Net Zero Dentistry – How Can We Be Greener? – IC017

Jaz’ Introduction: Hello, Protruserati. I’m Jaz Gulati and welcome this really, really important interference cast on how we as a profession can be greener? The time is now. It’s right now, we take some massive action in our profession throughout the world, so we can have a better future for our children and our children’s children. Guys, I hope this episode makes Greta Thunberg proud. I’m joined today by Dr. Mike Gow and Marcus McLeod, who basically have started this initiative, this free initiative for us all called Net Zero dentistry. I think it’s a great idea. I’m fully in support of it, I want you to listen to this episode so badly. So you can implement something like for example, when I recorded with these gents, I made a promise to walk to work every day. So it doesn’t have to be just like purely dental reducing plastic, which obviously we’re gonna cover all that in this episode, what we can do at the workplace to be greener, even thinking outside the box. But what can we do in our lives having a meat free day, walking, being mindful of our energy consumption? All these things are so important. So yes, this is dentistry, it’s very relevant to dentistry, and how we can be as a profession greener but just you personally as well. Hope you find value in this episode if you do share it with someone. Okay? Now is the time to spread positive messages for the environment like this one. Anyway, I catch you in the outro.

Main Interview: [Jaz] Marcus and Mike, Welcome to Protrusive Dental podcast. How are you gents?

[Marcus]
Thank you very much. Excellent. [Mike] Very well. Thank you.

[Jaz]
Amazing to have you both. Recently I was at the BACD conference in Edinburgh, Mike I was able to reconnect with you. And on that same evening we were discussing about Net Zero dentistry. I thought this is amazing. I want to give this a voice. I want to get people to start talking about how we can be more green obviously recently with COP26. Everything’s very topical. We shouldn’t have to wait for two Taco to have these kinds of discussions. But here we are. It’s a start. And also on the same evening, just a slight little tangent on the same evening. I also met Jeremy Cooper and he was talking about confidential and the mental health aspects of dentistry and the sad areas, the dark areas of suicide and all these horrible things, depression and I decided that night that okay, I’m gonna leave Edinburgh with a reconnection with Mike and a new connection with Jeremy and I definitely want to support that charity. And of course we talked about Net Zero dentistry. Mike we know you already a little bit or get you to do instruction shortly but Marcus, I know less about you, Marcus, tell us about yourself. How long have you practicing for? What your niche is? What are your areas of dentistry?

[Marcus]
And well I haven’t been practicing anything. I’ve been practicing life for the past 60 years. I’m not a dentist.

[Jaz]
Amazing. Even better.

[Marcus]
Perhaps no, I come from a banking background and changed direction about 20 years ago. So in the past year, in the past six years, we’ve been building up a portfolio of dental websites. And we’ve got the leading listing clinic websites in the UK defacto dentists. We’ve got about 8000 clinics on there I think it is at the moment. And we have an E-commerce platform for dentists whereby we do the fulfillment transaction, the delivery as patients order from the dentist. We also have foster markets, video interviewing on a recruitment website. So we’re embedded in the dental profession and work provides really meaty, juicy, write on solutions for them.

[Jaz]
Fantastic. Will be great to borrow both of your expertise today. Mike, great to have you back on the podcast. So we obviously talked about anxiety management before when you taught us so many amazing things and how you were involved in that experience of placing an implant without local anesthetic so if anyone hasn’t heard that episode, please go back, listen to it. There’s some great communication gems in there. Just remind us for those maybe who are listening to you for the first time, haven’t listened to that episode, whereabouts you are? What you do? And then both of you together what makes I mean Marcus is talking earlier about there’s no true expert in this but what makes you guys passionate to be able to talk about Net Zero dentistry? So Yeah, Mike go first, my friend.

[Mike]
Sure. Yes. So my name is Mike Gow. I am a dentist, I own a private practice in the centre of Glasgow. Really ever since qualifying, my main passion and interests were helping anxious and phobic patients. So I’ve studied all the years a variety of techniques including sedation, and interestingly hypnosis. So I have a master’s in hypnosis, applied to dentistry. And you know, so no working in private practice, I see lots of anxious patients to help patients with bruxism using the psychological aspects of that. So I’m excited to be joining you in your SplintCourse that’s going to be another string to my boy as far as that’s concerned. And just yeah, just enjoying the work that they do. No, Marcus actually is my cousin, as well believe it or not. So we are friends, we are cousins, and we work together. So every morning we have phone calls, and every night on the way home from work, we have phone calls, as well. And really we talk about the hot topics of the day, what sort of things, you know, could we be looking at? How can we help the profession? What can we do for the businesses that we have? And recently, we started talking about the amount of plastics, the amount of clinical waste, the amount of pollution that’s caused by dentistry, I think it was the end of a particularly long session, I’ve looked at my clinical waste at the end of the day. And I just felt really disheartened by how much I was throwing away. And the conversation started from there, really. But you’re right we are, you know, I’m certainly no expert in green, or net zero. But that’s kind of what I like about it, because I don’t think this should be an exclusive club where you have to be an eco warrior to be able to make your difference. So we’re pretty good at coming up with strategies and plans. And over the last month or two, that’s what we’ve done. And Marcus is the brain behind it. And he’ll tell you more about that come up with some of the ideas and then Marcus makes them happen. So works

[Jaz]
Well, tell us about the implementation, Marcus and what ideas you have generated so far before we then talk a little bit about in daily practice, the challenges you face all the single use staff or the packaging that we use, and that these are the real frustrations that we have. But tell us any ideas and directions that you find could be fruitful in managing this, Marcus?

[Marcus]
Okay. And well, when we decided to approach this initiative, we wanted it to be free to use. So we didn’t want to charge dentists to get involved in something. So it’s a not for profit entity. And we set out four pillars of understanding, the first pillar being awareness. COP26 been brilliant, and actually making people aware of all the issues that will go on and the planet just now. And we’ve had feedback people saying, well, it’s China, it’s India, they’re polluting the world. And it’s their fault. The fact that I use a single use tepe brush, that’s not going to make a difference. But we do, we know that one small step makes a difference. You’re taking one small step towards this better world that we’re trying to create. That’s all it is. It’s very simple, very basic. So the awareness site is getting people engaged with net zero dentistry. The second side is an assessment. And now we’ve gone to great trouble, time costs, whatever else putting together an assessment, whereby clinic principles are those engaged with the work in the clinic, and can assess where they’re at at the moment. And it’s not a judgment document to make somebody bad, somebody good. That’s not the purpose of it. The purpose is to set a mark in the sandbox so that 12 months down line, practices can actually see, well, I’ve actually made a difference during this 12 months.

[Mike]
Yeah, kind of like an audit process. That’s our idea was it’s almost like a net zero audit. How are we know?

[Jaz]
This is something that should be really, this should be like made part of the CQC. Like everyone, every practice should be made to do this. Wouldn’t it be wonderful in terms of enforcement of policy to assess how green you are? I mean, that’s the kind of future we should be looking at. Just while we’re on this topic, how can a dentist who’s maybe listening already think okay, yeah, I mean, the only dentist who listen to this is someone who cares about the environment and for this title come up how to be greener, net zero. And so we have the attention of dentists who have at least some care and some dedication. So how can they download or access this audit tool so they can get started straightaway with their team Monday morning.

[Marcus]
And if you make it Tuesday morning

[Jaz]
By the time this episode comes out

[Marcus]
The painter still waits on the websites. So

[Jaz]
By the time this comes out, I’ll make sure I time it in a way that the resource ready because I want people to strike while the iron’s hot. They’ll be enthused hopefully, after getting some ideas from you guys, and I want them to log in download it, get into practice, start doing the audit. This is going to be the thing that’s going to start the engine. Get things going

[Marcus]
Great. And the website is ready? No. But as I say that the pain says whereas we’re still going revising and tweaking,

[Jaz]
No, well done to both of you for setting up this not for profit organization to help such a huge topic. So amazing. Awareness, we’ve got this audit tool, what else?

[Marcus]
And the third pillar is the education platform. And this is what’s taking all the time and efforts put together. And we have an educational platform with 26 modules in it. Now, these modules are being generated by experts and not one field. So we’ll have 26 authors, if you like, and the education module. And those are perhaps dentist practicing, dentists who have gone through a process, they understand how to better that process, they’ll write up the 500 words, and that’s done education module. And so it’s really to match up with your witnesses from your assessments. You see, yeah, I’ve got a gap there, faster learning [backdoor] slot into the gap. Yeah. And the fourth bit is an offset program. And we’re not quite there yet with an offset program. But collectively, the dental profession has much greater power than me or you as an individual saying, I feel guilty, I want to buy my way to heaven, I want to buy some carbon offsets. Yeah. And we’re making sure that the three steps prior to that are followed through before they even consider offset. So unless, through the assessment, unless, as a result of the assessments, they put the sustainability section into the operations manual, when must have that in the ops manual. That must Yeah. So beyond that, the education modules, when they read through all the education modules, then they consider offsets. And the way we’ve approached offsets is that, if we’re gathering money, I pause on behalf of the profession. We’ve got a bit really, really careful what we do with that money, if we make a mistake. And it’s so easy to make a mistake in that field, that area, Mike and I had the discussion with someone and it ended tirade plausible, like a blue chip company, it was absolutely spot on. And we were engaging. And so we were setting up the terms and everything else. And we were asked repeatedly, and where does this money, how is it used? And it turned out that that money was going to be used to pay people and the Amazon forest, not to chop down trees. Yeah, all of a sudden the alarm bells. So what we have put together so far, is gold certified, through the Forestry Commission, Gold Certified carbon offset, whereby every single tree, and that we, we don’t purchase trees, we only buy offset. So every single tree has an offset. And it has varying different offsets. And so we buy a patch of trees, if you like, that has the offset, we buy the offset, that money is then used to replant trees. And that’s what the gold certification kind of basically as all of those

[Jaz]
But like you said that that’s very much not last resort, but like something that is a hierarchy. And that’s the very small part, the foundations are very much the awareness, the education, like you said

[Marcus]
And the offset is, it’s an involvement as well. So we decided that, for example, organising two days and next year, to do beach combing, as a profession, we go out there into the countryside, into country parks, onto beaches, and we gather plastic and dispose of it properly. [Jaz] Amazing. [Marcus] That’s something that doesn’t cost money to in terms of contribution or anything. But it’s something that we want to be involved in and build.

[Mike]
You talk about the mental health element of dentistry just now. And you know, team building, I had to do this with my daughter as part of our school project recently. And we went to a local park and I thought there’s not really a huge amount of litter here, but we’ve got to fulfill the project and we got our bend bags, and we started going around with our litter pickers. And at the end of it, we had about three or four full bags of plastic, of cans, of everything, of glass bottles. And we stood there feeling proud as bunch that with made a difference to this play park, you know, so it’ll be a great motivational tool. It’ll make a difference. And it’ll be a great team building exercise.

[Jaz]
I think, yeah, team building, everyone should bring their whole team, the nurses, associates, neighbor practices, make a social occasion of it. Let that be in the sun and the daily. You know that the Times and The Daily Mail, that kind of stuff, you know, forget the other non sense. This is the kind of stuff that we should be promoting and should be at the forefront to show that we care because we generally do, we see on the Facebook groups all the time, as dentists moaning about how much plastic there is, let’s now take action. That’s a great initiative and wouldn’t have thought that. It sounds wonderful.

[Marcus]
Well, we’re trying to think outside the box is easy for any company to set up and say, right, do the assessments, therefore pay this every month, and actually clear. But that doesn’t actually, it doesn’t create anything, there’s zero impact with that other than someone’s wallet being less real than it was. Really what we’re after, is the effect of what we’re doing. And by reducing single use plastic, by looking at how we can do treatments, using some gases, and removing amalgam fillings, the whole gambit. And that’s not necessarily going to change the world tomorrow, but it’ll have that small step towards it.

[Mike]
Yeah. It’s a change of attitude as well, of course, you know, and somebody has to, as you say, draw the line in the sand and say, right, we need to change. And that’s what audit is all about. It’s about recognizing this is an issue. If we don’t change this, the coming generations are just going to keep doing the same thing. And we look at you know, greenness and big environmental, and somehow we look at it outside of our practice, because we justify it by its single use, it’s a clinical area, we can do anything about it. We can, you know, we can lobby manufacturers, and see the little like plastic micro brushes, can we get a made of bamboo or something else? I looked at my tree the other day, and it was like somebody had lost a game of kerplunk or something, there was this pile of plastic sticks, you know, and I’m like, There’s 40,000 dentists in the UK, I’ve just used 10 of them in the [??]. That’s almost half a million plastic brushes. We’re all using 10 a day. [Jaz] Wow [Mike] That’s a lot of plastic.

[Jaz]
The scale is huge. We’ve known for a long time. And so it’s great where we’re having these conversations. How can we obviously this is spreading awareness through mediums like this and getting people involved. It’s about making it international as well. Do you know if any other countries are or have any similar initiatives? And if we can learn something from them?

[Marcus]
And we looked, so that we could copy. There are experts out there, where we discovered there aren’t any experts?

[Jaz]
Please reach out if you’re listening, because you clicked on. And you know, you saw the title green and it spoke to you and you’re working in the community in dentistry. And you have some ideas reach out to Marcus and Mike because they’re on something here and they want to promote it. So I’m sure you’d welcome that gents.

[Mike]
I was just gonna say we launched them, we have a steering group. So part of what we need to do is draw in people that we know we’re not in competition with anyone. If anyone is doing something, we want to embrace that because this is knowledge and ethos that has to be shared. This can be owned by anyone. We don’t own that zero dentistry we are we are just helping provide the platform, they’ll hopefully bring all of it together. So we want people you know, if you’ve got projects, you’ve got things you’re doing, come onboard, let’s hold this together. That’s the idea.

[Jaz]
Have you both seen this a company that does aligner recycling? I don’t know if there’s multiple of these companies, or there’s just one. There’s one that I recently saw. And I think my practice inquired, and my practice had to say that you know what, there is a bit out of budget in terms of doing it. So I don’t know how much it costs. But my principal sort of side, okay, yeah, we don’t do enough in this line. And we did the cost too hard to justify, although we’d like to do it because part of the values of practice is to be greener, any ideas of how we can reduce the costs of practices getting involved in that. So we can recycle aligners.

[Marcus]
That would be the lobby group that would go to the Aligner group, and to fill up so I’ve engaged quite considerably and saying, we know that we’re pumping plastic and through the profession, into the patient base, but that can be averted, will have a refund system almost. Gather back in the replacement heads. So yeah, there are firms note setting up and taking attention, and doing something about it. But collectively, as supposed to individually, if you individually, go to that aligner company and see. So we went too heavy the price. But if the 8000 dentist going towards them and saying, Look, this is the price we want to deal at, then it makes sense.

[Jaz]
Mike, you can say something sorry.

[Mike]
I know. Sure. It was probably something really important. You’re true but again, I think I mean, this is where it gets complicated. You need the experts, because there’s one thing to have a green ethos and to want to be doing green things, but it’s also then looking at, you know, what is the thing that I’m doing and what impact does that have? So you know, recycling aligners, you know, how much of a carbon footprint is there actually getting the plastic back to wherever it’s been recycled? All those kind of questions have to be asked and looked at as well. And then all because that’s a general issue and everyday household plastic recycling as well. So, you know, again, we’re looking at creating the forum to have all of these discussions, you know, and hopefully come up with solutions and growing engagement with people that have said, Look I’m passionate about this, I want to be actively involved. In fact, one of the great little things we’ve got here was trying to reduce meat. And we came up with one of these smart and we know each little ideas not going to cure the problem. But they all have their impact. And, you know, we had this idea of meat free Mondays, calling them dental dinners where everybody in the professional agrees to have one or maybe two meat free days a week. And we put a thing saying, you know, if anyone’s got any meat free recipes or ideas, that would be great to have them. And that’s one of the things that we’ve been swamped with, I’ve had loads and loads of people, contacting us with those, you know, and again, that’s going to engage people and be fun, and it’s going to be good.

[Jaz]
Is any low hanging fruit? That you’ve had to think about that you think, you know what, actually, we’re already doing this. And you recently found out that actually, other practices aren’t doing this. Is there any quick wins that you could share with us today that people can go away listening and think that oh, yeah, I can easily make that change on Monday morning, to make my practice more green.

[Mike]
I think probably one of the things that I hadn’t, I guess thought about massively until Marcus started talking about it was just the energy bill at the practice. You know, you even as a practice owner, you know, things are on timers, you know, there’s an energy bill that comes in, but it’s not something I just consider that as unnecessary cost to the practice, but it didn’t really, I didn’t really have the full impact of the environmental costs of that. So I think there are ways that I can be more clever with regards to the use of energy within the practice, the heating bills, the, you know, the energy usage, that type of thing. So, you know, Marcus said to me, he asked the question said Mike what’s your energy bill every month? And I said, I’ve got no idea. I don’t know if someone else deals with that. I don’t know. I don’t know what my energy bills are and I should know, because I should be aware of how much we’re using and how much that could come down. And that would be massive, you know, some simple changes in how and when the heatings coming on, could instantly make a massive difference to your net zero goals.

[Jaz]
If all the practices reviewed that just one thing again, it makes a little ripple, doesn’t it? In the ocean. Marcus anything to add to terms of any ideas you’ve had so far in terms of quick wins that we can do not necessarily as dentists but as humans, but anything in the dental setting that we could look at as well?

[Marcus]
Yeah, if I could align briefly, and one of the groups that we were talking to try to implement a sustainability module in their ops manual. They wrote a document about this size, and funked it down on every clinic’s desk. Six months later, absolutely nothing had been implemented. So they approach this with the 1% gains. What can we do just now just to make a small difference? So they started planting an wild flowers outside the clinics. So the bees commend those cross pollination happening, and the food chain started to dry but unprovable, but that in theory is what would happen. They then extended that and started to put beehives on top of the clinics. So the bees were feeding off their own wildflowers. [Jaz] Is this in the UK? [Marcus] This is in the UK. Yeah. And so by taking these small steps, and people who opposed the green thing, the Eco thing, because everyone that’s green or eco are strange. And they said, Well, that’s really nice having flowers outside. It’s really cool. Having bees up on the roof is really cool. I was looking at that paper and recycling that paper, I guess it No. So all of a sudden three steps have been taken towards this net zero dentistry. And it might take five years, it might take 10 years, it might never happen. But the net zero dentistry thing is a case of very small steps. So by bringing in a plant to put in the waiting room, and have that plant, give us oxygen. Yeah, that’s one small step towards this net zero, you’re offsetting by doing that. So there’s one small step for Monday morning.

[Jaz]
Great. Well, in dentistry, we’re so used to having instant gratification, that when it comes to this, we have to really think the bigger picture, we have to think infinite game. So I think really beyond generations. And so that, that needs to be a very important part of our mindset. As we approach that. Gents, that’s the main sort of core I wanted to cover. Are there any message that you wanted to share to leave dentist with, so that they can now act on it? Obviously, I’m gonna share the website, they can hopefully then download the audit process, get involved, sign up to a newsletter that you guys provide. That’d be wonderful. Any other important messages regarding being green in dentistry?

[Mike]
I think so. I think You know, obviously, yes, we should all be greener for the sake of the planet and the environment. But if you engage, and you do this, you’re gonna save money. Okay, and we look at the bottom line in dentistry, we look at our profits at the end of year, you will have more bottom line profits, if you follow Net Zero dentistry and follow the stuff that we’re going to be talking about is, that is a simple fact, that will be true, you will also motivate your team, okay? This is something that everybody in the clinic can get involved with, no matter what the position and the business is. And I think it will be a real morale booster for a lot of clinics to be able to proudly have the badge on their website. We’re at net zero dentistry clinic, and it’s something we’re passionate about. As a follow on from that patients are gonna see that you know, and as you mentioned, we’re no longer the bad guys, we’re actively making a difference. We cared about our community, we care about our patients, we care about our planet. So other than, you know, just the pure and simple, yes, we want to make a difference for the planet. I think the knock on effect for this and the mental health elements of this are huge. And it’s exciting, the people, we’ve been speaking with a wonderful group of people who are all passionate and wanting to share and wanting to actively get involved. And some of them are saying, I’ve got loads of commitments, I can only do a little bit. And other people are given us loads of stuff. And that’s how it’s going to build. So even if you can do a small thing, as we’ve said, you know, get involved, get active and we will make a difference. This is going to happen. So be part of it.

[Jaz]
Be part of it, and including the trade as well as huge part of the trade complaints in being involved in this and an encouraging and passing it on and paying it forward to their family members, their spouses, everyone, it can definitely have a ripple effect. Marcus anything to share my friend?

[Marcus]
Yeah, we’ve talked through the business aspects of net zero dentistry and a clinic, Mike touched on the dental dinners, we actually have a full program, and I can touching on the mental health issues and the pressures on everyone in the clinic just in that we have an active session in there. So people that have cycled to work, people that run to work. And people simply walk to work because they’re not able to run a safer door. So doing those small things is another big important step. So we’ve gone into the personal side, the dental demos is going to be a big life really is that’s gonna be a lot of fun. And then we’ve got a gardening section, to grow your own vegetables, to grow your own flowers, to grow your own whatever, and then the exercise, the getting yourself back to fitness, both mentally and physically. And so I think the result of engaging as a very positive one

[Jaz]
Well, I would like to publicly commit to something as part of my thank you for sharing this, I’m gonna publicly commit to walking to work, I don’t live very far away from work but I still drive. So here now, I’m going to commit to walking to work after our discussion today. So thank you, and that’s me doing one thing, small thing and hopefully will lead to having those conversations to practice. So please do hold me accountable. My wife will love that I actually could use the exercise as well. So you guys have it, they’ve done it, you’ve inspired me to walk to work. And if you’re someone who can do that, or just like I said, run or bike, I think you should. And these are, it’s not just reducing the stereo pouches. It’s far bigger than that, you know, you immediately think all the plastic and micro brushes, but there’s so much more we can do as humans, not just dentists.

[Mike]
Yeah, and even if you can, if you don’t live close enough to your work, that you can walk all the way, you know, Park half a mile, you know, park a mile away from the clinic, shave that off the journey and you’re reducing, you know, 10 miles a week of your journeys and getting the exercise so there’s lots of little ways around this as well. But that’s excellent. We want some photographic proof otherwise, it didn’t happen.

[Jaz]
It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. And I love that and it will happen accountability is everything. Gents, thank you so much for sharing your time in this initiative. I want to plaster this everywhere. I’d love to put it on the website. Let’s put a blog. I want to email everyone. I want to get people talking about this. And if you’re listening been inspired by Marcus and Mike, please do reach out to them, reached out with them with love, with ideas, which is just as with criticism, it’s okay. If you think there’s a different angle you need to take, tell them. I know Mike and he’s a very open man. He’s gonna listen to you and together you seem like you guys have got the heart for it. So gents, thanks so much for starting net zero dentistry. And I’m excited to see where this goes. And maybe let’s do a follow on maybe a year, year and a half time to see what changes on what you’ve done, what we’ve accomplished. That’d be wonderful, I think.

[Mike]
Excellent. That sounds perfect. And please, please do follow us on social media. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, and the website. We’ve not mentioned the website name. It’s www.netzerodentistry.com.

Jaz’ Outro: Amazing. I’ll get that on the blog post as well. So yes, have a lovely rest of your weekend. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast. So there we have it guys. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you gonna commit to today? Let me know. Share it on your Facebook or Instagram story, tag protrusive dental, tag net zero dentistry. Let us know what are you going to do to make sure that we can be greener as a profession and greener personally. Thank you so much for listening to is really, really important episode. I really appreciate it