Terry AâHearn slips quietly into the lush, cavernous lobby of a posh old Edinburgh hotel, joking about being allowed in.
The chief executive of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, (Sepa), is casually dressed and beaming with boyish enthusiasm. He says that English is his second language: Australian is his first - after all he was born in Melbourne. As an environmental watchdog under fire, he is remarkably upbeat - almost as if heâs wagging his tail, but more on the canine metaphors later.
Sepa has come in for some serious stick recently over its relationship with big business, particularly the multinational fish farming industry. But AâHearn is determined to demonstrate that heâs trying to save the world, one business at a time.
His big idea is âone planet prosperityâ. He quotes research from the Global Footprint Network, an international think tank, suggesting that the world needs three planets to sustain its high levels of consumption and pollution.
âThe most serious environmental problem is that our planet cannot support the economy and society that weâve built,â he says. That means big changes have to happen, or humanity will pay the price.
âYou canât negotiate with the climate system. It will regulate us, whether we like it or not,â he points out. Overusing the planetâs finite resources âwill seriously undermine our economic and social way of life in the medium to long term.â
So businesses have to transform the way they work to use fewer natural resources, cause less pollution and produce less waste. Since people donât want to go back to living in caves, AâHearn argues, âwe have to get way, way smarter at using the planet.â
âI want the best environmental performers to be the most successful businesses,â he says. âThose businesses that use the environment less will make money. The ones that use it a lot wonât make any money.â
Those who ignore the reality of 'single planet prosperity' will be doomed, he warns. âIt might be 20 years time, it might be 50 years time, but it will come. You wonât be carrying on if you use the environment to a huge degree because the environment wonât be able to support it. You wonât be able to sell anything.â
AâHearn bridles at being called an environmental evangelist, but he accepts heâs on a mission, backed by science. His wake-up moment, he recalls, was when he was walking around the botanic gardens one evening in his home town Melbourne, Australia, in the late 1980s with headphones on.
He was listening to a talk that had been given by the renowned Canadian environmentalist, David Susuki. What shocked him was the realisation that the exponential growth in resource use simply couldnât continue â and that the threats were real and imminent.
âThis is unbelievably serious,â he says. âIt changed my perspective on things. The things we talked about as being most important werenât the most important.â
AâHearn was born in 1963. He played cricket at school, became head prefect, and went on to study economics and accounting at Melbourne University.
After working for an accountancy firm, he joined the state government of Victoria, and then in 1993 its environmental protection agency. He left after 17 years to move to the UK, where he ended up as chief executive of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.
In 2015 he moved to become head of Sepa, which he lauds as one of the worldâs most respected environment agencies. âItâs not for Sepa to tell the people of Scotland what sort of economy or society they want,â he says.
âBut it is for Sepa to say that the scientific evidence says the one youâve got is taking three planets. Thereâs only one planet.â
AâHearnâs strategy is to try and convince businesses to go âbeyond complianceâ by committing to cutting consumption and waste. In March he signed up the first company, Superglass Insulation in Stirling, to a âsustainable growth agreementâ, and is aiming for another five this year.
His approach has caused critics to suspect him of being too business-friendly. âIâm friendly to good businesses,â he says, but stresses that heâs distinctly unfriendly to firms that break the rules.
âWe will not tolerate people not complying,â he says. âIf people screw the Scottish environment, weâll take them to the cleaners.â His message for every businessperson he meets is the same: âIf you screw up, we will beat you up.â
He has set Sepa the aim of making every business obey environmental rules. âI donât know any other environment protection agency that says we will get 100 per cent compliance. Thatâs an incredibly difficult thing to do.â
Far from allowing standards to relax as part of 'one planet prosperity', there will be a âtightening and tougheningâ of Sepaâs role as regulator. âIn five years time, compliance will be yesterdayâs discussion,â he predicts.
AâHearn defends his decision to drop plans to ban the fish farming industry from using a toxic pesticide after the industry complained. He says he didnât take kindly to being put under industry pressure, and accepts that the internal emails published by the Sunday Herald âdonât look very cleverâ.
But he is confident that Sepa took the right decision: to reduce the pesticideâs use and wait on further scientific evidence before working out what to do next. Sepa should be receiving a new report within the next month or two, which would be peer-reviewed and published.
He brushes aside concerns about salmon farming companies buying him dinners, pointing out that he has also dined with environmentalists. âThatâs a reasonable way of getting to know people and do business,â he says. âIâm a people-based person.â
AâHearn was taken aback when Sepa was criticised for allowing the Scotch Whisky Association, which represents drinks companies, to help appoint senior staff. Itâs arrogant to assume that the regulator always knows best, he contends, and itâs sensible to involve outside agencies.
Sepaâs job is to police industry at the same time as supporting it, he says. He compares the job of a regulator to the process of bringing up children: sometimes you need to punish and sometimes you need to cajole.
He also enjoys exploring suitable watchdog metaphors, describing himself as a âdog personâ. Sepa is not a poodle, or a lapdog, or any kind of spaniel, he agrees. Itâs not a golden retriever like the âsurrogate childâ he had to leave behind in Melbourne.
He eventually suggests a border collie as Sepaâs 'spirit animal'. âThey sense if someone is friendly, decent and nice. They wag their tail. If someoneâs threatening, theyâll bare their teeth. Thatâs what weâll do.â
Outside, in the Edinburgh drizzle, AâHearn poses for a photograph. He arranges his face into a toothy grin. Or it is a snarl? Itâs hard to tell.
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