Leadership post-covid

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

What does the above headline have to do with business you ask. As you’ve heard me say before:

Everything.

What was once considered the domain of science research papers has now become a serious global security risk. At some point in our near future governments will be *forced* to respond with drastic measures similar to what they did with covid resulting in the same disruptions.

In view of this, it’s important for leadership teams to understand that business continuity is going to be closely tied to the ability that a business has to decouple revenue generation from the need to burn fossil fuels.

The global changes that need to happen are deep and system wide – we have to decouple fossil fuels from electricity generation, from transportation, etc. These large changes take time – almost like the development of a vaccine – but can be speedup where there is a collective will.

While we wait for these we need to ask how we can, right now, minimize our exposure to fossil fuels?

One way is, using Carbon Literacy (a must have skill each business will need from here on in) to audit our businesses. At each fossil fuel exposure point ask “what can we do differently to decouple or dramatically reduce our exposure?”

So:

– Can we convert our office electrical supply to renewable energy?

– Do we need an office at all?

– Can we end staff fossil fuel driven commutes?

– Can we fly less?

– Can this event be presented online?

Change before you have to!