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Lindsey Hall: I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of thought leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.   

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a senior writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership Team   

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, a podcast hosted by S&P Global, where we explore environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping investor activity and company strategy. 

In recent episodes we’ve been on the ground in Dubai covering COP28, the UN’s 2023 climate change conference. Now, this conference of the parties was scheduled to wrap up on Dec. 12, but negotiations went into overtime. 

Deliberations came down to the wire in the early morning hours December 13th as negotiators struggled to reach consensus on whether the summit’s Global Stocktake text would include an explicit “phaseout” of fossil fuels.

Nations did ultimately settle on a Stocktake outcome that included "transitioning away" from fossil fuels and working "toward the phasedown" of unabated coal. While this language was not as strong as some negotiators had pushed for, it is the first time a COP has resulted in a formal agreement among all Paris Agreement signatories to take action on fossil fuels.

Countries agreed to contribute to "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science." And that’s according to the final draft text of the Global Stocktake. As we’ve covered in past episodes, this was the first-ever Global Stocktake — which is a process for countries and stakeholders to assess progress toward meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The central goal of Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels, and ideally to 1.5 degrees C.   

We’ll be back later this week with a full recap of what came out of this COP gathering. 

For today’s episode, we’re continuing to bring you interviews I conducted on the sidelines of COP in Dubai, about some of the key themes shaping the agenda. And these conversations have implications beyond just the two weeks that COP takes place each year, because they provide insight into the direction of travel for global conversations about sustainability. 

This is true of the public sector and its true of the private sector as well, which turned out in full force for COP28. I’ve heard estimates that there were upwards of 85,000 people who descended on Dubai for this gathering, and the private sector presence was said to be far greater here than at any previous COP.

In today’s episode, we’re turning our focus to one of the thematic days that was on the COP28 agenda: transport. There were quite a few transportation companies present at COP28 and I saw some pretty interesting exhibits. For example, there was a single-seater electric helicopter.  Urban air mobility is one direction of travel on the horizon. But at present, passenger vehicles are a key part of the transport sector. They contribute a substantial 16% to global greenhouse gas emissions, as my colleagues in S&P Global’s Mobility division note in recent research. 

To learn more about how this sector is approaching sustainability at COP28, I sat down in Dubai with Kristen Siemen, the Chief Sustainability Officer at one of the world’s largest auto manufacturing companies, General Motors. 

In the interview, you’ll hear Kristen mention different types of emissions. As a reminder, Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from a company's operations. Scope 2 emissions are indirect ones, and those are primarily derived from purchased energy. Scope 3 emissions occur up and down the company's supply chain as well as when a customer uses the products.  

There are 15 categories of Scope 3 emissions. One you'll hear about today is category 11 Scope 3 emissions. Category 11 emissions cover the use of sold products. It is a measure of the expected lifetime emissions from the use of goods and services that a company sells. 

Ok, here’s my interview

Kristen Siemen: I'm Kristen Siemen. I'm the Vice President of Sustainable Workplaces in the Chief Sustainability Officer at General Motors. So sustainable workplaces is really all of our facilities, our construction projects, some of our traditional environmental work around permitting and running our facilities. And then the sustainability piece really is a very cross-functional role where I have the opportunity and responsibility to drive all of our sustainability initiatives and work across the company to integrate those into all aspects of our business.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. And usually, a lot of my interviews for the podcast are virtual, but today, I'm sitting down with you in person in Dubai on the sidelines of COP28. Do you want to say a little bit for our listeners about what this setting is where we're having this meeting today.

Kristen Siemen: Sure. I mean, so we're here today at Gold's House, which is an organization that's collaborating and pulling leaders together, leaders in the climate space to really drive conversation, drive collaboration and hopefully drive solutions.

Lindsey Hall: So it's about a week into COP28. And I would love to hear from you what has been your experience so far?

Kristen Siemen: Sure. Very busy. And as you know, logistics in this type of event with so many people attending so many dignitaries and has a state, the logistics can be a challenge, but the opportunity and the inspiration, and I think the excitement comes from the conversations that we have here. And really, sometimes it's hearing what somebody else is working on or it's a new idea that we have on how to partner together. Ideas just really to grow and accelerate the changes that we all need to make. I was talking earlier, I said where else can you think about any business situation or a challenge that you have where the entire world is working on the same problem? And so it's really an exceptional opportunity to be able to hear and share opportunities across industries, across segments, et cetera.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. Now a lot of people listening will be familiar with General Motors, but not necessarily with the sustainability side or what you're doing in the sustainability space. Can you tell me a little bit about that? And then I'd like to get into specifically what you're doing here at COP28.

Kristen Siemen: Sure. So we saw some big goals back in 2021 around being carbon neutral in our products and operations by 2040. Our plans to eliminate tail pipe emissions from new light-duty U.S. vehicles by 2035. We've got goals around water efficiency, energy efficiency with sustainable materials, we're really driving -- you can look at our total carbon footprint. And the biggest thing that we can do is this transition to an all-electric future. The smaller pieces of that is our operations and what we're doing, and we've made some really bold goals around renewable energy. In fact, we'll be 100% using renewable powered by renewable energy in our operations in the U.S. by 2025, which is actually 25 years ahead of our original goal.

Lindsey Hall: And just a few years from now.

Kristen Siemen: Exactly. So we're super excited, and we're well on our way to meet our goal globally by 2035. And so really, sustainability for us is really driving these initiatives into every aspect of our business.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. And then the presence here at COP28, can you talk to me about that?

Kristen Siemen: Yes. I mean part of it is telling our story, part of it's talking with stakeholders on what we are doing at General Motors, finding partners to really work on what's next. We can't make this transition alone to an all-electric future. We can't solve many of the problems by ourselves. In fact, many times, we have the same challenges, even though we're working in different industries. Sometimes partnerships come out of these conversations. We -- I was earlier with Laura Lane from UPS, who we had worked together at last year's COP nd talked about some opportunities for business and collaboration. And so it's really exciting to see as time progresses, how those really develop into solutions.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. We've had Laura on the podcast, she has a fantastic story. So have there been any conversations that have stood out to you this week so far as examples of where that kind of collaboration is happening effectively?

Kristen Siemen: Yes. I mean 2 different, I guess, panels that I spoke on today. One was with Laura. So it was UPS. It was a gentleman who was from Australia government and then the mayor of Columbus, Ohio. And so you look at that panel and you say, well, how -- what do you all have in common, but in reality, how cities are developed, how the infrastructure is going to be available to support things like our EV transition or what we're doing from a GM perspective and how we think about being a good neighbor in the community. The facilities where we live and work or the communities where we live and work, we take great pride in ensuring that we are being a good neighbor. We're thinking about what we do from an environmental standpoint. And all of our facilities have nature preserves and wildlife habitats. Even at our manufacturing facility locations, we really take great pride in that. We think about how we show up in the community, what truck route do delivery trucks take so that is the least amount of impact to the community. So having local governments and state governments working together with corporates, I think, really shows how we can come up with these solutions much faster.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. So I love the focus on solutions, and I've heard a lot of focus on concrete solutions at this COP. But let's talk for just a minute about the challenges. What are the biggest challenges that US GM are facing.

Kristen Siemen: I mean, so from our standpoint, I said the biggest impact we can make is this transition to an all-electric future. So clearly, charging infrastructure is something that we need to keep working to accelerate that across -- frankly, across all regions and all countries. And the second would be the decarbonization of the grid and the reliability of the grid and haven't resilient energy always available. The only way we truly get to zero is that our electric vehicles are charged with green energy, and that energy is available to customers when they need it. And so working on that is certainly something that can't happen fast enough as we move towards our vision.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. You also spoke at a panel that S&P Global hosted on Sunday on December 3. And one of the things that came out of that panel, if I'm paraphrasing correctly, is this idea that electrification is not going to get us all the way there towards the goals of the Paris agreement. Is that in line with how you're thinking about things? And can you say a little bit more about that?

Kristen Siemen: Yes. I mean our carbon footprint is 75% is the customer usage of our vehicles. So Scope 3 category 11, again, the transition to all electric and charging with Green Energy, will address that over time. There's a lot of other things we need to work on. We need to decarbonize our supply chain. So we're working with them on solutions for their own facilities. It gets into things like materials. How do we choose the most sustainable materials and maybe not how we looked in the past around recyclability or recycled content -- but what is the total life cycle analysis look like so we make sure we're making the best decisions for the long term.

Lindsey Hall: So as we look ahead to the remainder of COP, what are you hoping to see in terms of outcomes, whether that's outcomes from negotiations or whether that's outcomes from some of the discussions happening in smaller group settings and the dinners and other conversations?

Kristen Siemen: And to me, it's a lot like -- we talk a lot about innovation. GM is a company based on innovation. A company based on that's got engineers that come into work every day that their passion is around how to make things better. I'm an engineer by degree, I actually spent most of my career in product development. And so a lot of timesswe think, and we read about these groundbreaking new technologies. But a lot of times, what's inspiring to engineers just that little incremental improvement that they can make in a product. Maybe it's a little bit lighter, maybe it's a little bit faster or a little bit higher efficiency, whatever it is, it's those incremental improvements. And I think that's what happens here at COP. We're past the point where we're all making these big bold holes and announcements. Now it's about what are the building blocks and the steps that we can take towards making progress. And when we do those together, it makes that long-term journey happen much faster.

Lindsey Hall: Okay. And if I was asking you about your kind of key takeaways from COP so far, how would you sum those up?

Kristen Siemen: I think it's progress. I think it's staying focused, its innovation, how do we keep looking for innovation to solve the challenges that we don't know how to solve -- and how do we work together to make those happen because it's -- well, again, most of our problems are the same. 

Lindsey Hall: Ok, is there anything that I haven't asked that you think is important for our audience to understand either about how GM is showing up at COP28 or just develop this gathering more broadly? 

Kristen Siemen: No. I mean, I think from a GM perspective, we're excited about what's happening in the region. We're excited about what's happening globally. Our products are really crossing over multiple segments so that everybody can see themselves in an EV and find a vehicle that meets their own personal needs going forward. And just an exciting time. I think we're going to continue to see things happen quicker than we all anticipate.

Lindsey Hall: We haven't really touched on geographically where you do most of your business, and we're having this conversation here in the Middle East. Can you say a little bit about that for our listeners?

Kristen Siemen: Sure. I mean, so we're a U.S.-based company, but we're a global company, so we operate in many regions across the globe. Certainly, there are some major sites. But here locally in Dubai and the Middle East, we've got headquarters here in the Middle East here in Dubai. We recently launched the Cadillac Lyric and the Hummer EV here in the region. And so it's exciting to see I've been driving around in Lyric week. So it's awesome to really see it happening.

Lindsey Hall: So we heard Kristin talk about several themes that played out in many parts of COP28, the importance of partnerships, the role of innovation in addressing the climate crisis and the importance of concrete solutions to drive progress. She said, we're past the point of just big, bold goals and announcements. 

If you'd like to listen to any of our previous coverage on themes out of COP, including water, gender equality and finance will include links in our show notes. We'll also include a link to our interview earlier this year with Laura Lane, who is UPS' Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Officer. And again, we'll be back later this week with an episode of recapping key outcomes from COP28, so please stay tuned.

Lindsey Hall: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider and a special thanks to our producer, Kyle Cangialosi. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast and sign up for our weekly newsletter, ESG Insider. See you next time.

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