While we are nearly 2.6 billion people quarantined to fight the Covid-19 epidemic in this unprecedented month of March of 2020, I have decided to take the time to write my thoughts and ideas on business transition and adaptation to climate change. This serious health crisis is testing the resilience of our society, i.e. its capacity to absorb an unprecedented shock, to reorganize, to continue to work and above all to reinvent itself and transition to a more sustainable world. This is a violent and brutal rehearsal for society and businesses to adapt to the future consequences of climate change.
The concept of ecological transition finds its origin in experiments of individuals, groups, villages or cities, when they started to work on the problems of local resilience, circular economy and reduction of CO2 emissions. The documentary film Tomorrow features initiatives of communities. Alongside citizens, consumers, NGOs, states, regulators and investors, businesses are one of the key players in the ecological and energy transition and yet there is little coverage on this topic. The health and economic crisis that we are going through right now invites us to think about the next day and in particular how to strengthen the resilience of our societies.
Through concrete examples, this blog will attempt to shed light on how economic actors implement their ecological transition, seize strategic opportunities, how they prepare to become more resilient to the impact of climate change, depletion of resources and other major environmental issues (accelerated loss of biodiversity and growth in environmental health risks).
Here are the 5 main themes that I plan to cover:
- New economic models, strategic transformations, opportunities and innovations to adapt to climate change and scarcity of resources
- Solutions, tools, indicators and methods implemented by companies to make their transition (circular economy, low carbon strategy, etc.)
- Role of digital, data science and technology in the transition
- Role of governance bodies and stakeholders: managers, board of directors, investors, shareholders, employees, customers, consumers, business partners and the media.
- Companies motivations to make their transition: why is the subject at the top of the priority list, what are the catalysts of the transformation?
Other subjects may complete this list. If you have suggestions or want to highlight good practices and successful or unsuccessful transformations (the error is a source of learning), let me know.
Here are some blogs, think tanks and digital media that inspired me: Chronique de l’anthropocène by Alain Grandjean https://alaingrandjean.fr, The Shift Project https://theshiftproject.org, Novethic https://www.novethic.fr, UN Global Compact https://www.unglobalcompact.org, The Download from MIT Technology Review https://forms.technologyreview.com/the-download/