Review of Webinar, COVID-19, Climate and the Clean Economy with Andrew Winston

Andrew Winston is da bomb!  Co-author of Green to Gold and Author of the Big Pivot, just had a webinar hosted by MIT Sloan Management Review.  The subject was COVID-19, Climate and the Clean Economy.  He gave us his thoughts and insights on where all 3 intersect.  Here are my takeaways:

Our planet is sick with a fever, like when you or a loved one is sick, and the Earth's fever is just getting hotter and hotter.  The next couple of years are going to be very difficult, there is no easy way out and there is no "Normal" anymore.  Our planet's natural systems won't allow it.  Here are his 7 Reflections:

1) - Prepare for the Exponential -

conditions may start out slowly but they will quickly get out of hand, e.g., the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. by not having a proper inventory on hand, exponential rise in carbon emissions over the last 100-150 years because of industrialization, rapid loss of biodiversity, rapid increase in land use, and of course the rapid rise in world population.

There are some good things, for example decrease in costs of buying renewable energy equipment.  So understand the exponential in a condition.

2) - Listen to the Experts -

they study the data!  Because we haven't listened, we're locked in to some very bad situations, so there will be grief and loss.

3) - Understand and Respect Planetary Boundaries

- There's only so much clean air, clean water, natural systems are in significant decline, e.g., coral reefs, the arctic ice, insects, bees and frogs (I don't know about the frogs one, so will have to look that one up).  But the coral reefs are like the canary in the coal mine, they support a lot of aquatic life and really show how interdependent life is, e.g, the food chain...little fishes feed on the corals, and bigger fishes eat the little fishes and so on.  Forest loss leads to spread of disease, Climate and Disease are interconnected.  Forests provide multiple water and climate-related services.

4) - Believe that we are all Interconnected

- We are physically connected, this has never been more highlighted than relying on the people who are in the stores, truckers, healthcare workers and a lot of them who are typically in low paying jobs.  We are all interconnected and depend on each other.

5) - Rethink Resilience

- The big manufacturers of masks are in Wuhan, companies that make swabs for test kits are in Milan.  We've seen some of these supply chain pressures before.  We need diversity in our supply chains but this goes against the Capitalist mindset of always cutting costs.

6) - Choose our  Path Wisely

- Going forward we much choose the cleaner path, a clean economy is better for our health.  Companies need to get off the sidelines and get out there and push for pro-climate policies.

7) - Focus, Always, on People

- People are the Economy -> your spending is my income.

Going forward, we need a more human-centric focus to business, no one thrives, unless everyone thrives.  The every man for himself mentality does not work.

There were some questions afterwards and here are some takeaways:

- Companies need to be in a more multi-stakeholder mindset, more collaborative not focus mainly on shareholder value but on value for their employees, customers and the planet. 

COVID-19 is showing us what could be, cleaner skies, more people walking and biking.  Clean economy gets us away from air pollution. 

There's probably some retailers who won't make it out of this, Amazon will probably get more powerful and people are moving towards more self-reliance but we still need the help of others and it's not always practical, e.g., being able to repair your own stuff.

Individuals, what can they do?  - People still need to stay at home and think about the political, what can we do locally and politically. 

What will the workplace look like? - Putting measures in place to support the 6' distance, keeping up the remote work, figuring out how to help their employees, may be taking them to part-time, be much more flexible about their work.

Here's an article that underscores some of the reflections he had this afternoon.

Good stuff and many thank-yous to Andrew Winston for his insights.