Hello everyone! I'm delighted to present an update on Imperial Brands' environmental, social, and governance activities. In 2022, we refreshed our approach to ESG, and in September of that year, we held our first ESG webinar to share our new thinking with you. We had conducted an in-depth materiality study and identified eight key priorities. Two years on, having refreshed our materiality assessment, these priorities remain our focus, and we're excited to share our progress. Before I hand over to Stefan and the management team, I want to spend a few moments on the role of the board and how we've strengthened our wider governance, as well as our oversight of ESG. Over the past two years, we've continued to strengthen our governance framework with distinct, well-defined roles for management and the board.
One of the most notable changes this year is the board's decision to expand the role of the existing People and Governance Committee to enhance the board's oversight of sustainability and ESG. The expanded committee meets quarterly and has direct reporting lines from two key executive committees: the Group ESG Committee and the Group Ethics and Compliance Committee, both of which are chaired by Stefan. The ESG committee includes the full Executive Leadership Team and is responsible for delivering our ESG agenda, monitoring progress, and allocating appropriate resources. This framework gives the board full oversight of ESG while ensuring delivery remains firmly at an executive level. The newly reframed People, Governance, and Sustainability Committee, which contains all non-executive directors, undertakes clearly defined activities for the board as shown here.
It plays an important role in reviewing the group's people, policies, and practices to support talent and capability, a diverse and inclusive workforce, and employee engagement. One of the most important tasks for the committee is looking at executive leadership capabilities and overseeing the pipeline of senior talent to deliver our strategy. This is where we discuss succession for the executive team, and of course, the board, as well as board composition, board evaluations, and wider corporate governance. The committee reviews ESG and ethics and compliance reporting and oversees how risks in these areas are managed. For example, one recent discussion at the committee was the group's whistleblowing program and how we can improve on the way employee concerns are reported and addressed. The committee also reviews all aspects of the group's non-financial reporting, as well as internal verification and external assurance in conjunction with the Audit Committee, where appropriate.
ESG is not only about us doing the right thing, it's also about giving you, the people who own this business, comfort that we can clearly evidence our progress. We're alert to concerns of greenwashing, and this is why I want to assure you that the data points we present undergo rigorous internal and external processes. The external assurance process for this financial year is underway, so these numbers may be subject to change. Internally, we've appointed a dedicated head of non-financial reporting, and externally, our auditors, EY, provide assurance of key published ESG data. Preparations are already underway for reporting under the EU's Corporate Sustainability Directive. Governance isn't only at a board and executive level. We're creating a strong governance culture throughout Imperial, underscored by refreshed policies and codes. For example, just this month, the board approved a new group code of conduct.
Front and center of the new code is the message that our people should feel free to speak up about their concerns, anonymously if preferred, and without fear of retaliation. It's important that we have an environment where difficult issues can be aired and addressed. To support all of this, we've significantly strengthened the board over the past four years in terms of diversity, skills, and experience. A strong and effective board is key to underpinning the G in ESG. Since becoming chair in 2020, there have been nine new appointments. With eight different nationalities and wide international business experience, the board now well represents our varied global footprint. My goal has been to enhance all aspects of board diversity because this drives better discussions and better decision-making.
Today, the board is 45% female, up from 22% in 2020, and we now have voices from broader ethnic backgrounds for the first time. Just as important has been our drive to enhance the skills and experience of the board. For example, the majority of our board now have direct consumer goods experience in key leadership and operational roles from a wide range of sectors. Specifically, we wanted directors with experience of consumer industries undergoing strategic change. For example, Bob Kunze-Concewitz has led the successful long-term transformation of Campari Group. Julie Hamilton, formerly of Coca-Cola and Diageo, and Andrew Gilchrist, who was CFO of Reynolds American, have both had senior roles in global businesses driving through major change. One of our roles as directors is to provide oversight and challenge.
Achieving our ambitious long-term goals will not be easy, and there will no doubt be some challenging boardroom discussions on ESG in the years to come. However, another key role is to offer support and encouragement. I have been impressed by what has already been achieved. For example, in consumer health, we've grown our NGP revenue by more than 40% under our current strategy. In climate, we've reduced emissions by 69% since 2017, and we have clear but ambitious plans to get to net zero. Last year, we supported more than 100,000 farmers through our Leaf Partnership programs. This is to name just a few highlights. With this in mind, I want to say a big thank you to Stefan and to everyone at Imperial Brands for the huge progress which has been made. Today's presentation will demonstrate some of this progress.
I and my board colleagues have been hugely impressed by the quality of the thinking, rigor of the objectives, and the sheer passion of our people. Stefan, over to you.
Thank you, Thérèse, and hello, everyone. Most of you have heard us talk about our distinctive role within our industry, our vision to be the strong challenger, and how this aligns to our purpose and strategy. And we've explained how, as the number four player, we need to do things differently. Today, I want to discuss how we're also taking a similar challenger approach to our environmental, social, and governance priorities. We're going to explain how in ESG, we're also starting with the consumer. Since our previous ESG webinar two years ago, we've made strong progress across each of our priority areas. We also recognize there is much work still to do. In some areas, we've been starting from behind, playing catch-up. But the good news is we're taking the opportunity to learn from others. We have been following a clear roadmap to drive ESG into our operations.
We started with a comprehensive materiality assessment, listening to the views of consumers, customers, employees, regulators, and investors. This helped define the eight focus areas that Thérèse set out earlier, and more recently, we've strengthened the governance and integrated ESG metric for consumer health and climate into our executive remuneration. At launch, we appointed executive leadership team sponsors for each of our ESG priorities to inspire engagement throughout the entire company. We firmly believe this approach puts us in a stronger position to deliver against our goals. Now, I'm going to give you a brief overview of today's agenda before handing over to the team. A key element of what makes us a strong challenger business is our performance culture. This is about strong capabilities, clear lines of accountability, and deep collaboration.
Alison, our Chief People and Culture Officer, will talk about how this culture supports the delivery of our ESG priorities. She will also discuss how we have galvanized our people behind our ESG priorities through the Triple Zero initiative. This is a program of activities to inform and energize our colleagues about our goals for zero carbon, zero waste, and zero injuries. Linked closely to the development of our performance culture is our ambition to become more diverse and inclusive. We now have a much more diverse team around the table, and these appointments are all aligned to our ambition to be the most agile and consumer-centric business in our sector. This is important because, like many sectors, we're going through a long-term transition, a transition from the old world, dominated by combustible cigarettes, to a new world where more adult consumers make potentially less harmful, smoke-free choices.
We are committed to make our own important distinctive contribution to harm reduction. Industry transitions can be slowed by a lack of consumer acceptance. They will only choose to make the change if pain points are addressed through innovation and investment. The world's one billion smoker must choose to quit or to transition to potentially less risky alternatives, and a successful approach to harm reduction needs to start with a deep understanding of consumer behaviors and the barriers they face to making different choices. Now, in a moment, you will hear from Paola, our Chief Consumer Officer, and Joe, our Head of Science, about how we are taking a deeply consumer-focused approach to our research. Being a challenger is also about taking advantage of our smaller size to be more agile. We've been able to move swiftly to create new multidisciplinary teams collaborating on a global scale.
Our colleagues work smart and deliver in a way that's a commercial win-win, eliminating carbon emissions and creating more efficient manufacturing processes, reducing vehicle mileage and helping our sales force become more effective, cutting packaging costs and creating new differentiated consumer propositions. You're going to hear from Lukas, our Chief Financial Officer, and Benjamin, who leads our efforts on reducing packaging and waste. Our challenger mindset extends to our partnerships in farming communities. Vinay, who leads on leaf procurement, will give you some new insights into the issues and opportunities in this area. Our ambition for zero injuries in our own workforce is the focus, and Tony, our ESG Director, will explain how we're moving towards this ambition.
Now, it may seem like an impossible mission for a global business of 25,000 people to achieve zero injuries, but we believe that even a single person harmed in the course of their work with us is a person too many. We won't get there overnight, but this is the right ambition. This sets out our agenda for today. I'm delighted with the selection of our senior leadership team to present to you today, and I will be back later to write some concluding remarks, and the team will be happy to answer your questions in our question and answer. Now, I would like to hand over to Alison to talk about how our performance-based culture drives our ESG delivery. Alison, over to you.
Hi, everyone. I want to cover two things in my presentation. First, how are we delivering our ESG priorities, and in particular, how our performance-based culture enables our progress? Second, an update on a specific ESG priority, diversity, equity, and inclusion. As the executive leader accountable for ESG, I want to start by explaining a little more about how we operate. Our strategic wheel's three enablers guide both commercial and ESG priorities. Stefan discussed our consumer-focused approach, and Thérèse covered governance reforms, which have simplified how we work. I'll focus on performance culture in ESG, which includes having the right capabilities, clear accountability, and deep collaboration across the entire organization. Let me start with capabilities. Broadly, these break down into people, process, and data. Initially, we invested in external houses with global expertise.
For example, responsible sourcing and diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we invested in strong FMCG expertise to drive our consumer health agenda. To deliver each priority, we built cross-functional groups embedded in the business and with shared objectives. A good example is the team responsible for reducing energy use in our factories. We brought together people across diverse locations, such as North Carolina, Taiwan, and Germany, to use their deep expertise to build solutions to cut our carbon footprint. We've also invested in technology to give us better data to enable faster, better, informed decisions. This includes Strata Energy Management System, Sedex, to improve supply chain visibility, and Datamaran, which supports our materiality surveys. Turning to accountability, which is at the heart of our performance culture, there are three levers to call out: measurement, remuneration, and audits.
When we built our ESG strategy, we set stretching goals with clear KPIs and then allocated accountability to leaders and teams across the business. The ESG committee reviews progress against these goals every quarter, and where we're on target, we add stretch. Since 2020, we have also increased the number of assured ESG measures from 19 to 32, which is a significant increase. And ESG measures also form part of executive pay, with bonuses tied to consumer health and climate change metrics in the long-term incentives. To ensure the performance is on track, we use proactive audits to identify risks. In 2024, we conducted in-person human rights audits in Morocco, Côte d'Ivoire, and the U.S., and in health and safety, we completed 15 cross-factory audits this year. Collaboration is a key driver of our performance.
To support this, we have created the ESG community, made up of 50 business leaders and subject matter experts accountable for key deliverables. Tony Dunnage and I hold working sessions with this team quarterly to identify synergies, share best practice, and develop future strategy. Many of our people have also become Zero Heroes or local ESG champions to support our initiatives. As we develop our ESG ambitions, increasingly, we need to engage our broader workforce, not just the experts, and this requires a focus on compelling internal communication. To amplify the messages of our performance culture, we created Connections TV, a communication tool targeted at sales reps and factory employees. This year, we dedicated two episodes to ESG, highlighting practical examples of how our people could get involved and make a difference.
We also hold an annual webinar, led by Stefan, for our top five hundred leaders on the role that they need to play in ESG. Let me turn now to the second part of my presentation, our progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion. We've approached D&I through the same performance culture prism as the other ESG topics. We were coming from behind, and our first priority was to build capabilities across the business. We started by creating four business employee resource groups, covering gender, ethnicity, disability, and LGBTQ plus. We now have a thousand plus members who are important sources of expertise and thought leadership, and enthusiastic champions of our agenda. To lead this agenda, we recruited a strong global team with deep experience to create and drive a comprehensive long-term plan. Second, we focused on accountability, getting clear, measurable objectives. Our initial goal was to focus on gender balance.
We now have 45% female representation at the ELT, up from 14% four years ago. We have also improved the gender balance of our top 500 leaders by more than 15 percentage points to 36%. An important focus in D&I is to drive positive commercial outcomes by creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce. For example, the sales force in our largest market, the U.S., is now majority diverse. That is more than 50% female or minority ethnic. This better reflects the varied nature of the retailers that we serve, and in Germany, our second biggest market, we use the investment in our sales force to hire more people from culturally diverse backgrounds. It's early days, but in both markets, these new recruits are already building closer relationships with retailers from similar cultural backgrounds.
We still have a long way to go in D&I and across all of our ESG priorities, but I think the performance culture underpinning the way we approach ESG supports a more sustainable and consistent delivery. I'll now hand over to Paola to talk about how we are working towards healthier futures for our consumers.
Many thanks, Alison, and hello, everyone. I'm pleased to be the executive sponsor for our ambition of making a meaningful contribution to tobacco harm reduction. This is core to our purpose of forging a path to a healthier future for moments of relaxation and pleasure. As Stefan highlighted, we have adopted the challenger approach based on some key principles. First, and most importantly, we start with the consumer. We aim to truly understand adult smokers, their motivations, needs, and preferences. Second, we have a clear role to provide choice to consumers. It is not about telling consumers what to use, it's about seeking to offer better choices to drive acceptance. Third, it's identifying the untapped consumer needs. We are focused on building differentiated challenger brands that meet these needs. We are not looking to be number one, but seeking to carve out a sufficiently attractive share of market.
Finally, it's about the scientific validation of our products. We invest in the science behind our products, so we first and foremost ensure product safety. We can then understand what contribution we can make to harm reduction. Today, we will focus mainly on the scientific validation aspects of our approach. But before we do that, let me explain the principles of tobacco harm reduction. It is just not about selling potentially reduced harm products. It is about the individual journey of each of the world's one billion adult smokers. This equation illustrates how next generation products have the potential to improve consumer health. However, to facilitate harm reduction, these new products must be accepted by adult smokers as alternative to cigarettes. Clearly, the best health-related outcome is for adult smokers not to use any tobacco product.
By increasing NGP choice and by improving the experience, we can increase adult smoker switching. We can expand this harm reduction equation to explain what we mean by consumer acceptance. Consumer acceptance and satisfaction is critical to enable harm reduction, but it is not enough to satisfy current adult smokers with a potentially reduced risk nicotine product, which we will call off-ramping. We are conscious of society's concern around unintended use of these products, especially by youth or so-called on-ramping. This could diminish the contribution to harm reduction. At a population level, harm reduction is only achieved if the off-ramping substantially outweighs the risk of on-ramping, which we must minimize or eliminate. I will come back to this. Our focus is on driving consumer acceptance while recognizing that consumers and markets are different. The chart on the right shows consumer preferences for nicotine vary significantly by market.
This is driven by history, regulation, taxation, among other factors. The goal is consumers' acceptance. When NGP uses coupled with a reduction in cigarette smoking, this is likely to lead to improved consumer health outcomes based on what we know today. Let's now address the flip side of this equation, and the concern of on-ramping to nicotine by consumers who do not already smoke. Let me be very clear, minors should never use any of our products. Furthermore, all of our products are aimed very squarely at existing adult smokers and nicotine consumers. We maintain a strict, responsible marketing code. For example, we monitor for any sales abnormalities that in some instances may indicate potential proxy sales to youth. We use third-party online age verification on blu.com where required, and we have contractual commitments with retail and wholesale customers to apply our high standards throughout the distribution chain.
We also recommend printing for adult smokers and vapers only on consumer-facing communication for our vape products. We believe everyone, from manufacturer to retailers, must take responsibility in preventing youth access, and we support regulation aligned with this goal. So to summarize, we have built the foundation for a growing and sustainable NGP business that can make a meaningful contribution to harm reduction. Today, we are going to focus more closely on the scientific validation of our products, and I'm going to hand over to Joe Thompson to take you through our scientific validation approach. Thank you.
Thank you, Paola. I'm now going to focus on how we robustly assess our NGPs for their safety, efficacy, and potential for harm reduction. We set up our first R&D laboratory in the 1950s, and have increasingly invested in the science of harm reduction through NGP over the last decade or so. More recently, we have added to this track record of clinical expertise with real-world behavioral studies, which I'll cover later. The scientific and medical literature continues to demonstrate the potential of NGP for harm reduction. The science is growing, and in 2023, there were over 3,700 peer-reviewed publications covering chemistry, biology, and clinical outcomes. It's this growing body of scientific data that enables public health bodies to increasingly conclude that NGP have a real potential for adult smokers who switch.
For example, on vaping, the UK Royal College of Physicians concluded that using e-cigarettes for harm reduction to reduce morbidity and mortality from combustible tobacco is based on clear evidence. Imperial has contributed by investing in our own scientific research, which we routinely publish in peer-reviewed literature. There are some recent examples here on the slide, and you can find more on the Imperial Brands science website. You'll be familiar with this chart, which shows the relative risk scale for combustibles and various NGPs. Combustible cigarettes sit on the left with the highest number of toxicants and the highest risk caused by the combustion of tobacco. Combustion is responsible for diseases caused by smoking, not nicotine. On the right-hand side of the scale are NGPs, and have substantially lower levels of toxicants and the potentially lowest risk because they do not involve combustion.
However, to substantiate the potential for reduced risk and harm reduction, we need to fully assess NGP through several scientific disciplines. We have developed a rigorous, multi-stage, multi-discipline scientific assessment framework, or SAF, to substantiate the reduced risk potential of NGP. We begin with product characterization science to understand what's in the aerosol and what a consumer is exposed to. This analysis includes aerosol chemistry with a risk assessment of the ingredients, materials used, and a view on product quality and indoor air quality. Biological science assesses the potential impact on human cells in the laboratory relative to combustibles. Clinical science evaluates what's happening in consumers. It assesses safety and performance of NGP when actually used by adult smokers. Behavioral science looks at how consumers use products and what their views are on the health risks of using them.
Computational science involves data modeling that allows us to predict what the potential long-term harm reduction impact could be in markets if existing adult smokers switch to NGPs, and post-market surveillance looks at what is happening in real life once our NGPs are on the market. It monitors product safety and harm reduction potential. Starting with product characterization, laboratory tests show that NGP has up to 99% reduction in harmful chemicals compared to combustible cigarettes. On the left-hand side, our vaping products have greater than 99% reduction because they do not contain tobacco. On the right-hand side, our heated tobacco products have a reduction of greater than 95%... and this builds confidence that these products greatly reduce exposure. However, we still need to understand the toxicity of that exposure. This reduction in harmful chemicals also translates to a substantial reduction in toxicity in regulatory tests.
To do this, we look for specific assays which are predictive of cancer risk. The chart shows the percentage reduction compared to combustible cigarettes. The first three bars evaluate our vaping products. It shows that blu is not genotoxic in the in vitro micronucleus assay, nor has mutagenic potential in the Ames assay, i.e., blu didn't elicit any response in either assay. In tests for cytotoxicity, its response was reduced by 99% compared to a cigarette. On the right-hand side are the results for our heated tobacco products, Pulze and iD. Again, these show substantial reductions compared to cigarettes. This data builds confidence that NGP has the potential to be substantially less risky than combustibles. We need, however, to assess other health endpoints, and in the absence of long-term epidemiological data, we use cutting-edge techniques that help us assess and predict potential long-term risks.
Our policy is not to test on animals unless required to do so by regulators. This is a differentiator compared to competitors. Instead, we use scientific models of human disease. We work with third parties to develop innovative technologies, which use human cells to test for a range of disease markers that may indicate an increased or decreased risk. The figure on the left shows histopathology images of 3D lung tissue, which has been repeatedly exposed to the aerosol of vaping or heated tobacco products or cigarette smoke. Results show minimal effects compared to cigarette smoke. On the right side is a heat map, which summarizes the inflammatory response of cells after exposure to cigarette smoke, shown in the left-hand column, versus our heated tobacco products in the middle and vaping on the right. The inflammatory markers, when interpreted together, give an indication of cardiovascular disease risk.
Red represents an increase in these risk markers, gray shows no change, and blue represents a reduction in risk markers. Although we are still dealing with novel products here, in these assessments, NGPs clearly show a substantial reduction in potential cardiovascular risk markers in human cells compared to cigarettes. And these are just two examples of the assessments we undertake to try to understand longer-term health risks. Nicotine delivery is important to consumers. Our clinical studies show that NGPs deliver nicotine rapidly and are satisfying for adult smokers. The figure on the left shows the nicotine delivery of various versions of our heated products compared to a cigarette, shown in blue. The Y-axis is the measure of nicotine in the blood, and X-axis is time. You can see that nicotine is delivered rapidly, and whilst at satisfying levels for consumers, is less than a cigarette.
On the right are PET scans of radio-labeled nicotine. You have freebase nicotine on the left and a salt, nicotine lactate, on the right. Nicotine salts help to stabilize nicotine within the aerosol, so it reaches the lungs and improves delivery. More efficient nicotine delivery was linked to greater satisfaction in our clinical studies, which helps consumer acceptance. Our NGPs have been tested in clinical studies which measure biomarkers. These are specific chemicals in blood or urine as an indicator for exposure to harmful constituents found in tobacco smoke. The chart summarizes changes in fifteen biomarkers. There was an average of 84% reduction in biomarkers among study participants who only vaped, and 40% reduction for those that vaped and smoked. The study concluded that both dual use and complete switching have a positive impact on biomarker exposure.
Again, building confidence that NGP have the potential to reduce risks of smoking. We have done a lot more work recently on understanding the behavioral aspects of our NGPs with consumers. We have conducted actual use studies with over a thousand consumers with no intention to quit smoking. On the left is a 24-week study in the Czech Republic with Pulze and iD, which shows that 16% of participants switched to exclusive use, and a further 34% reduced their cigarettes per day by 50% or more after just 6 weeks. This remained stable at week 24, with a further increase in those that had completely transitioned away from smoking to 25%.
On the right is a six-week study for both blu 2.0 and blu bar in the UK, where up to 40% completely switched away from cigarettes on average across the two studies, or substantially reduced their cigarette consumption. We are awaiting the 24-week data, but the preliminary results indicate that blu 2.0 and blu bar could also offer an effective alternative to adult smokers with no intention to quit smoking. We have also developed computational population health models to predict potential public health outcomes and inform regulatory decisions. These models are built on existing public data and help us estimate the potential health benefits associated with the introduction of NGPs in specific markets. Our model compares mortality rates attributable to smoking under two scenarios: one where the product was introduced and one where it was not.
While cessation is the best option for public health, we estimate that introducing NGP and encouraging smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke cigarettes to switch, could have the potential to result in a substantial population health benefit. We continue to assess products once they are on the market as part of our post-market surveillance activities. This means we monitor and review the scientific and medical literature related to NGPs generally, and our products specifically. We capture and assess consumer health complaints reported to us, and monitor notifications made to regulators, ready to take corrective or preventative action if required, and continue to conduct studies to assess the potential benefits or impacts of our products on the public health. So to summarize, we are committed to making a meaningful contribution to harm reduction through consumer choice of potentially less harmful products.
Our robust scientific assessment framework is a key part of our commitment to substantiate the harm reduction potential of our NGPs. Many thanks. I will now hand over to Lukas to talk about climate change.
Thank you, Joe. In this section, we will cover how we are building healthier futures for our planet. According to a recent Accenture study, 8,000 companies have pledged to achieve Net Zero emissions, yet 82% are falling behind on their goals. We acknowledge both the risks and the opportunities presented by climate change, and are determined to stay on track with our ambitious commitments. We know from our Materiality Assessment that climate change is a key priority for many of our stakeholders. As the Chief Financial Officer, I am responsible for ensuring accurate and transparent reporting. This data provides two opportunities for us. First, to assess the climate risks we face as a business, and secondly, identify opportunities for us to reduce our carbon footprint.
Climate change, with its extreme weather events, can pose direct threats to our operations, supply chains, and revenue streams, so we continually assess and quantify these risks. Our work on our TCFD disclosures shows these risks are not currently material, and we have plans in place to mitigate them. Our focus today is on the second opportunity, our contribution to reduce our carbon footprint and to realize cost savings as we focus on energy efficiency. We are committed to taking responsibility for climate change impact of our entire value chain, with the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2040, and as Stefan mentioned earlier, this is one leg of our Triple Zero campaign. This is an ambitious long-term goal, and it means eliminating our net greenhouse gas emissions, not just within our own business operations, but across our whole supply chain.
We have set ourselves two intermediate goals for 2030. The first is to be Net Zero for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions. The second is to have reduced all our carbon emissions related to our business, that is Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, by 50% versus 2017. We see our journey to Net Zero as a potential win-win. It is an opportunity for us to play our part in curbing global warming, putting our Net Zero targets into context. In 2023, our value chain emissions were more than 900,000 tons of carbon. Our Scope 1 and 2 emissions accounted for around 10% of total emissions from our value chain, and our Scope 3 emissions account for the remaining 90% of our carbon footprint.
Scope 3 emissions have become a greater portion of the total because of the progress we have already made. Our actions have reduced our direct emissions by around 70% since 2017. To visualize this, in the past year alone, we have removed from our carbon footprint the equivalent of 3,000 hot air balloons filled with CO2. This progress reflects the commitment of our employees to identify energy efficiency opportunities that not only reduce our carbon emission, but also our costs. For example, in our manufacturing sites, we have taken a data-led approach to improving our operational efficiency. In the last year, we invested in a new global energy management system to continuously collect energy usage data to gain more precise understanding of how we use energy in our factories.
This has then allowed us to map and compare our manufacturing energy usage across our footprint and over time. It has given us some interesting insights. For instance, simply switching the power off at just one site over the weekend when it was not in use, gave an annual savings of GBP 24,000. A simple example, but this new data has enabled us to establish a framework of leading environmental indicators and improved guidance for our sites. Over the next year, we will roll out this framework to all factory sites, and as we have delivered in one area, it has helped to highlight opportunities elsewhere. For instance, our success in reducing energy usage in manufacturing has meant that our sales force fleet emissions are now almost 30% of our Scope 1 emissions.
We have an opportunity not only to reduce the emissions from our sales fleet, but also to improve the effectiveness of our sales force through route optimization. It's not as simple as just to replace our entire fleet with electric vehicles. It requires detailed mapping of sales routes and charging points. We have to be flexible, using electric vehicles where appropriate, and hybrid vehicles for others who travel further than the charge range or where charging points are not available. A third option is to use biofuels as they become more readily available. Achieving our Net Zero goal by 2040 requires us to manage carbon reduction across our Scope 3 emissions. Since we presented to you in 2022, we've made progress mapping our supply chain emissions. It is a complex challenge with numerous suppliers that represent 90% of our total emissions.
We started by prioritizing our largest suppliers, who represent the greatest spend and emissions. We have added new procurement capabilities to work with these suppliers to establish reduction targets, improve emission data disclosure, and encourage external validation of their carbon plans through the Science Based Targets initiative. We engage suppliers via the CDP supply chain program and our internal supplier relationship management. To underpin these commitments, we will be introducing net zero clauses into our supplier contracts from 2025, and we'll retrospectively address our existing long-term contracts. I am pleased to report that we are close to achieving our target of having 50% of our supplier spend covered by commitment to have SBTI-validated targets. This is up from 33% in 2023, reflecting a significant engagement effort. We have a clear plan, and we are delivering against it.
To achieve our ambition to be fully net zero across our operations and supply chain by 2040, we set ourselves intermediate milestones for 2025 and 2030, to monitor progress and prevent backloading. It is good to see we are delivering against these milestones, and sometimes ahead of schedule. We have more to do, but delivery of these targets to date underpins our confidence that we will achieve our net zero aspirations. The next phase is possible because we've galvanized our performance-based culture to focus on our energy reduction targets. Equally, our enhanced procurement capabilities continue to make progress with our supplier base to embrace a new way of working. A ton of carbon reduction from Imperial and our supply chain is a ton of carbon reduction globally. This is about building our future, and it's about being part of building a better future for our planet.
I will now hand over to Benjamin to talk about packaging and waste. Over to you, Benjamin.
Thank you, Lukas. As a consumer packaged goods company, we play an important role in reducing the impact of packaging and waste. Zero waste is another leg in our Triple Zero campaign, and one where we have made significant progress in the last two years, though there remains more to do. Like all our priorities, we set ourselves some clear and ambitious targets for packaging and waste. Today, I would like to focus on two of those targets. Number one, zero waste to landfill, and number two, reusable, recyclable, and compostable packaging. On the first, we achieved our zero waste to landfill target two years ahead of schedule at the end of 2023. Clear accountability and ownership of targets by our Zero Heroes community played a key part in reaching this target, as you will see in this video. ...
As we have said, starting with the consumer is key to our strategy. Our research on the global FMCG sector shows that consumers are becoming more motivated by sustainability when making a decision about the products they purchase. For example, 28% of consumers have stopped buying products because of ethical or sustainable concerns, and within the Gen Z age group, this rises to 45%. Consumers want companies to do better. They want brand owners to do better, but they also want the brands to do the heavy lifting. They won't accept any downgrades in product quality, freshness or hygiene, and they won't compromise on price. For European consumers, the recyclability of packaging is key. This underpins our target for all our E.U. and U.K. packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.
Working with third-party experts to assess the recyclability of our packaging, we developed new ways to create the same quality or better packaging, where our existing packaging was not recyclable. In this way, we made four out of six packaging categories recyclable and reduced our plastic consumption by around 320 tons, and now around 2,000 tons of plastic is recyclable. A practical example of this is where we have changed our packaging for our Roll Your Own Horizon tobacco brand in Spain. Our consumers told us that it was important the packaging contained recycled material, and so we launched our first pouch, partially made out of recycled plastic. This had a positive impact on both the perception of quality and on brand choice, and we saw a 10% uplift of sales during the activation compared to other marketing campaigns. Our solution was a win-win.
We took a further step towards a circular economy, which was warmly embraced by our consumers. These initiatives also extend across our NGP portfolio. We continue to explore ways to improve the offering, while our supporting sustainable consumer behaviors. Post-consumer waste is an ongoing challenge. For example, providing dedicated vape bins in a number of our markets for our brand, blu, is aimed to help consumers dispose of these products responsibly and ideally recycle them. Also, within vape, we continue to innovate. For example, the launch of our blu bar kits, which now include a rechargeable battery and replaceable pods. We have made good progress to date, but there is more to do. Leadership from our Zero Heroes across the group underpins the delivery of our Triple Zero target. I will now pass to Tony, our Global ESG Director, to cover healthier futures for people and society.
Safety has always been a cornerstone of our organization, but our commitment has evolved since we established our strategy in 2021. We now aspire to achieve world-class operational health, safety, and well-being standards across our global organizations. We've set ambitious long-term targets that challenge us to continuously improve. As Stefan has outlined, our zero injury aspiration is part of our Triple Zero goal. We have deployed our strategy to support and empower our people to make the right choices, creating a culture where safety and well-being are core values and vital parts of our operations. In 2023, we refreshed our group health, safety, and well-being policy. Our commitment is clear: to provide a safe, healthy, and supportive working environment for our employees and everyone involved in our business, fostering a culture of care where everyone takes responsibility and accountability for safety.
We approach our zero injury aspiration by focusing on three key pillars: improving processes, behaviors, and capabilities. On processes, we recognize the need for consistency in managing health and safety across the group. Each location conducted a self-assessment of leading indicators, supported by 38 trained internal reviewers. This collaborative review identified 321 good practices and 376 recommendations for improvement. We follow a plan, do, check, act approach with on-site visits to review and assess compliance. Since FY 2022, we have completed 43 of these visits. On capabilities, we had identified the need to enhance our capabilities with various initiatives undertaken to build a strong health and safety culture, and our leaders were trained in behavioral science of safety, emphasizing impactful safety conversations. On behaviors, while our approach has been to foster change, we have more to do.
In the next financial year, we will roll out our behavioral safety program based on I Own Safety rules. This program aims to create an environment where people make the right choices, including peer-to-peer observations, coaching conversations, and timely feedback. We have already piloted this approach in two factories and are monitoring it for improvements. Additionally, we are enhancing incident investigation, quality, and capability, including analyzing which human behaviors drive good choices when it comes to decisions around personal safety. Our focus is on preventative measures, fostering a learning culture, and empowering our teams to proactively identify risks as we move towards our zero injury aspiration. What really matters is how we bring all this to life on the ground, and here are a few examples.
We run various awareness campaigns to ensure health and safety remains a priority, including the Zero Heroes campaign, which has really gained traction this year. We launched our inaugural global I Own Safety rules, which are our universal guide for the safe behaviors we expect at Imperial. We celebrated World Safety Day at work with local engagement activities and global initiatives, such as the Let's Talk Safety podcast, where senior leaders highlighted our ambitious zero injury aspiration. We've incorporated safety moments into town halls and leadership webinars, as well as in a special People and Planet edition of a global communications program, where we highlighted our Drive Safe initiatives in Cambodia. And leaders now have a better visibility to monitor trends and understand performance through a near real-time dashboard via an app. One of the key differences in our recent approach is our focus on setting long-term goals.
We are establishing key milestones to track progress towards these targets. For example, one of the key metrics to measure our safety performance is Lost Time Accident Frequency Rate. I'm pleased that our progress is on track, and although maintaining a pipeline of activities is challenging, we are confident our focus areas will keep us on course. I will now hand over to Vinay Advani, who will talk about healthier futures for our wider society and how this supports farmer livelihoods. Over to you, Vinay.
Thank you, Tony. Our leaf journey also starts with the consumer. For consumers to keep enjoying moments of pleasure, farmers must keep choosing to grow tobacco today, tomorrow, and into the future. If you recall from our ESG webinar in 2022, we source around 97% of our leaf stock through third-party supplier partnerships. Our suppliers contract with farmers at the beginning of a growing season and support them with the necessary training and inputs to grow the crop responsibly. Their technicians monitor the crop and labor practices throughout the season. We have an established governance process to manage our tobacco leaf supply chain risk, underpinned by the membership of the Sustainable Tobacco Program or STP. Broadly, the STP enables collaboration with other manufacturers and suppliers to further due diligence processes across the sector.
It is an industry body which, among other things, verifies 100% of supplier-collected self-assessment data. We use this data to identify priority countries to focus our interventions, such as through leaf partnership projects, which I will cover later. However, tobacco farmers are starting to face new challenges. For a smallholder farmer, everything is connected. Everything in their life happens on the same football field-sized farm. Over the recent years, we have seen extreme weather events. The global pandemic and disruptions to global supply chains have impacted our suppliers and their contracted tobacco farms. Of the 32 countries where we source our tobacco, 17 are starting to see a greater challenge in contracting farmers to grow tobacco in the future. On top of this, there are added pressures with the rural-to-urban migration that all agricultural sectors are experiencing.
As a result of these pressures, some farmers are becoming less motivated to grow tobacco. To mitigate this challenge and to ensure we have a resilient and sustainable supply of tobacco, we have three pillars within our strategy. First, our leaf suppliers are global partnerships, sourcing from many different countries to enable supply chain continuity. By sourcing 97% of our leaf through these partners, we have the best opportunity to leverage the global hedging. Second, we maintain a level of leaf stock that covers our expected annual consumption, so we always have a buffer. And third, we support our suppliers through our farmer livelihoods and welfare programs. This helps to support the supply chain and the journey of farmers to achieving a decent standard of living. A decent standard of living is crucial for farmers to continue choosing to grow tobacco. But how is this defined?
The industry has formally adopted the Living Income Benchmark. The benchmark varies by country and includes cost for food, housing, education, healthcare, transport, clothing, and other essential needs. Overall, farm net income, including the income from outside the farm, is measured against the relevant Living Income benchmark for that location. This income needs to exceed the benchmark to be considered a living income, meaning the farmer can afford a decent standard of living. We and our suppliers are combining efforts to identify those farmers that have difficulties in achieving a living income, and to support them with specific actions via our leaf partnerships. We have a clear plan to support farmers in our supply chain through our farmer livelihood and welfare programs. Back in 2022, we set out how our leaf partnership programs are integral to our leaf sourcing strategy.
We're committed to continue to engage with our suppliers to support and develop farming communities and promote sustainable agriculture through three initiatives. First, dedicated financial sustainability projects to help farmers improve their income with greater access to projects that support their financial sustainability by 2030. Second, increasing access to basic needs to make farming communities a better place to live, with a target of supporting our suppliers with access to 180,000 farmers by 2030. And third, the introduction of sustainable agricultural practices with a target of 100% sustainable wood by 2025. Our leaf partnership projects are truly a partnership with the suppliers. We identify the best local solution to address the priority issues in each country that the suppliers then implement with our funding.
For example, we have rolled out our financial literacy training this year to over 1,500 farmers in three countries. This means we're directly funding productivity and efficiency projects that are aimed at increasing tobacco income. We are supporting supplier research and development projects to increase farmer productivity and efficiencies, with the benefit to the farmers. Our suppliers are doing a lot of good work in this area, so we see our role as an accelerator to help bring their ideas to fruition. There are now 160,000 tobacco community members benefiting from projects aimed at increasing access to water. This includes the provision or rehabilitation of 2,000 boreholes and wells, and the construction of 26 dams. 96000 children now have increased access to schooling compared to 2020, through Imperial initiatives.
This increased access not only supports their future, but also keeps children from working on farms. All this complements the due diligence monitoring for compliance with our policies that our suppliers do. Last year, 96% of the wood used in our supply chain was net sustainable. A key part of Imperial's commitment to sustainable agriculture means that 100% of the wood harvested for tobacco curing is either sourced from sustainably managed forest or to be matched by managed planting. Imperial plans to achieve 99% this year. Over 11 million trees were planted in Tanzania alone through supplier-driven programs. Imperial funded the planting of 1 million trees in 2024, and a total of 2 million over the last two years. We are also funding research into minimum tillage cultural practices with our key suppliers.
And we can confirm 95% of our suppliers are committed to practicing sustainable pest management, which reduces the reliance on pesticides and herbicides. Barn efficiency is a key focus, and research has shown 25% saving in wood usage. We're making good progress towards our commitments to be a responsible business that works with responsible suppliers. So to summarize, partnerships are key for Imperial. Our suppliers share our commitments and are on the same journey. In 2023, 93% of our suppliers participated in Sustainable Tobacco Program. In 2024, 100% of our suppliers are now participating. In 2023, 80% of our suppliers made commitments to support farmers on their journey to achieving a decent standard of living. In 2024, it is 98%. So through these partnership, great strides are being made.
Suppliers, representing 77% of our tobacco volume, have committed to the net zero journey. By supporting these programs and working with our suppliers, we identify the best local solution for the high priority issues in a country. The suppliers then implement these projects with our funding. This system works well and complements the projects that the suppliers are already undertaking, and commitments they are making. I will now hand over to Stefan to provide some concluding remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Vinay. I would like to say thank you to all our presenters today. As you've seen, in ESG, we also start with the consumer. Now, since our previous webinar two years ago, we've made strong progress in all priority areas, and this progress underpins our confidence in the delivery of our longer-term goals. Key to delivering these goals has been the development of our performance culture, new capabilities, strong executive accountability, and clear governance. But we're also humble. We recognize there's more work to do for us to deliver our ESG agenda, and we're committed to collaborating with other businesses, organizations, and society, to forge a path to a healthier future. Now, thank you to you for joining us today. We'd now like to take your questions.
Hello, everyone. I'm sorry, we have Peter Durman here, Head of Investor Relations at Imperial. I'm sorry for the technical problems we've had on the call today. We will make sure the full recording of the presentation is available on the website in due course, so you'll be able to get the full presentation. Of course, you missed the section on farmer livelihoods, and the end of the section on health and safety. We do have presenters here in the room, and we're ready to answer any questions you might have. If you'd like to ask a question, you'll need to dial in to the conference call using the dial-in details and the PIN that you received when you registered.
If you're currently dialed in and would like to ask a question, you need to press star and one one on your keypad. That's star and one one on your keypad. If you've misplaced your dial-in details or you need to register to receive them, then you can find them at the top right-hand of the webcast screen, where you can register to join the conference call, and you'll see them there. At the top right-hand of the screen where it says phone phone details. I should just add as well, we won't be commenting on current trading today, ahead of our trading update that we'll issue next week on Tuesday, the eighth of October.
So while we're waiting for questions from the audience, I'll just get things rolling with a few questions that we get, the sort of typical questions we get from investors. So perhaps one for you, Tony, starting with climate change. So you've made good progress to date, but given these are sort of long-term, multi-decade targets, what confidence can you give to the audience about achieving these goals for Scope 1 and 2, but perhaps particularly around Scope three, given these are outside our direct control? And I know you have intermediate goals, but this must get more difficult as you're going for the last mile.
Sure. Thanks for the question, Peter. I think firstly, we certainly don't underestimate the challenge in this space, but as you say, we've made good progress, which gives us the first steps of confidence. So, approaching 70% reduction versus the base year, and interestingly, most of that has come in the last three years, as we really begin to get behind this topic and lean into it. I think, if we look at the level of engagement from our workforce, and having more than 20,000 people to crowdsource ideas and get their energy, and activity behind this, is really where we're seeing the fruit as well. And then, you talk about Scope 3, our partners are highly engaged. You heard Lukas earlier, talk about the commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative.
So we've now got greater than 50% commitment of the product, goods and services element of our spend, so more than 50% of suppliers in that category, committed to the same targets as us. So, that gives us great confidence in that space as well. So, we're under no illusion that the last mile will be incredibly difficult, but we'll keep crowdsourcing the ideas from within, from our employees, and also, within our partnership groups. So a long way to go, good progress, but very much through partnerships internally and externally.
Maybe I'll just ask a follow-up question. In terms of the journey you've already made on renewables, can you give us a bit of a color about how... What steps have you taken to achieve the renewable targets you've made already?
Sure. So our first commitment, and to your point about having milestones in the short term, too, our first commitment was to achieve 100% of our purchased grid electricity from renewable sources by 2025. So that's just around the corner, let's say. So we've achieved everywhere, with the exception of Taiwan now. So we've got the procurement and engineering teams working busily on how we achieve that in a very cost-competitive manner. So we will achieve that in 2025. So that first step along the way, which we committed to in for 2025, is nearing completion.
Great, thank you. And maybe changing topics, and maybe one as well for you, Vinay. If we look at our supply chain, one of the questions we often get from investors is about the risk of child labor in our leaf supply chain. Can you tell us about, you know, the sort of typically from the number of cases we found in the last year, and then kind of what sort of actions do you take if you find cases of child labor?
Thank you, Peter, for the question. I think what I'd like to start off the question with, to answer is that 97% of the tobacco we purchase is through third-party tobacco suppliers. Now, their core competency is growing and processing tobacco, while supporting and monitoring the farms that supply them. So this is really their data to report. And the good thing is the vast majority of the tobacco we purchase comes from two of our global U.S.-based suppliers, both publishing information regarding the nature of their supply chains. On the other hand, within our own directly contracted operations in Laos and Madagascar, where the remaining 3% of our tobacco leaf originates, we have established farm level monitoring and response processes to track and address any non-conformances identified.
Now, what I can confidently say, we have addressed 100% of any child labor cases in FY 2023. More information is provided in the Annual Report, and also any investigation can be found under our Modern Slavery Statement . In terms of actions, what I'd like to say is that we do not tolerate any child labor, and we're obviously working with our suppliers to implement any action plans, and complement their efforts through our leaf partnership projects. I'd like to share, I've obviously experienced firsthand on some of the projects that we are investing together with our suppliers, which is after-school activities and school feeding programs. Obviously encouraging and pushing, sorry, apologies. To ensure that children are not in tobacco farms.
Great. Okay, thanks very much, Vinay. And then maybe again, sort of changing topics, and looking across to sort of consumer health. So, Paola, in your presentation, you talked a lot about you know, how important consumer acceptance is as, in terms of influencing, adult smokers to switch to NGP. Can you talk a little bit about the factors that influence a smoker's decision to switch or not to switch to NGP? What sort of factors are involved there?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, consumer acceptance is critical because, let me just step back one second. Obviously, we can provide harm reduction at scale only if we have several consumers that decide to transition and to stay into potentially less harmful products, right? So the whole game is to make sure that we have more and more consumers transitioning. To your point, the consumer acceptance is very important, obviously. So what we know from a consumer standpoint is that the first trigger, normally, to enter into new generation products is the motivation for their own health and wellbeing. So that's typically what we are understanding is the first trigger. Then, of course, there are also other things like can be the social pressure or economic factors. But normally, you know, the really motivational health is the most important.
The other one that is super important for consumers to retain to then stay is the sensory. Do they like it? And at the end of the day, it, it's quite obvious, right? So you... This is a product that is very intimate for you. You need to have pleasure into, you know, interacting with it. And this is, you know, what influences sensory pleasure and positive experience can be the aroma, can be the taste, can be the ritual. There are a lot of factors around that. I have to say that when it comes to innovation, you know, that one of our key focus areas is really to start from the consumer. And we have really put this notion at the center also of our new generation product agenda.
In fact, we have created the three innovation hubs, one in Liverpool, one in Hamburg, and one in Shenzhen, with the purpose of co-creating with the consumers. And in that place, we put our scientists, consumers, and our suppliers in the same place. And we co-create with the consumers precisely with the objective to eventually create solutions that consumers prefer. So that the impact that we can have in the journey to harm reduction can be even bigger. And I mean, I don't want to definitely mention any victory, but I think that so far, so good. The feedback that we got to our products is quite positive. So I'm very happy about the journey so far.
There's definitely more to do in order really to recreate this positive experience from when it comes to the consumers interacting to our product. There's definitely more to do. Nobody has really cracked the figure, I think, to NGP, but I think as an industry and as Imperial, we have made a huge progress, and we are committed to keep going in this direction.
... Great, thanks, Paola. And we'll stay with consumer health, but perhaps we do, if anyone on the line wants to ask a question, just as a reminder, you'll need to press star and one one on your keypad to raise a question. So, but staying with consumer health and maybe moving across to you, Joe, one of the concerns that's often raised about NGP, such as vaping, is whether they act as a gateway to smoking. So could you comment at all about how vaping can act as a gateway to smoking?
Yes, of course. Thank you, Peter. Does vaping act as a gateway to smoking? No, certainly there's no convincing evidence to suggest so. In fact, the evidence on vaping is pointing the other direction, that it's actually often a gateway out of smoking. So you saw in the presentation, some of the real-world evidence on vaping and over time, helping consumers with no intention to quit, to actually either quit smoking or substantially reduce their cigarettes per day. And that is supported by data in the UK, data in Greece, where you can see the reduction in smoking paralleled with the increase in the use of vaping in the UK, and next generation products in general in Greece.
So our own research doesn't show that vaping acts as a gateway to smoking, and neither does the analysis of public health bodies. So the U.K., Royal College of Physicians, describes such claims around gateways as unfounded, and Public Health England said that, you know, there's no evidence so far that e-cigarettes are acting as a route into smoking for children or for non-smokers.
Great, thanks. And then, again, staying with you, Joe, in terms of what we've been launching new products, we've had the sort of we've launched the tobacco heat stick , and then more recently, we've launched the heated tea stick . In terms of the health implications, are they from inhaling the aerosol, are they similar between the two? What are the health indications from that heated tea stick ? Because obviously, it's a newer product, we to an extent we have to test that.
It is a newer product, so iSenzia, or our heated tea stick, uses the same device, Pulze device, as our iD sticks. Both of those do not involve combustion, and the iSenzia doesn't contain tobacco. So what we've seen through scientific analysis is that the aerosol contains significantly fewer and lower levels of harmful chemicals compared to smoking. That's chemicals that raise concerns by the World Health Organization, by the US FDA, their list of chemicals. We've seen substantial reductions in chemicals. So while these products are not risk-free, both Pulze and iD and iSenzia have the potential to make a meaningful contribution to tobacco harm reduction for adult smokers.
As we continue to progress iSenzia through our scientific assessment framework, the data we're getting is just building confidence in that potential.
Great. Thanks. Thanks, Joe. Maybe also staying in consumer health, Paola, in terms of, you know, in terms of consumer health metrics to measure our progress with consumer health, how are you thinking about the metrics and what's relevant for this specific ESG priority for us?
Yeah. We are monitoring, you know, several areas from a metrics standpoint. Of course, we keep monitoring the access of our products to the consumers. We monitor the scientific validation of every product that we put in place, and of course, we also monitor the prevention to use, you know, the usage and use. So these are the three key things that we monitor. But I think in general, the... what is very important is to really understand the commitment that we have to the harm reduction in general.
I think what we are trying to do is to create a business that is of course sustainable in terms of of course financial, but it's also sustainable in terms of the vision that we are providing to how many consumers and you know offering our solutions to more and more consumers. And as I said before, we are doing it in a very rigorous approach by really starting with our consumers and providing choice of options depending on their preference. And that is one of the reasons why also we are playing into different categories when it comes to the new generation products. So of course you know our intention is not to become the number one. We are not number one in tobacco.
We are not gonna become number one in new generation products, but we are convinced that we see evidence of the fact that we are identifying our own place, and our own space in the new generation products, primarily in the spirit of providing some options and choices to consumers in areas that might be overlooked by other companies. And so as our different point of view, to give more choices to consumers.
Great. Thanks very much, Paola. We have no sort of questions on the telephone, so what I'm going to do, first of all, I should just apologize for the technical problems we had today. We'll make sure the recording of the full presentations go onto the website. So you'll be able to, you know, refer back to those in due course. And with that, I'm going to just hand over to Stefan for some closing remarks.
I mean, first on my side, thank you for joining us today. I also want to thank again all the presenters for their contributions today. I hope today's session has given you a sense of our commitment to ESG and how it is linked to our wider strategy, purpose, and vision. I think we have made good progress over the past two years, but I know some of you are probably understandably skeptical about a tobacco company even talking about ESG. However, I do believe we have a real opportunity to make a positive difference in society and to the wider planet, and perhaps it is this bigger opportunity here at Imperial and within the wider tobacco sector than many other businesses.
I sincerely hope that each of you, as investors, will also want to be part of this important journey, and we're looking forward to providing you with updates on our progress in the future. Thank you again for joining us, and goodbye to everyone.