Muna Merghani of Hagar Group on Carbon Trading, Social Impact and Sustainability #011

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1. [0:00] Introduction by James Taylor and Alison Burns

2. Overview of the podcast’s focus on sustainability, ethics, and future trends.

3. [1:46] Advertisement: MENA Speakers

4. Information on booking sustainability and ESG speakers through MENA Speakers.

5. [2:31] Guest Introduction: Muna Merghani

6. Introduction of Muna Merghani, her background, and her roles at Haggar Group.

7. [2:57] Current Focus and Recent Changes

8. Muna discusses her recent move to Dubai and current focus on training youth in sustainability and ESG.

9. [4:11] Journey into Sustainability

10. Muna shares her transition from computer science to humanitarian aid and development, and eventually to corporate sustainability.

11. [5:41] Top Accomplishments at Haggar Group

12. Establishing the sustainability department, developing the “complete returns” metric, and engaging in carbon trading.

13. [8:12] Understanding Carbon Trading

14. Explanation of carbon credits, their implementation, and the impact on private enterprises.

15. [11:13] ESG Legislation and Self-Governance

16. Muna’s insights on ESG legislation, self-governance, and the importance of genuine sustainability practices.

17. [16:23] Importance of Training in ESG

18. The need for training to move beyond compliance and ensure proper understanding and implementation of ESG.

19. [17:08] Aha Moments in Sustainability

20. Muna’s experiences and realizations while developing sustainability policies and practices at Haggar Group.

21. [18:44] Quickfire Round: Book Recommendation

22. Muna recommends “Unbowed” by Wangari Maathai, highlighting the impact of one person’s perseverance in tackling environmental issues.

23. [20:21] Podcast and Influencer Recommendations

24. Muna follows sustainability practitioners like Jehan Hyde and finds valuable content on LinkedIn.

25. [21:14] Essential Tools and Resources

26. Muna mentions LinkedIn as a key resource for staying updated on ESG and sustainability.

27. [21:45] Vision for an Ethical and Sustainable Future

28. Muna shares her hopes for a future with peace, justice, and freedom, led by ethical and responsible leaders.

29. [22:55] How to Connect with Muna

30. Muna primarily uses LinkedIn for professional connections and updates.

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TEF011 Muna Merghani FINAL AUDIO.txt
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 Futurists 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.

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

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Alison Burns 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 [email protected] to book the perfect speaker for your next event. Muna Merghani is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in humanitarian aid development, management and corporate sustainability, already a BSc in computer science, Master’s degree in development, management and high diplomas in international aid administration and French language. she transitioned from the tech world to social development, excelling in organizations like CARE International and plan Sudan. At Hagar Group since 2011, she established and leaves the corporate sustainability and social impact department driving socially responsible operations and SDG alignment passionate about mentoring new startups. He also oversees HR strategy alongside her sustainability role. Unbelievable. You’ve got the big role. Muna Merghani. Welcome to The Ethical Futurists podcast.

Muna Merghani 2:50
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

James Taylor 2:52
So share with us what’s going on your world just now what has your focus just now?

Muna Merghani 2:57
Well, it’s a bit of a strange times. Because I recently moved to Dubai, following the eruption for in Sudan, our business there has been seriously affected. So we lost a few of our companies, we lost a few of our staff. And basically, my workload has become much less. So I’m using the opportunity to work on a few certifications. Luckily, I am one of the few who have who has managed to keep my job. And and I’m trying to venture into training. So I’ve have a certified master trainer now. And I’m looking at training, particularly youth in sustainability and ESG. Because I sensed that there’s a gap there in the UAE. And I hope I’m not wrong.

Alison Burns 3:59
Well, it’s quite a CV that you’ve got. Tell me, tell us. So how did you first get into the work that you’re doing now? What What led you to that role?

Muna Merghani 4:11
Well, it came naturally. I started off by working with a few NGOs in Sudan, either as a volunteer or just, you know, just out of interest because my mother was doing the same thing. And then when I when I studied, I don’t know, I have no clue why I chose to study computer sciences. I think we get to choose what to study at an age when we’re most erotic, I think. And so I studied Computer Sciences and then I realized it was not at all for me. It was not my thing. I did not like it zero passion. But I did that. Nevertheless, I did five years of that. And then I was like, just let me venture into something that I like and that I find myself in and I started exploring And I found a few volunteering opportunities and training opportunities with care Sudan, and then with plan and then I started studying development aid and humanitarian aid. And, and I continued doing so until I started doing the same within the private sector, which was another way of doing it. I mean, the private sector, at one moment in time realized that it needs to be as well. Involved in philanthropy in community development. And from there, it changed the sustainability and, you know, governance and a focus on the environment.

Alison Burns 5:41
Do you think that’s helped you find your purpose, then? Yes, yes. where my heart lies. Yeah. So sustainability. And what do you feel are your top accomplishments in the role as chief HR and Sustainability Officer at Hagar

Muna Merghani 5:57
when I’m proud that I established the department from scratch, that’s a great achievement. But frankly, I don’t want to take the credit. For it all i, I had a very supportive CEO. And he kept raising the bar and he kept demanding more and but he also gave me room to explore, innovate, and also make errors. One of the top accomplishments, I think that we set the tone for others to follow, we have developed our own metric, it was a very difficult thing to do. But we developed our own metric, which we refer to as the complete returns, which is basically a combination of return on investments or financial metric, and also what we call the Sustainability Index. And this is an index for measuring our impact, our social impact, our environmental impact, and also our governance practices. So we converted that into one mathematical formula that we refer to as the complete returns, and we report to the board on a quarterly basis about it on that metric. So it was, you know, our own, you know, we did not really, it’s not that we did not conform to others what others were doing, but we fit things to our context. Another accomplishment. It’s not an accomplishment, but it was a policy that we followed, which I’m very proud of is that we never linked any of that to our marketing and branding strategies. Not at all. And this was, this was set by our founder. But then you get to see, you get to see the good in it. It’s just, it’s not for it, it makes it helps you focus on the ultimate objective of what you’re doing, rather than just doing one thing and then boasting about it. Another accomplishment, I think the fact that were the very first and still only private sector in Sudan to carbon trade, it was not an easy journey, not at all. Almost a nightmare at one point in time, but we did it and I’m very proud of it. So

James Taylor 8:12
tell me on that last one, carbon trading and carbon credits for those people that don’t know too much about these terms can tell us a little bit about what that is, what those are, and also how this relates to a private enterprise. Because we sometimes hear these things used and these terms, but how does it relate to an organization like yours? How do you actually implement this What difference does it make Okay?

Muna Merghani 8:37
Basically, carbon credits are a market based approach to reducing greenhouse gases. And a carbon credit is is measured in a unit of carbon dioxide tonnes and removed from the from the atmosphere. So, and it’s done through implementing certain projects. So projects that help mitigate climate change or adapt to climate change. An example would be, you know, a forestry project or a project for restoring mangroves or a project where women use fuel efficient stoves that would reduce the amount of fuel would they would use water harvesting projects, projects that really help adapt to climate change or mitigate or like reduced carbon emissions that would have been more if you had used another you know, way of doing things An example would be as well hydropower generation. So it the carbon credits can be calculated in a mathematical way and the amount of carbon credits reduced can be sold in the market. They can be sold and they can be bought. So they can be sold by the project developers and they can be bought by other companies. who wish to reduce or offset their carbon emissions? Let’s say a transportation company that has a lot that emits a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, they would like to offset so they can support a project that is a forestry project, for example. It’s, it’s, there’s a part that’s very difficult, but there’s also logic in it. And it’s not that complicated. You need to get smart person

James Taylor 10:28
to why I hear from when you’re speaking about this at Stanford University, we talk about the fuzzies. In the techies, yeah, the fuzzy has been those who study the liberal arts, environmental design, things like that, and the techies, people to study to study mathematics, computer scientists, and you are a perfect example of someone who is able to kind of brings these these things together and in your work. So you understand that the carbon credits, I know companies like, for example, like Tesla, they, they they make a lot of their profit from selling their carbon credits to polluting companies. But in the case of a organization, like cargo group, are you basically creating an internal carbon market? Is that what you’re doing internally? So different departments or different sectors of the business are doing this? How does? How does it work with with hanger?

Muna Merghani 11:13
Well, how we started, it was basically we were interested in in having an inventory of our carbon footprint. So we just did that, frankly, for the sake of exploring. And we did that back in 2012. And when we did it, we were like, Okay, what’s next, at one and the same time, we were trying to create partnerships with UN agencies, and international NGOs, and AI and national NGOs. And then we we created a partnership with WFP, which had a similar project with a women based organization in western Sudan. So we’re like, we would like to get involved in that. And so we created this tripartite agreement, where we were supporting, providing the funds, but we were also supporting the National Women based organization to to, to implement the project and to help them monitor it and verify it, to be able to actually trade in carbon credits, you need to get a third party to monitor and verify your project, definitely. So we registered the project under the gold standard Foundation, they used to do the monitoring and verification for us, it was not an easy task, but it was doable. And what we did is that whatever we traded, we split 5050 with the women organization, and we use this the money to to get involved in other environmental activities. And part of it we were supposed to start a phase two, but unfortunately, when war started, we couldn’t. Yeah.

James Taylor 12:55
So that’s, that’s kind of understanding that and we’re gonna have links here if you wouldn’t want to unsend a little bit more about this topic, and also hanger group and the work you’ve been doing as well. So that’s one side. I know another area that you’re really passionate about is kind of ESG legislation, which now kind of starts to there is an overlap, I guess, between these as well. I mean, Allison?

Alison Burns 13:18
Well, yeah, because we recently delivered a keynote for Deloitte in Washington, and it was at the ESG. Summit. But we were wondering, how does ESG legislation affect your organization? And how do you sort of position yourselves and amongst all of that to get the best effect from Yeah, well,

Muna Merghani 13:40
I think, at Hotjar. I mean, we work in a few countries, too. We’re based here in Dubai, we have a company in Dubai, we work in South Sudan work in West Africa, but the majority of our operations were in Sudan. And there were no legislation. So we were self governing ourselves. We could have just not done it, and nobody would have asked. So it was a type of self governance. When I was asked to develop an ESG policy or explore ESG and adopted and try to implement it in the group that was back in 2017. I think it was quite early. And this is one thing I’m also proud of. So we started looking at what we already had in place. So we looked at our environmental activities, we looked at our governance. Did we have all the setups did we have like committees reporting to the board? Did we have authority matrices that, you know, helps labor practices, human rights practices, we also looked at our social impact. And we looked also at what was missing and developed plans for that. So for me, and I get a bit aggravated by that sometimes Seems a bit short tempered sometimes, but it’s just in the ESG is the focus currently is more on the legislations and the reporting and the checklist and the trend, rather than the implementation, and understanding and the adoption. And that is one reason why I want to venture into training. Because initially, I was thinking that, okay, maybe everyone knows about it, maybe everyone understands it well, and is implementing it. And now they’re at the stage of the reporting. But then I realized that it’s not the case, they just resort to jumped immediately into the reporting part. So I don’t know really what we’re reporting on. And it makes us lose sight, again, of the ultimate objective of what ESG is all about. So the legislations are good. There, they could encourage and promote companies to take stock of what they’re doing. But it’s also not the end objective, it’s and, but there’s a like, now I see in the markets all over the place, all these sorts of platforms, applications that helps you keep track helps you monitor. But, but, I mean, we need to, like make it a cross cutting issue, make it embedded within the companies and then or within organizations, and then report on it,

James Taylor 16:23
essentially, you’re talking about the training piece as well, because certainly, we found talking to a lot of different companies, they’re still very much within that kind of compliance mindset, and the data which and data needs to be and you did an amazing job with the organization like bringing all that data together and quantifying and verifying, but the training piece is often left out. So it’s one. So you’ve gone through this, in a microcosm in your organization, you’ve gone through this journey, and I’m sure there’s lots of people listening to this just now who are going through the same journey themselves. And maybe they have been tasked, like you’ve been tasked to kind of oversee this and drive that change. Can you tell us a story of maybe an aha moment as you’ve been going through this transition for your organization and developing these processes and ways of doing things?

Muna Merghani 17:08
Well, I would say it was when I moved from working for international NGOs, and the European Union, namely to the private sector, and when our CEO asked me to develop the policy, and I realized that he entrusted me with an empowered me to make change, and that I did not really need to conform with what I was doing, or the rules and the policies that were set somewhere in Brussels or the UK, and that we can develop our own policies fit for our own context fit for our country. And it was, it was overwhelming, but again, at one and same time, it was very encouraging. It helped me you know, develop it helped me explore innovate, change, make change, and also, you know, create success. But based on perseverance and commitment, and always bearing in mind that I was given a responsibility that I need to use well. So this was a moment for me that helped me you know, propel forward and help me. Just yeah, create change, I would like to say positively.

Alison Burns 18:30
So you’re a change maker.

James Taylor 18:31
Yeah. That’s great. And hopefully now with Mission to the training side, you will be help train it was a new changemakers exploring

Muna Merghani 18:38
this opportunity. I actually have a demo training tomorrow to organization versus space,

James Taylor 18:44
we’ll make sure to put any links here as well. As we start to finish up just a quick fire round here.

Alison Burns 18:49
If you could recommend one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, if they want to learn more about sustainability. What book would you recommend?

Muna Merghani 19:02
It’s not the book is not necessarily about sustainability, but it’s definitely has links. And it’s a book by it’s the biography of Wangari Maathai. She’s a Kenyan environmentalist, it’s called unbowed. And it’s about her journey to help to tackle environmental issues in Kenya, fight corruption, and her her attempts led to the creation of the green wall in Africa. And it’s it’s a very I was very impressed by her perseverance and she was fought a lot she was resisted a lot but she persevered and she managed to create change. So it just gives you a chose you how one person can make a huge difference. When you believe in something when you’re passionate. about it and when you do things the way you think, Alright, and not necessarily following trends and, you know, following others. Yeah, I’m trying to lose

James Taylor 20:09
out on bad. And what about podcasts? Or you’re on a podcast just now. But are there any podcasts? What do you listen to it could be around sustainability, or somebody just, you know, other changemakers that you listen to that can inspire you.

Muna Merghani 20:21
I follow I follow sustainability practitioners online. And currently, I’m quite impressed by Sudanese lady called Jehan Hyde. She’s doing a lot when it comes to sustainability. I think she’s based in London. So we just know each other online. We haven’t met her. But she’s also like raising awareness on the topic, educating people having trainings conducted. So yeah, she’s she’s one person I’m following these days,

James Taylor 21:00
maybe if we end up doing Season Two in London, we need to have her on the show. But future? What about is there a website or a tool, an app that you find indispensable, you find really useful? In the work you do?

Muna Merghani 21:14
Well, I just follow pages on LinkedIn, that are there. There’s a lot on ESG. There’s a lot on corporate social responsibility. There’s a lot in sustainability. And I do most of my readings there. Yeah.

Alison Burns 21:27
Great. And just to think this is the penultimate question and ultimate, ultimate question, what does an ethical and sustainable future look like for you? And what would that world look like? And how do you see the future being left for future generations?

Muna Merghani 21:45
Well, it’s quite worrying

Alison Burns 21:47
is a concern.

Muna Merghani 21:50
But it’s, I would, I would love to imagine a future where there is peace, justice and, and freedom. A piece where I would love to imagine that this future is being led by women, but it’s not necessarily the case, as long as the interest being led properly. And, you know, I would love to see a future where, you know, the great dominant powers that we have now no longer exist, you know, those who set the tone those who monopolize economies, those who play games and are no longer there. And where people are able to express themselves to live freely and to just create no harm, and do no harm and, and, and live peacefully,

James Taylor 22:44
do no harm, do no harm, nice way of finishing it. If people want to connect with you to learn more about you the webpage group, what’s the best place? Where should they go to do that? Oh,

Muna Merghani 22:55
well, I use LinkedIn a lot. And I’m not much of social media person other than LinkedIn. Yeah,

James Taylor 23:04
great. Well, we’ll put all these links here, including to the book recommendations, podcast recommendations, as well, Muna Merghani, thank you so much for coming on the ethical futures podcast. Thank

Unknown Speaker 23:14
you, thank you for having me.

James Taylor 23:16
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 Alison 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 Futurists 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 Alison light as the ethical futures for your next event, then simply head to the ethicalfuturist.com/speaking, that’s theethicalfuturists.com/speaking To schedule a call to discuss with us your next event. 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 not 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 me Alison Burns. Thanks for listening to The Ethical Futurists podcast.