#24 - Chris Rush: Elevating Air Quality in our Indoor Spaces - Strategies, Communication, and Career Paths

A conversation with Chris Rush

Chris is a Director and air quality consultant lead at Hoare Lea, an award-winning, multi-discipline engineering consultancy with a creative team of engineers, designers, and technical specialists.


Part of the Tetra Tech Group, a global provider of environmentally focused consulting and engineering services, and part of its renowned Tetra Tech High-Performance Buildings Group.


Chris is focused on promoting air quality's crucial health and well-being role in our built environment and the opportunity that buildings play as part of this.

Through his involvement as chair of the professional body for air quality in the UK – the Institute of Air Quality Management (IAQM), vice chair of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Air Quality Working Group and council member of the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) he aims to improve and is passionate about harnessing the value of air quality through the design and operation of buildings.

He is a Chartered Environmentalist, a Member of the Institute of Acoustics, a Full Member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, a Member of the IES as well as Full Member of the IAQM.

Chris is a thought leader in this field, and the impact he and large consultancy practices play in moving the needle, not just  with customers but internally in the cross pollination of ideas and idials, is enormous.

He is at the vanguard of air quality in the built environment not just through Hoare lea but also in the development and growth of the IAQM.

Chris Rush - LinkedIn
Hoare Lea
Tetra Tech
Institute of Air Quality Management
Institute of Environmental Science

Transcript

Simon: 0:14

Welcome to Air Quality Matters, and this is a conversation with Chris Rush. Chris is a director and air quality consultant lead at Hawley, an award-winning multi-discipline engineering consultancy with a creative team of engineers, designers and technical specialists. Part of the Tetra Tech group, a global provider of environmentally focused consulting and engineering services. Becoming part of its renowned TetraTech high-performance building group, chris is focused on promoting the crucial health and well-being role that air quality plays in our built environment and the opportunity that buildings play as part of this.

Simon: 1:01

Through his involvement as chair of the Professional Body for Air Quality in the UK, the Institute of Air Quality Management, vice Chair of the Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers, cibc Air Quality Working Group, and a Council Member of the Institute of Environmental Science, he aims to improve and is passionate about harnessing the value of air quality through the design and operation of buildings.

Simon: 1:30

He's a chartered environmentalist, a member of the Institute of Acoustics, a full member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, a member of the Institute of Environmental Science, as well as a full member of the Institute of Air Quality Management, well as a full member of the Institute of Air Quality Management. Chris is a thought leader in this field and the impact he and large consultancy practices play in moving the needle, not just with customers but also internally in the cross -pollination of ideas and ideals is enormous. He is at the vanguard of air quality in the built environment, not just through Hawley, but also in the development and growth of the Institute of Air Quality Management. Enjoy this one and thanks for listening. As always, this is a conversation with Chris Rush.

Chris: 2:22

We've got an air quality group, so we're set up into different disciplines in-house and we term them groups. So for our air quality group we're about 14 strong at the moment, which is a pretty sizable air quality team.

Simon: 2:37

Yeah, that's impressive.

Chris: 2:39

Yeah, we've grown pretty sort of sustainably over the years. It's not been a sort of a flash growth, I'd say. We've kind of grown nicely over the past, sort of nine, eight, nine years or so, in quite a steady fashion. And then definitely recently, in probably the past, I'd say three or four years, we've ramped up a little bit and I think that's sort of followed the interest of the industry as people were starting to talk about air quality a lot more. They're starting to understand that they breathe, and that was pre-COVID, I mean post-COVID definitely. It's a different world. People understand ventilation is a thing, they know they need to open windows. But even pre-COVID, I'd say, there was a definite sort of shift change in terms of people's perception, understanding. I felt that, um, a lot more people were actually coming to us. It was, it wasn't just pushing an open door. People were coming through that door to us and speaking to us about air quality, whereas previously we were sort of going to them about this, this mystical thing called air quality and you should, you should understand it really. So as a group we we've kind of grown alongside that, that, that growth. We've tried to. I suppose we've tried to help, or I certainly have lead on the conversation a little bit.

Chris: 3:53

I mean, I've always spotted, since I since I started, that indoor air quality is a thing that that didn't really get the spotlight as much as it should do and it always um. I suppose it always amazed me when, when I was sort of speaking to people and thinking, wow, we spend so much time inside, we spend so much effort designing these buildings and it's such an important part of our lives in terms of it's a place where we relax we need to be functional, where we work you know we might be in the gym, so we want it to be an optimum place to do whatever we want to do. I was thinking it's just something that just isn't grappled with, it's not tackled, and it took me a little bit of time to think why is that? Has it been thought about already? And someone's already covered it off and it's been dismissed. And I had a bit of time looking into the history of it all and I was thinking well, actually, I think it's just sort of out of sight, out of mind. Really.

Chris: 4:40

It's something that's been too technical almost over the years and there's been so many other elements to look at, particularly most recently with, you know, energy, carbon drive towards net zero, that it's possibly just been nudged to the edge of the uh, the conversations really. So, um, it's something I was really keen to promote and I think hawley bill being sort of traditionally a building services consultancy, originally quite quite um, uh, sort of well populated with sort of mechanical and electrical public health engineers these are the guys who were looking at these spaces and bringing the air into these spaces and it just seemed a natural fit that an air quality team was needed at hawley. And that's when I sort of started up really, um, because that's what our, our sort of engineers in housework were after. They were wanting that that knowledge and understanding, because they're not air quality professionals and it is a technical discipline and a profession in itself. So it kind of just grew alongside that interest, that need as well.

Simon: 5:42

So, yeah, yeah, and that was. It's interesting, isn't it, that that size of that team and the growth of that team over the last few years is a positive reflection, I guess, of the industry. How are you finding the the whole air quality, healthy buildings space is being viewed by your types of clients? I mean, maybe reflect on. When I say your type of clients, I mean that's quite broad with all lee um, so it's quite a wide spectrum, but how's that kind of how is that whole air quality, healthy space viewed by them?

Chris: 6:19

generally speaking, I mean one, I suppose, to start off with. We're always quite passionate about it when we're having the conversations with our clients and we like to think, possibly, as everyone does, you want to get into that kind of trusted advisor position which isn't just you're going in there and responding to people's requests for work, because ultimately, people you know our clients sometimes don't know they need this to be done. They're not the leading experts on it, they've got lots of other things to look at. So we go along to them and have conversations, just open conversations sometimes about new areas that are evolving, and that kind of steers it a little bit. So we're kind of bringing them along with the journey of trying to better understand health and well-being and the fact that absolutely net zero planet conscious approach and focusing on on what we need to do around sort of the climate change element is is critical and for them a lot of our clients are already on board with that there's very sort of firm policies and and sort of procedures they have in place around that and plans and they can see that direct connection in terms of what they need to do in, in terms their brand, their organization, the savings it can bring from a sort of financial perspective, but also that they need to do that as a sort of imperative around. Well, just the world, really an investment side of things, because they're not going to have anything to bring forward if they don't take it seriously at all, if they don't take it seriously at all.

Chris: 7:44

The health piece and health and well-being has been a little bit of one that's lagged behind a little bit, and I think it's sometimes been viewed as something that has a bit of a tension with the planet side. So, in other words, if we're looking at sealing buildings up, making them really energy efficient, reducing carbon, well, you can't really look at health and well wellbeing as part of that, because obviously that means more ventilation, because that's the only way to do it right. That's what some people think. The only way to make a building healthy is just ventilate it more, which, oh well, that requires energy, doesn't it? So then, all of a sudden, again, it just drops off the table. The conversation on health and wellbeing is just pushed to one side and they go. Well, we kind of mentioned it, let's move on.

Chris: 8:31

So we're trying to, I suppose, demystify that side of things and saying well, actually there's, there's other ways of improving indoor air quality and there's other ways of bringing about healthy, healthy homes, healthy work workspaces, um, healthy hospitals, um looking at well-being and promoting it beyond just sort of compliance side of things. That isn't just increasing ventilation and also increasing ventilation isn't a bad thing. You can also, you know, being done in a smart way, it might be that you're overventilating some parts of a building and underventilating others. So overall it's a balance. Overall it's a balance. So I think illustrating that it's not as simple as just increased ventilation means increased costs. Therefore we won't do it because it's going to increase carbon, taking that away and saying actually there's a bigger piece here and the benefits of doing it are this, and that's what I think the rest of the industry to a degree needs to catch up on in terms of understanding of those benefits and helping to quantify them a bit more.

Simon: 9:30

When you say conversations, who are you typically talking to? A consultancy firm like Hawley? Who are the kind of stakeholders you're having those conversations with? Are they technical people? Are they other stakeholders involved in a particular project, like architects and engineers, um, project managers, those kind of things? So when you're when you're having those conversations and you're trying to either raise awareness of the air quality or you're trying to build the business case for doing this or an understanding of how it interlaces with the sustainability piece in ESG and things, who, what kind of level, are you having those conversations at?

Chris: 10:13

it's a bit of a multi-pronged um approach really. So traditionally we sort of focused on well, let's work on on the projects we're already involved with. That's where we need to upskill the guys because it is upskilling, it's something new, it wasn't around before, they didn't do it on the last project and again, that's something that. That that's always the um sort of the challenge is. People say why do we need to do it? Because we didn't do it on the last hotel we built or the last office block we built or the last school we we built out. So why do we need to do it now? Um, so shifting that mindset on a live project and discussion around, around that to sort of upskill them. By that point sometimes it can be a little bit too late because the project's moving forward, things are already happening. So through through that engagement on the project, we try and use those examples to say this would have been an opportunity here to have better have considered indoor air quality, because now we're having to retrospectively look at filtration or something like that. So we're kind of not using the I told you so approach but you know a little bit of, to get people to understand it. I don't think you can talk about sort of the conceptual ideas or sort of you know the blue sky thinking around it. You want to get them on board on the live project there and then the other level to it all, so that that's sort of the architects and engineers at a pretty senior level. That then sort of spirals off into conversations where you're brought into those sort of practices directly as part of I don't like don't always like the term sort of cpd, because it's it's more about, again, not just presenting to them and leaving, but you want to be part of that kind of trusted advisor, engaged with them. You know they understand what you're sort of telling them. So then we go along and sort of have a kind of develop a relationship, I suppose, with these people. That's the key thing, because we're not trying to convince them of something that's not real or we're trying to sell them something that isn't of benefit. We want to get them on board and sort of almost have them as sort of champions of what we're saying as well and get them on board with what we're saying.

Chris: 12:14

The other level is sort of developers, investors, people with large portfolios of buildings, so people who might sort of let out spaces, furnish spaces, sort of large sort of clients like that who have sort of interests at quite a high level. So they're often not necessarily interested in the nitty-gritty technical of it all, but what could be brought forward as part of that. And obviously at that level they're really in tuned with the ESG side of things. So what they need to do in terms of looking around environmental aspects and the air quality coming down around the sort of S social part of that. So they're often quite receptive on hearing what more can be done outside. Just monitoring indoor air quality, that's great.

Chris: 13:08

But what are they doing with that data? How can they use it? And they can use it to reduce energy, optimize ventilation and that can be an immediate saving there from sort of you know, the employees in that space, the tenants who are their neighbors as well, people who live in that area. And then how is that information also being fed back into their next project? That's another thing we're having the conversation about. You know, people are gathering huge, vast amounts of IEQ data, not just indoor air quality but all those other parameters as well. Not only how is that being used in terms of an operational sense, on a day-to-day, week-by-week approach, in terms of making sure that space is working in the best way possible. But how is that information being fed back into the next building that's being built or refurbed? So that's another piece which is kind of lacking a little bit and that's what we're trying to sort of open people's eyes to.

Simon: 14:13

When we view air quality for buildings, our instinct is to view them at a project level or at a building level, so we tend to think of things in a very linear fashion, as construction generally is. It's a process and you know so. When I'm asking you questions about you know how are those conversations happening. Where you project to is uh well, I'm having a conversation at the beginning of the design and part of a project and we're introducing people to the concept and the business case of air quality. And then we're having design conversations with people and then we're having operational conversations with people.

Simon: 14:54

But actually, as a practitioner like yourself, particularly in consultancy firms, we're on a range of stages of journeys with people, and your clients don't just do one project and never do another project again. They're on a constant journey of evolution. And much of this transition to better awareness around air quality and ventilation, like you say, is probably you learn the most with by the mistakes that you made or the misses that you have, and they happen on live projects. So so a lot of the traction perhaps in air quality and ventilation is that trusted advisor role, that engagement with clients on projects where they haven't got it quite right or they didn't consider it at a design stage and they're going yes, that would have been good to do it that way. Or having a certain outcome on a project that's completed and going yes, if we'd have done it this way, it would have saved a lot of pain and we all learn from those experiences far quicker than we do.

Simon: 16:05

The blue sky thinking and being able to absorb a concept in its entirety, from scratch to completion. This is a doing industry and we learn by doing. Often. That's a really interesting idea that actually I've not really kind of unpacked that before is that how do we best get traction in that environment? The trusted advisors, the practitioners at the coalface? Where is the traction generated?

Chris: 16:38

People want that. I mean that's absolutely perfect. People want to know what they need to do. That's absolutely perfect. People want to know what they need to do. So I think the time of going to even say, you know, going to architects or going to other firms or going to investors or whatever level of client we call it, because client is such a big term, isn't it? People say client, but what does it mean? Going to them and giving them a again? That's why I don't like the term CPD, because it's bigger than that. This is not just downloading some information to them and going away and thinking, well, I've done a good job there, I've told them about a problem or I've shared the issue with them. That must mean they can take action now. They've got a lot of things to do.

Chris: 17:33

I feel sort of honored to have been sort of given a position where I am able to speak about something so critical to people's health, well-being, lives, not just in work. When I talk to people in work about projects, they start speaking to me about their home lives as well. They often say well, actually, I've got my kid goes to school down the road and we walk to school quite a lot. It's quite polluted. Is there anything else I can do around that? So it's great to see how we can influence it. For me, that's the real passion I get from it is this is things that we can really really sort of change individuals' outlooks on what we need to do. As part of that, we're trying to shift it to a more sort of strategic level. We're trying to shift it to a more sort of strategic level. So, rather than being reactive on the issue and telling people about the issue, it's saying, well, look, we know that there's challenges here, we know what could happen and the benefit of it, rather than just coming in and doing a flash in a pan piece of work that either we need to do because of compliance so say, a planning assessment or we're coming and being quite reactive because there's a problem, so there's a complaint in a building, so we need to go and find out what the problem is. We're saying we've done that once, twice, ten thousand times already. Let's take charge of it, because we're the industry to do it, we're the technical professionals, no one else is going to do it. So let's take that that, take that sort of mantle on, and let's sort of as an industry, move forward and say right. The rest of the people out there architects, planners, engineers this is what we think you need to do and as part of that it's a real I don't know what we could call it a clean air strategy.

Chris: 19:00

We've used that term on some projects because air quality is fantastic, but I think people sometimes who aren't fully engaged with it, wonder what that means. What is? Is it technical? It's quite abstract. What does air quality mean? We know what it means in a in a, in our day-to-day. So using the term clean air, which has more positive connotations, and saying that to these guys because that's what they're driving for, not just compliance with legislation that's out there, because we know that doesn't deliver clean air or healthy air, that just delivers legally compliant levels of polluted air.

Chris: 19:33

So if we say let's take a strategic approach right from the outset of a project where we can map it out and say right, so we don't end up with complaints about damp or whatever in so many years time when this building's built out or your building stock is occupied by tenants and you can't let it out because of issues around it's too hot or too cold or humidity or whatnot let's think about what we can do those interventions right from the start and talk about aspirations at the beginning.

Chris: 20:02

Do people want it to be the best development out there and we're receptive to understand that. Not everyone wants a platinum or whatever grading system. We're going to use a fantastic, a diamond, a five-star level office. That's fine. But if you want the three-star level office, you're going to need to think about that a little bit earlier on because it does need some, some consideration really. So I think that's again that's down to us as an industry to to do really, because I don't think we can say, well, the architect will pick it up or the engineer will do it. You know we're that's our kind of responsibility, so that's what we're trying to to bring forward really, and I think it's it's it's it's down to empowering a lot of our sort of air quality world out there.

Simon: 20:45

Absolutely right, chris, and it's where the industry has struggled, I think, particularly the air quality industry, because it came from environmental science, predominantly in the consulting world, and what we've struggled to do is translate that into meaningful strategies in the built environment. What people need to have is a tangible outcome. I'm going to nick Tom Robbins' statement about housing, but housing is littered with the graves of people that were right, and most of that was because they couldn't translate what they knew to be a correct outcome into a tangible outcome, into into something that delivered for the customer or the building owner, and that, I think, is one of the big steps that air quality and ventilation has got to make. Is that was this kind of intangible, esoteric notion of what air quality is. Nobody really knows what air quality really means, outside of a few environmental scientists. Um, the.

Simon: 21:50

The challenge is translating that in a way that it's measurable, it's strategic, there's a business case for it. Uh, you can demonstrate efficacy of of an outcome. All of these things are so important. If people are going to learn from it, take it and apply it again on the next project and the next project and the next project. Otherwise, we spend our time cycling around champions that really enjoy air quality. They move on to another organization and you're starting from scratch again with that organization. You know the eternal problem of consultancies and firms is trying to maintain that knowledge base that you build up with the champions and then disappearing off and evaporating and you're left back to square one, having the same conversations you had three years ago, trying to convince somebody air quality is important that's it.

Chris: 22:41

That's perfect, I mean, for me, while there's obviously lots of areas of research that still need to be done and need to be developed further, and that can continue and that's great. I I think I think we know what the problems are. I think we know what we need to do and in terms of the actual sort of the real world, engaging with that sort of built environment side, the design process, sort of at the coalface type work I think we've got enough information about that now and I don't think we need to sort of bury ourselves in the technical and that's. I mean, that's dead right. That's the nuance of what we need to be doing as an industry is almost upskilling in terms of how we communicate what we do, because it is a very technical topic and we don't want to lose that at all um, but how that integrates as part of. You know something that's been established for some time, a lot longer than air quality that sort of design process where you've got project teams who are very used to that project.

Chris: 23:36

You know I mentioned before about um. You know the comment you get back sometimes of well, we didn't do that in the last project, that's, that's, that's the, the challenge we have as air quality professionals is we weren't on the last project because, guess what, it wasn't a thing. It was a thing but you didn't know about it on your last project. So that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done here. So we've got to. It's quite. It is a, it's a massive challenge. We've got to sort, only do something really technical at the time. We've also got to and also manage a big project. We've got to then try and communicate that and sort of almost bang our own drum at the same time. So it's uh, it's a heck of a challenge.

Chris: 24:12

So I think coming together, you know, has got to be the things, whereas we are a very, very small world, um, in the air quality world, passionate, but but very sort of, um, you know, small relative to other disciplines. So I think we really need that, that collaborative approach and everyone joining together because we are all saying the same thing. I think there's just lots of different areas at the minute where we could do with joining up a bit more, because there's a little bit of fragmentation not, not, not from anyone's um, you know not, not in any, not in any any way kind of intentional fragmentation. Just lots of different people are sort of progressing in different ways and, uh, we're all pulling in the same direction. But I think if we could come together a bit more, that would be. That'd be pretty good.

Simon: 24:55

Yeah, that you speak really there to the the need for more of an interdisciplinary approach, I think too. I mean, you mentioned indoor environmental quality. I mean I think that's starting to pull some of these disciplines together a little bit better. You know, I've always complained that the problem with air quality is that things don't tend to burst in flames or leak or collapse, um, which means it tends to be kicked into the long grass. It's a kind of a long-term chronic problem that we don't.

Simon: 25:24

You know, as you say, the person says we didn't do it on the last project and nobody particularly noticed. So you know why am I putting much effort into this this time around? Um, so we do have that eternal challenge and I guess that that also raises the question. I guess a bit of your work, particularly in a big organization like yours, is the internal uh, knowledge, uh building and awareness raising. And you know, you, it's a huge interdisciplinary team in Horley, I'm. I'm guessing there's a lot of raising air quality up the agenda even within an organization like yours it's absolutely massive and that that's the thing.

Chris: 26:04

I don't think of it as uh, again, sort of use the term client before my clients are in-house, my clients are. You know everyone outside of our sort of air quality group really, and that that upskilling, um, you know, getting people, that onboarding, you know all of that work needs to be done with with you know the massive teams. We have the mechanical engineers in-house, sustainability professionals, we've got performance engineers. Everyone in-house is really receptive to it and engaged but again, in all fairness, it's not their, their technical discipline. They've got their day jobs to do. But it integrates.

Chris: 26:38

Air quality is one of those things that spreads across lots of these different areas and interfaces with it and it's not like, like we mentioned I'm not going to say it again and again but it's not been around for that long relative to say, other disciplines, and it's certainly not been in the building services sort of consultancy sector for very long at all. Really, in the grand scheme of things, so it is a sort of a new kid on the block trying to sort of catch up with people. So that's definitely something that's been my area of focus and with new people coming in, it's a continuous focus. It's a never-ending task really, but that's the interesting bit. And once you get it's not converting everyone, but once you get some people engaged with it it just proliferates and you've got that kind of knock-on effect really.

Chris: 27:22

So, yeah, people are kind of real champions of it, which is nice because, again, they see, they see how it links into their own lives, their own. They definitely see how it works in their projects from a work perspective, but they also see how it works with their own, you know, commutes. They're interested in their own exposure, which just shows people are um, you know, people are engaged with it now because they're representative of other companies, firms, the general public out there and they're getting tuned into the fact that when they walk to the office they're getting a dose of pollution and want to understand what that is. So, yeah, it's really really interesting working with the internal guys as well, which is a big part of it really.

Simon: 28:00

And sometimes we get a little bit frustrated with feeling like we're repeating ourselves on the very fundamentals and the basic. I'm trying to organize getting Andy Persillion from NIST in the US and he's been kind of banging the drum around CO2 and the boundary conditions and limitations of using it as a proxy in buildings for must be nearly like I'm probably going to insult him now but maybe nearly two decades he's been talking about the value or not of CO2. And I was talking to him last week and he was saying oh, do you really want me on talking about CO2 again? And you kind of have to gee each other up and go yes, because there's new people the whole time. That don't. It is need to grasp these basic concepts. You know, things that we take for granted, like of the vast majority of our exposure to outdoor air occurs indoors you feel like you have to repeat that verbatim all the time, but you do because it's the first time somebody's heard that often and you see the penny drop and they go ah, I get it, you know.

Chris: 29:10

So these basic conversations are really important sometimes it's just, it's just reinforcing that message and even if they have heard it before, they wouldn't. They wouldn't have listened and they wouldn't have sunk in like like everything. You need to say things at least three or so times before that that penny drop moment and they go. Well, actually, yeah, and you think.

Chris: 29:29

Well, I've been saying it for a little while, so I think that again yeah, that, that, that that that's where I mean, that's where the because it can. You know it can demotivate people when they're trying to talk about something that is really important. And they've got this big backing of scientific evidence and research papers. And, you know, you see the stats coming through almost daily, even in the sort of public media BBC News and Guardian and things being sort of highlighted about you know, horrible numbers around health and deaths and things like that, and you think, why isn't this being tackled and being grappled with more, um, certainly in a sort of, you know, a more tangible way than just having to maybe put it on one or two projects? Really, so things are shifting, but again, that message just needs to be reinforced again and again doesn't it?

Simon: 30:20

so where's it? Where's it going right for you? Like when you're having conversations with clients and it's landing, you know, and you're seeing the penny drop and you see action and people going yes, we're going to take this seriously, this is something we're going to do, and all of a sudden, all the traction you could want is there. What are those kind of conversations that are happening? Who are the kind of clients or stakeholders that are just getting it at a fundamental level and going right? This is a central pillar to what we would consider a good outcome now for this project or for this build. What are those kind of conversations like? Because I think that's very motivating people to know they exist.

Chris: 31:04

I was just going to say that to very motivating for people to know they exist. I was just going to say that to start off with, just to say we do get that Things do. That moment where people say, right, we're on board, take us on this journey, that does happen. So to give people hope that it's not just sort of you know, we're sort of fighting a losing battle, it does happen and I does happen and I would say I don't know, I don't know, using covid as a, as a just a sort of way marker and post covid. It's definitely becoming an easier ask for people. People are not only just listening to what we have to say, they're first of all bringing us in, asking us the questions and it's being taken taken more seriously as well. So those kind of clients beyond the react if there's a problem, can you come in and help solve it, which is usually a you know, almost a win straight away because they've got an issue that they want you to solve. With the people who are just asking about you know openly what can we do, or perhaps we're talking to them about that and saying, actually there's opportunities here. You're gathering a lot of, for example, you're gathering a lot of indoor environmental quality data You're. So if, for example, you're gathering a lot of indoor environmental quality data, you're not doing anything with it. Those kind of conversations people are sort of asking us to move on with what we can actually deliver from it. So they're saying, yeah, great, we've tackled or not tackled, but we're tackling the sort of carbon side of stuff. They feel comfortable with that.

Chris: 32:26

Now that's been around long enough that people feel that that either traction is being made or they're doing what they need to do around net zero. I think that that that sort of spotlight is moving on to what next? So there's nature, water and I think air is part of that. So a more sort of human health conversation is happening and that all of a sudden means people are like, great, let's, let's move on, what we can do all of a sudden means people are like great, let's, let, let's move on what we can do. All of a sudden there's the panic of wow, we've been told we need to do something. Now let's look at what we can. What we can, we can apply here.

Chris: 32:53

So, having a more, it's usually sort of at that sort of portfolio level where there's a number of buildings we can look at those. Conversations have started at that level. Really, I see that over time trickling down because, as usual, you know you have to um. It's often sort of the big players first who who move into these potentially not riskier areas, but I suppose, newer, newer territory, um, so they tend to sort of be leading the way a little bit. They off. They obviously have that sort of financial backing to to help with that and that's being led by the sort of esg agenda side of things and with that, because of the often sheer numbers, this isn't a one building type type type situation. There's a number of buildings as part of, as part of this that they they look after, own um, furnish or not um, it's usually a sort of strategic level that we look at things initially.

Chris: 33:46

You know what, what's being done, opportunities, what could be, could be done. Is data being gathered? If it is, what is it? What? How is it being used, how is it being applied, how is it being communicated, how is it being fed back into the design process? Um, and we sort of look at their aspirations as well. You know, where do you want to take this? Is it just looking at what you can do in terms of optimizations or do you really want to deliver something bigger? How can you promote it?

Chris: 34:13

So to date the work's sort of focused on clean air strategies with these people and what we can do around not just meeting compliance, because that's a given right. You have to do that. It's illegal. Legal compliance is what you have to do. So of course we should be doing that. But how can we deliver?

Chris: 34:32

I know the term air quality positive has come about in Greater London in terms of the sort of planning policy side, but almost how can we move it out one outside of London? First of all, accepting that an air quality positive approach should be taken nationwide, but also how can we move it beyond? Just what is needed for planning? Because invariably in the real world, when information goes into the public domain through the planning process, there must be certain elements that possibly some clients might not want to share as part of that air quality positive work. So think about all these other opportunities that could happen but might actually be potentially shelved because they don't want to put it into the public domain at that time. And you think, well, actually, surely that should be captured as part of a design project client specific element as part of a I don't know an air quality positive plus piece. Yes, do the air quality positive measures deliver an improvement? Great, that's what you might want to do and communicate in terms of planning or whatnot.

Chris: 35:39

But there's also an opportunity to go beyond and some of these measures, I don't know. You might research city trees. There might be active removal in terms of, you know, drawing in pollutants and delivering a positive around the site. Some of them might be researched and some clients might say, no, we don't want to do that, or it might not be appropriate in that location. That's fine, but I think not having that conversation initially is the problem.

Chris: 36:09

So, again, the clean air strategy is all about you know how can you deliver bigger benefits, and again, that links into the whole social strand of ESG as well.

Chris: 36:15

Yeah, that's the benefits to the building and what can be done, but it could also benefit the neighborhood, the local air quality as well then. Benefit the, the neighborhood, the local air quality as well then. And if your building or buildings or campus or network of buildings is acting as a bit of a, an urban lung, a sort of filter for the city, fantastic thing. But is it being quantum, you know? Can we start reporting on that. Can we sort of be brave enough to start talking like that at that level really? So that's the sort of push that we're trying to, to move to um, which is outside of people's comfort zone, because we we haven't done it before and it's not just a planning report or a bream indoor air quality plan or something that we're used to. That we've done on the last project, but we know it's where we need to move um, move to, to actually tackle, you know, this air quality crisis really there's two points in what you said there that I'm trying desperately not to forget, um, because they're quite linked.

Simon: 37:13

I think one of them was to ask you the question it those kind of positive reflections that you're having there? Is it fair to say that that's predominantly in the realm of the kind of positive reflections that you're having there? Is it fair to say that's predominantly in the realm of the kind of the tier one buildings in real estate? You know, your ey headquarters in london and your deloitte's building and those kind you know say this a lot on the podcast. This the, the, the head of the snake, if you like, the the pinnacle of the built environment, because they have the funds and the resources and the brand reputation to protect, to funnel into these strategies. So it's fair to say that a lot of what you're reflecting on there is that part of the built environment that's really thinking holistically about ESG and how we put the best foot forward. One thing you mentioned there and it pricked my ear up was about this resistance to showing your cards if perhaps some of it isn't as you'd like it to be, which is always a challenge for those tier one organizations. It's very brand reputation heavy A lot of what they do.

Simon: 38:28

Do you think there's been a, a? What's the best way to put this? Do you think there's been some learning from sustainability, in that we don't have to put our best foot forward? Everybody's on a journey. You know, anybody that starts to look realistically at scope three, emissions and things like this realizes you know whatever about the window dressing of scope one and two and reducing the energy of the building. We've all got a big challenge on our hands as a as as companies, to to deliver true sustainability, and that transparency in reporting and non-financial reporting has really kind of undressed all of that. And I wonder if there's a similar journey to go on with other indoor environmental conditions to say actually nobody's getting this right completely. We're all on a journey and actually that those negatives are learnings for everybody as well. They're areas in which we can improve and show progress and demonstrate forward momentum, which is just as important sometimes as being net zero, whatever that means, you know agreed and I think the um.

Chris: 39:45

I think the key point is that you know we talk about sort of the tier one, whatever you want to call it. The people who have perhaps got the funds to, you know, consider things that don't need to be considered in terms of legal compliance side of things, the newer areas that they might feel they just want to explore. So they have got the resources to look into that. But for me that's a sort of leading and developing to help move the rest of the sort of the cohort of people, others in this field along, because it isn't something that should be exclusive. You know, clean air shouldn't be something that is a you know um, something of of you know, for a certain sector of society. It's something that needs to be delivered across the board, really. So, again, you know the, the, the lessons that are learned, that because it is a, it's an an evolving field from a technical perspective.

Chris: 40:39

But when we're talking about delivering clean air and the measures, I don't know just the technology that's currently out there to help improve it is rapidly, rapidly evolving, isn't it? It's changing every day, nevermind sort of the plug and play monitoring tech that's out there, but also the other pieces of technology, the sort of the, you know, the cleaning technology that's out there. There seems to be new pieces of equipment coming on the market every day. So if those sort of lessons can be learned with these maybe tier one people because it is in this sort of evolving field we're in currently and then we can come up with something that is a little bit more defined in terms of what's needed to, I suppose, effectively help the rest of the, the industry. If that economy can be made there, um, and that just helps the next level of of of people to be brought along as well, then that's great.

Simon: 41:34

Yeah, and the these let's just call them tier one organizations that we're having these very dynamic conversations with and they're implementing you know well standards and BREEAM and you know LEED and all of these kinds of things into buildings. They often sit on quite large portfolios, these organizations. So when we say others and and work to work further down the chain, I'm guessing sometimes that can be internally within the same organization that they go right. Okay, we did this with our shiny glass headquartered london office. I wonder if we can apply that to the, the office we've got up in Manchester or Birmingham or something. Are you having those conversations and starting to reach further and further into the pot of their real estate as part of those conversations?

Chris: 42:27

And even if it is just taking 10% of what they've done at that glass shiny headquarters in London, somewhere else, that's 10% that wouldn't have happened without that initial work being done. So how it's looked across, you know that's as part of the sort of the sort of strategic approach. It isn't just on a one building level, it's what can the improvements be made there? But also how can the lessons that have been learned, the new technology that's been reviewed and researched, the data that's been gathered, what's the onward benefit of that? How does that knock on and trickle through? Do lessons as part of that, using that example, that sort of shiny glass building in London, the lessons around operating that, how to optimize meeting rooms, looking at occupancy figures, can we take that and and and place that sort of information as part of the bms in manchester or another city, or disseminate it into how their building should be operated in general, so that when tenants come into that space they know they're getting a building that has, you know, is almost being um, it is almost being updated and evolving regularly with their lessons, their learning on their sort of living lab type project you could call it. That's constantly sort of kicking out data and information.

Chris: 43:45

So I think to just say we'll do a study and that will tell us all the answers and that's it done. It's just it doesn't work like that, does it? These environments are alive, air quality is constantly changing, occupancy patterns are going up and down. I think any study that's done, and I know it does happen in terms of research out there.

Chris: 44:07

But when we talk about bringing it to really really close up to these people who own and operate these buildings, it needs to be much longer term. We can't say, oh, we'll have a look at your data for a week or so and give you some outline trends. It needs to be long term and sort of almost a rolling, you know a quarterly, a monthly report where we start tweaking and fine tuning. So I think there's a lot of work to do and it's a bit of a an onward. You know a long journey to take, but I think all of that information can then be fed through to you know their wider, their wider portfolio really, which is which is the exciting bit, cause then you can kind of see, see how the benefits spread, really.

Simon: 44:52

Um beyond, if it's spread really, um, beyond that one building approach. Yeah, tyler smith, uh, from johnson controls, kind of describes that trickle down effect, um, as kind of creating on ramps for people that you know we can't. We can't apply advanced ai driven bms systems that we've applied in a big New York building to the rest of the real estate. But the learnings that we take from those buildings, we can take elements of them and create on-ramps for that journey for people in the rest of the built environment. That's very powerful. In the rest of the built environment, that's very powerful. Things like basic CO2 monitoring, basic occupancy sensors and efficiencies in using spaces and applying basic hierarchies of control principles to risk, and all of these things that don't necessarily require a complete restructuring of your HEVAC system and your BMS system to deliver something A full rebuild.

Simon: 45:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And isn't it ironic I mean the, the, that rest of the built environment, as as as hard as it is to reach sometimes. That's where the low-hanging fruit is. That's where we can make a meaningful difference, because we often say this we're we're often tinkering, to be honest, around the edges with these kind of tier one buildings, because they're largely getting a lot of it right, um, by the nature of their age and the infrastructure that they've been able to afford to put into it. You know we're optimizing and tweaking in a lot of cases, but boy down, in the lower echelons of the built environment, there's some horror shows and we can really have profound impacts on outcomes.

Chris: 46:41

And that's, like you said, that represents a massive building stock, doesn't it we're not talking about? And we don't from a sustainability perspective, we don't want to and can't be building new buildings all the time, moving forward forevermore. I just that's just doesn't work as a, as a, you know, as a planet. So, you know, looking after what we've got, how it can be improved, optimized, and then, like you said, all that it is low-hanging fruit. It's easy things to do that that gives a massive benefit to people. I suppose the big big thing is is communication as well as part of these clean air strategies or air quality strategies that we talk about. It's trying not to drift into the real technical straight away, because that's what we love to do, right, isn't it? It's get onto the spreadsheets and the monitoring data and talk about data and AI, things like that. We actually think, well, actually there's people in here. They they usually have the biggest influence on on the building as well. So, you know, do when we, when we've chatted with people before there's everything from and you've probably done the same, simon as well, with with toolbox talks through to do you have it's part of people's inductions? Do you start talking about this when people come and do their health and safety induction and into a, into a company. You know, on that first day or those first few days where you're taking the first aid in the sort of health and safety inductions, do you also have a health part. You know this is what your building's doing for you and this is your role as part of an occupant in that building of what you can do to help maintain that and almost not whistleblow but but report.

Chris: 48:13

If you see a I don't know a door being wedged open next to a busy road. You know it shouldn't be wedged open for fire reasons but you know, is that letting pollution in? So getting people engaged on it is. Again, you know it's not always about building a new building or putting a. You know retrofitting the HVAC system. You know big, hard embodied carbon, physical measures that are going to cost a lot, probably the the low-hanging fruit pieces can just be. You know behavioral, cultural side of things and offices as well and I think as an air quality world that's something again we're probably less comfortable with to a degree in terms of straying into that and just being honest and saying actually some easy wins here are just upskilling your own people a little bit in it, so that's definitely a piece to look at.

Simon: 48:59

Such an important point you make there, so important and we see this across sectors in the built environment. Isn't it always the way where we see great outcomes, even in difficult circumstances? It's because there's been a considered strategy put into place that isn't just about hard services and improvements to infrastructure or fabric, that there's the soft element has been considered and structured and implemented in a way that secures the outcome. Just talking to a local authority a couple of days ago about work we did in Thamesmead, a big condensation damper mould project in East London, and one of the best outcomes of that project was the strategic approach to follow up with householders about. Did they understand the technology that was implemented in their homes? Do they understand how to use it?

Simon: 50:03

Do they understand how to raise concerns if something isn't right, and done in a way that was strategic in its timing and then was followed up consequently a few months later to see if they still understood it and understood and if there was anything could change or they had any problems working with controls or had any problems communicating problems that they may had, and the outcomes of that were phenomenal. How often is that done in the workplace? You know there's some fancy meeting room program put into place with monitors and upgrades to systems, and you could pick any number of people in that workplace and they'll go don't know. Yeah, there was some lads in here a few months ago putting some screens up, you know, and they've got no idea why, fundamentally, or how to raise a concern if something it's funny and it doesn't work.

Simon: 51:01

Sometimes doesn't work sometimes and what to do if it doesn't and why it's important that you should let somebody know, and all of that good stuff. Interestingly, in ireland they had a indoor air quality in the workplace code of practice just implemented a few years ago and one of the pieces or sections within that was having a a complaints procedure as part, because it's kind of by the health and safety authority actually having a procedure of how does somebody, when they're being inducted, know where to and how to raise a concern over air quality something as simple and as fundamental as that.

Chris: 51:36

Yeah, and we're used to that kind of thing, aren't we? From my background, going back a little bit, it's sort of environment and sustainability, but, looking at sort of environmental management side, coming up with those things that have been around for much longer than clean air strategies, just those procedures of how to make sure people can talk to each other and and raise things in the workplace it's been around for some time. But, uh, yeah, so that's definitely that's got it, that's got to happen as part of this. I think, again, it's. It's far too easy just to stray off into the, the comfort zone of the technical, and just go back to that. We'll write a report and the report answers all the questions. Right, it's like well, no, it doesn't. How's that been communicated and how's it been brought through?

Chris: 52:20

Workshops are a massive thing. That you know. I'm a a big, a big fan of not a meeting but an actual workshop where you might not have the answers yet, but that. That. That that's part of working towards those answers and again, bringing people on board as part of that, you know. So a workshop with all the different stakeholders you might have at key times and key moments and getting people's thoughts and engagement on it, because majority of the time it's not just down to the air quality professional in the room to to solve the air quality issues. Um, it's a it's down to everyone. You know, you've got crossover with sustainability engineers and it can't just be us delivering people a note on it. It's got to be. That holistic approach is really key.

Simon: 53:02

Yeah, and to understand what this means to people. And I think that's where that kind of approach really lends itself well to the risk type approach of things. That air quality, as you say, is really complex. That air quality, as you say, is really complex and it's very difficult for us to explain to people even what a part per million or a part per billion even really is. To be quite frank, what does that look like or feel?

Chris: 53:24

like.

Simon: 53:25

Yeah, in my talks with people I always start with right a hand up in the room. Who knows how many seconds, how long a million seconds is, and there's kind of blank looks and there's anything from days to weeks to years being pronounced and I said so, like if we're saying to somebody there's 600 parts per million of something, what does it mean?

Simon: 53:46

like how does that tangibly mean anything? And I said well, so abstract, how long does? How long is a billion seconds? You know, it's like one of them's like 12 weeks. How long is it? Yeah, yeah, I, it's like one of them is like 12 weeks.

Chris: 53:56

How long is it? Yeah, I don't know.

Simon: 53:59

But one of them is like 12 weeks or something, and then the billion is like 32 years. So and then we're talking micrograms per meter, a thousandth of a gram per meter, like there's such bizarre concepts for people. And then you introduce the chemistry of those numbers and people are no wonder, no, people just go blank and don't really, you know, got no interest, even if they are fairly technical. They go what? What does 800 parts per billion of a x molecule really mean to me in my day-to-day life? So this is where I this is why I'm so fascinated at the moment about risk and how we communicate risk, because that's ultimately what will drive people to either act or improve something or interact with something is their perception of risk and understanding that you can't eliminate risk. And we actually are very, we've been very good at that in workplaces in communicating how to manage things like risk. So I think we can lean on that kind of stuff a lot more.

Simon: 55:08

And those toolbox talks or those workshops are great environments to have those kind of conceptual discussions with people to say, look, sometimes it's a balance of risk. You're in a meeting room and the air quality is deteriorating, but you've your choice is to open the window and we don't know how polluted it is outside. They're all noisy. So now you're trying to make a decision in the moment on how to balance risk in that space. Do I open the door to the main office and lose privacy or introduce noise? Do I open the window and introduce pollution or potentially noise or thermal discomfort, or do I sit with the risk that I'm in the space? How do I make those decisions in the moment? If I have to make those decisions which, let's face it, most people in the built environment have to do that Not everybody's got a monitor on a wall that's measuring CO2 and is automatically adjusting a HEVAC system. So how we communicate this stuff, I think, is so critical.

Chris: 56:13

I think that's a great point and I think that that's where we need to be. That's where we need to be moving to, and it's such a big I mean it's a big one for us as an industry you know an air quality set of professionals working in this field to grapple with it's an even bigger one to then convey that to everyone else who we're trying to. You know all the other I don't like the word stakeholders but all the other interested parties that we deal with. So I think it needs to be done, absolutely. We've got to join together, I think, a lot more in this working in, because we all agree with that. I think that's definitely the way we need to be bringing it forward to convey this very technical piece which we can do in the background. We can do all that technical quantification of the numbers and the parts per million and whatever we need to do.

Chris: 56:58

Let's put that to one side.

Chris: 57:00

We'll assume that that's being covered adequately by air quality people, as it should be, um, but then in terms of how we communicate that, that's that's that missing piece, isn't it how we communicate it, whether or not it's through a rating system, a risk level level, some standard level. I know there's the British standard that's come out, with the IEQ rating as part of that. I think we need as an industry to come together and agree a way forward and then, rightly or wrongly, we use that and we're consistent across it. And again, like we said before, that messaging, we say it once, we say it twice, we say it again, and again, and again and we just all together move forward, pushing this rating system. Whatever that is out there, not everyone will be converted and certainly not everyone will be converted overnight, but I think that's what's needed. To take it forward really is a definite bringing together in the first instance, because otherwise it's a pretty big task, isn't it for a few of us? Or to do it at a firm level, if that makes sense.

Simon: 58:03

No, for sure, and do you see a constant increase in the awareness of things like these best practice standards? So I'm thinking the likes of bream and lead and well and reset and fit well and aerate like this. There's a whole bunch of them and they at least enable you to have a sticker on the front door to say this building is a healthy building or an energy efficiency building. Have those been an increasing part of your discussions with clients and how air quality fits in with some of those?

Chris: 58:38

standards massively, so that that that's something that's definitely ramped up, the sort of request for voluntary accreditations or certifications, whatever they they want. I think people are really keen to and rightly so show off what they're doing, which is which is absolutely key. There's no point in doing it keeping it hidden. Communicate it, communicate it that's part of it. And I think all of these you know all the sort of bodies you mentioned, then aerated and others I think that's absolutely fantastic that people are coming into this space and are able to make the air quality improvements very visible and then promote it and communicate it and celebrate what's being done and again lift it a little bit separate from the technical.

Chris: 59:16

The technical work's been done, but then how that's communicated to the rest of the world, the architects, the developers it's almost making others jealous, isn't it? It's sort of making others want to keep up with the next door neighbors to say, well, I've got platinum on my hotel on this street. If you're going to build a hotel, you should get five star or double diamond or whatever we want to call it. So for me that's increased a lot, and I think I don't know whether it's it's by virtue of just having more people around in that space. That's meant it's become more visible because it's been better communicated. Therefore, more people in that space have wanted it.

Chris: 59:50

It's sort of been a you know um self-perpetuating to a degree or whether or not it's. It's down to awareness in general, people understanding that they breathe or or both together really, but definitely there's an increase in in wanting those sort of accreditations that that demonstrate there's an improvement there. Um, I suppose it's just trying to make sure there's a you know things are done as consistently as possible right from the start. Then we get that sort of you know these easy wins. We mentioned those low hanging fruit. If that can be done as well and it also allows the you know the very visible accreditation, then that's awesome.

Simon: 1:00:27

Yeah, and I think it's interesting with what you say about having a strategy as well. A lot of these accreditations can be a bit of a one-hit wonder, which means if there isn't a reason for doing it, that's more fundamental than just getting the badge in the first place. You can lose the value of the air quality standard or the ventilation standard that you were trying to get to in order to achieve that downstream, because it was a badge that was got 10 years ago when the building was built and nobody's really followed it up since. So you know, I'm always more of an advocate of the standards that have some element of ongoing maintenance of those, those badges, because it keeps keeps people honest the first first part but also means you're embedding some ongoing value, you know it should.

Chris: 1:01:16

It should totally be part of you know, again that that clean air strategy, that should be one part of it. So how are you going to? You know, in the communications promotion, celebrating part of it, how are you going to one, check it and and then and then get something out there around you know it's certified to this level, with whoever that is, because it's nice to have an independent certification around it. But then the ongoing, like you said, five, 10 years later, you know, is there a new certification? It should be going after. How's that ongoing monitoring being understood, used, utilized? So, absolutely, there needs to be a plan.

Chris: 1:01:51

It's not a, it's not a we've done the report, it's over. It's got to be an ongoing process really, which, again, is a bit of a shift change. But that's where the value is, isn't? It is about, you know, actually looking at that data and and being able to be flexible and adaptable really. But unfortunately, I think that we're not set up to operate that way. We work to a friday deadline, we give a report, we move on to our next project.

Chris: 1:02:14

Yeah, next piece of work really so again, it's sort of yeah, it's, it's, that's a difficult, difficult way to shift, isn't it?

Simon: 1:02:21

yeah, I mean. The advantage for me in there being so many is is most of them, if not all of them, are leaning on the same standards for their baselines, for their benchmarks, and, and if nothing else, what that does is it introduces a a common parlon or perspective to what good is it's, yeah, and it's a new language as well, isn't it a lot of it as well?

Chris: 1:02:46

so it's just getting people on board, but things will I mean things change, don't they? So the longer we keep talking about it, the more people get on board and, you know, newer faces come into organizations and groups and people are engaged with it. So there is a shift, change and, in the grand scheme of things, it's not been that long, in all fairness, to bring it forward. So, yeah, there's definitely, it's absolutely positives and we're moving in the right direction. It's just, I think it's a natural frustration, isn't it? When you just want to get there. You want to get there.

Simon: 1:03:19

We want to get to where we want to be and where we should be. But uh, that's not, that's not a bad thing. No, very true. Are you having to build up that expertise in all of these standards to be able to consult and deliver on them? So are you? You've got aps coming out the door when it comes to bream and well and lead and all of that. Are you delivering those services to clients? So they're saying, look, we're thinking of doing a well standard for this building. You then have a team of people that got expertise, or are aps in those areas and can support them we have, yeah, so so that that's one of the things that is part of the upskilling.

Chris: 1:03:51

It's not just understanding what we need to do, it's getting people with the right accreditations and training so that they can can deliver that. So we've got those in-house um, and that's something that you know is is really sort of strong on that on that side, that we're not just saying clients should be looking at pursuing these accreditations or standards. We can help them do that and actually walk them through the process because, cause it is such a, it is pretty complex. You know, breaking it down by discipline it's complex. But then when you consider the whole process, you know, just take him well, as an example, the air quality side is obviously complex, like all the different other technical pieces. But then when you add all these together and you talk about the process of achieving, well, that's a that needs that, that sort of ap, that person in place to help bring that forward really.

Simon: 1:04:38

So yeah, so yeah, must, must come on to team, must, come on to hawley more specifically, but it just maybe I think of another question then does hawley employ, uh, people at the industrial, hygienist, health and safety end of the scale? When we talk about mostly multidisciplinary outcomes in the built environment, you know, it seems to me that that's a massively underused sector of the built environment. The people that are trained to do risk assessments and understand health and well-being outcomes and, you know, do the chemical analysis of pollutants and all that kind of investigative part of the built environment. Is that? Is that something you've either found yourself creeping into, or that you've had to actually get people on board that have got those skills and expertise? Because that's a fascinating area of this, this field, for me. Is that that part of it?

Chris: 1:05:36

yeah, so I mean, historically we have lent on other sort of labs and people we can, we can use on that side. Yeah, as part of because hawley are part of tetra tech, so we're part of the high performance buildings group. Okay, as part of that tetra tech bigger, bigger network we have, we teams, industrial hygienist teams as well in labs. So to me that's a real sort of positive of that sort of growth is we're able to tap into these people that historically we didn't have and we had to speak to separate consultancies and we developed our relationships with these other consultancies that are great and we still speak with those people and use them sometimes and engage with them as well.

Chris: 1:06:19

But now we've got those capabilities in house. It's that that's, it's new and it's different, um, and I mean, I'm still just getting my head around all the potential around it, to be honest, but that that you're right, that's the exciting bit, because then you get to actually see the testing and what can be done and, um, we do a lot of monitoring. So we have the monitoring capability. We've always had monitoring, but in terms of going out and collecting samples, um, that might need some level of analysis.

Simon: 1:06:48

That's that's what we've not had really um and understanding how that risk translates in an occupational setting or something you know, that investigative end of the build. What's, richard Cause? I was talking about kind of the building epidemiology approach where you start actually, because this is, you know, we talk about multidisciplinary. In your sector we tend to think of HVAC and lighting and all the hard components of the built environment, but actually multidisciplinary in the context of building health is much, much broader than that. We're talking about human health and wellbeing and risk. It really is a very broad spectrum when we, when we consider multidisciplinary, when you introduce health into the mix in any description, yeah, yeah yeah, and that's great.

Chris: 1:07:44

I mean, that's something that we've just sort of not not focused on previously, beyond just sort of, you know, more design led and sort of monitoring side of things. But the the health and occupational side, that that's yeah. Yeah, definitely a newer area. But yeah, again, it's all seeing, the more you look into it, the more you know, the more you explore, you realize how big a piece this is and how interconnected everything is and you think, wow, I can kind of understand why it's not been taken forward as much as it should have been, given how big a piece it is and how technical it is. But again, I think being able to speak to these guys, I mean from a holy perspective, having these people, um, you know, in house now and being able to tap into their expertise, their experience, it is, this is fantastic and you know it's really, you know it's something that you can just see the opportunities sort of bubbling to the surface as part of it really.

Simon: 1:08:36

And how exciting If you're coming into the built environment as a start of your career and this is what I love about this podcast is signposting for people the potential for them in this world. Because if you're start, if you were starting again now and you were coming into the healthy building space, the number of directions you could go, the potential for personal growth and learning is just enormous. It would. For me, it would be so exciting to be in my 20s, you know, with the, with the qualifications and skills to be coming into this sector because the world is your oyster man now, like the potential for growth and exciting opportunities just abound I mean that you've hit the nail on the head there.

Chris: 1:09:26

I think it's to the point where and I I feel the big difference is with all those opportunities is that people can almost you can. You can make your bespoke job role. You know, you can come into it and say actually I quite like doing this and I quite like you know analyzing data, but I also like speaking to people and I like looking at health rather than just compliance.

Chris: 1:09:46

Okay, right, well, let's, let's form a niche, because that's what's needed, yeah yeah, yeah, and that's fantastic, that you can match people's passions and their interests and their strengths directly to the need for it, because there is the need for it and being able to do that I'll be honest, that's one of the big exciting bits of my role is being able to sort of identify and work with such, you know, great professionals in this field. Get to work with those in Hawley who are absolutely fantastic and obviously my team is exceptional but also, um, you know, the others that we interface with um across the board really, and seeing their passions shine through now that's that's the real kind of motivator um for me. But yeah, I can't imagine going back in time to uh to start again. That would be, that would be. It'd almost be overwhelming, there'd be too much to go at.

Simon: 1:10:34

But uh, but yeah, it's an exciting time to come into it really and the way the modern workplace is set up now for people to effectively create roles for themselves. It's much more aligned than it used to be. In that regard, it used to be much more siloed you're either mechanical engineer or you were something or something whereas now it is because of the multidisciplinary nature of the built environment and the way workplaces are set up for your career. I think it's much more proactive. In that sense, I think you really can sit down year on year with a good employer and slowly mold a role for yourself that that really exploits your passions, you know and your strengths people want that.

Chris: 1:11:21

People you know I think, to be blunt people will leave. You'll lose people if you don't actually work with them and deliver. You know and and look at what they can do, because you know people want to. People don't want to be put into a role from whenever it is 21, 23, when they finish their masters or bsc, whatever it is, until they're 60 plus kind of thing. It doesn't work like that anymore, so that they want a dynamic role that's interesting and engaging and isn't just pigeonholed as a. You are the mechanical engineer and that, that's that's you. Forevermore. They want to be maybe a mechanical engineer, but then also with a, you know 10, a sustainability, yeah, input, and five percent air quality, and you know that there are, it's a real mixture of people and that that's you know that that's a definite positive. I think how, how things have shifted a bit and workplaces are definitely much more flexible than they've ever been before. But again, you know we need to be flexible with that, don't we? With um, you know how, how we work. That's the, that's the thing.

Simon: 1:12:22

So what was your kind of journey to where you are, chris, as a head of air quality for a big consultancy firm? What was the kind of, what was your kind of journey through college and and experience to find yourself where you are now?

Chris: 1:12:40

so I mean I was. I suppose I've always had a passion around environmental um matters, environmental issues, topics, and you know I say environmental because that was probably before the term sustainability was really being used as part of it. So you'd go on the BBC News, you know, you'd look at, you know things out there there wouldn't be the word sustainability in the media. It would be if there was anything around climate change, which there was, but it would be classed on the environmental, whereas now there's a sustainability strand to that. So I've always been sort of passionate around that side. Really, environmental health and that sort of led me through to looking at how I can apply that as much as I can in the real world. And I suppose it led me through, based with developers, into the sort of consultancy world. You know I originally sort of started at a you know my master's focused more down environmental consultancy route which you know does what it says in the tin. Really it's a. It sort of brings you up on those sides of of the technical disciplines, pretty broad brush, but then also has a slant of how is it, how does it fit into the consultancy world? Um, and that that really sort of fed me straight into.

Chris: 1:13:55

You know I worked for for a developer and then moved into consultancy and I was covering a range of environmental disciplines noise, um, vibration, lighting and air quality, um, and also environmental management side, so auditing as well, which wasn't the most glamorous part but I enjoyed sort of the the assessment side of things, um, and I I also got a role in sustainability as part of that. It was environments and sustainability, so it was looking at you know um sort of carbon management plans for for that developer. And then moved forward in time to then moving into hawley as a sort of my consultancy role and I stepped across into sort of a focused acoustics role and the air quality role merged out of that really, because, um, it was apparent that you know, I was really sort of passionate around health as well and that side of things and sort of the human I suppose, how humans interact with, with their environments, and my interest in environmental issues and challenges kind of went into the building services, built environment sector and how I could do that. I thought, well, their quality seems to be the best, best way around that and it was to me it just seemed a an opening that it just wasn't touched on or focused on as much as it could be, like we said at the start.

Chris: 1:15:15

I think you know we spend so much time inside buildings. I was just amazed at how little um information was out there for, say, professionals who work in that space, so architects, mechanical engineers and I was seeing what they were wanting to do, that they were passionate about indoor spaces. Obviously they wanted to make them healthy beyond compliance, but they were kind of grappling with a technical discipline that was outside of their field of expertise and it just seemed a natural fit to say, well, let's grow an air quality offering at Hawley, and that's, that's what we did really brilliant.

Simon: 1:15:54

Do you still dabble in the dark art of acoustics?

Chris: 1:15:58

Chris, it's overtaken me now. So um no is the quick answer to that. I leave that to the uh, to the acousticians, because, um, yeah, that that's. That's certainly a discipline in its own right, isn't it a specialty in its own?

Simon: 1:16:11

right. So I I did the way I did the well ap thing just as much out of interest as anything else, because because I kept hearing about it and particularly the air quality thing was really fascinating to me. So so I did it. But yeah, boy did I struggle on the acoustic part.

Simon: 1:16:24

I mean it's, it's, it's all terms and language and concepts that I just actually I'm going to try and have jack harvey clark on um from apex acoustics, because he does a lot of. He does a lot of work around acoustics and ventilation and one of the reasons we find ventilation, ventilation, interfered with so much is acoustic problems. But we don't know how to. That's another subject we don't know how to talk about and frame for people like it. You know it's a, it's a, it's a discipline all in its own right, but but a lot of crossover, you know, in outcomes both on health but also on performance of systems and things, uh. So yeah, acoustics is a. I dabble every now and then, but I it scares the hell out of me. It always seems like a really dark art.

Chris: 1:17:10

Yeah yes, yeah, yeah. That just demonstrates, doesn't it, the holistic approach you need. You can't just deal with, you know, the issue of ventilation on its own. You need to have that holistic. You need the acoustician in the room, you need the air quality person in the room and everyone needs to be brought together. If you're actually going to get that healthy space, whatever that looks like, whatever level you're going for, you need all these people working together and talking to each other because everyone's different, every building is different, every space is different, refurb currently operational, one, whatever.

Chris: 1:17:42

So I mean that that just proves it, doesn't it?

Simon: 1:17:44

because it is, it's it's blimmin complex, yeah and we were joking about lighting at the beginning of the the conversation as well, and you know, increasingly we're learning lighting is an is another discipline that has a really profound impact on our performance and health and circadian rhythms and all of that like it's a. Really that's another burgeoning area of building science, it seems it's a massive one.

Chris: 1:18:07

Yeah, I mean, at hawley we're fortunate, we've got a great sort of lighting group as well and that deals with sort of daylight and lighting design and pieces like that. So that's a great thing to link in with. But again, when we're trying to bring forward um sort of healthy strategies in general, so moving it beyond just, I say just, it makes it sound small, doesn't it? But just the clean air strategy, um, on its on its own, if we say, well, actually do they want a healthy? Think about residential, do people want a healthy home? They need to have a healthy home strategy and that healthy home strategy covers acoustics, air quality, lighting and all these different parts that go into making a space healthy need to be considered together because they're technical on their own and difficult. But if you don't consider them together, then you're invariably going to lose and miss opportunities. There's risk there in just, you know, dealing with them in a siloed approach which I think again that's another area of opportunity is better, better linking in than holistic working yeah, no, I agree completely.

Simon: 1:19:07

Uh, for listeners that pick up any strange noises, my dog has managed to sneak into the podcast somehow. So if, uh, there's tippy tapping and panting in the background, I've got my dog over here as well, so she's in the background, which he's staying still at the yeah. No, he's looking at me as if I'm I'm supposed to be doing something for him. You've taken on a new role, or you're involved in the Institute of Air Quality Management as well, which is an organization that I'm involved in and you chair.

Chris: 1:19:37

Yeah, it's a real honor. It's a real honor to be chair of the Institute of Air Quality Management. For those who don't know, it's the professional body for air quality, um, for the air quality industry in the uk, but also we have an international uh membership as well. We have people across the world, um, really. But what our kind of mission is is being the sort of authoritative voice on air quality. That's what we'd like to to move to. Maintaining and enhancing and really sort of promoting the highest standards of air quality. Work is what we want to do. We sort of produce guidance, position statements, responses to consultations. We're really looking at trying to sort of champion what needs to be done in terms of making sure that the scientific rigor is maintained around the air quality world. You know which, everyone you know it should go without saying, shouldn't it right that people you know if you're making a claim about something, you want it to be be right and accurate. So that's what we're we're really passionate about it's making sure that our members are sufficiently supported around that in this rapidly changing world.

Chris: 1:20:44

And it's not to say the IEQM are a committee of people, just as the committee, who then tell the membership that that's how things work. We rely heavily on our membership. You know our membership is fantastic. We have, like yourself, some real people out there who are, you know, fantastic levels of experience and knowledge. That's something that we really want to tap into and that's something that, as part of drafting guidance documents, responding to consultations, having working groups to tackle off certain hot topics, we've got a climate change working group that's made up of some non-IEQM membership but also some committee members, then also other members of-IEQM membership, but also some committee members and also other members of IEQM.

Chris: 1:21:31

We want to make sure we use the best that we've got available to help really sort of move things forward in terms of, you know, the air quality world and what we're doing really, and being as visible as possible. A big part of that is, again, collaboration. It's identifying that actually the IEQM are not you know, just to say it out loud and not the only body out there talking about air quality um. So, again, big part of our drive is to is to collaborate with um, not just other professional bodies out there, like SIBC, as an example, but um, but beyond, really, in terms of you know, how do we link in with academia, how do we make sure we get the best um understanding around research fed back into the iqm and local authorities and government as well. How do we interface with them? Um, because what we don't want to do is just become a sort of a closed room of air quality professionals talking to each other about air quality and uh yeah, preaching to the choir in a way, yeah, nothing like a good echo chamber.

Chris: 1:22:29

Yeah well, we've been there in in various guises before. So we want to make sure that, um, you know, moving forward it's that that sort of transparent, open, collaborative approach. That's where we're stronger together really and that's I think we mentioned it a bit earlier about everyone sort of joining up and trying to be trying to move forward as a bit of a united front. That's a sort of for me that's a real push of the IEQM and that's sort of the strength of it it can act to help not make everyone IEQM that's not what the IEQM want to do but help to knit together perhaps, maybe act as a bit of the glue between various different people and interested parties who are talking about air quality and connect people up a bit more really um in terms of membership, um membership wise we're predominantly we've got a lot of um consultancies, um consultants who are members, obviously as part of any sort of professional body.

Chris: 1:23:24

There's a, there's a various tiers of sort sort of membership you can have and that's often sort of fed into people's appraisals as part of their work at consultancies. So it usually goes hand in hand. If you're a consultant, you tend to want to be a member of the relevant professional body, whether it's Institute of Acoustics or Institute of Airics or or institute of air quality management or whatnot. So inherently, we have quite a large base of we're about 800 strong um, so a relatively, you know, modest professional body in terms of numbers. The majority of that is um sort of private, uh aq consultancies. We also have a few local authorities who are, who are members as well.

Chris: 1:24:08

So sort of the government side, public sector, um, and then certainly a smaller fraction is sort of the academia academic side. We engage with sort of universities quite a lot really, particularly when we're putting on events and we get lots of speakers along. So that's an area that we're certainly looking, looking to grow really, which would be, which would be fantastic to get, get sort of uh, you know the various universities input into, into where we're moving to and what we can do really, because it's it's not a professional body that is for consultants, or you have to be, you have to work for a private company or private sector at all. It's it's not that it's a professional body for for air quality professionals, not air quality consultants.

Simon: 1:24:50

So so yeah, interesting, um, so I'll put a link in the podcast for people to find it. Um, because I think there's some good resources, and talking to resources, I mean the. The general air quality guide document that you've got on there is great. You know, if people want great a document to go in the library and a resource to dip in and out, of, you know both. In its description of pollutants, it's how you manage risk, how you deal with air quality in the built environment, strategies, like there's a lot in that document. That's a. It's a. It's a. Really it's a good resource thank you.

Chris: 1:25:28

It takes and you know this kind of doesn't really need to be said, but it takes a significant amount of time to pull together these, these guidance documents. So they they're given due care and attention and a lot of detail goes into them, um, and they do pull on the best people out there in the field. You know we do make the most of it. So we've got odor guidance, we've got construction dust guidance, we've got indoor air quality document, we've got planning guidance, land use guidance like that as well. So, again, being able to tap into people who are actually working in those fields just makes those guidance documents so much stronger as well. But we're always, you know, looking for new members, people who can join the ranks and able to sort of help promote and bang the drum of air quality. Really, and particularly with events.

Chris: 1:26:13

We have our annual sort of flagship conference which is called Roots to Clean Air. That's in October this year and this year it will be in Birmingham and that's a two-day event. We have speakers throughout the day, a variety of topics. Usually we class them around. Sort of key themes might be climate change last year and indoor air quality. So we have a few different themes between the days and a big, a huge part of it. The reason why it's a two-day conference, not not only because there's a lot to say, but also because there's a massive piece around networking and getting people together, because as an air quality profession, we don't really get in the room together a lot and you know it's a it's. We're a small, it's a small world, um. So again about sort of collaborating, joining forces, getting on the same page. It's really, really keen. There's a lot of new, new people come into the profession, so I think they really value seeing people that they've they've heard speak or present, and getting to meet people face to face is, you know, it's invaluable, isn't it?

Simon: 1:27:16

just as we're doing this podcast, indeed, yes, the idea, but just to make sure, you know just to reassure yourself you're not shouting into the void on your own the whole time that there's others out there doing the same if nothing, and it's encouraging to hear there's lots of new blood coming in as well to the industry.

Chris: 1:27:34

You know to keep, keep pushing people people are really passionate people are, you know, and it's again that that's the bit that kind of re-energizes and motivates and keeps us all going is the fact that people are coming in and they want to um not only be part of these events, to present, which is great, but also um help with events, because we're always keen to, you know, if there's a region or area where we've got members or we haven't got members, but people are passionate about holding an event.

Chris: 1:28:03

You know, we have different sizes of events forums, there's something we call air share events, where we have an evening with a couple two hours, usually in a sort of uh. Next one is in manchester it'll be two hours in an evening, where we have a drink and a slice of pizza and we have a bit of a, almost a bit of a seminar, a kind of discussion with a few local experts, and we have those kind of roam in the country as well. So we have everything from sort of big formal conferences, which aren't big and formal in any way but they're just, you know, have a bigger scale, through to more smaller, intimate events, and the key thing is is just, you know, trying to get as many people included as possible, making it as open as possible and, you know, making it as comfortable for people, because not everyone likes to ask a question at these big conferences where you get a mic, you know. So make sure we have events for people who might feel a bit more comfortable at a more intimate, intimate setting.

Simon: 1:28:51

Yeah, absolutely really interesting to hear that there's a lot of new people coming into the sector. There's definitely a new awareness, I think, of air quality. But I do get this sense, and talking to a lot of people, that it feels like there's another gear to be shifted into and we haven't quite got there. Obviously, something happened during the pandemic, there was a shift in awareness, but I get this sense of nervousness a little bit in the industry that we now need to engage the next gear and really kick it on um, and I was wondering what your thoughts were on that, on on what next looks like really for this sector, what, what does that next gear look like? And and and how that translates to organizations like yourself and the kind of conversations you're having I think.

Chris: 1:29:45

I think the next gear is a perfect, perfect way of putting it, and that's what. What I'd say is where, where, where things are leading to really, as part of that moving, moving things up into this next tier of conversation. So the whole, it's not even a technical conversation. Being able to convey a very, very technical topic, um discipline, to people who, frankly, aren't interested in the technical bit of it, they don't care about the parts per million, per billion, whatever. How we convey that to them is going to be the key piece what information we are conveying to them in the first place, not just how, but what information we are conveying to them, because, again, they don't want to hear that technical piece. They're on board already, I think, with the whole. If I breathe pollution, it's bad for me. The next piece is so what can be done in terms of the buildings that we have already, the new buildings that are coming online, what can be done there? And, even more to that, the evidence base around, why should it be done? So I'm not talking about the health impacts around it. Yeah, it should be done from an ethical perspective, from a bettering people's health, but I suppose the business case, to be frank, because that that's what, that's what is dry, that's what drives these conversations and an actual adoption and the real change I'd say, even beyond know the business case would help the legislation case. So it's easy to say, well, why don't we just have some legislation that will answer it? That legislation has to be grounded with some level of cost benefit, business case, real world analysis. There's pieces that have been done, but I think it just needs to all be brought together and, whether or not, before there's any legislation, there needs to be some level of you know, people, either tier one or wherever, doing it themselves already and just saying, well, actually there's no legislation here, but we know that there's these benefits and being able to speak like that.

Chris: 1:31:45

I think a big part is this new generation that's coming along of people who are really passionate about health. They're moving, gravitating naturally towards their quality. They're usually bought into sustainability as well, but that doesn't mean that they're siloed on just environmental matters, that they're also interested in health matters as well. I think how we support them and what we arm them with effectively is pretty key. So I think there's a lot of to move things up. We need to, I suppose, come together, collaborate. How we do that is going to be a challenge because I think we need to all join forces a lot more. I suppose a bit more realistic approach between all the different bodies. Iqm could play a key role in that um, but I definitely see a positive shift. It's not all sort of doom and gloom and a lot of work to do. People are receptive to it now more so than they ever were before. We have great people coming through in terms of really passionate, interested, engaged that want to do something.

Simon: 1:32:54

I think the challenge is just bringing that all together and making sure we were able to deliver the change, really yeah, and somehow translate that academic business case, because it seems to me that the business case it seems a little academic at the minute that we're trying to describe value in a way and mostly that's still embedded in papers and articles, and we need to get better and build use cases and business cases out in the field as to why this stuff matters and the impact that it actually has, so that you're not trying to convince people of the theoretical benefit the whole time, that you can really point to a bottom line ROI impact that's demonstrable and measurable and that they can ask somebody else down the street that did something similar and go oh yeah, that was transformative for us. It impacted our bottom line by seven percent last year by doing this and that. That that's the gap for me at the moment. I think that's the bit that we're not quite there yet. Is that the kind of thing you're thinking of in more and more and more is that?

Chris: 1:34:05

how do we do? Yeah, that's the piece. So that's the piece we have been working on for some time and we've got information around that with individual clients and people we work with on a sort of either building by building basis or a case study by case study basis. But I think having it as a much more, you know, stepping outside of, you know, a firm's approach, having it as an industry-wide information that's out there, that would be the big step and I think that would be a massive shift change. You know the ESG side of things would help is moving us towards that.

Chris: 1:34:43

So, environmental side, we've got the carbon pretty nailed down almost to a degree.

Chris: 1:34:48

You know I'm not saying it's been answered, but the understanding around that has is, is, is, is there a lot in the industry?

Chris: 1:34:55

I suppose that the human health the s part of that esg is the bit that we need to to work on next, really, and I think that should help propel us as air quality professionals again, when they're talking about quantifying, you know, the return of any kind of investment and that side of things do we need to admit as an industry we're air quality people and we're not financial. Um, uh, you know business experts on that side and business, you know, is this something where, as an industry, we need to come together a bit more and and draw in expertise that sits outside of the air quality realm to help us build that case. Um, again, I think it's a bigger. It's a bigger piece than just you know how can we solve this as air quality professionals. We need to come together and be armed with it, but we need that what feels like a small piece that would make a massive difference really and unlock a big shift, change in in people's health. You know we could, it could make a massive, massive change to people.

Simon: 1:35:53

So I think it's something that you know should be an imperative really of us as an industry to work towards and I, and I think if you look towards the journey that uh sustainability has had to go on, there's probably some lessons there for us that we can see what's likely to come down the track. You know, to make it analogous in air quality, we're kind of at the point that sustainability was five or six years ago where people are starting to produce position statements. Do you remember those kind of vanilla sustainability reports that started coming out of all sorts of organizations, um, about our hopes to do this and our wishes to do that and so on, and what? What esg has really forced and particularly the non-financial reporting directive elements of all this stuff is they've increasingly had to evidence that that you know. To access green, the green, yeah. Green wash, yeah.

Simon: 1:36:51

To access green finance, it's not good enough anymore to have a sustainability report every year. You actually have to have the data to back it up, otherwise those conversations get harder and harder when you're trying to access the money, um. So I'm guessing that the air quality, that the s in esg, the social impact side of stuff, which which will be improved as the, the social taxonomy gets more refined, and all of that kind of stuff we have to be prepared for downstream, the impacts of that will be it's no good saying that you've got a well standard anymore and saying that you've got an air quality strategy. You're going to have to start backing that up with hard data and numbers, because we need evidence, because we're backing and financing real estate where we understand in 10, 20, 30 years time, the value of this asset is going to be judged on its ongoing performance, the same as it has to with energy.

Chris: 1:37:49

You know and we need to exactly and we need to make sure, you know, as a, as a, I can say, industry, but you know, as air quality professionals, we need to be ready for that. You know, if we know that's where things are moving to and they need to move towards that, I think we can't just be sort of reactive when it does happen. I think one we need to be leading it towards that. I think we can't just be sort of reactive when it does happen. I think one we need to be leading it towards that. First of all, not being led, but actually also making sure we're upskilling the various people who aren't receptive to that because they've possibly been taking a traditional approach for a certain amount of time, to say well, actually things will be changing, things are changing. We're going to have to future-proof effectively, otherwise we run the risk of not being in a position that we can actually support the rest of the you know, the rest of the interested people who are out there when that interest does come, because it started to come already.

Chris: 1:38:40

I think when that does happen, when that sort of you know, that light bulb moment for a lot of others, we need to be ready, otherwise we're going to gain. Otherwise, we're going to gain. We're going to be um, yeah, we need to be in the best position to help, I think, because otherwise it's a massive opportunity lost, isn't it? In terms of bettering people's health and delivering that utopian future of clean air which we all want to drive to yeah, absolutely, chris.

Simon: 1:39:02

Thanks so much for your time today. It's been brilliant talking to you. I knew it was going to be a great conversation. We got started and didn't blink for an hour and 15 minutes, I don't think, and we got going. So, look, it's been invaluable, I think. A really interesting insight. I'll certainly share the links to Hawley and the Institute of Indoor Air Quality Management. There's some great work going on there. Thanks a million for your time.

Chris: 1:39:28

Really good. Great work going on there. Um, thanks a million for your time. Really good to talk to you. Thanks, simon.