Leading to Impact Ep. 1 - Will Gardiner

Thank you, Bastian, and it's great to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to share my story and a little bit more about Drax. I'm American, as you probably can tell. I've been living in London for about 23 years. I came here with my wife and then six-month-old son and now have three kids who have all grown up much more English than I am, so I really enjoy London and have had a great time here. I've had a pretty varied career. I've been involved in finance and technology companies and joined Drax about six years ago. And I joined Drax actually I went to the Paris COP just before joining Drax, really because I wanted to get involved more in climate change, and Drax has a really interesting story about how it transformed from coal to biomass, so I thought it would be a fascinating company to be involved with because they were really both pioneering, doing things that other people had never done before, but also in a quite challenging position because they were a single site power station that was really a whole company, so fundamentally it had real challenges to overcome.

Well, I'll tell you sort of two things. One, I would say in a general sense, I've been involved in lots of different industries before. So for example, I was in with a company that made Bluetooth chips for iPhones or Bluetooth chips for cars, etc. It was a fascinating business and we had great products, but when you get up in the morning if you're having a difficult day, you can't really say I'm making a real difference in the world. Nothing wrong with Bluetooth chips, but not really fundamentally making a difference, right? So I really wanted a job where I could actually make a real difference. So not only was my job as a CEO of Drax to actually deliver returns for shareholders, do the right thing for employees, stakeholders, but actually you could make a real difference in climate change. You ask why I'm interested in climate change or why I was committed to that. I mean, I probably grew up in a family that had lots of political discussions around the dinner table but lots of belief in doing the right thing, and I think the science is clear, the need to do something is clear, and I think for me my passion is actually building a company and driving a company that actually not only does the right thing for our shareholders, for our people, but also for the planet.

So where Drax again came from is we converted the power station from coal to using wood pellets or sustainable biomass to generate power. And when I joined the company, there was a real question as to whether this was a long-term part of the energy system or was it just a transitional solution. And I really have gotten much more passion and have a very clear view and belief that it's a long-term part of the solution. And there's two reasons for that, or I would say in two ways. I believe biomass can be key to the energy system. The first is as you mentioned, as an ally for wind and solar. The second thing I wanted to add to that was that the other thing we are now doing is we're adding carbon capture and storage. So BECCS, or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, actually is something that is fundamentally unique and there's a huge opportunity for that.

So I think that we need to change the nature of the debate. My own view is that the world or big parts of the world have already decided that they think that biomass should be used as part of the energy transition. So if you look at Europe recently and the proposals for a so-called RED III, biomass plays a role. In Japan they talk about doubling the use of biomass, so biomass plays a role, same in the UK. So I think the question needs to move away from 'is biomass just bad or is biomass just good' to 'how can it be used properly?' Because fundamentally, I would see biomass as not actually a standalone issue but really part of a whole forest ecosystem, an industrial ecosystem that has to be managed well. So the question really is how should the forests be managed in a way that the forests are regrowing, they're healthy, they're leading to greater biodiversity, all those good things, and then the things that come out of the forest are used in the best possible way.

So the very baseline we have is we have very clear and strict regulations for what we can do. We need to be operating in ways that contribute to growing forests, so there's more carbon tomorrow than there was yesterday. We need to be operating in forests in such a way that we don't harm biodiversity, and we go beyond that and we want to have a positive impact on forest communities. We want to actually operate in ways that we're leaving a positive imprint in four different areas. I'll we can talk more about the healthy forest landscapes projects that we're working on together. But one other thing, the four things we want to do is have a positive carbon impact, have a positive biodiversity or positive nature impact, have a positive impact on the communities, and have a positive impact on the economies or the people who live there.

Again, biomass, I mean the baseline point I would say is that biomass can be done in good ways but it also could be done in bad ways, so it has to be managed quite carefully. And again we should talk more about this, but for me having good engagement across the spectrum with NGOs to get to the right standards so that we actually all can be comfortable it's done properly is a key part of the question. But we operate in really two different types of forests. So we operate in the southeast of the US. The forests are growing, they tend to be healthy, and I think we play a positive role in that system. In other parts of the world where we operate, for example we source from Portugal where they've been very bad forest fires, or we sourced from British Columbia where again bad forest fires this past summer, and absolutely we can actually, if we take wood that otherwise for example would have been burnt at the side of the road, or if we can help clean up biomass or residuals that have been left in the forest that ultimately could burn, or with disease and dying which is a lot of what we do in British Columbia, we can have a very positive impact.

Well, I would say I saw two things. One is we are blessed at Drax with having lots of great expertise. I mean, we have people here who have spent their whole careers in the forest, they're foresters or their forest scientists, they're sustainability foresters. So I've been able to really take advantage of a lot of their expertise and spend time with them. But the second thing I've done is I've spent time in the forest, right? And actually when you get out there and you see the trees, you see how the harvesting actually works, you go to places that have been managed well, you go to places that have been managed badly, you meet some of the people who are directly involved in the communities. I mean, and it's really that personal aspect of it for me is very important, because if you don't go there, see it, understand it, really experience it, I think it's hard to really get into it. Storing carbon out of the chip chimney of the plant and storing it down.

So I'm probably never going fast enough, but I think we're going as fast as we can. Okay, so just give you a bit of the context. I mean, we've done some work recently with a group called the Coalition for Negative Emissions. Which effectively, our view is that the world needs to remove between 5 and 10 gigatons of CO2 per year by the time we get to 2050 if we're going to stay within this one and a half degrees of climate change, right? BECCS, which is the technology that we use, which is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, can actually do let's say two to four gigatons of carbon removal a year. So what are we doing now? We're actually moving very fast to try to have the first one of those projects actually up and running. So we're testing our own technology, so we expect to be ready to actually start building CCS at the Drax power station in 2024. We're getting our permits that we need. We're actually, the government will be, I think, supporting the building of infrastructure to do the transport of the CO2 and the storage. We expect that to start happening again in 2024. And then the key final piece in the puzzle is what is the regime by which the government will support the carbon removals in the UK, and we're working closely with them on that. So my hope is that by 2024 we will actually start building this new CCS plant in the UK, and then by 2027 we will be up and running operating at scale.

We announced earlier this year a partnership with MHI, which is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to be our technology provider. So they've done quite a few carbon capture projects globally. This will be the first one using bioenergy, okay? So that will be a world first. Also our first unit will be four million tons a year, so again that will be the largest carbon capture project I think ever done. And we're also now in the middle of deciding who will be our design and construction partner. Again, we should announce that probably in October. So it's very exciting, it's moving up, it's moving quickly.

So when I became the CEO, I think the first thing I wanted to focus on was really just defining the purpose of the company. And for me there were two things that were key to that purpose. One was it had to come from inside of me, something that I actually could be passionate and convicted and really believe in with conviction. So we sort of started there. Then we actually did a lot of, I would say, quite structured work with my executive committee, with what we call the Drax leadership team, which is the top 50 people in the company, to actually define the words quite carefully of what that would mean. So it's a real combination of vision, if you will, conviction, but also structured work. And so we came up with what our purpose is, which is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future. And again, as you might imagine, each one of those words quite carefully chosen. That was the first thing we did. The next thing that we did, I think which also galvanized people behind what we want to do, is we declared this ambition to become a carbon negative company by 2030, right? And again, I think that was actually quite interesting because we did that quite quickly. We said, okay, in Madrid, it was COP, I can't remember the number, COP 25 or 24, in Madrid, and basically we said, here's an opportunity to get something out there, and we said let's go for it, now let's be carbon negative. So that was quite fun.

So again, I think it starts with... I think about the key aspects of the team. And it's really, I've been now CEO for four years and I think it's taken me a while to get to the team that I really want. It starts with what are the real important personal qualities that people have, because everyone who is either could be a member of that team, they all have the qualifications, right? They all know how to do the things that need to get done, they have the skills, right? But do they have the qualities? And to me, what are the qualities of transparency, collaboration? I mean, there's a whole set of qualities which are really key for me. The second thing I actually think is very important, and this is sort of a new idea for me, is I really want people in my senior team who have a leadership style which is to let others lead them in a sense. It's not lead from the top, it's almost lead from the bottom. I mean, our leaders in Drax should be about helping enable their people to do their best. That's another thing. And then the final thing I think is really important about the team is you need people who are comfortable with ambiguity and comfortable with paradox, because the world is changing so quickly. I want leaders who lead from the bottom in a sense, right? I want leaders who are autonomous and take responsibility but also collaborative, who work together with their peers. I want leaders who take risk but do it prudently. So that sort of formula of people who are comfortable with those types of paradoxes is what I'm looking for.

A good question. So I would say how do I recharge maybe is another way to put it. I do try to stay exercised, so I do a lot of running. I'm actually preparing for a half marathon in about a month's time, so that's a very important part of my regime. I try to read a lot, I get a lot of energy from that. I spend a lot of time with my family, I try to do that. And finally, I mean, there's also place for me is very important. So I actually spend a lot of time in the summers in Maine, where I have a home, and I spend a lot of time outdoors, a lot of time hiking, a lot of time outside, hiking, sailing, doing things that actually I get a lot of energy from that. But ultimately, it's also, I think, the being involved in the company where transparency is a very personal company, or being yourself, is really part of the culture. That also gives me energy. I don't have to worry about who I am because I can just be me.

So for me, the real ambition is to be carbon negative. Now, just to give you some of these ideas, if the world of BECCS could be four billion tons a year, and let me describe a little bit where that number comes from. So what we did is we did a lot of work at a macro level and we worked with McKinsey on this and said, if you applied the Drax sustainability rules, which are a bit more strict than the ones that actually are in law or regulation in the UK, and you did that on a global basis, so you're only taking residuals from harvests, you're not chopping down any trees to make pellets, it's only a byproduct of what needs to be done, if you don't go into areas where you would be harming biodiversity, etc., etc., all of those rules would apply, we think that there's enough biomass available annually to do that, let's say 4 billion tons of carbon removal. If that becomes the industry that I think it can become, because I think that would enable us to decarbonize faster and less expensively than if we didn't do that, then there's a massive global business opportunity for us, right? Yeah, and a massive impact. And what better way for me as a personal ambition to have both an impact and build a company? And that's exactly what I would love to do.

It's an interesting question. I'll start from where I think I am and then see if I can fit it into those words. But for me, being able to have conviction and belief and be able to, as I said before, be who I am, be honest and transparent all the time, that's absolutely key. So to me there is a huge element of honesty in that, to be able to say what you know, say what you mean, and mean what you say with absolutely no filters in some sense. But also the whole question of conviction, really to believe in something and want to make that happen, I think that's massively important. So I probably land on somewhere between courage, honesty, and truth. I think those ones are all very important for me.

So two things I would say. One, the most fundamental thing is be yourself. I mean, I find people are often looking for where is it I want to get to and how do I get there, whereas for me life is a series of, call them doors that you go through, right? And every time you go through another door, the vista beyond is different. And so in some ways I think that applies also to the whole battle against climate change. If you try to see the massively big picture, it can get very daunting and overwhelming. But if you say, in the case of Drax, we're one small company, we're trying to do one specific thing, let's focus on doing that. Have confidence that if we do that, maybe the rest of the pieces will fall into place and continue to work in that way. So it's almost like pay attention to the impact that you can have as an individual, do that every day, don't worry about where it gets you or necessarily the things around you, and I would say generally good things will happen.