, which was quite a developed market at the time. And then into places like the Netherlands where we had a very big social conscience and, and now the Middle East, which is really just starting on this journey, I suppose. The biggest challenges we’ve often faced is the, the mismatch in expectations and levels of awareness. So when talking with clients, often they think of it as a perhaps a cost plus, rather than a value add. They think it’s, you know, an extremely expensive program, and then they don’t even want to start, or conversely, they think it’s a very easy and cheap fix that they can do to make themselves more, quote unquote, sustainable. So there is often a mismatch between them about how we actually create that change, create that, that lever to differentiate themselves and build them up. I think, you know, for us, that requires a completely different skill set, than we’re probably used to in traditional consulting. It’s not just writing a PowerPoint or, you know, creating a strategy or something like that. There’s actual people involved. And you need to really bridge that gap in order to make the change and going forward. So that’s probably really been the biggest challenge, I think, over the my career, and particularly now here in the Middle East.

Yeah, but you’re bringing all that expertise with you. Yeah. But it’s so different. The goalposts are set in slightly differently. No, but but, well, it’s a challenge, but you’re facing

James Taylor 17:19
this journey. You’ve talked about this from Australia, Netherlands, here now in the region as well. Was there maybe a key aha moment that you had in this journey yourself? Yeah,

Daniel Gribbin 17:28
I think I touched on it a little bit there. But I think it was for me realizing it’s, it’s not as much about perhaps the technical competencies. So it’s not as much about having the perfect answer every time but more about the behavioral change? And how do we actually psychologically create change. And I’ve had this debate numerous times within organizations within, you know, with my own leaders, are we better to create 1% of change, or 0% of change, particularly in a topic like sustainability, where any change is generally for the positive as a rule of thumb, not necessarily all the times because of the unintended consequences. But, you know, if we get one person to put one cup in a recycling bin, is that better than no one putting a cup in a recycling bin, so that behavioural change element is, is key. And I think that was the aha moment, which I sort of had, particularly coming to the Middle East. So making that that one person go, I can do a little bit of difference here. And then ideally, what we want to do is clean make that person, the leader of the organization. So if we get a chairman or a CEO, having that aha moment, that’s when we start to really made you know that that monumental change, which is really key going forward. So that for me was a big one that you didn’t have to have the perfect technical answer, what you had to do is create change and create momentum through sort of behavior and, and through culture.

James Taylor 18:51
And the big four, because you touch so many different types of industries, so many different types of clients as well. You have that ability, if you choose to do that, that mantle, you could choose to take if you want to do that quickfire round as we start to finish up here as well.

Daniel Gribbin 19:05
And is there a book that you can recommend or point that our listeners to that that you particularly find inspiring, or it’s to do with the sustainability or any other any other issue that you?

Yeah, there’s one that springs to mind, which is, I must say full disclosure, I’m a very big Harry Potter fan.

She lives quite close to she,

the one that that made an impact on me, and I always forget the name of it, but it was about the New Zealand Rugby team, where they talked about sweeping the sheds, and they talked about team culture. And if you look at the All Blacks, they’re one of the most successful teams of all time. I think they’ve got something like an 80% winning record or something to that effect. And the next highest is someone like the the Yankees or the Lakers, which have about a 58% winning record. So that book really taught me a lot about how you create culture, how your leadership style should work and impact and I wish I could remember the name of it, but I haven’t read it in about 10 years ago, so but for me, that was probably the biggest one that I, I enjoyed.

James Taylor 20:04
Great. And we’ll put that on the show notes here for this episode and we’ll put it in our go to the ethical futures.com forward slash books, we’ll have a list of all the books recommended by our guests here as well. Well, we’re big fans of podcasts you’re on the ethical futurist is a podcast you’d like to listen to. Yeah, so

Daniel Gribbin 20:17
I like listening to the daily. So the New York news that’s probably my my go to to get my little snippet of the world, I think, you know, clear here in the Middle East, we’re probably a little bit sheltered from what’s happening outside our four walls. So that’s probably my go to at the moment, it’s, you know, getting a bit of the information around, particularly what’s happening in the US what’s happening outside it. That’s probably the one I go to the most asides from. I’m a big fan of some of the comedy podcasts and things like that out there. So there’s a couple from Australia that I listened to for a bit of light relief, that’s probably the more more serious one.

Well, you alluded to sustainability earlier in inverted commas. And it’s a word that is I think, no is used a lot. And it almost feels as if as an off the cuff, throwaway word that really doesn’t have the true weight and responsibility wrapped up in it. Do you think that people truly understand what that what the meaning of that and what that means for the planet? And how we, as human beings on the planet operate? And with that in mind, what does an ethical and sustainable future look like for you? Yeah,

I think to answer your first part, no, to put it to put it frankly, when I first started working in sustainability, 16 years ago, my my friends would often make fun jokes, that I was, you know, sort of the pixie at the end of the garden or something to that effect. But, you know, they’ve started to come around to it, particularly those who are in probably more energy intensive industries. But I still have conversations on a daily basis with people not understanding what sustainability is what you know, companies need to do, how they can actually make an impact. And for me, that comes to it. I think that the second point, I’ve got two young boys, and that’s really you know, the definition of sustainable development back from you know, the Brundtland report back in the days of, you know, meeting the needs of the future without compromising the needs of today. And so I look at those boys, and I go, I want them to have a world in which, you know, they don’t need to worry about the term sustainability where they don’t need to worry about polar caps mounting, or, you know, various other extreme weather events and things like that. So, you know, I want them to have that future. And for me, that’s what this comes down to is sustainability. So, you know, I think there is still a big mismatch, a big education and awareness thing. I think there’s very important that we have these other rules that are coming out in Europe, such as anti greenwashing. And, you know, we’ve we’re seeing people start to get put into parliament to help governments understand this. We’re seeing boards overthrown. So there’s a big movement that’s happening there. But I think on sort of the every day, Mum and Dad, we still have a bit of a mismatch there around. What does sustainability mean? You know, we do see a lot of CEOs throw it in their, their speeches or in their strategies, but not actually know how to live and breathe that going forward.

James Taylor 23:14
You’re basically getting rid of your own job. Yeah, so

Daniel Gribbin 23:18
I’ve said this to many clients, my role as a consultant is to put myself out of a job. As a sustainability consultant, it’s not sustainable to use consultants at the end of the day. So I’ve said this to many clients, and you know, ideally, in 20 years, you don’t need a consultant, you don’t need someone like me to come in and talk to you, you do this yourselves, and it’s part of your DNA. And it’s part of who you are. And to me, that would be a perfect world where, you know, sustainability is part of a auditors job and part of a financial controllers job. And, you know, we don’t even think about it, we just act in the appropriate manner. Well,

James Taylor 23:50
until that point, you’ve got a few years left, probably, for people to go and learn more about the work you’re doing that Deloitte is doing, you mentioned green light, and some of these other programs. Yeah, so

Daniel Gribbin 24:01
deloitte.com is our website. You can find that on all the various search engines and things like that as well. My LinkedIn as well, very active, they’re trying to promote our activities that we do. And, you know, through that, we’ve got a lot of programs, we, you know, please reach out if you want to hear about them. But we run programs with our European colleagues on upcoming technologies, on impacts in the boardroom, on various other things that are facing the world. And, you know, we’d love to get their community up and engaged and help them going forward as well. Well,

James Taylor 24:32
Daniel Gribbin has been a great pleasure having you as our guest today on the Ethical Futurists podcast.

Daniel Gribbin 24:37
Thank you very much, Daniel. Thank you.

James Taylor 24:39
If you’re considering making sustainability or ESG, one of the themes for your next conference, your event, or perhaps a company retreat, then why not invite Allison and myself to be your keynote speakers or event MCs? We’ve delivered really inspiring keynote programs for some of the World’s largest organizations from all different kinds of industries. Now, the ethical futurist keynote will take your audience on a journey to discover how the world’s most ethical and sustainable companies are really innovating in their industries. So if you’d like to learn more about booking us as the ethical futurists for your next event, then simply head to theethicalfuturist.com/speaking, that’s the ethicalfuturists.com/speaking To schedule a call to discuss with us. We’re delighted that you listen to this podcast. And we really thank you if you could just take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Also, while you’re there, why don’t give us a five star rating and leave us a review. It would really mean a lot to Alison and I so for me, James Taylor, and we Alison burns. Thanks for listening to the Ethical Futurist podcast.