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We interview sustainability leaders across industries to learn what they are working on and how they are steering their companies toward a climate-friendly world.
Voiceover - 00:00:08:
Welcome to Open Source Sustainability. On this show, Alex Lassiter CEO of GreenPlaces, talks with sustainability leaders to learn how companies are adapting their business models to be in line with sustainability goals. We believe sustainability has to be open source to be successful, and these leaders have offered us a glimpse inside their strategies in the hopes that we can all move forward together. We are fascinated by some of the unique challenges these sustainability leaders face and are excited to dive deeper. In this episode, Alex is talking with Andrew Riz Rizkallah, the head of ESG delivery at MorganFranklin, a CFO advisory firm under Vaco, a leading $2 billion staffing company. Riz brings a wealth of experience from his early days in sustainability at Walmart to his current role, where he helps businesses navigate the complex world of ESG reporting and compliance. They delve into what ESG delivery entails, why it's crucial for companies, and how MorganFranklin helps clients to cross various stages of ESG maturity. They also explore the challenges businesses face, the increasing demands for ESG transparency, and how companies can strategically position themselves in this evolving landscape.
Alex - 00:01:20:
Okay. All right. Riz, welcome to the Open Source Sustainability Podcast. I'm very excited to have you. For those listening, I'm sitting here with Riz, head of the ESG delivery service at MorganFranklin, which is a CFO advisory company and a subsidiary of Vaco, a $2 billion staffing company that helps businesses all over solve all kinds of needs. But today we're going to talk about ESG and sustainability. So welcome, Riz.
Riz - 00:01:47:
Thanks Alex, really happy to be here.
Alex - 00:01:49:
I guess to kind of start off with, I think the obvious question is, tell us a little bit about your background and why does a company like MorganFranklin engage in ESG? How are you helping clients? What are you seeing? So maybe kind of start us from the beginning of what is ESG delivery? Why is it important to MorganFranklin, and a little bit about yourself.
Riz - 00:02:10:
Yeah, sure thing. Well, I think, you know, I started about 10 years ago in a supply chain with Walmart and did a little bit of sustainability work there. My first taste was around installing hydrogen fuel cell forklift trucks in warehouses. And, you know, fast forward, did my MBA, got into sustainable operations. Circular economy and a whole host of things. Ended up at MorganFranklin. And when I joined the firm, It was 2020 and it was about that time where the Office of the CFO, accountants, internal audit, people were starting getting questions about the reliability and the accuracy of data that was being published in corporate sustainability reports. And then the term ESG kind of caught fire, I think, in that same time frame. CSR kind of morphed into ESG and it has to be three letters, right?
Alex - 00:03:04:
It's got to be an acronym.
Riz - 00:03:05:
It's all sustainability. We had a lot of clients where we were helping them with stocks compliance, we were helping them with government contractor compliance, and questions started arising around, what about climate risk? What about emissions? Um... And we have all these different levels of maturity of companies, right? Some of them are, hey, they've been publishing reports. Others, you know, are looking around and thinking, should we be publishing a report? Everyone's publishing reports. And then there's others who are like, this is not on our radar things to do right now. We need to install a new ERP. Right, that's the high priority thing. So I think just through conversation with clients and understanding our positioning at MorganFranklin where we are kind of a trusted advisor for. The office of the CFO, the office of the CIO, kind of, where technology and finance and accounting meet at that intersection. It became necessary for us to have an offering around ESG and sustainability. And so, here we are three years later, you know, we've had a number of client engagements and I think that the foot is on the accelerator for the near future.
Alex - 00:04:16:
So you've got a background in sourcing and vendor management. And you said you predominantly work in the finance side. So why is sustainability a financial concern? Why is this in the office of the finance department in the first place?
Riz - 00:04:30:
That's a really good question. I think, again, it somewhat depends on the level of maturity of the organization. So I think when you look at these Fortune 1000 companies, there's a chief sustainability officer, or there's a sustainability department, or there's somebody who's tasked with owning and being responsible for collection of and reporting of this data. A lot of middle market firms and a lot of smaller companies, they don't have resources for those departments. So it ends up falling on the operations folks or the finance folks who are traditionally responsible for health of the business, state of the business reporting to investors and other stakeholders, to then build and report a position on sustainability and ESG. So I think it's just kind of a, they caught the ball.
Alex - 00:05:16:
It's a tough ball to catch because it's a complicated subject. So a ton of empathy for that. And you're right. That's what we see as well. Like there's a big difference between the Fortune 500. And everybody else to be able to staff up and to have an ESG department and a sustainability team to do this really well is expensive and it's hard and moving this over into a finance role makes a ton of sense from that capacity. Now, I'm curious, coming up through the Walmart world, particularly on vendor management and sourcing. You know, is that where the pressure is coming from when these, you know, finance leaders or for middle market companies trying to figure out how to meet, you know, compliance demands around sustainability? Who are they? Who are whose whose demands are they meeting? Is it customers, investors, regulators? Where's it coming from?
Riz - 00:06:02:
I think of it in three tiers. So there's companies that are chasing higher returns, and they're investing in sustainability because it's a strategic imperative for them to do so. They're chasing segments of customers that really have an internal desire to live their lives sustainably. These companies are looking to differentiate from their competitors. They're looking to innovate new products. They're also looking to, again, maybe increase their brand reputation and attract those customers. Then there's firms that are worried about their reputation. They don't want to be on the leading edge, but they don't necessarily want to fall behind. They're looking to attract investors and talent, adapting to market trends, and then maintaining effective relationships with their customers. And then kind of the last tier is just businesses who are thinking about this from a risk point of view, right? So, again, all my competitors are doing this. I don't want to be left behind. But also, compliance-wise, I don't want to open myself to fines or legal action or bad press. And so I'm going to go ahead and invest some capital in putting together a department or a program to track and report some, I would say, the bare minimum material ESG topics.
Alex - 00:07:23:
Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of people, I think, when we first kind of bring up the subject. What comes to mind is... Sustainably branded businesses. So you hear, well, you know, I understand why a Patagonia might or an outdoor company might, you know, and obviously they do as well. But what I'm hearing is it's not those types of businesses that are trying to figure out how to do this. They're not trying to be the first mover. They're not trying to be the leader in the category. They're trying to make sure that they're, you know, competitive in the pack. They're meeting those kind of those generalized expectations. What sorts of businesses do you see asking and needing ESG help?
Riz - 00:08:05:
I think right now, because to your point, the firms that are kind of on that leading edge, and it's kind of paradoxical, but like oil and gas, energy, the companies that you would think of as like, quote unquote, dirty, have been tracking this data and their emissions for a long time because they had to, and because it's directly tied to the bottom line, their profit margin. The companies that I think have been lagging and are now starting to realize they need to do this are the communications, software, professional services, healthcare, you know, industries where this was not a primary concern and it wasn't a direct connection to revenue or cost drivers, but has become, because of those, you know, reputation and risk areas, has become something where they need to take action.
Alex - 00:08:54:
Yeah, we've been tracking some data just around the growth of vendor risk assessments. And how this is just becoming more and more and more commonplace, particularly around the enterprise. So these B2B segments are having to answer questions from cybersecurity to diversity, governance, ESG, sustainability, carbon footprints. Is this a continuation of that or is this something like completely new?
Riz - 00:09:19:
I think that's exactly it. You look at a professional services company who's bidding on work, right? In the RFP process now, there's all these questions about your diversity and inclusion initiatives, your cybersecurity, your governance positioning, your climate emissions has become a constant, as well as other energy, water, waste, etc., the three Ws there. It's a growing and not going away. Problem for businesses and there's only so many of those RFPs you can answer negatively before, you stop getting asked to bid or you get filtered out at the very beginning. So it's so important at this point to take stock and to really get started, right? It's kind of the... The conversation we have with so many smaller clients or clients that are high growth, you know, IPO track. MorganFranklin has an IPO readiness kind of assessment and methodology that we'll do for companies that's fully focused on the regulatory environment. And, you know, the SEC proposal and the California laws that have passed last year. And the defense contractor requirements that are coming into force. There's just so many, youo know different regulations to pay attention to and that's just in the US, um, don't get started on the EU, right? Or any other country that you might want to do business in. I think we're at the point where If you were in the minority or lagging behind in doing this work. The time is now.
Alex - 00:11:01:
Yeah, I think a lot about how I was never a really great athlete, but the one thing that I always did think about was you just never want to lose on the technicality. If you can prevent, to some extent, being in the deal, you can win. It's okay sometimes to lose because you're not the right partner, because your service didn't meet the right expectation, or even maybe your pricing was off. But, not being able to participate in the RFP because you didn't meet the compliance rules is just the worst way to lose. You know, it just, you didn't even get a chance. Even if you're the right one, you never got the at-bat. And I think that's just so hard for businesses. And a lot of times. The aha moment for us is when we talk to somebody and that happens to them. And they say, you know what? We didn't even get the bid this year. Or we got pushed out because of this, not because of our value. And I think that's waking people up to start doing it.
Riz - 00:11:54:
Yeah, I mean, I had a client engagement last year. And a significant customer worth 10 plus percent of their revenue had put the mandate out to all of its vendors. We need you to submit your emissions and climate. You basically submit to the CDP climate change questionnaire. And obviously, okay, if that's the outcome. What are the inputs to get there, right? I mean, there's 150 questions. And some of it is governance and strategy and risk. Others are metrics, energy usage, emissions, right? So to get to submitting the climate change questionnaire, there's three, four months of work, too. To assess your greenhouse gas footprint, to kind of engage with the executives to determine how we're gonna respond to these kind of strategic questions. How are we gonna, you know determine what our risk is in certain geographies where we operate. And, you know, when I was, I can still remember having this conversation with the, um, the chief people officer. And the chief, like the general counsel at this company and saying, There's a whole project here that we need to undergo. It isn't just, fill out the questionnaire, right? And I think, in some ways, it's great that, I was able to educate them. Now they understand. But that education, there was no motivation for that until, their large customer came and said, I need you to do this. And so I think we're going to see so much of that.
Alex - 00:13:30:
Yeah, and I mean, I think that's the impetus for a lot of growing businesses. You know, if you have the luxury of being, you know, an absolutely enormous global company or large cap stock. One of the advantages of that is you get to have all of these ancillary departments to kind of solve for this stuff. But when you're in that kind of middle market phase, you really do live and die by deal flow. And if you're not making your numbers and you're not able to keep that up, it can really hurt. And so we always feel like if this is between you and revenue, the deal gets made. And I can't blame people for that because, that's how you have to build a lean business today. You have to be thinking about what's most important. And sometimes it changes as quickly as somebody, you know, bringing it to you. Um, How, uh... How often does this happen? I mean, obviously you do the ESG delivery. So this has been a solution for MorganFranklin for a bit. Are you seeing this like... I don't know, like... Once or twice a month. You know, clients asking you for this? Is this a, we've got 20 or 30 or 40 minutes. Can you give us a sense of the volume? Of businesses that are facing this concern today.
Riz - 00:14:46:
I would say we get inquiries from contacts at current clients weekly.
Alex - 00:14:53:
Wow.
Riz - 00:14:54:
How often that turns into like a full-blown project.
Alex - 00:14:57:
Sure.
Riz - 00:14:58:
You know, there's a hit rate there that's probably 10, 20%, but that's consulting. And I think, so yeah, you give out a lot of free advice to then get to where you get paid for your advice. But I think, we see this service as really an add-on to a lot of the core delivery. At MorganFranklin. So I mentioned earlier we have an IPO readiness kind of service. Offering. We also do a lot of private equity, kind of, we'll do the diligence upfront. We'll assist in kind of execution of carve outs or acquisition integration. Where we'll actually kind of lead and do the integration management or actually PMO the car about. And in all those cases, right, these questions kind of come up where, you know, if it's a new co standing on its own. Who's going to own? You know. Supplier kind of code of conduct. Who's going to own? You know, cybersecurity, who's going to own? Emissions measurement, if that's something they thought about. And we always prompt it, right?
Alex - 00:15:58:
Yeah.
Riz - 00:16:00:
Hey, if you haven't thought about this. This is something you should consider going forward. And so then it becomes, maybe there's now. Now we engage Vaco, right, which is a large staffing organization. It's a parent company in Morgan Franklin. We say, hey, can you help us go find somebody that has a skill set, right, through the Rolodex of candidates and talent that you have access to? Um And then we do a lot of work with technology implementations. So Morgan Franklin does ERP implementations, NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, et cetera. And again, as part of those implementations, oftentimes, you know, there's questions, well, where are we going to house this data, right? Can we track water usage? We can track energy through utility bills, sure. But how do we get to emissions? You need some translator step there. And so engaging with software partners like GreenPlaces, you know, in some cases to help those customers understand what their options are is how we try to help.
Alex - 00:17:01:
Yeah, I think a lot of times when we work with partners, we always think about the best partnerships are ones where you both need each other. And ultimately, what green places offer is taking all of this. Data, you know, that businesses have, but have never kind of like seen in one place and getting it organized and clean so that a business can see insights. They can see what their footprint is, where their easy opportunities to improve are, but it's a perfect opportunity. I think then for somebody in a MorganFranklin to be able to say, hey, now that we've seen this, let us show you all the things that you can do to make this better, but you can't improve anything until you have that visibility, you know, but having that, I think really empowers these leaders to make truly just smarter decisions. I think that's what I always get to is it's not about branding. It's just about running your business better.
Riz - 00:17:51:
Well, and you run into problems where companies have gotten over their skis, you know, excuse the Colorado term, but they're marketing what they're doing and they haven't measured it yet. I can't tell you how many reports I've read where, hey, we purchased, you know, renewable energy. Why? You know? You don't know your energy footprint. You know, in aggregate. So what are you doing? You know, buying power, um, is it, it's literally just for the press release. And I think that we're going to see less of that going forward. At least I hope so, because that's the wrong
Alex - 00:18:27:
way to do it. Yeah, we hear a lot of... I set a net zero pledge and I was like, great. So like, how's it going? And it's like, well, well, no, we set the pledge and you're like, okay, but did you measure, I mean, do you know, you have any idea where you're headed? Like, do you know what you signed up for this stuff is coming? Like this is the, the wheels are, have been in motion for months. You've got to get moving on some of this stuff so that you're ready to do it. But it's, it's a confusing market. It's, it's, it's hard. And you know, I think like a lot of things, I empathize with business leaders because the amount that you have to know today to, to, to run a finance department. So much more.
Riz - 00:19:04:
It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. And, and again, I think it's, it was a tough ball to catch, like you said, because somebody was like, oh, you guys know how to do numbers, like do the numbers, but emissions and dollars are like. Pretty different.
Alex - 00:19:18:
Yeah.
Riz - 00:19:19:
That's kind of not fair.
Alex - 00:19:23:
I was talking to a late stage investor who does kind of buyouts. And they said, you know, something that. Something that most people don't know that we do is if we talk to an executive or a CFO that doesn't do this. It's not even as much of like, them caring or not. They just said, it just makes me think this person's not aware of the responsibilities of a CFO at a bigger company. And it makes us nervous that this is going to be a harder deal to sell or to integrate. You know, or to partner with because. This person has missed the mark on what they need to be ready for. And that I assume, in your world, the coaching of that, of helping people see as you grow and you get bigger. What do you need to have your visibility on to be able to make smarter and more educated investment decisions and financial? You know, strategy controls.
Riz - 00:20:21:
100%. Yeah, I mean, I think, and for a CFO, if you look at the span of control, right, it's, okay, you got finance, now you've got- non-finance or ESG And within that, there is definition of what are the topics that even matter to my business, right? And that is a little bit based on what industry you're in. What do the regulators care about? And then what are your specific customers or internal stakeholders care about? And then you've got, okay, I know what I'm supposed to be tracking and reporting on. Now I have internal controls to actually track and report that, or at least I have to build that, sometimes from scratch. Um, and then you have to get the external reporting completed. And again, that, I mean, if you're used to the 10K, 10Q kind of cycle, great. But Sustainability Reports it's kind of a different animal. You know, it's a little bit of marketing, a little bit investor relations, a little bit of data. And again, I think for 15 years, it was a lot of marketing. Now it's going to be, you know. A little marketing on top, but the data has to be sound, has to be accurate, has to align with the other statements that you're putting out into the world. And so to have controls internally to check on all those things. That's where we're having engagements with larger clients because they're internal audit departments now. They've perked up. They're like, wait a minute, if you're publishing something, you're saying you've got revenue, you've got all these different things in your report. That has to align, right? And so you see big companies like Workiva you know, plowing money into this, right? Because They're helping companies do financial reporting. Non-financial reporting is a new and growing industry for them, and they want to lead. So I think it's really interesting. Watching that happen and then having those conversations with those internal audit leaders who again might not be educated on. What this data is, how does it come about, what those calculations are, right? And then who are the assurance providers? Because they could be different from your traditional big four audit firms.
Alex - 00:22:34:
If you're a CFO or a VP of finance right now listening to this, my question would be, at what point... At what size do I need to be thinking about this? Like, if I haven't seen it already, you know. When do I need to start? Is this, I've got 200 employees, I've got 100 employees, I've got... 10,000 employees? Like, where does this begin? And if you're talking to a finance leader to say, this is the time you really need to start thinking about it, like at what size today do you think? This starts to really kick in.
Riz - 00:23:10:
That's a really good question. I hate to use the it depends answer, but... It's very much a function of... What industry are you in? And is it core to your business, right? So... You could be a startup, 10 employees. But if your business is, you know, there's a company that I'm aware of here in the Denver area that, they take the flared gas. And they're using that as an energy source to then provide cloud computing for companies. It's like a really niche thing, but their whole business is inherently sustainable because they're reducing emissions that would have been wasted and kind of capturing that. So for them, it was like day one. Right? Even though they had 10 employees. Um, but then for other companies who are getting know very large but maybe in one of those industries I mentioned like communications, healthcare, education, professional services. I think the S and the G part are very important early on because customers care about that. But climate, emissions, energy, water, waste, tracking those environmental factors, is something that really won't happen until either the founder really cared about it. Right. And it's a passion project for them or. Again, big customer. Or a regulator is demanding it. So you could get... 100 million revenue, 200 million revenue, and not put any thought into it. If you've got a few customers who haven't put any thought into it. But I think there's a huge risk there, and it just gets bigger and bigger.
Alex - 00:24:57:
Do you think it's one of these things where if you're a B2B business and you sell... And you sell to the enterprise. You sell to the Fortune 1000. These are the people that need to do it. Is that right? Is it sort of like, if you're selling to the big companies, you should absolutely expect, if you have it now, you will, and it'll keep coming.
Riz - 00:25:19:
100% agree. Yeah. And add to that, if you have international customers. Right. If you have even one customer outside the U.S. It's time to start. Right, because the UK, Canada, the EU, these are all places where. You're just, you're, I don't know, you're dead man walking if you don't do this work.
Alex - 00:25:43:
Wow. Yeah, it reminds me of the early days of GDPR. SOC 2 compliance and all of the cybersecurity of like, you know, we'd walk around, you know, my last software company. Well, if we don't have European exposure, we're not the ones at risk. You know, no one's trying to get into what we have. We're not big enough. And then I fast forward to now GreenPlaces was SOC 2 compliant. It really started that process like two weeks after we began the business because everyone asks us, like everybody, they expect it. And what we're trying to do is to make sure that we can compete. And if we don't, we can't. Because it's not about our risk, it's about their risk.
Riz - 00:26:25:
I totally agree. I think the California laws that passed last year around emissions and risk and supply chain visibility and all these things, right? Are you going to not do business in California? I mean, there's a way to do that in the short term, but there's no way to do that in the long term, right? California has a long history of kind of leading the nation with like air regulations. And you know, that the car companies are constantly fighting with the state of California. And I feel like, but they have, I think it's like by 2030, they're not going to allow sales of... Internal combustion engine cars anymore, maybe 2035 i can't remember but that that's going to change the entire framework of society realistically.
Alex - 00:27:09:
They, I mean that, that, that is exactly kind of what happened with the GDPR and Personal Identifiable Information. You know everybody in the US, said maybe we won't deal with it. Because we're not worried about Europe, unless we are a business that works there and California came out with their version, you can't afford California. I mean, you could, but you'll be out of business. So it's just something that kind of drags everybody in and makes this a reality. What's something that you see? What's something that you think, we'll call it a trend in the next like three to five years that you think most people would be surprised about?
Riz - 00:27:47:
Well, I mentioned EVs there for a second, and I do think there was all this news about, you know, every car company is investing in electric vehicles. I think the uptake on that is gonna be a little slower than we all want it to be, because range anxiety is a very real thing for people, and because the cars are so expensive. So I see a lot of like Rivians and Teslas here in Denver, but there's still, there's... The infrastructure around gas stations is immense. There's so many of them. And to get to that level with chargers, it's gonna take 10 plus years. And that's with massive investment. So I think before everyone has an EV, a lot of people will have hybrids, which is kind of that baby step. But it's paradoxical because the... The hybrids are kind of the worst of both worlds, right? They're less efficient on the highway, and they're not as efficient in the city as an EV. So, you know, the typical two-car family should probably have... You know their gas vehicle for long haul and their EV for city and I just don't know how many people and families are going to get to that point in the next couple years. So I think it's going to take a long time.
Alex - 00:29:05:
It makes a lot of sense.
Riz - 00:29:06:
Ten years, probably.
Alex - 00:29:08:
So we've talked a lot about why this is becoming a concern for finance executives and businesses of different sizes. But you talked a little bit about where people begin. But what does the beginning look like when someone says, I've got this. I'm sure it depends. But in general, I have this need or I want to get started or I'm afraid to begin maybe. I'm reluctant to do it. What's the advice that you tell them? Is this. Sorry, you got to just, we got to overhaul it? Or like, are there ways to step into this that businesses can accomplish, you know, over the course of the next six to nine months to prepare themselves?
Riz - 00:29:48:
We usually start with... Call it like a strategic assessment or materiality assessment is really that's the first body of work that will sell and and kind of execute on behalf of a client and it's really just setting the strategy, the vision, the goals for the near future. And establishing governance around the topics at the firm. And governance means, okay, reporting to the board of directors, who's going to own it, who's accountable. What executive? What are the roles of the... Team that's going to be on the committee that's preparing that reporting. And then, where does that information come from in the organization. So it's a lot of back office, kind of just blocking and tackling, that we'll help executives think through. And then we'll help them figure out, do they have the right people to do that? Or is it a situation where they need to hire? Or is it a situation where they need to outsource? Or can we kind of play a temporary role on their behalf until they can find the right person? Some mixture of those things. And then we'll help them set up kind of their first materiality assessment, which is to say of the landscape of. Environmental, social, governance items you could feasibly care about, which is huge. What should you pay attention to? And then of those things, Do you have the capability to measure it today? Or do you need to invest to get to that capability in the future? And those investments then become, you know, budget outlays for the future, whether that's, you know, current year or next year. So a lot of this is around, you know. Budgeting, conversations, right? We don't have money for an emissions software. Measurement platform this year. But we will go ahead and allocate for next year so that we can do that, you know, and then CIO, CFO shake hands and say, yeah, we're going to do this. So that's kind of, and again, as a consultant, you're like trying to broker all these conversations without wading into the politics, at least not too deep.
Alex - 00:31:47:
Yeah, well, I think that makes sense, though, and that's not a scary. As I think, I think many folks that we talked to, I think would sort of assume it would be, you know, sit down, have a conversation. Lay out what's the risk. What do we need to focus on? We don't need to cover everything, but let's focus on these areas and how we're going to do it in the future. That seems like. To me, that seems like an absolute no-brainer to kind of at least begin so that you know, as opposed to waiting and being reactive about what hits you in the next RFP that you weren't thinking about.
Riz - 00:32:15:
Establish a defensible position. That's it, right? And you might get killed in the press for something later, but... You've got to have a place where... It can't be no answer. You have to have an answer and accept that it's not going to be a good or a great answer, but it's an answer. And the thing about materiality assessments is, companies should be doing these every two, three years. I mean, realistically. You don't always have to use consultants for it, but we'd like that if you did. But I think if a company's large enough they've got their own sustainability team, they can do it internally. But you've got to keep your pulse on. You've got to keep your fingers on the pulse of your investors, the executive team. You're going to have turnover in the executives. You're going to have new initiatives, strategic initiatives, growth initiatives, things that are going to happen, new partnerships, joint ventures. And so in that swirl, the topics that you should be tracking and measuring can change, with one exception, which is climate risk and emissions. Those are the universally material topics per the International Sustainability Standards Board. And so, You gotta report it and you gotta track it.
Alex - 00:33:36:
That makes sense. Well, if somebody wants to get in touch with you or MorganFranklin or Vaco, what's the best place for them to do that?
Riz - 00:33:45:
Sure, yeah, you can email me directly at andrew.rizkallah@morganfranklin.com. We also have an ESG page on the website, and we're pretty responsive there. And then you can find us on LinkedIn as well. But yeah, we're happy to help.
Alex - 00:33:59:
Fantastic. Well, Riz, thank you so much for joining today. Sincerely appreciate the conversation. Um, I appreciate you taking the time. I'm sure you're very busy with everything going on, but sincerely appreciate you joining and, and best of luck in the coming year and looking forward to talking again.
Riz - 00:34:15:
Thanks so much, Alex. I appreciate it. Let's do it again soon.
Voiceover - 00:34:18:
Thank you, Riz, for joining us and thank you for listening. If you like this show, be sure to leave a review and follow this podcast wherever you like to listen so you don't miss an episode. This podcast is powered by GreenPlaces. If you are looking to reduce your company's environmental impact and reach your sustainability goals, visit greenplaces.com to learn more. We'll talk with you next time on Open Source Sustainability.