Hi there. So what you're about to watch is a interview I did with Lauren Israel. Lauren's known for working with groups like Jimmy World, Plain White Teas, Rock Kills Kid, Sugar Colt, Neon Trees. And we're going to talk about all of that. But most of what we're going to talk about is his coaching program for artists and what he sees artists needing to do to make great music. So without further ado, let's get into this interview. Why don't you start off and tell us how you got here at Subhavad, your long interesting career. So the audience understands your perspective. Awesome. Well, I started playing music when I was about 15, 16 years old. Right after skateboarding a lot, I was skateboarding and all the older kids got into punk rock and they wouldn't necessarily let you skate the pools or the parks unless they cut your hair and dyed it and they charged you five bucks. The older people like Dwayne Peters literally wouldn't let you skate. I don't know if anyone here knows the master of disaster, Dwayne Peters. I love U.S. bombs. So you go. So do I. So by virtue of skateboarding, they always used to play punk rock. And I was very, very young, like 14, 13 years old and these guys were a little bit older, maybe three to five years older. And all of a sudden my situation changed or my, I guess I got older and I got really excited about that kind of music. And I had about 16 started, I think I bought my first record. I think it was a Nick Lowe record. And then I bought, oh my God, a 999 record. And I remember having kids in the neighborhood have to take us to the local record stores because none of our parents. I mean, we had latchkey on it. None of our parents were around. Okay. So we started a band. None of us knew how to play. And we played backyard parties and a couple of clubs and we couldn't even get into the clubs. I mean, it was like 1979, 80, 81. We were very young. And then I started to sort of get more experienced at my at my guitar. I played guitar and played other instruments while I was in school. And then one of the bands I was in got a record deal and a publishing deal. And then the lead singer decided that he he was just a drug addict. And I didn't want to be associated. I didn't want to do that. I thought about going back to school. I could never ever ditch music. I was always going out to see shows. I was always going out to be a scene stir because that's what I really love doing. So college was extraordinarily difficult for me. I had three jobs. I was putting myself to school. One day, this guy saw me at clubs and he said, have you seen or heard any good bands? Because he saw me all the time. He said, yeah, I have. Check out this band or this band. Those couple of bands became super, super big.  He was like constantly reaching out to me, constantly calling me. I turned that into a internship at Capital Records. I spent about 15 years at Capital Records in various capacities of A&R from a lowly intern for three years to a VP of A&R. But when I started, Jesse, I thought I needed to learn how to communicate A, which is the artist or the voice and R, the repertoire or the song. So I just started producing bands and artists. That's what I did. I thought that that that's a skill I needed to learn in order to be a great A&R person. And so I've been doing, producing and developing emerging talent for well over 20 years. And that's where I am today is taking emerging talent and helping them be hugely successful. But above all, cut the amount of time they are in terms of if it takes you 10 years to be successful, cut it down to three to five and be to repeat it, to repeat the success. And that's critical. OK, so what goes into cutting down that time? I think it comes down to discipline, being prolific and adapting. OK. You must be prolific. If you are not prolific, if you don't write consistently, you're not going to have the space and time in order to actually get the combination of timing, craft and luck and timing. You must be disciplined. There is a discipline to writing songs at the very highest level. You can call it a structure. You can call it a formula. I like to call it a discipline or a craft. And then finally, you've got to adapt. You've got to learn how to understand what's in front of you, what's behind you and what's in the future in order to to have an audience that is relating to you. That's understanding what you're doing. That's listening. That's feeling. That's that's getting what you're doing. Totally agreed on all this. So when you're talking about being prolific, I know. So I just did this video essay on Rick Rubin and, you know, he talks a lot about that he has artists write two and a half records for every one he writes. Get more into what that looks like. Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm going to tell you very, very specifically if you are not writing at least one or two songs every week, now, let me let me say this. In my program, I asked people, you don't need to write the whole song. Just write the first version chorus. Yep. Yep. Then if it's got anything, let's dig in. Let's get deep. Let's let's work on it. But if it's not, if it's so out of bounds, let's move on. That way I'm helping you save time. So let me let me repeat that. Let me explain to you and everyone who knows being prolific means at least one or two songs every week. Yeah, I'd agree. Like what I say in my book on creativity is like I like to call those skeletons and you decide if you're going to actually go forward and put the skin on the skeleton and actually make it a living, breathing thing after you see if the really good verse and chorus are there and if that should move on to something. And, you know, the other thing is, is like a lot of songwriters get very scared with that because they're like, oh, but I like that first. It's like, well, most artists, if you listen to their interviews, the verse that they wrote for an additional song ends up on another one three years later all the time. Doesn't mean that skeleton is never going to get big given birth to. Very good point. Let me predicate that as well. I also like to teach my artists to not fall in love with everything they do. The ability, the indomitable spirit to say, this may not be great. Let me move on. Let's not get too emotionally involved in everything we do. That's a very big, big goal. It's hard to do, but I really try to to help my artist get over that. So now let's back up a hair on this, because I think one of the things that you give value to and I should say to the audience, this I'll spare for the intro is that like you're somebody I've heard the name of throughout time. You know, you worked on one of my favorite records of all time, Jimmy World Bleed American, which is a record that is a whole movie about the process and how interesting it is. Tell me what you've seen in artists doing this and why this has made a difference and why where you've seen it fail in others. Like where are the pitfalls that you've seen happen when artists don't do this? OK, perhaps this is blasphemous or whatever. Being successful as an artist is not like going to Harvard.   That's your competition. If you look at that competition and laugh hysterically, you're probably in my world because it's it's laughable. So I believe that if you are prolific, if you learn the art and the science and the discipline of songwriting, if you adapt and you persevere, eventually you will get to a place of success. OK, I see in my world, most of the artists give up too soon. Yep, yep, I'm with you. If you are, because I have a great deal of love for the science of success as an artist. I love the hit song science. I love I just love the intricacies of melodies, of lyrics, of core progressions, of rhythm, of expansion, of the push and pull of beautiful, wonderful music that makes us all go from fast to slow, slow to fast, from happy to sad, from melancholy to joyful. It's it's a complete turn on every day. And I wake up every mother effing day thinking today, one of my artists is going to send me a song that I can share with my wife and will just be so happy. Love that. And I'm telling you, I still have that joy. So the biggest pitfall they give up too soon. So let's talk about what that giving up looks like. OK, well, you think you can do it yourself. You are stubborn. You don't allow for your for for anyone around you to help you. I always say this to artists. I said, if you want to be an Olympic athlete, do you think you can do it yourself? You don't have a strength coach, nutrition coach. All these coaches, you think that that happens? We're doing the same thing. We're trying to help you be successful.  That's totally cool. If you want to do this for fun, I implore you to do it. Because doing it at the level that we're talking about does take a tremendous amount of character and a tremendous amount of self spirit, a dominable spirit. Now, OK, so you don't necessarily understand that if you put one foot in front of the other, if you find someone in your local area who you respect, OK? Or even Jesse, I'm sure Jesse, you have artists sometimes sending you songs, right? And say, hey, Jesse, what do you think that helps? Yep. Reach out to people. Nothing is done without people helping you. It's a big thing. Reach out to people. And by the way, and don't test their time, you know, you don't have to give them a billion dollars. You don't have to give them a burrito, but figure out if someone's really helping you, take them out to lunch. Barn them a cup of coffee, you know, understand that it's their time as well. So I guess I guess to answer your question, get some help. Yeah, I think that that is a thing. And you know, they I was even reading a book recently about depression and they were talking about that some of what cures depression. You know, there's that big study that about the rats that when they're alone, they'll take heroin or water from the thing. And then once they have rats to play with, they stop doing heroin. But what that comes to with musicians as well is that you see that when they get feedback from other people on their music and that they have a bond with somebody else or and they feel like they're growing from the help of other people, they're actually happier. And I think that that is one of the weirdest things is that we have all these great tools to reach out to people and make connections with people through music now. And we don't use them because a lot of people are too shy to go through that band camp tag system and see if there's somebody making similar music to them that they can talk to. Like, you know, there's these two kids and it was like so funny. Like I find them on Spotify and they're collaborating with one another. They've never met each other. They would have crossed the country and they're 15 and 18 years old and they're making some of the best music I've ever heard. And I'm like, that's what's awesome. And that's what should be happening right now. But you're exactly right that like you really need to be reaching out and finding collaborators other ears and just people to talk through music with this because especially I'm sure you've seen this in your career too is most of the great bands you find out about you find out from another band because they Of course, I don't find out about great bands because I'm they're sending it to me in an email. Absolutely not. I'm finding out about it through friends all over the world. Let me say this and you make a great point, Jesse, and you're spot on, but don't you think it makes me feel good? Uh huh. I can be helpful to somebody. If I can actually be a resource or be needed, it helps my self esteem, my state of mind, my quote unquote depression. It makes me feel better and I'm sure it makes you feel better. True or false? Oh, yeah, 100%. I mean, literally would I when everybody's like, how do you do all this every day? I'm like, well, people give me the fuel every day of giving me like great stuff to work on and great things to make progress on. And I know that's what keeps me happy. And the second I read that thing I was talking about in the book, I'm like, oh, yeah, all the lowest points in my life has like been when I would get secluded. I'm not working with people on everything. And I'm just like cowering in myself. That's wonderful. So let's get now into the second point you made, which was discipline. Walk me through a little bit more, you know, like obviously I've made a joke about it before that, like, I actually sometimes avoid that word because I don't think there's a word that scares musicians more than the word discipline because it's like, ah, the army. Oh, God, like, you know, like when I was young, I was one of those kids and now like my discipline, admittedly at 42, it's like, I struggle with it a lot and I want to be better at it all the time because I see how important it is, but my God was I allergic to it as a kid. Here, here is the, the real issue, Jesse. When we look at being successful at every endeavor other than music, okay, let's say there's a gentleman who wants to come over and fix my window. My window is broken. How does that gentleman learn how to fix that fricking window? He learns how to fix that window by doing it over and over and over again. And he had to have learned it from somebody else who taught it to him. Okay. How about the car, the car you drive? I drive an old 86 Mercedes Benz and I take it to the mechanic and the mechanic looks at it and says, Oh, Lauren, it's a beautiful car, you know, and I said, Yeah, I know my wife hates it, you know, but I just love it. I feel like I'm driving a rose parade float every day. It's beautiful, right? And he goes, but you need alignment. Okay, fix the alignment. And my, my question is him, how did you learn George, my mechanic, to work on alignment? Well, I've been doing it for 20 years. I said, well, wait a second, you've done it over and over again. Yeah. I do it over and over and over and over again. And when I do it right, I learn and when I do it wrong, I learn. I can give this analogy for absolutely every endeavor that someone wants to be successful at. Why or why do we think it's not true in the art and the craft of songwriting?  You've got to do it. If you don't do it, you're not going to be successful. And like a broken clock, still write twice a day. Yeah, stumble on to it, but you will never repeat it. That's a great point because I think there is that thing. There's this tendency to focus on like, oh, this 15 year old wrote a great song at 15 and they did it. Oh, I'll be that person. I am that person, even though I'm 24 and I've written 30 songs. Yes, I'm that person. I'm the person who can, I'm exceptional to do it. But you're right. Like, you know, the hardest thing, and I'm sure you've seen this a lot in your career is sure, maybe you get lucky with that thing. But like most people, the repeating it part is the hardest part. And I'm glad you're focusing on that a lot. So what have you seen? What are the skills you see that you need to repeat it? The skills are, I talk to my artist about it all the time and I'll break it down. Take 10 to 20 to 100 Billboard number one songs and look to see what the parallels are to all the songs. And there are about eight, the structure, the rhythm section, what are the drums and bass doing, the chord progression, the lyrics? Are they a conversational? You have poetic devices all over that, all over those lyrics. What are poetic devices? Learn what poetic devices are. There's a conversational feel to the lyrics. It's not Dov's Toyeski, right? It's Congress and finally you have dynamics. You have some sort of lift from the verse to the chorus. Yes. That's it. I can show you and everybody else that you can take 100, 100 songs that have been number one, that, you know, I know you may not like 99.9 percent of the number one songs, that doesn't mean we can't learn from them, right? And they all have what I like to call a discipline to them. A character from the craft that if you just learn that craft, implement the craft enough times and adapt the chances of you having a song that changes your state aren't extraordinarily high and you learn how to repeat it. I like that. That's very good. So let's talk a little bit about the perspective that you bring. And as an A&R bring, I think like there's a lot of mysticism, you know, I've particularly found out my time in Atlantic Records that what people understood about the feedback from A&R and what an A&R is doing is totally different. I mean, even I came in thinking that A&R would be working a little bit on the marketing and then I get there and I'm like, oh, wow, the product managers do all the marketing stuff and the A&R is working on the songs. Talk to me a little bit about like where you see the role of A&R and what the borders are, where it starts and begins. That's a really interesting question.    In recent times, very recent, you're lucky enough to do a deal with them and they can put your songs on Spotify Playlist. Yes. In my never to be humble opinion, that is the only gift you're given from a record company.  OK, so if we were to assume that's the case as I'm trying to make it as simple as possible, right? So an A&R guy is essentially, in my opinion, someone who can find the talent that can move the motor of Atlantic Records, of Columbia Records, of Inter Scope Records, understand the culture of the record company currently and make sure that you have the energy or the gas or the songs to move that, to move the company. That's it. And these days, it's essentially two things. First, it's radio, then it's Spotify. That's it. Now, my approach to A&R is a bit different than what I think it is currently. And actually, I'd love to hear your opinion on this. I believe currently that A&R is not so much taking an artist and making sure it has the songs and the capability and everything it needs to drive the company. I think it's finding a song on Bandcamp or SoundCloud or TikTok or Twitch or Instagram and it's doing 100,000 spins on Spotify and then buying the song and then not too much happens after that. That's what I believe is going on. I think A&R people are no longer real, real, real deep, deep music people. I just think they're just finding songs that are already working and then trying to bring them in. And that's not that's not being disparaging to current A&R people. But I think that's the culture right now. But I think really great, great A&R people and even currently great A&R people are recognizing that it's important to find those songs and those artists that are that are turning and really doing well on Spotify and the DSPs, but also can move the meter and move the whole company that they are at with a song that everyone in the company can work. That means the publishing company can work, the marketing company can work and the sales department can work. That's what I believe. And then that A&R person's job is to get in those people's offices and say, hey, I don't want you to listen, you know, get all this stuff that you're doing. I want you to listen to this new artist and find fans and find that support. That to me is true A&R, but I recognize the new A&R. But I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you agree, disagree? So what I would say is that I say that so much of what happens in culture these days is like divergent streams. You have the middle dropping out, but everything is going two ways. So one is going the way you're talking about, like where it's just, yep, OK, that song's trending on this TikTok playlist. Let's grab it from them. Let's get a really good mixer to slap a new coat of paint on it. And one of our other artists will do a feature on it in about a month if it's working well, and then that is a model. Then there's the other model that is the more tradition. I imagine that you are from where you are giving feedback.  Here's the five producers. I think you should do webbing, listen to your demos. Here's the ones I think are strongest, weighing in on the selection of what's going to get recorded, then as well, weighing in on when the songs are done, making sure that everything got to be as good as it could be, weighing in on who should be mixing it, weighing on if the mix is as good as it should be, the masters as good as it should be. And then finally, making sure that the selections for the record are done. I think there's still those because those are necessary for some genres. But you're exactly right that in pop, it's almost all the other way around. Yeah. And I think that it's not good or bad. It's not right or wrong. It's and that's what I like to say, adapting, right? So all of us need to adapt to what is currently in front of us. I'm not going to say it's good or bad right or wrong. I'm going to adapt to what's going on and try to make it better. I'm going to dismiss it. I'm not going to get mad at it. I'm just going to adapt. Agreed. So talk to me about what you saw your role in that process is and what you currently see your role in that process is. Where do you see that role beginning and ending for you? Well, this last March, I was lucky enough to have one of my artists, the unlikely candidates who I executive produced their records. And I did a production deal with them. They got a number one song and we did the same thing. You know, it was like being prolific, adapting, learning the process and doing it over and over and over again. And we're lucky enough to have a number one song during a pandemic. And it's the same process. Obviously, different artists call for different things, but it was the same process. They have another song that we released just after that that we worked on together that, frankly, is sitting at number 15 right now. And it looks like it's going to cross the top 10. That's what I mean about being able to reproduce it. So and by the way, this song did, I think it's one of the song did about 30 million or so on the DSPs, which is good. It's not it's not like 200 million for their genre. It's pretty good. What is the genre alternative? It's a the unlikely candidates. The song is called Novocaine. OK, great. I look forward to checking it out. So talk to me about what your interactions with them looked like about the songs. I'm up my artist asses every day like, hey, what are we doing? What will I be getting today? What can I do for you every day? Every day. And I recognize that that could be overwhelming and I try to adapt. I try to say, OK, what artists don't like me? You know, reaching out to them on a regular basis. How can I be a better communicator? Because I'm disciplined. I wake up, I wake up very happy. Like I said, I wake up enthusiastic thinking I'm going to find and get.  That's the truth. So I'm understanding of how intense I can be. And I kind of try to dial it back, dial it in and for whatever I need to do. So tell me the story of how you came upon this band. They were part of my program. Someone said, hey, there's a band. They're two kids, Kyle and Cole, from the unlikely candidates. They play acoustically. They should be part of your program. They were part of my program for about a year. At first, Kyle, the singer, very young. I mean, by the way, I've been working with this band for ten years. Wow. Ten years. So part of it. So they were the part of my program. I then signed them to my my production company. We're lucky enough. I produced a song called Follow My Feed. Got a record deal at Atlantic, got dropped from Atlantic, got another record deal at Sony, and here we are. So which is also like another good lesson that I tell people all the time, which is that your first major label deal is not often the one that succeeds for you.  That was the case with that record. That's right. And again, Jesse, that's what I'm talking about. Don't give up. Are you kidding me? Don't give up. Figure it out. And again, your competition are not brain surgeons, rocket scientists or neurosurgeons. Yeah, I heard somebody recently say the best thing about music is that you could not have worse competition to compete against if you have the least bit of motivation in your life. Perhaps that sounds terrible of me, but 100% true. So then talk to me more about this story. So you're going through, you get signed to another record label. What happens next? They put out a song called Novocaine, becomes the number one hit. And they released their second song. It's called High Low. It's currently sitting, I think, at 15. And now they have a career that they didn't have. It's simple and have the ability, whether they work with me or not, to duplicate it because they know they know and embrace the science, the discipline. So let's talk about artistic personality. I think one of the biggest things I hear, especially if I'm reading Reddit that I see all the time, artists don't know whether to chase what's happening in music versus being themselves and making the songs they want to hear. Is there any guidance you give artists about how they should pursue their personality? I find it offensive when artists who've done zero. And I'm trying to try to be nice about this. Talk about being cheesy or talk about being not cool. I remember when I was working with the neon trees, their first record. Another great record. Thank you very much. And my wife and I went to Utah. We saw them perform and we had a business meeting and they said, this is before their first record before everyone, everybody talks and animal. And they said, you know, we don't want to sound. I think at the time it was like Hansen or they don't want to say I guess what they're saying is they don't want to sound pop in there. I said, listen, you don't have to put out the record. You could just give the record back and say love you just you don't have to do it. You guys made the record. You guys wrote all the songs. You don't have to do it. And obviously those songs became number ones and they've had a bitching career and they're super great. I think it's easy as as an artist to talk about cheesy, to talk about I don't like it, it's it's not artistic. But the real, the real dude, the real is if I'm making music in order for my music to make a difference, I need you to understand it, to shake your ass to it a little bit, to sing along to it. And most importantly, to change your state. A music needs an audience. And if you're not understanding your audience, you don't have a career. So you can't necessarily think too much about your own insecurities and write songs that people understand. And sometimes dumbing it down, making it appeal to a first grader is important. You don't you don't have a career. So how about making the music they want to hear versus making the music? What's popular? Do you give any guidance about that? I don't know. Did John Lennon have a problem with that?  Did the Ramones have a problem? No, they knew exactly who they were and what their mission was at all times.  You either want a big wide audience or you don't take responsibility. You should always make music that here's what I say. It's important that we strive as music helpers, as mentors, producers, etc. To make sure our artists look back on their career and they're proud of it. But the responsibility to an artist is their own, right? It's their own responsibility to write songs that mean something to them. But it's also their responsibility if they want a big audience to make it meaningful to another person. So art, commerce, I don't know. Write some songs that make people sing.  I'm sure you've been through a million artists that are just like, oh, God, well, all right, we have something good. But what if we what if this isn't right with this is right?  Hey, there, Delilah is a demo. How do you stay the course? Well, I remember when Tom wrote that song, he was we were at my they were staying at my house and we were doing pre-production at my house. I lived in a one bedroom, true story, bachelor pad in North Hollywood and they all used to stay at my house. Five guys in a one bedroom bachelor. But I remember working on that song and it was very simple. If you look at the I produced the first record by playing my T's called Stop. And at the end of every record at that time, we were making records, right? So at the very end of the record, there's a there's an acoustic song, right? In the next record with that that Ariel produced, hey, there Delilah was at the end of the record. It was like it was like a beautiful song. So we just looked at it and we understood because we we were thoughtful. We were conscientious. We were we were students of of of songs and student. This song just needed to be acoustic. It was just not overthinking things, man. You know, like there was no I have to be honest with you. There's Chris Cornell just put out a song, a cover song and helped me out here, Jesse. I think it was the latest releases. Patience, patience. OK. And I remember listening to it.  They overproduced it. All you had to do is let his voice shine. I like to tell people music just gets in the way of the vocal. So with Hayther Delilah, it was just it was an easy, very easy conversation. I guess what you're saying is, you know, it's funny, I don't have a lot of artists, maybe because I'm a producer and I know how to do it. I don't have a lot of artists kind of wringing their hands over, did we do the right thing because before we actually make a song, it's edited, it's worked on, it's thought about well before we decide to record it.  I mean, I think that that is always the lessons that the pre-production is more important than the production. Yes. With that, though, so then some of more what I'm getting at is you are talking here about that the artists have a lot of intent, so they know which way to go. Is there anything you do to guide them to how to get that backbone, that intent, that even I think one of the biggest things that plays artists is they're generic and they haven't yet found their voice that's unique to them. Is there anything you do to get them there? Take chances, listen to music that that that expands your and don't listen to the same music that you like, listen to music that is new and fresh. And even if you hate it, learn, find some of some things that you like. Do you like the way that trap drum sounds? Do you like the way the guitar sounds? Do you like the way the bass has it's a P bass, you an Ampeg and it's got a little bit of distortion? Or do you like it that it sounds like a Rickenbacher or what? You know, like kind of start being a student for new brand new music because you are in love with new music. You will find some things that you love about it, even if you don't love these songs. I think that seems dead on. So talk to me a little bit more about your program. What happens there to give me the details on that? I'm lucky enough to mentor emerging talent. I'm surprised that more people don't do it. I love doing it. It's a six month program and I'll change your life. And I'm available to my artist 24 seven. I'll never work harder than they do, but I will change their life. I'll I'll you'll get if you do the work, you'll get to a place three or four months into the six months where you'll have an aha moment like, oh, my God, I did it. And that's for me the most exciting part of it. And from that program, I found neon trees, the unlikely candidates, all sorts of other bands that are currently super successful. Yeah, that's also neon tree stuff. And then you were also involved in sugar cult, right? Yeah. So all of these bands, I imagine, you know, they come to you with a strong personality, but have you ever done anything like, is there any exercise you know of when a band? I just find so many bands are like, I don't know my personality yet. Is there any advice you have for that one? Somebody hasn't quite found their signature dash there. I had so many people think that comes from the label and obviously it comes from philosophy and people I've never had anyone tell me they don't know their personality. Can you expand on that, Jesse? So think of it this way, when you look at neon trees, you're like, OK, that band looks different. They have a thing that other people don't have. And a lot of people are wondering like how they get to that and how they find that thing that makes them unique. Oh, OK. I just want you to know something. The entries came to me.  That's why they paid me to help get them to that success. So don't get it twisted. None of these artists have anything going on, right?  Come on. That right there, that that is the that that is the truth. And you know, that's actually like one of the best ways I've seen put it is that so much of the process that I think people miss is that like you go on that journey of really writing a lot and really immersing yourself, immersing yourself in it, that that is where you find who you are and all the little things that if you're showing up every day and you're having to get inspired to write all those songs because we all know that it doesn't just happen in a vacuum of not listening to things, not doing research, not thinking about your life and what is unique to you, you find it. Yep. That's really good. So why don't we finish this off? Since I want to be respectful of your time, where can people find you? And how can they get in touch with you? Email me, LaurenIsrael at gmail, l-o-r-e-n-i-s-r-a-e-l at gmail.com. Go to my website, my name.com, LaurenIsrael.com.


Welcome back. Now we start the fourth session of this workshop, the second of these of today. And the team will be rubber and climate change in the international forum. We are going to have three speakers, Vincent Gitz from Cypher, Alexander Maibach from Cypher as well, and Dr. Lekshmina here from ISG. So after the presentation we are going to have a discussion similar to the one that just ended and also a question and answer session. So I would like to invite Vincent Gitz to give his presentation first. Vincent for the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you Salvatore and good afternoon to all. So let me share the screen here. And put it on full screen. I hope you hear me okay. It's fine. Yes. So one of the objective of this workshop was to connect from a science and evidence based perspective the knowledge about challenges and opportunity to the climate change community. And that includes climate change related policies at different level, national and international level. So here my objective of this presentation is just to sketch some of the existing ways and proceeds in this word of climate change policy and implementation so that we can then discuss what it means for rubber. And I'll focus at the international level more and I think Alexander will look more at the national level and after that, after the presentation I hope we can have a first discussion. So the as an introduction when we look at when we talk about forestry from foresters perspective, and we talk about climate we think oh it's about red plus and protecting forest. But red plus was to produce to protect forest and from degradation from the first station but was not adapted specifically to to the needs of rubber in fact in the rubber context. rubber was rather felt as all the other all the other plantation as contributing to deforestation. And even though even though in the definition rubber plantations are considered as far as so there is something that has changed in 2015 with the Paris agreement of course red plus is still there for the forester perspective but there is a new. We need to really to take the full dimension of what has changed with the Paris agreement there is no first bottom of approach that is involving all countries and that increasingly involves other actors. There's also a much more holistic approach to the land use sectors particularly for developing countries, and they are more consideration for for synergies. And all of these creates considerable opportunities for to increase the visibility and the integration of of rubber, but but to seize these opportunities, we need to understand and engage where we can engage with the negotiation process on climate change and propose a way forward. So here in this interest isn't in this presentation, I'll dig a little bit into what kind of new opportunities the Paris agreement gives for for land use and natural rubbers will will look at the entry points. In UNF triple C's and related bodies and start with to discuss key points for strategy for for for rubber. So first yes, as I briefly outlined the price agreement really creates new opportunities for land use and natural rubber. The goal of the price agreement, so you know them well, holding the increase of the global average temperature to well below two degrees above pre-industrial levels and to pursue effort to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 recognizing that this will significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. Second increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and to foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development in a manner that does not threaten and that's really important that does not threaten food production. And then the issue of making finance flows consistent with the pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate resilience development. So all of these are goals from the climate point of view but they're also goals in fact for the rubber sector as a whole and how it can contribute to the economy. So, until the price agreement there were really two different categories of countries the annex one countries and the non annex one countries and, and this had had in the past very important consequences on the way land use activities were considered with with red plus activities in non annex one countries to reduce degradation to be financed by developed countries. And for annex one countries, a much broader coverage of land use activities including agriculture and land use land use change and forestry so called the UCF. But with the Paris agreement all land use activities are not covered in all countries. So the Paris agreement recognized the importance of land use for the achievement of its of its goals. It is there is no better recognition of synergies and trade offs between mitigation and adaptation. And there's better recognition of synergies with sustainable development with this is all the social and smallholder discussion we had before that is put back at the center, and a better coverage of land use activities globally and the progress to be made on the integrative approach across sector, not only agriculture and forestry. And this is, we're going to talk about the current year or need the adjunct work on agriculture. So what does it means as opportunities for natural rubber. So the points we've just discussed, but there is also the issue and Alexandre will tell about that about the bottom up approach the NBCs from countries countries have suggested submitted NBCs to the Paris to the to the Paris agreement and are they implementing the NBCs and these NBCs give give also more important to initiative of actors other than governments, including the private sector. So just to to come very briefly to the UNFCCC main bodies and related instruments just to understand that, and it's I think a very important point for us that the climate convention here in green and now is also the the convention for the parties of the Paris agreements are linked but they are they are evidence based they are science based there are two bodies, the sustainable subsidiary bodies on science and technical advice and the subsidiary body on on implementations. Both, both of them assist the governing bodies and the countries through the provision of timely information and advice, either on scientific and technological matter for the substance or on implementation matters for the SBI and they are all science based and they are also a range of other bodies with other specialized functions that that are also interesting for us as pathways to and for the rubber community as far as ways to engage the adaptation committees, the least developed countries expert the technology executive committees and the climate technology center and network. And this is important as technology transfer is now an increasing important topic in the implementation of climate change solutions. And that when we come to the funding component there's also a range of fun that have been put in place. In order some more recent just mentioned that in the slide but the green climate fund now is is is a central one. It is funding mitigation 50% and adaptation 50% and this is potentially a very important component for engaging with a rubber development project and climate resilience. All of this. The, the, the national, the national determined contributions are submitted by parties. They have no necessarily pretty determined format cover mitigation and can include adaptation. So let me just go here. And that this, yeah, sorry, I was, I was, I was forgetting to put up the slides, the main topics for interest interest and entry points. So the NDCs submitted by countries that were set up in 2015 start 2020 reviewed every five years to be gradually more ambition with the first stock take in 2023 and then every five years no predetermined format. They have to cover mitigation and they can include adaptation. Then I mentioned the Katowice climate package with that has provided operational guidance on how the price agreement can be implemented so not all of this is finished. It's still much under under discussion, but in this package, you have inception information on how domestic mitigation and other climate goals and activities that that government should provide within the contributions, how to communicate with governments about adaptation, the rule of the so called transparency framework where countries can show what they're doing about climate change, the establishment of a committee to facilitate the implementation of the price agreement and promote compliance with the obligations and how the global stock take every five years the first one in 2023 will be conducted to assess progress towards towards these the objectives. There is a very important point about the transfer of technology that is also a matter of guidance and the advanced information on financial support to developing countries and the process for establishing new targets from finance from 2015. A very important article in the price agreement is article six. The mechanisms in article six are still under discussion that they're broadly defined in the price agreement. They are possibly very important for the rubber sector first cooperative approaches that involves countries working with one another using internationally transfer mitigation outcomes so emission reductions if you will, to achieve their their indices. The characteristic of all of this is still under discussion. Most parties believe that these emission reductions to to be tradable should be real verifiable and quantifiable. There is the sustainable development mechanisms is article six point paragraph four that has been established. It is to mitigate greenhouse gas emission and support sustainable development. So the idea here was to take lessons from the Kyoto protocol mechanism such as the CDM the clean development mechanisms in some of the elements of it. And also how to use the so called share of proceeds towards towards adaptation. And then, finally, non market approaches. It's article six point eight. And these are considered to be actions and activities that address mitigation adaptation, but do not necessarily result in in tradable units. The question on the topic is currently quite big, but they have been indication that may include financial measures and policies and the framework to promote these approaches was established under another paragraph nine of this article. And in addition, as you may know, there is another mechanism that the International Civil Aviation Organization has agreed to in 2016 is was to set up a new offsetting mechanism to compensate the growth of of aviation. Emission post 2020 that is called Corsair carbon of setting and reduce reduction scheme for international aviation and airline will purchase offset from international schemes. Another important make entry point potentially is about harvested wood products or HVWP. Carbon stocked in harvested wood products can be accounted as for a sink. Currently, that does not take into account a rubber nor bamboo nor ratan. And they could be value in proposing to integrate rubber, bamboo and ratan as harvested root products and such proposal could have more weight if they would be strong evidence with number. Perhaps that rubber does not does that on its own but but but that jointly with bamboo and ratan and if some kind of a consortium could support that that integration. So finally to conclude, we think that there is there are several potential entry points for rubber in the climate change negotiation discussion and implementation. The question is more what can be put on the table and where and and how then we can bring that on the table. So when we look at the Coronadia joint joint work plan program sorry on agriculture. This program looks very much at how to properly present risks and manage risks prevent risk and manage risk to production. So, this is where it could be highlighted that such system of risk monitoring for weather, past diseases such also cover plantations including rubber, not just you know agricultural food crops. Then second there is the issue of carbon accounting within the NDCs we've seen that everything needs to be evidence based quantifiable reliable so how can we how can we do that for property for rubber. The issue of harvested wood product I just mentioned including rubber ratan and bamboo. The IPCC itself, and especially the six assessment report that is coming up needs and needs to to include rubber in the fifth assessment report there was miss campus there were other crops mentioned, but but rubber was and so how can we correct especially in the adaptation reports that are regional. And then there are the funding mechanisms such as the green climate fund. And here there is sectoral guidance on how the fund applies its investments. CIFOR is currently supporting the GLF in when it is writing its sectoral guidance on land use agriculture and forestry. And here we need to make sure that some of the elements and including the three dimension of sustainability including say the social components that are are properly taken into account. Then how how to how to do that I mean these are just doors, but but how to open these doors and how to start engaging so that was first one of the objective of this event when we first discussed it at the initiative of the co organizers as RSG, IRDB, CIRAD, CIFOR, FTA so we believe by by some of the outputs of this event. This event we can we can make a contribution. Then I think we have a mandate, all of us to to try to to bring better numbers and in Salvatore mentioned that from this from the smallholder and social dimension is yet carbon is a big issue in the climate but since the price agreement has broadened it to sustainable development and made better connection is also about jobs about new materials substitution, etc. And this is something where the private sector could also play a role in providing better data. And then the issue of the renewal of plantation. There has been many discussion about forest and land landscape restoration, there has been a project, a big forest landscape restoration the first one of it agreed by the Green Climate Fund just a few months ago. So can can also rubber as also because it brings some productive and job dimension be be included into the picture and how especially when looking at for example the slide of Michael Brady, some of the plantations needs to be to me to be renewed right now. And then the last point is the private sector. When we look at life cycle analysis. Versus synthetic rubber, but also versus other products. To start the discussion later on. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your presentation. Now we can move to the next speaker. That is Alexander my back from C for FDA. Miss paper is on opportunities for natural rubber in national determine contribution and the national adaptation plans processes. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. Salvatore. So I'm trying. Yeah. So, this, this intervention is very much a compliment to what NASA has just presented. As I said, one of the very big changes that introduces the Paris agreement is everything now is bottom up it's coming from countries and from national strategies and programs. The, the, what I'm going to present to you is coming out of a collaboration we have with FL on on both regional synthesis of NDCs. And on what can be done to better integrate forestry trees and agroforestry in the national adaptation plans. And the season naps are quite different, but they share some common characteristics. They are policy documents that are meant to orient all national policies measures planning finance related to climate change.  They have been established by the UNF triple C. And this is very important because countries are committed to UNF triple C to deliver on these programs. And also because as they are part of the international picture. They orient now most of the funding from international funds like the green climate funds and other and also funding from other donors and in particular development agencies from developed countries. And last important common point, they are periodically reviewed. They are however very different nature and scope and this is why I'm going to deal first with NDCs and then with them. Oh, the NDCs are very short documents. They are an international commitment. What a country promises to do to the international community. So they're, they may be just a few pages with broad orientations. They need to include mitigation commitments. This is mandatory. The adaptation part is optional, but all developing countries have included an adaptation part. As Vincent has said, the first set has been prepared in 2015 and we are now in their implementation. They are, they have started this year. So what we really can do, as I said, it's broad orientations and principles. So now we need to look for opportunities in the implementation of the NDCs in producing countries, of course, but also in consuming countries. And this is where bio economy can be included. And to make the link between NDCs and national adaptation plans, national adaptation plans are often mentioned in the NDC as the vehicle for the implementation of the adaptation. And as I said, they are documents, but they are also processes with monitoring of the implementation and the preparation of the next set of NDCs. And there again, there are opportunities to be science in order to support the making the NDC more ambitious. And now I think what we have to keep in mind is that governments have very quickly prepared these NDCs, and now they are trying to figure out how they are going to make it. So a sector that can arrive with a kind of easy solution saying, oh, if you do that, you create carbon sink of this and that, it's very likely to get through. One very important point is that forest and land use are very present in the NDCs. More than three quarters of countries include land use as a way to achieve their objectives. It is second only to the energy sector, which means that in almost every NDC particularly in developing countries. There are opportunities on which to link the measures and actions that we want to promote. And another extremely important point with all the changes that has mentioned, is land use is the sector that is the most frequently mentioned for synergies between adaptation and mitigation, as well as for sustainable development co-benefits. And this is a huge asset for our sectors. What are the very concrete opportunities rubber itself is rarely mentioned, which is normal because it's very short Indonesia explicitly mentioned the use of rubber wood for energy production in its NDC. And as I've said, there are broad orientations on forest or plantations to which can be linked policies and measures for implementation, and also the question of biomaterials in consuming countries. And we can also get involved in the revision of the NDCs. And in all of that, what is so important, especially talking to the research sector is to bring good evidence quantitative and qualitative. And not only on carbon benefits, but also to old co-benefits. Switching to the NAPs, which are closer to the implementation. To give an idea of the six pages for the NDC of Malaysia, a NAP is generally more than 100 pages. With established 10 years ago, the objective is to reduce vulnerability to all impacts of climate change by building resilience and to facilitate the integration of adaptation in all policies, plans, measures of countries. Very important for us and for this workshop is that explicitly, it shall be guided by best available science. And these last two days we we heard a lot about good available science to be brought to the attention of countries. And another important thing is that the first generation of NDCs have already been published, but countries are in the process of developing their NAPs. 20 of them have been published, the other ones are being written currently. One point to keep into account when we want to integrate forestry or rubber in the NAPs is how it links to other sectors and other concerns. And for rubber, for instance, one of the big assets of the sector is how it contributes to small holders livelihoods, because small holders are the most vulnerable to climate change. So a sector that support their income is so important in the global economy of national adaptation plans. Just to give a brief idea of what can be the structure of an app, because this is where you can get into it. Most of the time they're organized by sectors, no agriculture, industry, water. In some other cases they can be regional. But this document is only a picture of the process itself, because the NAP is supposed to go on for years and years, because we are going to need to adapt in the years to come. So it gives an idea of how you can get involved in the discussion. So, very broadly, forests in general are often integrated in the ecosystems and biodiversity section. In some countries you have a specific forestry section, like in Cameroon, or it can be linked to agriculture, like in Togo, or in Chile. And Chile is a very interesting example, because there is a specific plan on the adaptation of plantations, which is part of a broader silvo agro-pastoral plan. And this is why they have been able to put measures that are very focused on plantations. In the same case in Sri Lanka, we had a very interesting presentation on the first day about it. In the Sri Lankan app, you have a part on commodities and plantations, and rubber is fully integrated there. So the question of how the discussions are organized is very important for us to make an impact on the final plan. So what are the main measures that we find in adaptation plans that have been already published? If you take natural forest, there is a lot about monitoring and risk management systems. This is a big concern. So weather changes, changes in the ecosystem, and pests and diseases. A strong part also to research in general and ecosystem-based adaptation. When you look at anted forest, gain the importance of monitoring and risk management system. With the example of Chile, with the idea to have a broad pest and disease monitoring system covering all agricultural crops and planted forest to build on what Vincent mentioned. The changes of planted species and varieties and here the work on clones fits very nicely. Conservation and sustainable management of genetic resources and anticipating future changes by planting cultivars that will be adapted to the future climate. Another very important point that I want to highlight is that in so many labs, planting trees is a way to adapt other sectors to restore water sheds, to establish windbreaks for agriculture, shade trees for agriculture, agroforestry in general, or to have, for instance, to have a cooling effect on cities. So it's also important to show how planting trees can help other sectors to adapt this kind of broad national conversation. So, for instance, there are lots of measures on how you use trees in agroforestry system to be able to go on producing food in spite of climate change. Just some very quick examples of successful integration. I've already mentioned the example of Sri Lanka and probably among the reasons why it has been so successful in integrating rubber as part of the national plan was also showing its importance for resilience as of households as Dr. explained yesterday. In Cameroon, there is also rubber as part of the industry sector. I've already mentioned the example of Chile. Another very interesting point I want to highlight is how successful have been sectoral dialogues in countries that have implemented them like Uruguay and Uganda. And what they have told us is that you have so much important information on vulnerabilities and what to do to adapt, coming from these stakeholders dialogues that you do not find if you just make a desk study. And finally an important point linking also with the presentation of Amy this morning is that many national adaptation plans also give place to subnational efforts. So there are things to be done at landscape level. But what can we do right now? It's often a lack of consideration in national processes for some sectors. And we need to provide evidence of the contribution of the sector to the economy and employment. Big numbers on small holders for instance. A sector focused adaptation reflection to identify vulnerabilities and means for adaptation is good both for the sector itself and to become integrated in national efforts. And we need also a dialogue between the sector and other sectors that might be interested the industry but also the water sector cities. And finally, and this is so important, there is a need and great opportunities for the science community to be engaged and provide options and enabling conditions. Again, taking the example of Sri Lanka, this is really an example of how good science can back up the action of a sector to be properly recognized and supported in national adaptation plans. And I will stop here. Thank you very much. Thank you, Alexander, for your interesting presentation and now we go to our next speaker that is my colleague from RSG, Lakshmi Nahir.  Lakshmi, please, the floor is yours. Lakshmi? Yes, hello. Yeah, are you there? Yes, I'm just. You can start your presentation, please. Yes, I'm trying to share my screen first. Okay, we can see the presentation. Lakshmi, Lakshmi, your presentation is on the screen is visible. You need to unmute. Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry for the technical hiccup. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Last two days of workshop, we had deeper discussion addressing the results of impact of climate change on rubber protection potential means of adaptation and contribution to mitigation of climate change. Thank you for Vincent and Alexandra who have already covered some of the policy dimension which we need to address from an international fora focusing on the rubber space. My presentation will address the carbon maths from a policy perspective and potential security actions, holistically from a bottom up approach, the rubber space towards limiting global warming below two degrees Celsius rubber is grown. In the annual mean temperature between 26 to 28 degrees centigrade. Only the rubber is grown in the Asia Pacific region, of course that is mainly coming from the Southeast Asian countries. Major researchers already pointed out what are the areas where rubber is shifting from the traditional to non traditional region. We have seen it. And also there is with the rising temperature we have seen a shift from the within a region from the traditional to the marginal lands. Then coming to the climate mass, it is really daunting. One has to look into the decarbonization both from the mitigation point of view. Scientists have already brought in different estimation for carbon maths, which limiting the warming to 1.5 degree, which would reduce the most dangerous and irreversible effect of the climate change. The good news is that 1.5 pathways technically achievable, but the pathway should require dramatic emission reduction over the next 10 years starting from now. So looking at the carbon CO2 emissions, which is a long pathway I have taken the McKinsey's recent analysis done from this perspective. Global population is increasing along with the global growth. One who is looking at the global growth, we can see that every 1% increase in GDP is associated with the 0.5% increase in CO2 emission. This is really daunting. And if you look at the McKinsey's calculation, we have to reach 1.5 degree global warming. There is a huge reduction in emission. Already by 2030, the projection shows that there is 517 gigatons of CO2 emission as we reach 2030. That means we need to work a lot to reduce the CO2 emission. What is the pace transition pathway? Because as of now, CO2 emission per unit of output is very little as 2%. But the requirement is very huge. We have to bring around from this 2% around 50 to 55% reduction to meet the 2030 level. And to bring in to a net zero level by 2050 that requires around 90% more reduction in emission. So what are the climate resilient law emission climate adaptation strategy? We could address that. So there are 5 major economic and societal shifts that would underline for a 1.5 degree pathway. First one is sustainable production. That cover a holistic approach starting from different cultivation approaches. We heard from various scientists who spoke last two days. Now the terms are changing. It's not the good agriculture practices. It is the climate smart agriculture. And then halting deforestation is a key element. How to discourage deforestation, especially from a small farmer's point of view. Then one element which is not directly addressed in the last two days of deliberation is how we can curb the waste. More into a circular economy perspective. Embracing the circular economy and boosting efficiency in the planting material. And industries decrease the greenhouse gas emission. And this reduces cost and improve efficiency performance. If you look into the renewable raw materials and bioenergy sources. This is another key area where the rubber space also need to look into for reducing the CO2 emission. Then electrification is a massive decarbonization driver for transport and building. And if you look at the total CO2 emission, transport sector and agriculture contribute around two third of the total emission. And specifically if you look at the transport sector, one fourth of the emission is coming from the transport sector. So how and what are the policies need to be there to offset this level of emission. So carbon capture and carbon sequestration activities. This is another area where the industries and the players in this space need to look into for the next 10 years to reach the target line of 2030 as well as the target line of 2050. Specifically coming to the rubber space. What could be the transition to a 1.5 degree pathway for rubber. This is more addressing from a lifecycle of the product point of view starting from the production to the recycling and reuse of the product to begin with the sustainable production. We in detail head about the land use changes and the farming practices from many speakers and also the previous two speakers also address this more in detail from a policy perspective. Beyond from the land use and farming practices, what are the policies and the action to be done. So first one is the responsible sourcing starting from the traceability of the land and how the rubber and the rubber products and overall carbon footprint and the business strategies can address the efficiency of the raw material. And both from a free supply chain as well as from a circular economy point of view to bring back that into the discussions on the bio economy which is already addressed by a previous speaker in the session for beyond natural rubber the synthetic rubber who is coming into the the general rubber space started addressing the the bio economy, the main feedstock which is fuel based. The butadiene now started looking into bio butadiene production and from the bio butadiene production, the bio based BR and SS BR which is mainly going to the major inducer market the tire. If I take the example of the major inducer, the tire sector, how the tire sector is looking into the circular economy and what is the mass behind the CO2 emission from the tire business, looking into the raw material site around 12% of the CO2 emission is coming from the production site. And then one person is within the distribution site and the major share of the emission is happening in the use phase that is around 86% of the emission is happening in the use phase of the tire or the automotive industry. And then it is the collection of the end of the life of the product that face it is 1% of the emission is happening. And the last phase is reusing reusing phase it can be brought back to the different type of materials, which have white variation, or we can bring back into the original form, either it is it as natural rubber or synthetic rubber, which could be possibly replace the virgin source. I can give some examples some of the major leaders in the tire space has already made announcement and commitment of free using such raw material around 30% of the requirement. This is one good example where the private sector is coming in to make the commitment, starting from the industry and from the industry to the national level and this can be brought back to the global rubber space. And beyond the tire sector, the non tire sector, there are wide range of materials, even though the consumption is only around 30% of the total natural rubber space. The recycling possibility and reuse of the both natural and synthetic rubber, which is coming from the non tire application, that is also very wide, but certainly this needs partnership, there are various projects developing in collaboration, addressing the recycling from the non tire segment. So decarbonization drive this is the major element of course this is half of the challenge to be addressed for CO2 emission perspective. The decarbonization elective vocal is the major driver addressing the decarbonization drive. We have already seen various emerging market and the developed market started addressing this elective vocal. So we can see that in China around the is a major consumer of the elective vocal though China is the largest emitter of the CO2 and coming to what are the best mitigation policies and what are the strategies or the instruments to address this mitigation policies. Carbon tanks, which is covered earlier in detail but I like to bring that the perspective which the rubber sector could address here is to bring a tax on the the processing of the plants. Based on how much is the CO2 emission and also for the whole industry in proportion to the carbon content. Then next one is emission trading system. In emission trading system, the firm must hold an allowance for each turn off their emission and the government can set a cap on total allowances or emission or the market trading of the 11 11 so stabilizes on the emission price. The fee base is also bringing some scale of fees on products and activities with an above average emission rates. There are already different regulations in place. For example, the standards for emission rates for vehicles which is very much common now in both emerging market as well as developed mature markets. The energy efficiency in the electricity and the products are also now in place in developed market and also there is minimum requirement for the use of renewables in the power generation industry. So there are also some digital technology solution which the both the science and the global rubber community can tap into this like the blockchain and the GIS which we can look into how much is the emission coming from different space. If you look into the jurisdiction approach, for example, we can tap into that and for example, a blockchain technology can be used and the token can be passed from one place to another and the total emission can be calculated and offset against a certain industry. Specific to the rubber industry what are the adaptation and the mitigation actions and also how the tree as a whole could be used as a carbon sink to offset the CO2 emission. It is possible to chart a 1.5 degree pathway that does not remove the carbon dioxide to offset the ongoing emission. This is a mass but this mass simply doesn't work. Reducing the carbon emission is no longer enough to hold the impact of the climate change. For example, if you look at the rubber plantation, I know that this research report most of the scientists are familiar with. I'm just quoting also Dr. Aziz mentioned in his inaugural talk around 40 million tons of CO2 which is possible to absorb with more than 300 million or around 400 million hectares of natural rubber. This is a very good mass which the sector could use in different international level dialogue and discussions on bringing or integrating natural rubber into the UN level or climate summit discussions. Reducing the carbon emissions is no longer enough to hold the climate impact. The ecosystem based adaptation and the national adaptation plans. Already these two topics was discussed in detail by the two earliest speakers. And carbon capture and carbon sequestration it is an area certainly we need to discuss how collaboration and integration in the rubber space can be done. The climate finance Vincent has already brought in detail some of the policy dimension we could address on climate fund. But suddenly this is the fact in addressing the climate change we need investment. Then large scale investment is required to significantly reduce remission. How can we encourage to bring more investment. To attract or to support small farmers to discourage deforestation. This is something the rubber space or the producing countries more address to the small farmers we could look into. I like to bring one example here because this is most of the industry players and those who are in the natural rubber space known about this. This is the the collaborative project on green financing landscape. That is one good example of the green investment between Barito, Michelin and the TLFF, which is already in place. But of course this is a good project bringing more jobs into the rural community as well as to the rubber farmers who are more focused in an ecosystem based adaptation. And then this can be upscale with the right financing partners. This is this is one policy option which can be used in other countries. And how this could be addressed at the global level. This is a policy element for discussion in the next panel session. Next slide. You have to close the presentation please. Yes this is the last slide. What is the pathway for the rubber for our moving forwards. The actions are already initiated by the country level as already mentioned in the NDC and the NDP. Action plans but looking at the rubber segment around 40 million hectares of rubber plantation. It's a very strong carbon sink. And then proper plan for replanting of old trees. With a good ecosystem model rather than a monocrop intercropping and the mix cropping that is well aligned with the national NDC three, which is mentioned earlier. And then decarbonizing supply chain via regulatory framework to bring it free of deforestation and with an assured traceability check. On the land origin because this is indirectly is encouragement for small farmers to not to go for deforestation. And I should leaving income from rubber farming for social safety net for millions of small farmers. Of course, this is brought in for discussion in the earlier panel by Dr. Raseez. The living income concept is already addressed in other crops like coffee and coa and also this topic is brought under discussion. Not that formally but this will become soon in a formal way with the major producing countries consuming countries IRSGA IRDB ANRPC. And the global platform on natural rubber. Then reuse of the natural rubber from the end of the life of the product. This is an area where certainly collaboration and partnership is neither one industry or one country alone cannot address this. And it's a time for act to now on the bioeconomy and the circular economy. Then financing to encourage climate adaptation in natural rubber is Vincent has already addressed this. International accounting of carbon in biomass and its value addition. This is also mentioned by earlier speaker is this an area we need to collaborate and how we can collaborate this how we can account for carbon in biomass as well as for the furniture and other wood products. It's a question to be addressed and work together. Public private sector collaboration mitigation and adaptation. And of course for this we have to create awareness and this is a wonderful opportunity we do have now the exchange of information and what it is happening at the scientific side. This is already a need to be conveyed beyond the scientific community to the general rubber community and the climate community which Vincent has already pointed out and also people has to adopt it. That is very relevant for a sector where millions of small grovers and more than 90% of the production is coming from the small grover site. Then integration of the rubber in mitigation policies measures and adaptation policies and how these discussions as a holistic approach starting from bottom to the top how we can bring the discussions in climate summits and other UN FCC and other discussions. Okay, thank you. I think it's. I'm passing this back to the chair. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I think we have some time. 10 minutes for some discussion. Q&A session. There is anyone from the speakers that would like to make further comments. Vincent or Alexander. No, there is a question from Dennis Somba that actually was for Vincent. I asked you. I guess many, many of the presenter. In all these workshops could reply to it. This is a very good question. I mean, who should really take the initiative and at which level to engage into this discussion and bridge this silos. So I would really think that here, of course, the national level actors, the national institutional actors have a key role. So the representation. So it's true that when the small holders are not represented at national level, that makes it difficult, but still that there is an organization of the sector. They are producers, et cetera. There is a value chain, and this is a key stakeholder to mobilize. Then there is research, I think research and the linkages that this institution can have with the ministries and looking at these processes. Then there is probably also a role that's more suggestion to IRSG in providing some guidance, and maybe this is one of the follow up of this workshop, say, okay, you don't know how to engage. These are the things, these are the processes going on, and this is how you can engage and what you can do. And this could be something that the IRSG could consider doing for its members. If it's not already the case, but it's not, it's new territories, maybe for some of the actors, but there are ways to explain how to engage into these based on good examples. What you can bring, and this could be something that the IRSG could consider doing for its members. If it's not already the case but it's not, it's new territories, maybe for some of the actors, but there are ways to explain how to engage into this based on good examples, as Alexandre has shown in his presentation. Yes, if I can say something about this, I think, no, RAB has a lot of organization associations and but in a way, you know, this workshop is an answer or a first answer to the question that our friend has put because the issue is not who has to get to delete but how we proceed in organized coordinated fashion. I think this is the main point. Most likely, there will not be the leader of one organization. In my view, there should be the cooperation of various organizations in trying to reach a goal. First, we have to set the goal and we have to set an action plan to reach that goal. So I think that could come from discussion like this and from follow-up of this discussion, being sure that everyone will be involved in it. Yes, I think one of the strengths and pointing to that and of the sectors we've seen that there are many actions, a range of actions that can be solutions, that can be mobilized both for mitigation and for adaptation. And there is a range of different organizations that tackle all of these in different ways from the generic resources aspect, the improvement on clones with IRDBs, the issues of technical itineraries, you know, so in analysis, incentives, household economics to look at how that can strengthen smallholder livelihoods through different approaches, including diversification, etc. So I think, yeah, fully right. The point is how to coordinate all of this and bring the positive elements and the solution element to the table, because one of the bottleneck that exists in the current climate discussion is more about the solutions and also how the solutions can bridge a big gap between a technological industrial fix, often large scale, and something that is more conducive to the objective of smallholder livelihoods and food security. Just to add one point to as a follow-up of Vincent's comment, because in this space data visibility is not very clear. So what we could do for getting that data visibility, without data visibility, we all have a set of solution and technology side is the science-based evidence is there. But if the data is missing, the implementation and further discussion is difficult. How we could address this and how we could get a better data, this is also an area for discussion among different agencies at the global space. Alexander, do you have any questions? Maybe just a first reflection on why rubber is often less mentioned, or even not at all. One of the entry points, in the major entry point for the agricultural sector in the climate change discussions, was food security. And it has been a bit easier, or people are more used to mention coffee, cocoa, even though their impact on food security is providing income exactly like rubber. So one thing that needs to begin is just to mention rubber as part of it. Just to take an example, a week ago, Vincent made a presentation to the Science Council of the CGIR. He had four minutes and in these four minutes he mentioned rubber. It was so unusual that yesterday I had another meeting with some other people that listened to that and thinking about food security. They said, oh, but we have not to forget the impacts on livelihoods. Take rubber, for instance. So what I'm pointing out is that there is a very powerful narrative of the rubber sector, renewable material, 90% of it from small holders, so important for some countries so that once we have the right narrative with some data behind and some evidence, if everybody has the reflex to put it in the appropriate place when reviewing the reports of the IPCC, when having a discussion with the private sector, when that it will gradually come into it. And part of the narrative, as Salatori said, is the institutions that are supporting the rubber sector, the strong integration with the private sector, which is also now something that the general discourse on climate is very much looking for, because everybody now is realizing that it is not only the task of governments to do something, but for everybody, including private sector consumers, there is also the discourse. So we have to enter in all these discourses, bioeconomy, sustainable world, adaptation, and as Marcel has shown, all these discourses are around the negotiations. And by experience globally, you begin discussing a topic in the site event, and one year after it is taken on board, and two years after it's entering the negotiations proper, there are ways to influence the whole discourse. And also there is the national, so there are various entry points, the national one, the international one, private sector one, and the global discourse on contribution to food security in a more sustainable world. I think it's five o'clock. If there are no other comments, I think we can close this session and have 10 minutes break, and then we'll come back for the final panel discussion.


Good evening, everyone. My name is Chris Dempsey. I'm the lead developer for Recollect at NZMS. I don't have a PhD. I'm not studying for a PhD. I don't have a BSc. I don't have a BA. I have, however, been working with the internet and with crowds, essentially, for over a decade now. So I feel I'm fairly clued up on what the crowd is about, what the internet is about. A little bit of background to me. I developed up the calculators, the mortality calculators for the sorted website, which, as a young father, was a bit of a depressing thing to do. I then moved on and did things like trade doors and things, trade access for tradesmen who only have thumbs. When you only have thumbs, the internet is a difficult place to be. So we gave them a loyalty site as well to reward them for actually using their thumbs correctly. But I also have a wild crowd under my belt. I run the Dynout website, and it employs an awful lot of people for free. We review restaurants up and down the country, and if you ever want a wild crowd and you want wild content, that's the kind of project they have. But what all this means is I'm not a designer. I'm a developer. And I spend all of my time in CodeView. This is how I see my life. This is how I spend my time, because data is cool. I love data. I love interconnected data. I love the way it fits together. I love the way that it's awful on one side and fantastic on the other. So the data for me is king. However, let's talk about Wanganui and their crowd sourcing project. The Alexander Turnbull Library has a huge historical index of people and subjects spanning about 150 years, and it's been managed to maintain by volunteers and covers births, deaths, marriages and other interesting bits and pieces from the local newspapers. These index cards are constantly in use by members of the public who come through the more that they have more than just thumbs. And then they utilise the information that's on those cards to which we request pages or whole and entire newspapers to be pulled out and scanned and copied and digitised out of the archives. Now Wanganui Library stopped adding new cards, which is probably a good thing because they've got over 150,000 of them. So the big challenge for them is how to get that information off those cards and into a database in some way to make it accessible but also so they can carry on extending it. All those cards Thankfully that isn't their cards but it's not far off. 150,000 cards means a lot of work and any small task multiplied by 150,000 becomes monumental. If we assume that a single card can be read and transcribed in about a minute, my minute by 150,000 is 2,500 hours or 312 8-hour days or about a year and a half for some poor soul to slog their way through. However not all cards are made equal. Some have a lot of text and some provide other challenges because of the scale of the job simply increasing the time per card to 2 minutes adds another year and a half to the project. And did I mention that some of the cards are double-sided? So this sounds like the perfect candidate for a crowdsourcing project. I might work and so on. So a plan was required. The first question that has to be asked for even starting down a crowdsourcing project is, why? You'll need a good reason for actually starting a crowdsource project because you'll need to explain it to a far wider audience. You need to explain to them why they should bother. What's in it for them? And if you can't explain it to them how are they going to become enthused? If you can't explain why to every single person about why they should be filling in and becoming part of your crowd, don't start. Wanganui's why is that the cards are not being added to. The data that they want to add to it is stacking up and the cards are still being used. They want to carry on using these cards. They want to access the information that is on there now and they want to add more information to them in the future. The next question, still before you can start talking about crowds, is how to digitise your materials. If this is an in-house project possibly you could just work off the original materials but it's more likely that you're going to want to digitise them and put them onto the internet or somewhere. That gives you a much, much wider audience and it means that we've got a number of very successful methods of quickly and efficiently scanning and digitising all these materials but it depends on what your project is. If you're trying to map a graveyard all you need is an iPhone and a GPS and therefore you have all the information you need. We started with a sample of about 1,000 cards from Wanganui. We tested a variety of scanning and indexing and sorting methods. Fronts and backs and sets and groups and all sorts of things. We managed to convert those cards into 1,252 transcribable items. Group to sets, front and back, all noted. Quick OCR run and we're ready to roll. Probably the next most important question to ask or even the most important question to ask is, what do I want to achieve at the end of all this? Do you just want transcription? Do you want the cards titled and indexed? Does the content need to be contextualised? Do you need to know where the words are on the page? How accurate does the transcription need to be? Do you want typos and obvious eras on the originals corrected? All through this you have to keep asking yourself how accurate does the transcription need to be? Do you want typos and obvious errors all through this you have to keep asking yourself why? Keep asking yourself that over and over again. And remember the one vital fact the more context you require from your material, the more intelligent your audience, your crowd needs to be. If you're not going to get everything from that job the first time you run it don't start it. Wait until you actually have answered all those why's. Wonginui like the idea of a fully contextualised card. They have a lot of indexed information on every single card. It would be great to be able to say the Wonginui Chronicle on this particular date, this particular event, a birth and death marriage happened to this particular person and then this particular event and that was wonderful. I loved that idea and it was nearly fricking impossible to use. However the concept was very very sound but the crowd would never put up with it. So that brings us to the most variable element of the entire project. Who? Who is your crowd? If you're publishing this out to all in sundry then your crowd is wide and diverse. That includes doctors and dentists and murderers. It contains accountants and school children that are truly humorous in those that are just funny. The world is full of wonderful and interesting people but it's also full of crackpots and weirdos. A quick read of comments on a vaguely controversial stuff article or a YouTube video will give you the insights into the minds of others. We don't all have the same moral compass. Beliefs, skills or intelligence and these are the people who will be your crowd. Even a small tight-knit group will have a wide differences of opinion and levels of helpfulness. We'll talk a bit more about your helpful crowd later. Wonginui's crowd is a mix of their current volunteers, their in-house staff, interests of people in the region and local communities and other organisations. So the Crowdsourcing Proof of Concept project was launched. We loaded the cards into Recollect and presented them for crowdsourcing. Our initial launch was to a very select few. We have slowly lekt it out to other wider groups for testing, collating their feedback and tweaking the inputs and usability as we went. When you launched your audience, you'll need to know what you're doing and why. Your home page for the project should show its current status, leaderboards, stats, other activity, but also a reason to participate. Don't make it too complicated. Make it sound like a fun thing to do, even though it's the most boring job on Earth. Our first volunteer group which just happened to be our NZMS staff were set the task of just getting stuck in. They had no introduction, no training, no idea on what the end results we were looking for, just a tool to get started with. As a result of the inputs and feedback we built a short training module that used the actual cards to guide the users through the process. This helped us to explain what to look for, where to find the data, where to put it, if typos were allowed or if they should be fixed, how to use the various tools on the page and to make the transcription easier. I lost myself there. They also were able to give feedback on things that were able to give them feedback that they may have made a mistake and guidance on how to correct it and make each step a little harder than the one before it. Just three cards are now training program in a certain amount of leniency and this made the trained users more savvy in their submissions, more consistent and reliable. Only one person didn't make it through training and we'll discuss her later. A golden rule to any crowdsource project is don't let your users get stuck.  Everybody has different skills and if a user is competent, don't force them to complete the tasks if they don't want to. Of course at some stage, you're going to end up huge wads of data. How do you deal with the task of administering it is up to you, but here's a few things to consider. Do you want or need double entry? It works well for Wonginui's index cards as they're short, concise and often laid out pretty well. However, a large page of text or translation may require piecemeal entry, multiple users editing the same actual page until it's considered good. One small concession of double entry is that you could also employ auto acceptance if two cards match or match close enough then you can consider them good as and just automatically accept them right away. The downside to this is that if you do get a whole bunch of malicious users and they just type bum, bum, bum on every single card, you're going to get a lot of bums in your data. You can however convert your crowd into submitters into acceptors as well. Once a user has a certain number of cards accepted, a certain level of approval they've shown their worth as it were you can actually set them to be one of your approvers as well. So crowd source the submissions crowd source the approvals. We have to look at your cards ever again. If however you do want to review every single card that's edited remember you'll have to read every single word that your crowd submits. All of it. Every single word. Crowd source the approval sounds pretty cool now, doesn't it? In the end, the method of entry and acceptance is up to you and based on the material that's been transcribed and the method used to collect it but don't think it is just a quick and easy task. And the crowd. The crowd. The great thing about a crowd is that it seems to follow all of the theories of chaos and randomness at the same time. Take a moment and think of the crowd was made up of just your immediate family. How diverse would their skills and experiences be? Would you for a moment consider that they would tow the line that you have set for them? The crowd is one of those things that you have very little control over. Even if you know them all by name. When we released a test version of the one going to be crowdsourcing to a small group of well-known people one of them failed the training. They could not get past card number two. I had to look through their training transcript to see why she failed in its pure user era. She refused to read the warnings that were displayed and got frustrated and abandoned it. Turns out she was leaving the title and the body of the card. A lesson that should have been learned in card number one. But, obviously, she wasn't. I know this person and they make monkeys at a keyboard look like Shakespeare. She's keen to help but the quality of her contributions would always be in doubt. We love her dearly but we don't want her in our crowd. Training weeded her out. Many other people have breezed through the training process and then got stuck into correction. Some are fastidious and precise ensuring that every comma and apostrophe is in the right location. Others are quite accurate but eventually they get lazy and start to let some errors slip through. Some, of course, were lazy from the first card they ever did. Thankfully, so far, none of the crowd has been malicious. Except that one. Evil. We've received somewhat entries but none that contained anything more than what was on the card to begin with. That's not to say that we won't get one but we have the tools on hand to make sure that if they get identified they can be banned. Accuracy. It is what you want it to be. If you are converting into a contextualised format for a database then you might need high levels of accuracy. Every i dotted and every t firmly crossed. Long ago we wanted the titles and card numbers to be extracted after we discovered that we weren't going to be able to do the whole contextualised because the crowd were going to revolt. But the rest of the card became keyword searchable. Therefore punctuation and spacing was less important than having the numbers and letters entered correctly. Correct capitalisation was of no great concern and spacing layout was up to the individual. But the question still remains over what to do about the typos and abbreviations from the original images. If a word is spelled incorrectly on the card should it be transcribed as such or as it was intended. Spacing concerns on the originals are of no longer of any concern. So should we correct intentional mistakes made on the originals as we go like typing over the edge of the card? If so, how does this impact on the double entry comparisons? Long ago his answer is we don't know yet. We asked a lot of questions at the start but you can never ask all of the possible questions and during the project your rationale and reasons may change. So be prepared for the occasional goalpost move. So lessons. Constantly ask why are you doing this? If you find it hard to explain to your boss, your colleague, your wife, husband, daughter, child or some random person walking down the street if you can't make them grasp what it is that you're trying to do then maybe you shouldn't start. Make sure that your material is crowd friendly. Digitise it and make it accessible. If you put it on the web then make sure it's web friendly. If you're doing it in-house make sure you have the technology to access and display it. Make sure your tools are crowd friendly. Offer training to the newbies offer them to skip the hard or boring bits show a project status and leader boards if it's on the web make sure that it's accessible to a wide variety of browsers. Libraries aren't renowned for their high-tech equipment in-house. Make sure that your crowd is friendly. Be prepared for malicious users. Be prepared for idiots. Be prepared for novice users and monkeys at a keyboard. Test everything. Test it yourself, then with colleagues and with a close group of friends in a friendly external group before you make it public. Test it again. Seriously, you need to be intimately familiar with your tools, with your data and the materials. Test it at work, test it at home, test it on the bus, test it on your phone. Test it a lot. And promote it. Just because you built it doesn't mean they'll come. A wonderful emotion may generate a bubble of activity and then taper off to a few dedicated individuals. But constant marketing and promotion of your crowdsourcing product will keep it alive and moving fast. And enthuse and reward your crowd. Or at least recognise their input. You should have prizes or just fame. But you have a volunteer workforce doing a fantastic job for you and they should be recognised in some way. And use the data. I know it seems obvious, but remember why it is that you wanted to start this project in the first place. If you manage to source a crowd and they produce your results, use the data. Make it yours. Make the power of the crowd into something useful. Wanganui's crowdsourcing is populating the recollect system directly. So they're able to use the data as soon as it's approved. Their crowdsourcing project, however, is a trial. A proof of concept or an experiment. If it all goes well, they'll have the perfect system in place to launch into their full set of cards. And if you want to see their system at work, visit them at wanganuilibrary. recollect.co.nz or I think it's straight off the wanganuilibrary.com You can register, undergo the training yourself, and start correcting cards and be part of the in-groud. So this has been a brief introduction into wanganuilibrary and how they have started their crowdsourcing. There's a lot more that can be said, but the first stages of any project like this is a discussion. And we're more than happy to discuss this project and possibly any project that you have. So any questions or other?