0:03

Are you satisfied with your understanding of sustainability?

0:07

If you are not, imagine a journey together, a pluralistic one,

0:12

with academia, innovators, start-ups, NGOs, all looking for solutions to the

0:19

greatest challenge of our time. My name is Samuel Etini, and this is the Sustainability Journey.

0:29

Welcome to another episode. Today, we are going to the tiny island in the Indian Ocean.

0:36

And there we will meet a sustainability expert, somebody that is part of the

0:41

World Green Building Council.

0:44

He has an extensive career in sustainability and in consulting and as well in

0:51

investing. So I am very pleased to meet today, Tony Lee, Luan Leng.

0:57

Thank you so much, Tony, for being here with us today.

1:00

Thank you, Samuel. Great to be here today on the podcast.

1:04

Really honored to be with all of you auditors. Yeah, let's kick it off.

1:10

Thank you so much, Tony. And really, you are also a source of inspiration for

1:15

me because really you are impersonating also what is the portfolio career and portfolio life.

1:21

With so many streams and all wonderful and successful.

1:25

So we will discuss that and we'll discuss your journey.

1:28

And this is exactly the first question for all our guests.

1:32

Who is Tony? Let us know a bit more about you. How have you become a changemaker in sustainability?

1:38

Yeah, I'm very, I suppose it's a tricky question too. For me,

1:43

it's always to speak about myself. So second generation Chinese immigrant in Mauritius. So my grandfather came

1:50

here in the beginning of the 20th century.

1:53

20 years yeah 19 something after the

1:57

first world war so i've been brought up in mauritius in

2:00

a rural area so it was you

2:03

know we were only like a little shop my family had some business shop and we

2:07

live at the behind the shop so it was my my childhood was very much you know

2:13

villagey and also a little beach of course we're in an island it was like a

2:19

really simple life oh yes i want to study in Cape Town,

2:22

and at that time it was apartheid.

2:25

I think my journey started, I think, with my bringing, being very close to people,

2:31

very close to nature and living that island life, really,

2:38

and then going to South Africa for my university in Cape Town during the time

2:43

of apartheid and seeing the big difference.

2:46

I didn't get to travel too much when I was younger. I did travel places, but not a lot.

2:51

So my first big experience of the world, you know, different world was South Africa.

2:57

And then it was the issue of life, etc.

3:00

Yeah, then I got interested into construction. This is where my first degree is in Quantic Serving.

3:07

And I got a bit bored with that when I was working. And then I've looked at,

3:11

you know, what is next from, you know, in construction.

3:15

So I got very interested into everything and I had the chance to work with a

3:20

pioneer green architect at the time, but it was like a long time ago, before year 2000.

3:26

And I got very interested working on different types of alternative materials,

3:31

alternative systems, and that gave me like a new inspiration,

3:35

like the construction industry, because I was a bit bored with the same thing

3:39

because I mean, it's an old sort of. Industry you know we're still building the same way that we've

3:44

been building for centuries in a way i mean

3:47

i'm generalizing of course and then i went

3:49

to work and manage one of the leading aluminum glass

3:53

company in south africa and at the time there was already energy problems so

3:58

i was very involved with association and the government to see how to design

4:03

buildings because working on big buildings like airports etc so how we could

4:07

design buildings more energy efficiently and this That was my first,

4:11

you know, after working with Pioneer Green Architect,

4:14

that was my second focus.

4:16

Because while we're doing all these big buildings in cities.

4:20

We had to think about energy. Yeah, and then I had a car accident and then I came, I nearly died actually.

4:26

So I decided to, yes, yes.

4:29

At the time, you know, I was like running a company. It was like fast-paced

4:32

life, you know, running so many projects, etc.

4:36

And then that actually slowed me down. i came back to mauritius and i thought

4:40

okay i nearly died and come back to mauritius now i want to do something in

4:43

my country so i started like a an ngo called climate change action forum it

4:50

was just after someone came to present at the time the

4:53

algo movie and then coming in true so from

4:56

that i thought okay you know okay this is like a cause i

4:59

can fight for let's just work on climate change and

5:03

uh another time i thought okay there's lots of talks on

5:06

climate change let's call it action because we want to be action focused so

5:09

we call it climate action forum so that

5:12

started when i got here was 2006 2007 and

5:17

then in 2008 actually up to what was it i think it was boston the green building

5:22

conference of the u.s green building and then there i met u.s green building

5:27

council president and the world green main council people and i'm thinking yeah

5:32

i was working like That's where it goes. But I think building was my first profession, my profession,

5:37

my industry. So let me rather focus on that.

5:40

And that's where I actually connected with them. I said, OK,

5:43

I want to start a green building council in Mauritius. And we were the second one in Africa. And that's where it all started in terms of green building.

5:50

And then from green building in Mauritius, also they started looking at smart cities.

5:56

And I started working on smart cities. And then that's what got me into more

6:01

now like technology also, because smart city is also about tech.

6:04

And I'm starting to get interested in technology. Yeah. So then I always loved technology.

6:12

And then got me into technology and I got closer to United for Smart and Sustainable Cities.

6:18

So I became like part of the expert groups working on great stuff.

6:22

But, you know, for me, it was all new.

6:24

Not all new, but it was not my field, you know. So that was amazing to be still

6:30

connected with them and working on great things like guidelines,

6:34

standards, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah so so that's that's that's technology when i got into technology and i

6:41

started developing technology for good applications and part being part of like

6:45

different ecosystem with like google for startups etc and now so yeah i run

6:51

an ngo yeah basically a lot of things like yeah no no fantastic,

6:55

and i can see really the sustainability how you started from the first time

7:00

you went out to from Mauritius to South Africa in those times with apartheid.

7:04

And then you started your journey in the building and then branched up to smart city and technology.

7:12

And those are the things we want to discuss a bit with you, especially,

7:15

you know, now we have been many years in consulting. You have your farm ecosys and other.

7:20

So can you discuss a bit how you work and which are the areas that you can see?

7:28

And especially maybe with a focus on the Mauritius economy.

7:31

That you are escalating towards sustainability? Which are the efforts that you

7:35

are bringing on the island? This is a point of me, you know, starting also a company,

7:41

Ecosys, when I started it, it was like 2006, and we started talking about sustainability,

7:47

but no one understood why we would pay, you know, like $1,000 to have a study

7:52

done, because we couldn't see value in sustainability and green, etc.

7:56

And I think this was also part why I created the Green Building Council,

8:00

just to create some awareness on around

8:03

all of that and and i think my work with

8:06

green building council this is probably you know because we we're an ngo we

8:11

don't have like a lot of money so it was really around advocacy so i think today

8:16

i can say that in mauritius green building is like mainstream so everyone knows

8:21

what screen building is everyone you know wants a green building nowadays.

8:25

You know, obviously, what used to be sort of a niche now is completely mainstream,

8:31

which I'm glad. Neither we got to that stage.

8:33

And compared to that, from a green building council, we were very also listening

8:39

to the market because we're saying, okay, but green, there's a misconception

8:45

about green, et cetera. So we demystified a little bit.

8:48

And then people said, no, it does cost more.

8:52

And then we work actually to try to get green finance to the piece project.

8:57

So we will also unlock some finance and links of financial instrument to green buildings.

9:04

But I think it keeps on going. And now we've just completed also the net zero roadmap.

9:11

So it was like a roadmap, but not driven by government. Normally,

9:15

that's government-wide policy strategies and roadmaps.

9:17

So we actually took the lead. And then we got all the stakeholders, including government.

9:23

The minister came to do the opening speech at the first working session.

9:27

So it was all stakeholders involved. and now we have been completing the roadmap.

9:32

So we have another working session to see how to operationalize this, who's going to do what.

9:37

So I think that was quite a good project which will have its impact.

9:43

And on consultancy side, we've done quite a lot of work for government and for

9:49

organization that actually looks after, like the Indian Ocean Commission that

9:54

looks after different islands. So we did works on energy efficiency, we wrote guidelines, We did regulations

10:00

for the building to include sustainability. That's already in 2010.

10:06

We did regulation, energy exchange regulation. We work on the electrical vehicles roadmap.

10:11

I don't know what it was before COVID. It was like six years ago,

10:15

the electrical vehicle roadmap for Mauritius.

10:18

And the last project that we did as a consulting firm, we did a whole action

10:23

plan for the public sector, for the greening of the public sector.

10:27

So, this is, I think, yeah, I think it was a great project and government,

10:33

they were like very, they had the political will to do that.

10:37

So now we, part of implementation of the action plan has been written and approved

10:41

by cabinet already probably last year.

10:43

So that's been operationalised and given.

10:46

And I think one thing that is particularly to be noted was to really bring the

10:53

partnership between private sector, civil society and the government.

10:59

So part of the proposal of greening public sector, because we realized,

11:02

for example, supply chain, you want to green a supply chain.

11:05

But then, you know, the government said, OK, we know we want to order,

11:09

you know, like some some special things, but no one is importing them.

11:14

And then the businesses say we don't import them because there's no one asking for it.

11:19

So we saw there was like this sort of mismatch you

11:22

know in this like to use the name

11:25

of your podcast for such a big journey for to

11:28

get all the different stakeholders together to work on the first natural project

11:32

which is green public sector so we needed that so so yeah this was actually

11:37

approved and i was quite happy because normally consultation has always been

11:40

ad hoc you know okay we need some information for private sector let's call

11:44

them and get some information Now there's actually,

11:47

I think it was called, I forgot the exact name,

11:51

I don't think we use advisory committee,

11:54

but basically it's a committee that meets regularly with clear objectives and

12:02

the multi-sector and multi-stakeholder. problem. And that's what I'm, you know, I think this is something that we really need

12:08

when we talk about sustainability, because, you know, we get out of this silo.

12:14

I don't know where it comes from, probably, I don't know if it's Anglo-Saxon,

12:18

but like the silo work, the specialisation and etc.

12:22

And that was, yeah, I wanted to mention this, because I think it's,

12:25

it's quite the first for our country also,

12:28

to consider to have like, you know, like a proper committee,

12:33

multi-sector to be able to work on something and work together all the time, actually.

12:38

So that would be a good pilot. And it's really important because we know Mauritius

12:43

is a financial hub for many African countries, actually.

12:47

These were also many companies, even from the mainland, from the continent,

12:52

they have the red quarter or they have the financial lab so

12:54

sustainability scale from there

12:58

will reverberate and work also to

13:01

their uh their other to their operations maybe on on the on the continent and

13:07

and on that i want to ask a bit more about your green building and because especially

13:11

you are part of the world green building council you are also forefront of green

13:16

building and sustainability which is also very important.

13:19

Especially if you see the type of floods that we are experiencing nowadays in

13:25

East Africa and the problem building, it is paramount.

13:29

How we can make it more efficient, how we can make it properly done in respect

13:34

of the environment and respecting also waterways and others.

13:38

So I want to discuss a bit with you.

13:40

And first of all, for the people that are not maybe aware, what is the World

13:45

Green Building Council. Yeah, so World Green Building Council is.

13:49

Is an organization that unites different Green Building Councils around the world.

13:54

I think we are about close to 80 countries which have Green Building Councils

14:00

and which are part of World Green Building Council.

14:04

So World Green Building Councils started as an offspring of a need to have something

14:11

which is international and global.

14:13

So it started, I remember in the In the early days, there were only a couple

14:18

of people working there. But today, it's an organization.

14:22

And they work really on different themes or aspects of buildings and cities.

14:29

It's a very important organization today also in terms of global discussion

14:35

about the way forward in terms of a built environment.

14:38

And yeah, that's what the World Green Meeting Council supports,

14:41

individual Green Meeting Councils in the countries, whatever different level

14:45

stage of development they are, and also works on positions like policy papers,

14:53

positions, or even now there's after COP 28,

14:58

there's been this program called Buildings Breakthrough, where World Green Meeting

15:03

Council is also part of operationalising this building's breakthrough and to

15:08

reach the different objectives set up in this programme.

15:12

So it supports the Agreement Council in the countries and the way it works is

15:17

it's not like, OK, let's just open Agreement Councils all over the countries.

15:21

It's always like, you know, from bottom up.

15:23

And that's where a strategy needs to be like an interest from the ground to

15:28

be able to build the organisation. organization and obviously the Kenya Green

15:34

Building Society in Kenya where you are.

15:37

Which are the initiatives that you are trying to bring up in Mauritius?

15:41

Maybe if you can explain some projects that you are trying to push towards this green building.

15:47

So for me, I'm on a different level. You know, I'm like local.

15:51

One time I was a bit less on the Green Building Council of Mauritius.

15:54

I was considering more on the Africa Regional Network of

15:57

the World Green Building Council and also part of some of

16:00

my responsibilities or position in

16:04

the World Green Building Council also because I also work on

16:06

the global policy task force of the World Women

16:09

Council but in Mauritius I think what

16:12

we do in Mauritius is to provide education

16:15

so it's a lot around education capacity building so

16:19

that's what we do here and then a lot

16:21

of advocacy work we did the net zero roadmap

16:24

we're busy also like creating a construction app

16:27

basically you know for anyone to want to

16:30

have no best practices or where to find things or

16:33

how to do things better so so that's

16:36

also about awareness and education and whenever

16:39

advocacy side yeah advocacy side we pushing because we we part of different

16:45

government committees either it's mauritius standards bureau or myself i sit

16:50

on the inter-ministerial committee for climate change so yes we do push a few

16:56

things through there and And at the moment,

16:59

there's a project that we're trying to push.

17:04

It's called the EcoFridge project. It's a project where we try to help the households to upgrade their fridges

17:15

and their ACs to more ancient ones with some sort of financial model to help

17:20

them to pay little by little or cut into their electricity bills, etc.

17:24

The EcoFridge is one thing. And then also there's some building codes that were written.

17:30

Well, actually, we wrote it ourselves, but it hasn't been enacted yet.

17:35

Like now, we wrote these things as part of a work.

17:40

We did an assignment in 2010. We wrote the building codes.

17:45

2015, we made it simpler. And now 2024, we're actually pushing to advocate to

17:50

actually enact the codes. I think we're getting there. so this part of advocacy we're getting there and

17:58

then also from our network we realized that.

18:02

We work as a bit of a connector also, because, for example, when I met you,

18:07

it was Africa Climate Week. Yeah. So I met with some colleagues from African Union and they have some some

18:14

projects that are ongoing.

18:17

And so we try to, you know, we keep an ear open.

18:21

We say, OK, well, we can get some technical resources and financial resources for that.

18:26

And, you know, we can connect you with government. and then you

18:29

know so so but that is some part of our work because

18:32

i think we you know very connected um

18:35

unfortunate and grateful also to to you know

18:38

have traveled to all these different places to be able to

18:41

meet like really cool colleagues even

18:45

our friends who are actually working in

18:48

this this field trying to you know

18:51

have some projects but we which which

18:54

have like positive impact and positive change to

18:57

be rolled out and operationalized so i think

19:00

that's where i see myself as a person to to

19:03

do that you know globally regionally locally and even before i would consulting

19:10

work private sector because that's what i think my job is always to try to push

19:16

for better you know it's like trying to convince you know either it's government or

19:21

a corporate to, yeah, you need to change, you need to spend the money to be able to do better.

19:29

And I think that's part of, even the clients paying us to do some work,

19:32

we always find that it is always a negotiation to be more ambitious.

19:38

I mean, yeah. It's not easy. Yeah, it's not easy. I can see in your presentation, your work,

19:46

and also your trajectory from the building, Let's say from the code and now

19:50

from the actual building and trying to become more efficiency,

19:54

appliances and work, you have also pivoted towards what are smart cities and

20:00

going towards metal, artificial intelligence, blockchain and what.

20:05

So can you explain at this step how you are going from building maybe to planning

20:10

the smart cities and embedding technology in how we build and we live also?

20:17

Because we know that, especially for us in Africa, we will be a more urbanized

20:21

society in the next 20 to 30 years.

20:24

Yeah, so this is part of my passion because I think...

20:31

First, yeah, first I thought, you know, like especially myself in collaboration

20:35

with, you know, like maybe like over 10 years ago.

20:39

So we like a professional organization, which call themselves partnership brokers.

20:45

So basically how you actually grow the partnership and collaboration.

20:49

And then when I started working in technology, I realized, you know,

20:52

that's obviously, you know, really into our lives, you know, technology.

20:55

Technology and and and and i i thought

20:59

you know this is like can be a lever for us

21:01

to accelerate transition and to you

21:04

know to survive actually you know for our survival to include technology and

21:09

that's why i got closer to to the technology and got involved with u4ssc united

21:14

for smart and similar cities and just checking also what type of work we're

21:19

doing and hoping onto these working groups, whether it's AI,

21:23

the last few months I haven't been so involved because I've been so busy with

21:30

other things, but I was involved with some guidelines for environmental efficiency of AI,

21:35

just to try to understand all the different aspects of it.

21:41

Even like metaverse, I've been involved with a few working groups,

21:45

but haven't had time to keep bandwidth to be able to write some of the documents

21:49

that I've been following. And it's very interesting also how, you know, what's the future looking like?

21:56

You know, today, maybe the metaverse is not so important.

21:59

I mean, the guy from Facebook, you know, he called his company Meta,

22:04

but it was a bit of a flop, etc. But even if you look at the young generation, they, you know,

22:08

they have a lot of screen time, even us, you know, we have a lot of screen time.

22:12

So our life is very much also on the screens and that's where Metaverse comes

22:18

into play and how we can leverage that to develop education or values or how to shape society,

22:26

you know, because that's very important because this is a tool we engage with all the time.

22:30

And then there are also very important considerations and concerns to tackle.

22:36

I think what's useful for SSE is there also to safeguard.

22:41

Yeah, I'm not sure if I answered your question. I mean, for me,

22:43

it's just very important that we don't deny that technology is part of the solution,

22:48

actually, and that's why I got interested because that can make us more efficient.

22:54

If you look at, for example, It can be for flooding, it can be early warning

22:59

systems, Internet of Things, all these things can be very valuable to us.

23:06

So what I wanted to talk about when you asked me the question,

23:09

I forgot to mention, because a lot of the conversation is around mitigation

23:13

from an urban hemisphere. You know, it's like how we can be more energy efficient, etc.

23:17

But in a small country and small island like ours, and that's why,

23:22

you know, I think there's some importance for our voice to be heard.

23:26

Because we realize we don't have so much impact on the climate change because it's a small country.

23:32

The carbon emission being very, I think it was 0.02% of the whole world.

23:38

But where the focus for us is more about adaptation.

23:43

And I try to bring this also to the conversation at the World Environment Council

23:47

level because it's either written by people from Europe and they don't really

23:52

think. You know, of course, you know, yes, an Egyptian sea uses energy, great.

23:57

But civil adaptation, I mean, we had the flood on Sunday.

24:01

Claws were floating in the city again. Good thing the standard one died.

24:04

Yeah, I wanted to mention that. But yeah, let's go through the technology part. Yes.

24:09

It's really important because the perspective, and my question is really from

24:14

the financial hub of Africa. And my next question for you was your perspective from that.

24:19

And you really preempt the question because it's really important,

24:22

the perspective of small island. It's often overlooked and maybe we build the policies and work based on the

24:30

problem from the bigger countries. So, you know, the powerhouse of the world from the US, China, Europe and others.

24:37

While we forget also that, yeah, we are already facing climate change and we

24:43

need to adapt because it is not now mitigated. So it's like, it's already here.

24:47

And as I said, the other day, I had also a car floating and issues after having

24:54

the worst drought in 40 years last year. So it's really important.

24:58

And from that, since you're Mauritius and you are deeply involved in Mauritian

25:03

economy, which is also an economy that is open to the continent,

25:06

as I said, as a financial hub for us here in Africa.

25:09

Which is the perspective from your point of view of the growth of sustainability

25:15

movement in Africa how do you see the challenge and opportunities for us and

25:20

for businesses in this in our landscape since you know

25:25

We are a bit different, but we know that we are rising and this is the IMF.

25:30

That this is the African century.

25:32

So we want to know if it's the African century, how we can make it sustainable.

25:37

Yeah, I think, I mean, there's lots of different sort of standards,

25:41

regulations, as you know, for the corporates.

25:45

And more and more, I think, like the money behind those corporates are asking

25:50

for more accountability. And that's why you know that's why today this whole esg is like really really mainstream.

25:59

But that is also like a language i think from developed countries you know esg

26:05

and when you come to africa where you know i mean probably the social the s

26:11

would be more important you know where they're actually trying to survive and

26:15

when you speak about you know i mean a simple example

26:18

you know we can't even have food and now you're asking them to recycle people

26:21

to recycle their bottles something i mean that's not

26:24

even part of their thinking you know like i need to

26:27

find food to have for my family why you know

26:30

you're asking me to recycle plastic bottles you know so what what can happen

26:35

which is great what we always talk about but for africa is really progging and

26:40

then this is where we can actually learn and and be able to yeah already have

26:46

like like high objective, ambitious objectives.

26:49

But it's very tricky, as you can imagine, for, I mean, I don't know,

26:53

you know, everything from the little I know,

26:56

you know, the context where companies operate in Africa, it's not the same as,

27:03

you know, you've been, I don't know, it was like developed country.

27:06

But having said that, I think African founders, they have more of a connection.

27:16

I mean, I'm generalizing, don't, don't, don't.

27:19

Yeah, so I'm just generalizing from where bringing, from where they come from,

27:23

but generally, I mean, I look at myself, you know, where society, environment.

27:30

Is actually quite important. So I would say that maybe we, you know,

27:37

the self, the whole part of the capitalist system is a bit less entrenched and

27:43

generalizing again in Africa. So it is easier maybe to convince an African, you know, founder,

27:51

director of an organization and obviously there's pressure to make money and all these things.

27:56

But I think, I mean, I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic to see that the giving back part, the ESG part,

28:02

the stakeholders part of business in Africa could be something which is easier

28:10

to achieve than a capitalist system, really focus on profit,

28:16

where we try to do that.

28:18

I mean, yeah, I mean, you would know that better than me, you know, involved with B Corp.

28:22

So, so I'm not sure how, how, you know, the reason for people doing being B

28:26

Corp in Africa probably is not the same, you know, in, in the U S so,

28:31

so, so yeah, I mean, you can tell us a bit more about, about,

28:35

about that feeling. No, it's true.

28:39

No, it's really, it's really, as I say, we, we have so, and,

28:43

and, and the journeys as It's your journey.

28:45

You are second generation immigrant from China to Mauritius,

28:50

now to the consulting world, to the world.

28:53

So also the focus that many founders, as you say, in Africa,

28:57

they have on the social part because they are trying to solve social problems.

29:01

And in a way, many companies, they are a big or they are towards that because

29:09

they have a strong foundation on solving social problem.

29:14

Problem that maybe the founder or director or others, they have seen and lived in their life.

29:20

So they want, for example, the one we have interviewed, people that they want

29:24

to improve the milk value chain or people that they want to improve the coffee

29:29

value chain because they have seen the struggle of farmers.

29:32

They have seen the struggle of producers and many others. There was a guy talking about Ani in Tanzania.

29:41

It's really something that I think, as you said, the S for us may be a bit the E, the environment.

29:49

They are the very strong one because we have a lot of social problem and businesses,

29:55

they are born sometimes social.

29:58

And so they are social enterprises by default because they are really giving

30:03

back and solving problems to their people.

30:06

And Tony, it's a really wonderful episode because it's full of insights and your work.

30:11

And especially, I really like the journey of people like you and me in a way.

30:18

Immigrants in this country and now they are building and working here and really

30:23

getting blended in this part of the world.

30:28

For the people that are listening, because they might say, oh,

30:30

wow, Tony, you have been consulting for government, working there,

30:34

the green building, wow. So you are doing work now with the Mauritius government, trying to create codes

30:39

and things and supporting. What people can do? Which advice you can give to some aspiring professional

30:47

people that they have not worked maybe as far as you and counsel them a bit

30:52

on maybe your three advice? Advice yeah so i think um is to have

30:57

this um purpose i mean like everyone you

31:00

know in the capital system it's very important to be able to you

31:03

know pick up money to sort of to live and you know family etc but i mean maybe

31:09

the thing that i've done i think it was because i believe in something and i

31:14

wanted to do something and it was more of a of this sort of uh objective to

31:18

you, but actually it drove me.

31:21

I wasn't thinking for me, I thought, okay, but money will just come, which it did.

31:27

So it was more about doing what I think was important and the right thing to do.

31:33

And then everything else falls into place. So I think the first one would be

31:38

have a mission, stick by it, and leave your mission. So whatever it is.

31:45

So I think that's the first thing.

31:48

And then for me, what has worked is actually even some of my work,

31:53

you can say it's maybe got some politics attached to it. You know,

31:57

other cases, obviously, I have some politics. Yeah, I'm actually a politico. So I work with anyone who is aligned with my mission.

32:05

So it doesn't mean if you're this party or this party or, you know,

32:10

whatever color of your skin. So as long as, you know, my mission is somehow aligned with mine,

32:17

then you know that's good enough

32:20

so so so so the second one is you know let's not

32:23

don't take any position on someone or

32:26

some organization too quickly and and work

32:29

from from judgments you know

32:32

as long you know you can work together then you

32:35

know i mean to risk to a limit what i'm

32:38

saying is you know even if a person you need to have some

32:41

affinities of course if your mission is online line but yeah

32:44

so basically i work with anyone you know and i try to be myself so so that and

32:51

then the last thing yeah you must do do what you love so so that's what i think

32:55

for me since i'm young you know i come from um not a like a wealthy background you know and um.

33:03

Slowly by slowly, be able to climb the ladders.

33:08

But even that wasn't my objective to be where I am today. You know,

33:12

it was just, yeah, maybe like one step at a time.

33:16

You know, you have a commission, just do like one thing at a time,

33:21

you know, and be really engaged in the moment, in what you're doing.

33:27

100% engaged and dropping things which is uncalled.

33:31

Fantastic, Tony. Tony, and it's really an inspirational journey from your days,

33:36

I mean, in a village in Mauritius now to the world.

33:39

So you really have worked a lot and you are also an example of success and work

33:45

and also your sustainability work and your advocacy part, which is really, really important.

33:51

So I really want to thank you so much for coming on board and taking your time.

33:56

It has been a pleasure and honor. Thank you so much, Tony. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Samuel.

34:00

Thank you. to you, our dear auditors and listeners, and all the very best to all of you.

34:06

Are you satisfied after this wonderful episode? Let's continue together our

34:11

sustainability journey. Music.