{"id":4229,"date":"2021-05-05T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/climate-change_no-vaccine_050521\/"},"modified":"2021-12-03T10:45:09","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T10:45:09","slug":"climate-change_no-vaccine_050521","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/climate-change_no-vaccine_050521\/","title":{"rendered":"There is no vaccine for climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How many of you even knew<\/em> Earth Day was on 22nd April? And even if you did, did you care?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n If there is one lesson we will eventually take from Covid, it’s the paranoia that government and business leaders’ now live with: a constant fear of being caught cold<\/em> by a crisis like this, ever again. This paranoia must spur them to preventative action rather than a reliance on their ability to deliver rapid treatments. Those treatments of the symptoms simply paper over the deepest cracks of the causes – problems that remain unsolved despite all the debt we’ve incurred.<\/p>\n Barring future pandemics and world wars, which seemingly can be treated by throwing extraordinary amounts of money into science and military coffers, the next looming crisis is that of a climate meltdown. This offers the opposite<\/em> problem – where the only cure is through smart and painful prevention<\/em>, not quick-fire, after-the-crisis inoculation. <\/p>\n Sustainability must<\/span> become a native part of businesses, policy, and our day-to-day lives<\/strong><\/p>\n This means people need to be educated, they actually have to listen<\/em> and then change their behaviors. No-one really took the threat of nuclear war seriously until the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were experienced. The world was able to recover from the horrors of ‘limited’ nuclear war, the experiences, hopefully, proving to be preventative for many more decades to come. But there is no second chance<\/em> if we continue to destroy our planet. There can be no “lessons-learned” when the world runs out of water…. Sadly, our recent study of 150 C-suite executives across the global 2000 shows us that sustainability only ranks fifteenth as a “fit-for-purpose” measure – no change at all from pre-Covid times:<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Click to Enlarge<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n In this vein, we had our roaming story-teller Nischala Murthy Kaushik<\/a> spend time with analyst Josh Matthews<\/a>, who spends a lot of time thinking through how we tackle sustainability and climate change, in addition to spending his spare time as a counsellor on Cambridge City Council in the UK…<\/p>\n Nischala Murthy Kaushik (CMO, HFS): <\/strong> Let’s start with the basics, Josh… What is the definition of ‘sustainability,’ and why is it important in 2021?<\/span><\/p>\n Josh Matthews (Assoc Research Director, HFS): <\/strong> The best place to start by checking out the UN Sustainable Goals<\/a>. These 17 Goals cover all the ambitions we should have as a planet, whether its tackling climate change, lifting people out of poverty, restoring and protecting biodiversity, or eliminating inequality. These challenges don’t stand alone—they’re heavily interconnected. These are all challenges we still face in 2021. These are all challenges we’re likely to face for decades to come. There’s so much under the sustainability umbrella—but can broadly be split into environmental, social, and governance (with a financial sustainability element) factors; many (businesses especially) refer to “ESG” as a way of indicating that sustainability is about more than just climate change, and how tightly intertwined all 17 Sustainable Development Goals are.<\/p>\n Nischala:<\/strong> The theme for 2021’s Earth Day (22 April) was “Restore our Earth”. How does the theme of sustainability really help in restoring<\/em> our Earth?<\/span><\/p>\n Josh:<\/strong> There’s a scientific and internationally agreed need (The Paris Agreement) to reach net-zero globally by 2050 to have a chance of avoiding further irreversible global warming and climate and ecosystem breakdown. If we don’t reduce our emissions to net-zero by 2050, we’ll have lost any chance of avoiding global warming above 1.5 degrees (since pre-industrial times). This will not only cause extreme and erratic weather and make more of the planet uninhabitable, but it will also continue to break down natural ecosystems: oceans and reefs, polar regions, jungles and forests, and so many more. Biodiversity will disappear as habitats, and food chains will collapse. Restoring our Earth means avoiding this. But it also means actively improving biodiversity (and the planet in general) from where we are now—not just stopping the harm. <\/p>\n Nischala:<\/strong> Do discussions around sustainability come up in your interactions with clients? what are their top-of-the-mind questions and challenges?<\/span><\/p>\n Josh:<\/strong> Yes they do, Nischala, Many enterprises across the globe are committed to sustainability in various forms (for example, become net-zero carbon or committing to a target like 2030) and some demonstrate it through company policy or corporate level programs with a dedicated leader to drive this charter. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic – sustainability and achieving more than just shareholder profit are becoming critically important for enterprise leaders (see Exhibit 1). Many, however, are struggling to translate their intent to action and impact. Many know that their customers are looking for sustainability in the products and services they buy—but still manage to stick with the status quo or not go far enough.<\/p>\n Our conversations with service providers do not fill us with a whole lot of confidence that the majority of enterprises are making the changes they need to make—despite marquee use cases and headline enterprises who have seized the sustainability narrative (Unilever is a good example). There is hope, however, as these same service providers hold the keys to making sustainable transformations happen – as they do in digital transformations. They can bring the strategy and design consulting, implementation, managed services, and technology to help businesses move along a pathway to sustainability.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n