Simon:

Not because there isn’t a solution, but rather because are we moving far enough fast enough? Because one thing I know for sure the planet will be fine without us. In fact, some might argue either be better. And the true cost of our neglect will be paid by humanity, our cities, our communities, and yes, every single one of us in business, whether it’s indirectly through supply chain, disruption, or material sourcing, or directly through power outages, infrastructure breakdown, food scarcity, and so much more.

And while I look positively toward the number of coalitions companies and stakeholders putting the climate emergency first, far, too many of us are still sleep walking into what will be a catastrophe on a scale. None of us have ever seen, especially because the climate emergency affects all aspects of our lives from food to energy, to water,

and some of the consequences of inaction reach a point where they take on a cascading effect after which there’s little we can do. Now, this doesn’t mean there isn’t hope. It just means we need to take actions at scale together for everyone else, but also for our own sake. And realize that as daunting as the challenge is the innate regenerative capacity of the planet is extraordinary.

As we saw in that window of time, when the global pandemic began and rivers and habitats, and so much more suddenly burst back into life. So I wanna look at this issue. But do it in a slightly different way. Instead of sharing an interview with the top CEO or executive or entrepreneurs we normally do. I mean, fantastic people who are taking action unique to their businesses and markets.

I’ll be chatting with a journalist who covers these matters specifically, and will both share our thoughts in a free flowing discussion, focused on how we better business by regenerating the planet that makes our lives and future possible. Let’s dig in.

from we first in goal 17 media, welcome to lead with we I’m Simon Maning and today I’m joined by Heather Clancy. Now Heather is the vice president and editorial director at green biz, which specializes in chronicling the role of technology in enabling corporate climate action and transitioning to a clean, inclusive and regenerative economy.

And we’ll discuss the sustainability landscape, how business is showing up and why we have good cause to be optimistic. So Heather, welcome to lead with we. And if you don’t mind, , give us maybe a little sense of what green biz does and what’s your role there.

And then why don’t you just fire away with the first question? That’s top of mind.

Heather: Well, thanks. Thank you Simon for inviting me. I really appreciate it. This is exciting. Uh, so green biz is a media company we put on , for in person events and many virtual events during the course of the year, all that convene communities that have to do with corporate sustainability.

So we, we focus on circularity, circular economy issues, ESG and green finance issues, the profession of sustainability, and then also climate tech. So all of these things around these communities, , people that are dedicated to addressing and solving the climate crisis, I am on the team at green biz, and I run the, strategy for the newsletters and for the website and for the podcast.

And for many other things that we’ve got planned in the, the months to come. I know that you’re an author and, , I’m just really. Fascinated by this whole concept of, of we with we like, so when you first, , approached me about this, I thought lead with we, that’s just a great concept of course.

And one thing I really have to focus on as a leader, you always wanna say, it’s not me, it’s us, it’s we, you know, that sort of thing. , what I wanted to ask you first was how you see the lessons in your book applying specifically to sustainability professionals. So how can that community really, , tamp into the messages that you’re providing in your, in your tone?

 

Simon:

Yeah, well, I think, you know, the origin of lead with we was partly from me being in, involved in business for, , decades and just really from an Australian mindset. When I saw, this sort of shake out of the have, and have nots as a consequence of the practices of business. I just thought this isn’t fair, this isn’t right.

And it’s not sustainable. That was a sort of personal instinct. But the concept lead with we was really driven by. The idea that we’re not moving far enough, fast enough in terms of meeting the challenges we face with equal force. I mean, if you look at the climate report, the IPCC report, the six assessment, they’re really saying in these updates that we’ve got three years by 20, 25 to reach peak emissions after which it’s gonna be very difficult for us to, limit a rising global temperatures to around 1.5 degree Celsius.

And the consequences of that are huge. So it was really driven by how do we work together in new ways to accelerate and scale our response, and then specific to sustainability professionals. I think about it and go, you know, for so long in business, we’ve siloed out. Almost irresponsibly these different aspects of business in the sense that we’re gonna make money over here.

And then if we’ve got any money left, there’s been a good year or bad year. You know, we, we then do our CSR or philanthropic work over here. Mm-hmm and marketing and sustainability traditionally has been this false separation between the two, because in the true sense, sustainability should be integrated fully into your business, upstream, downstream, what you make, how you make it, how you take it to market.

And so what I would encourage sustainability professionals to do is to really look at this and say, How do we embrace this idea of collaborative leadership to lead with we so that you are working with all stakeholders inside your organization, your suppliers, leaders, fellow employees, across departments, across functional roles, downstream, you know, with marketing and even your impact programs, how do you embed sustainability throughout the organization?

And then outside the company itself, how do you work with otherwise competitors within your industry? how does your industry work with others? And then how do you work across sector so that you get the compounding synergies between all of these various efforts. So specific to the sustainability role, it’s about almost bursting our own bubble and breaking out of our own silo and recognizing we’re only going to get far enough, fast enough if we do it far more effectively together,

 

Heather:

, I think a lot of people think about leaders as a person who like this person’s in charge.

, but again, we are all leaders. Can you parse that for me a little bit?

Simon: We are all leaders. here’s the sad truth about all of this, whether we like it or not, we got into this mess together. I mean, the stuff that I bought, the plastic that came with that stuff, the car that I drove, the meat based diet that I, , enjoyed for so long in Australia, , where I banked, where I put my money.

And so on all of these individual actions by you, by me, by anyone out there were all complicit in the problem. And in a similar sense, we’re all gonna have to work together to solve for that. And so we all have to choose to lead. I mean, in a sense, not that you are the top of the food chain in a command and control hierarchy, but rather each one of us goes, you know what?

Every aspect of my personal life is a lever for change. And every aspect of my professional life, if I work with others can actually accelerate and scale our response. Mm-hmm . So it doesn’t matter whether you work in payroll R and D marketing or a CSR program, how can you choose to lead

 

Heather:

so that’s, you’re talking about humans in that context, how might this apply to a company or an organization, in sustainability, in particular, there’s a realization that in different industry segments, Organizations have to work together to get this thing happening faster.

So how could this concept apply to partnerships and alliances and you know, how do you see that manifesting itself? There?

 

Simon:

It’s a great question, cuz there’s a real inherent tension here because the competitive mindset, the idea that if I win you lose, that is driven business for so long. Mm-hmm has created this sort of tension between cooperation and collaboration and competitiveness and so we’ve gotta find ways to work together.

And I think there’s some really powerful examples out there. , you’ve got pre-competitive collaboration where an industry where different, , companies within an industry will. We’ve got a level up what we do and how we do it before any of us go to market. And once we go to market, we can compete on price and benefits and all that good stuff, but the whole industry is gonna be penalized.

They’re gonna be sort of on the wrong side of history. If they don’t get rid of bad dyes and they’re apparel, or they don’t evolve alternative energy vehicles or whatever it might be. , and you can either do open source and take your IP and put it out there that you see some companies doing, , especially in the, the apparel world and carbon calculators and so on.

Or you can actually license it out like you saw with, , hybrid synergy drive and Toyota. So one way is pre-competitive collaboration. Another is to really take a cross sector, open source approach. I mean, you look at a company like IBM and they’ve got a program called call for code. And basically what they’ve done is they’ve taken on the climate crisis and social distancing during COVID and many other issues and said, Hey, we’re gonna open up our software and developers inside the company and outside the company.

And also corporate sponsors, other companies out there and also nonprofits, NGOs, and foundations. How can we all work together collaboratively to solve for these most pressing issues in real time? And so the begs the question though, and so it’s such a good question, Heather, who gets the credit, this is the tension and that competition versus, you know, collaboration issue who gets the credit for doing it.

And I’ve spoken to dozens of business leaders and to a fault, every one of them have said all boats, right? And if we keep our eye on the prize, which is leveling up the industry or serving something higher than ourselves, and we speak in those terms, we get the credit, but so does everybody else, and it actually resolves these otherwise sort of inherent tensions in a, dog eat dog mindset.

So just a couple of examples there

 

Heather:

But doesn’t someone have to kind of be out front in those collaborations. Yeah. I mean, you need people with the money or with the resources to get the other boats rising. One thing I’m thinking about right now is the first movers coalition, which maybe’s a little too esoteric for you, but, , in the, climate tech industry what’s happening there.

It’s, it’s this group that was kind of pulled together by John Kerry, , and the world economic forum and what they’re trying to do, basically, send. Demand signals for different kinds of technologies. So sustainable aviation fuel or green steel, or, but these are big companies that have , the money to do it.

So it’s like, you know, are they favored? , do they get credit? Are, are they lead? You do need that, early adopter, that early mover, that first mover, if you will to kind of push the boat,

 

Simon:

I mean, my experience is a couple of circumstances that provoke the first mover, one is a crisis.

So for example, you may have a massive PR crisis. Like the diesel emission scandals that VW group had. And then they suddenly course corrected the entire, , focus of their business. Or you might have a visionary leader who comes in and just mandates it. As you saw with Elon Musk, who said, we’re gonna make enable sustainable mass transportation, you know, with all the attending things that have fallen out of that.

And there’s a lot of discussion around that. Or you might have those who, , literally recognize that there’s a marketplace opportunity out there and therefore they commit the resources. But to your point, . No amount of Goodwill can make it possible. You’ve either gotta have government backing.

You’ve either gotta have deep pockets. If you’re a legacy brand and you’ve got a large global footprint and you can invest like that, or, you know, you work with a private equity or a venture for that, gives you the capital to do that because they believe in the same things. But I think what’s interesting is we’re running out of time.

I mean, this luxury of how far we change is the most self-indulgent self-destructive motive that I see in business right now, which is I’m gonna incrementally inch my way forward. I’m gonna go third behind everybody else. I’m gonna wait for somebody else to fix the problem we are out of time.

And the sad thing is this, despite your best effort, If half the people aren’t trying or half the companies aren’t trying, or half business of large, isn’t trying, it’s gonna undo all those good efforts of others. But the reality is if we don’t together start to commit to being first movers as a sector in partnership with other sectors, we will have no one to blame, but ourselves in the next five to 10 years, whether it’s extreme, whether, whether it’s loss of biodiversity, whether it’s climate refugees, all of these issues will be real and present in our daily lives.

And it’s, don’t take my opinion for it. Anyone can just look in the headlines every day and see what’s going on around the world. It’s it’s here and we need to wake up to the reality of the world that we live in.

 

Heather:

So are you optimistic or pessimistic?

 

Simon:

about, you know, it’s a really good question on any given day.

Well, firstly, I dunno what everyone else is like out there, but I manage my mental health quite consciously now, cuz I got so beaten up looking at the headlines all the time. I dunno if that was the same for you, Heather, but . Absolutely. Yeah. Especially during COVID and all the fallout and the tragic loss of lives and so on, but even more so now the, the polarization in politics and so on, especially in the United States, but I, , am optimistic because three things have come together that I’ve never seen coexist before.

One is the stakes in the sense that I’ve never seen, whether you look at Davos and heads of state or heads of companies, or whether you look at, you know, Larry Fink, the CEO of the largest money management firm in the world, BlackRock, I’ve never seen such broad based the winners that we’re in trouble.

Because everyone sees it in the headlines every day, cuz it’s such a real and present, , issue on several fronts. Then secondly, I’ve never seen all the stakeholders come together before. And by that, I mean you’ve always had suppliers and leaders and employees and customers and consumers and NGOs, nonprofits foundations before.

But now the investor class for better or worse to disingenuously or not is at the table with all this flight of capital to ESG funds. And now that’s shaking out in terms of its authenticity. And we’re seeing, the, the metrics by which we measure ESG commitments, shake out and science based targets and nature based solutions.

And all of these things come to the, for all of which means I don’t think we could have really realistically offered a viable alternative to the engine of capitalism until we had all the parts of that engine at our disposal and the money wasn’t. The investor class wasn’t there. So we’ve got the stakes and we’ve got the stakeholders.

And then the third piece is we’ve got the story, whether it’s, , mark Benioff of Salesforce saying that capitalism, as we know it is dead, or whether it’s, Nancy Pelosi or whoever it might be, everybody is now , recognizing that capitalism is fundable. It changes, it evolves over time and we need to point it in a new direction.

We need a new story for business. So I’m optimistic because we’ve got the stakes, the stakeholders and the story. Plus, , as a dad of a 19 and a 22 year old, both of whom are entrepreneurs, this class of young people coming through who grew up knowing that their future is forfeited. , , they don’t even understand .

Our patients with the current conditions, they have an urgency because it’s their future and their children’s future mm-hmm . And I think that they’re already in management positions in companies and, you know, they have the largest percentage of disposable income as consumers. And when the weight of millennials and gen Z and others really starts to define the business landscape, I think it’s gonna be game over for companies that aren’t really showing up.

Meaningfully.

Heather: I’m gonna just push back a little because you know that I’m thinking about Texas, , and pushing back on the anti woke kind of thing. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff going on in Alabama. I mean, in the states, and again, this is a obviously us centric point of view right now, but how do we get around that?

You mentioned the polarization before. , do you think that the generation that you’re just talking about is gonna change the mood in those places? Or, are we just sort of forever beholden to this sort of red state blue state? I, I’m thinking of Dr. Seuss right now, but yeah, yeah.

You know,

 

Simon:

Can we move beyond that? I think unique to the United States, , there is a polarization that is not only historic, that there’s a, you know, history to it, but also it’s been compounded by social media and the real impact of social media is that. Because what we share about ourselves informs the data that is then shared, or the content that’s shared with us, we become increasingly entrenched in our own points of view.

And this has meant that we’ve got further and further apart and less capable of finding common ground. The danger of which is we can’t even agree on the reality of the world. We live in, let alone solve for it. So I don’t think it’s a simple answer of, you know, we’ve just gotta get along and talk more openly.

And honestly, I think the screen living that we do is reinforcing behaviors and mindsets consciously or unconsciously that are making it almost impossible to find common ground with that said, and I think this is more so the case in the states and in Europe, and this may sound like a gross generalization, but they have seen a greater capacity for open dialogue in Europe and other markets around the world.

And obviously this changes region by region and country by country. But I think it may be the proximity to other countries and cultures and ways of life and languages and history and so on. But I think that. We need to look to certain frameworks that lay out. After great difficult negotiations. What are those sort of non-negotiable things, for example, the sustainable development goals, the 17 most pressing issues of the planet.

This is something that everyone for better or worse could point to and say, Hey, can we find common ground here in terms of what we wanna be committed to? Or it might be, Terranova, you know, this charter that prince Charles put out in the UK that speaks to the, how, how beholden we are to the nurturing the planet and so on.

But I think these codification of larger issues that we can speak to are important. And I don’t think this is a red or blue state issue. I think as these issues become more acute in our lives, it really is becoming a human being issue. Like I don’t really ask someone’s politics when their roof has been ripped off their house due to extreme weather, or whether they’re a climate refugee at the border.

You don’t sort of say, , what politics, , do you subscribe to? So I think as they, they become more acute, I think we’re gonna have to find more common ground in our shared humanity. Mm-hmm well, I hope so, you know?

 

Heather:

Yeah. We tend to be very wired to be, short term concerned. Right. It.

Squirrel, you know, like squirrel that, that we get distracted. Right. If I, we, we felt like we were making this progress and then all of a sudden, wha you know, COVID yeah. And how do we stay the course? what about leadership needs to change again? The we, is that what helps us stay the course?

Simon: Well, you know, I think there’s a few different things. I mean, it’s been very destabilizing, but also a powerful lesson the last few years for anyone in a leadership capacity. , , just think about what we’ve all been through. Global pandemic that just shut things down.

We had, , the widespread black lives matter. That seized, you know, media around the world. Then we’ve had, you know, the global supply chain interruption, the war in Ukraine, recession, inflation. All of these issues have just kept us off balance all the way through. And this has made almost every leader.

I know, including myself, sitting there going, oh my God, is it Friday afternoon yet? And can have a glass of wine, cuz this is really hard. And we’ve suddenly beholden to looking after the work life balance and the whole human being and our employees let alone the communities we serve and so on. So with all of that, as context, I think leadership needs to change in several ways.

The first is I don’t believe that COVID and all these other issues I mentioned are the exception to the rule. I think they are the rule symptomatic of all of the conditions that we’ve allowed to be created and then manifest into all of these concurrent and compounding crises is the fact that we are going to live in a world that will have multiple crises at once.

And we only need to look back at what we’ve enjoyed in the last two years. You know, it, wasn’t not like the global supply chain issue stopped and said, great. Now let’s move on to something else. They were overlay, they run con they ran concurrently. So I think leadership is gonna be defined by your ability to manage through multiple crises at once.

That’s the first thing, secondly, I would say, and I’m guilty of this as well for too long. We’ve always built on the past. What worked last year? What happened last year? What could we do better? How could we iterate and innovate to that end? I think the past has less to do with the future than ever.

Because of all of these crises that are manifesting out there in the future and coming back towards us because of the half life of technology shrinking, because of, how our lives are being fractured across all of these different media channels. And who’s to say who we are anyway, cuz we’re distributed in so many different forms and avatars all around the world.

So all of that is to say, I think we need to back out of the future rather than build on the past. And if you do that as a company, as a leader and you say, okay, this is where we, we think we want to be and what the world will look like in three or five or 10 years, and then create milestones working back from that, you’ll be much better positioned for the reality that’s coming our way than if you simply said, well, what worked in 2020 or 2019?

And how can we get back to that then that, so back outta the future rather than build on the past. And then the third point, to a question is I think we need to embrace a, a radical new vision of collaborative leadership, which simply means. Our mindset needs to be lead with we. And what does that mean?

It means you’ve got to choose to lead from wherever you sit personally and professionally, you have to lead with as many stakeholders as possible. So it’s not just about your company, your senior leadership team, your small team, if you’re a founder, but how can you get other stakeholders involved and how can you do it with the great to the benefit?

The greatest we, which is the greatest number of people on the planet? I think, unless we sort of, and here’s the point about this? Unless we change our mindset, we will not get new behavior. If we set new goals and say, we’ve gotta get different results, but we’ve still got the old mindset. We’re crazy. We need this new mindset, which is which mimics nature, which says, Hey, we’ve gotta work together in new ways, but that togetherness is foundational because unless the whole, unless there’s integrity to the whole, the parts can’t thrive.

So I think, we’ve gotta manage through multiple crises. We’ve gotta back out of the future rather than build on the path and we need to embrace a mindset of collaborative leadership. Otherwise we’ll have no one to complain about or to complain to about ourselves.

 

Heather:

I’m gonna go back to something you said just a second ago, mimic nature.

Are you talking about biomimicry? I mean, what, in what way would it mimic nature? Well,

Simon: if we look at nature, think most people are familiar with the term an ecosystem in as much as, for example, you know, a rain forest likes the, like the Amazon cools the air, which then releases that cool air into the atmosphere.

And that creates different sort of channels of temperature around the world. And that affects the, the temperature of the ocean and those different temperature layers affect where different fish and species go. It’s an ecosystem, it’s a system in which there are mutualities and co-dependencies, and there’s a cycle of life and death and so on and regeneration.

And I think we need to recognize that we are not in control of that system. We are part of that. And as part of that system, how do we practice business in a way that can better serve the whole so that everyone can thrive within it? And you might say, why would anyone do that? Everyone’s just trying to sell some product, serve their bottom line and meet payroll.

The reality is this brands can’t survive in societies that fail and under the influence of all of these different issues, not just one, the climate emergency, but social inequities and disparity of wealth and climate refugees, and so on. And so on. There’s gonna be real struggle ahead for companies in the context of the markets, in which they operate and so on.

So mimic nature in the sense that we recognize that we’re part of something much larger than ourselves and that we need to be regenerative in our mindset in the sense that we, we recognize that this is an extraordinary planet. That can regenerate that who, who it is in the business of creating life and creating abundance.

And actually if we serve that rather than stealing from nature or destroying it, we might just give ourselves a future that we can look forward to. .

Heather: Now I also wanna harken back to something you’ve mentioned a bunch of times, cuz it’s been on my mind, especially with the heat that we’ve seen in.

Yeah. In, I mean, everywhere, not just the United States, but in Europe and in places that are not capable of. Handling this kind of heat and I’ve, I’ve been reading stories about, what Winnipeg and those Northern provinces of Canada will be like in so many years ahead of time. So we, we, we’re talking about the climate changing, which is changing regional weather patterns.

Very right. Very clearly. Yeah. And it’s also changing where people wanna live. Yep. Right. Do you want to live in these places and, and is it healthy to live in these places and can you grow the food in these places? Yeah. And you know, how should we prepare for, , this refugee, this migration, , that you’ve brought up a couple times.

What’s going on here.

 

Simon:

It’s such a serious issue, right? You tell me like Heather I’ve, I’ve looked up on the web, where should I live You know, due the climate emergency, there are so many sites now that actually project what the temperature will be like access to clean water, what the agricultural, you know, or food resources will be.

I mean, this is a living and breathing thing. You can also go to Google earth and you can actually put in your zip code and see what your area of the planet will look like temperature wise and how fertile or a it will be. And so on over different timelines. These tools are here now. What do we do about, , the refugee kind of issue as a, as a result of this?

I mean, it’s a very complicated question obviously for, for many reasons, but what here’s, what I fear people are never, so desperate than when they literally can’t survive with water or. They need to move. They will have no choice, but to move and we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it in Syria. We’ve seen it in other markets and so on.

And what can show up when resources become increasingly scarce is protectionism and nationalism, and this is my food. These are our resources. And therefore there can be, , climate refugees that run right up against , borders that are very, very protective because they wanna protect their resources for good reason.

The issue will become, can quickly lead to either civil war, if you let re you know, refugees in and so on. It can also, when I was reading an article on the Atlantic the other day, it can lead to increased sort of, radical, politics, in the sense of fascism and so on where, you know, it’s our people versus your people and so on.

Yeah. And there’s a huge knock on effect there. So what do we do to solve for it? I think. If we recognize that we have to first lean into the rigorous science and really understand and internalize the fact that the, the world is gonna look very different in terms of where you can live and what those temperatures are gonna be lo like then on the strength of understanding that science use those insights to really go, okay, what is that geography going to look like?

Um, I think there was an economist or a professor from the London school of business that just came out with a book called hot house earth, an inhabit guide. And he was talking about how everything around the equator and Europe will must be uninhabitable. Yes, people will move away or they’ll go inside to air conditioning, but animals and plants, won’t be able to do that.

And it’s gonna move that, change the way that people, you know, live in different regions. But I think if you look at the. Of climate based on the science, then we can look at how we can rapidly accelerate and scale the resources we need to provide for people in new ways and at, at a higher level.

And also look at our global supply chain in new ways, because we saw what happened with the breakdown of the global supply chain. Most recently, if you can’t get the key crops out of Ukraine, for example, during the war, look at the knock on effect all around the world. So I think people are gonna have to come up with, , innovative solutions that are much more localized to help sort of temper the fact that people will be moving at scale because of the effect of climate.

And I think once we do that, we will not only start working with nature rather than against it, but we’ll take responsibility for in so many different ways for the conditions that we’ve created because of how we’ve treated the. Yeah.

 

Heather:

I don’t know. It’s just, uh,

Simon: there’s so much, what would you say?

What would you, what would, what is your solution on the, on the refugee front? Whew.

Heather: You know, I, I don’t know that I have a solution. I, I think about it a lot. I think about, , the people, that the global south global north thing, that, that, that has really created this crisis. I mean, the global north has really created this crisis and the global south tends to be the, is paying the price place.

Yeah. This paying the price. Although now we are paying the price in the global north. Um, and, and I think, I don’t, I don’t wanna say the good news, but it is, it is, it has brought home, literally the urgency of this, , , which seems to have changed some mindsets. People are kind of finally getting it.

I think that. You know, I kind of wonder, and this goes to the, the, the sort of the theory of regeneration, like, is there a way to regenerate certain, , ecosystems, if you will, to, to help, to go back into, to go to nature and as a human try to help resolve some of these things and, and, and deal with them through, through, like, if you talk about like water, right, right.

So, , think about the natural sea walls and the natural ways to protect harbors and, through bios swales, and, and having, you know, sort of going back to nature with the approaches of how we build and, and, and engineer our cities. Right. If engineer is the right word, , in the future or re-engineer, , I think that there’s ways of maybe helping.

Helping the regions that we have that we are in. I mean, Hey, listen, not, everyone’s gonna be able to move. Yeah. Right. So how do you make it, he better for the people that are staying by, by putting cool rubs in by, by like really taking a different approach to city planning, I think maybe, or even just regional planning, , dams and, and, and how you, you approach, water in, in the future.

I mean, we look at Colorado and, and what’s going on in the west of the United States right now. I mean, just.

 

Simon:

It’s staggering, extraordinary, staggering, and how that’s gonna affect California. And, I think it’s a blend of situations or solutions, as you mentioned, I think, the global south, which is, like something that refers to what used to be referred to as sort of the undeveloped world, shall we say that is gonna be affect affected disproportionately by these climate emergencies.

And, you know, these are places that don’t have the resources and the ability to move, and they’re still using cold burning stoves and, technologies that we’d love to replace that we can’t, it’s just not a, not a reality. So, I think just, I just want to level set that. I mean, that’s got a weigh on our conscience because those in more affluent countries made fare better in these conditions, but is that questionable in terms of, a growing the majority of lives around the world.

But then I think, green zones like Barcelona where cities are saying, okay, let’s reorganize our city. , in a way that everything you need has been 50 minutes walk. So you actually don’t need, you know, to create more carbon or it might be visions of new cities altogether, like the line, which is this in the Gulf states now, which is this vision of one city in one straight line, a mirrored line, and everybody’s living inside it.

And there’s these reflective surfaces. There are technologies where they release certain things into the atmosphere that causes rain. There’s people talking about putting shields into orbit to kind of reflect, , the effects of the sun. I mean, I think it’s a combination of innovation.

It’s a combination of retooling what we’re doing right now to be more responsible to the planet and our future. And I think it’s also a question of making sure that we take, the vast, if not the majority of people all around the world with us, rather than sort of creating this, what is potentially tragic have not, and have nots is defined by climate

 

Heather:

you said something a second ago. Take them there. Mm-hmm how do we include them in the conversation? Right. So that’s part of the challenge in the pushback that I hear in the, the climate community, in the, in the corporate climate community in particular, is that.

We’re always pushing solutions at people. You know, let’s do this, let’s do that. You know, we don’t listen enough to what, , the individuals that are being affected need, or we don’t listen enough to indigenous wisdom. I mean, look at the fire management, wildfire management failures, uh, that we, we have happening all over the, again, , the world, I will say actually, you know, we, we haven’t been paying attention to what we could do and, and native native peoples around the world have, have known this for years.

You, control burns. You do to, to regenerate, , you act in concert with nature and you help nature in that instance. And so, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a way of, interacting with nature. That’s It’s not natural for many, uh, you know, so the people that like you and, and I, that, that have been raised in a certain way.

It’s just not, it’s not second it’s, I’m getting all, all these nature analogies, not second nature. Not second nature. There you go. That’s why my question to you is how do we better include these communities that are being affected in the

 

Simon:

solutions? I think it’s really turns on where is the focus of the dialogue?

Because I think for these large companies of consequences, publicly traded companies, they’re talking to the street, they’re talking to the market, they’re talking to their investors. And it’s a one, you know, it’s a, like a two way dialogue between two stakeholders, the ones who wanna make money and the ones who are building the business.

But instead again, in the spirit of lead with, we, we’ve gotta open up that conversation and make sure everyone has a seat at the table. I mean, I grew up in Australia as you can probably hear in my accent. And there’s been so much dialogue around, Aboriginal culture and controlled burning and how these fires, these tragic fires could have been prevented.

And the same where I live now in California, there’s some incredible fires that it’s almost like it’s not holiday season anymore. It’s fire season, you know, it’s, it’s absurd. So how do we take them with us? I think we’ve gotta create forums where everyone can have a seat at the table, but I think even that’s a waste of time, if those sitting at the table, aren’t willing to be open to new ways of thinking to embrace new priorities and to serve others and not just themselves, because ultimately I think that’s sort of myopic.

Vision will come at the cost of things that are far more valuable than money. I dunno. I mean like Heather, have you seen forums where you see people coming together and really kind of cracking open the limiting mindset in the past? Not

 

Heather:

yet. that was one big knock of, of the last cop was that there wasn’t enough, , participation from women from, you know, indigenous people and from young people.

 there, there still is this, this, , command and controlled mindset in many places around the world of, you know, this is what we think is right, and this is what you shall do and that sort of thing. We’re not ready for that model yet. Or at least some people aren’t ready for that model.

And so that the, there has to be a, a catalyst or a, , Revolution or I love, I actually, I really love your concept of working backwards from the future. I think reverse engineering, if you will, you know, what, what do you want the ultimate out to come to look like? I love, I like that.

 

Simon:

No, I, I think we have models of how to do this and this is wasn’t something we did consciously. I don’t think COVID was a one off. I think it was a pilot program for how we move forward. because people can’t unsee what we, what the, the capacity of business to operate with completely different priorities.

Mm-hmm we actually sent everybody home. We re-engineered our supply chains to make PPE equipment and ventilators and meals for medical practitioners. We did things that were unprecedented and think about Ukraine too. Suddenly you saw McDonald’s and Starbucks and PepsiCo and all these other companies at a cost to their own business, pull out of a large market in service of a value.

Like human dignity and sovereignty and so on, that was higher than themselves. So I think we show up differently in a crisis. We saw it in COVID the world came together in an unprecedented way. Business showed up just miraculously. And I think we’re probably gonna kick the can down the road until we are on such a scale of global crisis as a function of the climate emergency that we are going to show up completely differently.

And I think all of these different expressions of it, whether it’s a coalition of CEOs lobbying the Biden administration for more aggressive climate targets, or whether it’s all of these companies, coming together around gun control or whatever else it might be, it’s kind of like we’re building those muscles of how business comes together and opens up their mind to be of service to something rather than just their bottom line alone.

Mm-hmm whether we’ll do it fast enough and far enough that’s that was the whole point. Heather of writing the book lead with, we was like, what is an articulation to that mindset? So people can go, oh, okay. Like it or not. I get a sense that there’s another way of looking at this that may serve everyone and not just ourselves, because by serving just ourselves, we’re actually putting ourselves out of business.

 

Heather:

 

one of the things that made the COVID response work though, was the collaboration between corporations and government, right? Yeah. So they were working with regional agencies. You saw lots of good things happen in Rhode Island prior to, , that former governor joining art, the administration, um, and amazing programs.

Right. And very focused on, trying to help keep people, working, trying to keep people, give some people some sense of normalcy. , and now we’re back into this world where. You have corporations, saying one thing and then paying industry groups that are saying another thing that’s sort of not supporting their, the lead position of the leaders of the companies.

Yeah. You know, it, it doesn’t, it’s, it’s, it’s at odds, um, and it’s just become highly, , visible right in this, the past. I, you know, since COVID, I really, I mean, and then, and some really good reporting on, on the, on behalf of some, some excellent journalists that have really been underscoring and kind of beating the drum here, like, okay, you say you’re doing this, but you’re not, you’re, you’re, you’re doing things against the policy right.

Of the country, you know, like you’re, you’re undermining the inflation reduction act. You’re undermining build back better previously, you’re saying one thing and doing another, how much is the, the sort of policy position thing. Be much more important for a leader to be engaged with at this point in time.

 

Simon:

Yeah. I, I think it’s a really good question. And I think, there’s some powerful context in the most recently where the inflation reduction act, a lot of the companies that are members of the business round table or otherwise have actually been signing onto this act. But the lobbying done on behalf of those companies behind the scenes actually goes against, or, um, stalls the tax hikes that actually pay for the act to get done.

And they argue that, it makes ’em uncompetitive and they won’t be able to survive as businesses if they actually, pay their fair share. So the good news is we’re at this point attention where there’s gotta be a shakeout between who’s responsible, how are you showing up? Who’s gonna bear the burden.

These are all the critical issues that weren’t even on the table before. But I think the other area I take heart from. You’re not just gonna get called out by your consumer anymore, or citizens out there. You’re gonna get called out by your employees for disingenuous behavior. As you saw with, employees at McKinsey writing an open letter to their leadership, they’re protesting, enabling these top polluters around the world, or you are gonna get called out by the investor class, which in good conscience, can’t recommend people investing in companies that aren’t set up to survive a compromise future.

And so I think there’s a, a maturity in this conversation that’s coming where the good news is, you know, this tension between what you say and what you do is shaking out. And then you’ve got all these stakeholders calling out these companies when they say one thing, but do another, , and ultimately I think it’s gonna come down to voting.

Especially the younger generations and you see this around, you know, the enrollments around, you know, Roe versus Wade, the overturn, and so on. You’re seeing civic engagement and participatory, , democracy rising. And I think to take, you know, it’s naive to think if business can do it on its own or consumers can do it on its own.

I think all of us as citizens need to be very active and vote intentionally for those, , policy makers and people who are fearing our future to make sure that they’re, they’re doing so with more integrity. So I think it’s gonna be a combination of, , business evolving. I think it’s gonna be a combination of people getting called out for disingenuous behavior, but I think ultimately comes down to, , holding those who hold office accountable for what they say and do as well.

 

Heather:

One of the things that really bothers me about , the arguments against , the communities that I represent, right. The sustainability profession, and so forth, is it that it’s taking jobs away and it, that it’s right. When it’s so far from the truth, I mean that this is the place where innovation is starting to happen, where, , when we think about actually electric vehicles, , that is bringing manufacturing back to the United States in places that, I mean, like Tennessee is, is a hotbed and, and going to be more of a hotbed for electric vehicle manufacturing in Kentucky.

And, you know, these places that have been beholden to other, , forms of income, right. And, and, and other economic drivers in the past. So how do we get to this place where , this new way of thinking is seen as A new way of doing things. A new progress of innovation, of opportunity of, of again, to, you know, all the boats are rising because of this. How do we get to that place?

 

Simon:

I think it’s all about story. , and not just cuz I’ve been a brand guy for a long time, but I don’t. I think the future is a story we write every day and we can sit there and focus on negative things and we can talk about how people are polarized and we can look focus on how things are getting worse.

And if everyone buys into that story, we’ll all be kind of pretty depressed. And it’s a Fata in a sense, it’s a done deal. Mm-hmm or we can look at it and go wait a second. Every one of these crises is a marketplace opportunity in disguise. For example, look at the beauty industry over the last 10 years, it’s all about what’s in the ingredients have been improved.

The packaging has been improved. Look at the food industry. My goodness, like you go into a grocery store and everyone’s screaming at you about the credentials of the ingredients and what they’re making you look at the apparel industry, which is so front and center in terms of waste, sustainable apparel and regenerative agriculture, and all the different things that go into it.

And as you say, look at the auto industry, 10, 12 years ago, The whole industry was trying to put in on Muskat of business. And now every major auto maker has committed to transition fully transitioned to alternative energy vehicles. And I saw just the other day that by in 2035, California, won’t allow new cars to be anything other than alternative energy vehicles.

That’s a huge shift. It’s not enough fast enough. I know that, but it’s a huge shift. So all of that is to say that I think we are moving in the right direction and here’s how I see it, Heather. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. We’re in a car and we are hurtling towards the cliff. And as we get closer and closer to the cliff, I mean, we’ve left it.

We’ve kicked the can down the road in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, 2000, 2010, 2000 twenties. And now we have to turn 90 degrees. Everyone is ringing their hands and naing their teeth saying, why do we have to make such a radical shift? But that first 15 degrees of the turn is the hardest part, because all the GForce are pulling you back to the way that you’ve always done things, which will take us over the cliff.

But when you go from 15 degrees to 30 degrees, because more people are changing, what they do as we’re seeing, it gets a little bit easier. When you go from 30 degrees to 60 degrees, market forces take on a life of their own. And after 60 degrees, you look back and go, how did anyone do it any other way?

And what we’re feeling right now is just the G forces of the most difficult part of that turn. And we will accelerate around that curve. And that’s another reason I’m optimistic. What, what do you think? Why, how do you see we’re gonna course correct what we’re doing.

 

Heather:

I mean, I I’ll go back to the first movers thing that I was bringing up before.

And I do think that that’s super important because you do need the, the market forces. You, you need that, that money to be behind the innovation and. You put El Musk put a lot of money behind the innovation and kind of showed where to go and, and everyone got on board and, and went after, after that market.

And so, that, that you always think, oh, it’s a success story. Well, it’s not, I mean, it’s, how many, how long have the Tesla’s been out there? I don’t even remember actually, but, but in all seriousness, I think that, um, it comes, it comes down to the work of the, um, of the believers that are showing the way.

And I know it’s, I’m, I mean, I’m, I’m, I, I spend a lot of my time conflicted right about different corporations because, you know, I see the, the good things they do. And then just some, some of the boneheaded stuff they keep doing, for the sake of legacy business, , and . The ability of some companies to use their money, to help support new ways of doing things I think is, is super important.

And so, you brought up the EV movement. , I I’ll bring up a sustainable aviation fuel. I’ve seen a lot. Yeah. Like just that market in the last two years has become incredibly, , competitive actually, you know, there’s a lot going on and, um, there’s a lot of, of companies supporting it.

And there’s, if you look at all of these electric aviation companies, tons of, of the larger corporations are supporting those, those efforts and really trying to admit and, and show and, and acknowledge that these, this is the way of the future. , doesn’t mean they’re gonna keep all those planes ground, the other planes grounded right now, but you know, they are trying to get there.

And I don’t know, maybe there’ll be a tipping point. , you know, I, I feel conflicted because. They do keep their, their foot in the past. Um, as well as in the future. And, they’re beholden to shareholders, , the stock price, the bottom line look what happened to Emmanuel Farber from Danone, right?

, he went where he believed and he paid the

 

Simon:

price and, you know, that’s not necessarily wrong. I mean, and then fave of de known the large food company, he was sort of ousted because he leaned so heavily into sustainability. And, there are those like Elon Musk who took all the hits from the auto industry, or like Paul Palm at Unilever more recently hou you know, they’ve all taken hits on the way, but that enables others to kind that softens the blow for those that follow.

And I mean, the reason I’m so passionate about the, the league with we thesis is not just because, , We need to share in the responsibilities of capitalism, not just the rewards of capitalism. And that’s one of my issues that drive me crazy, cuz everyone talks about sharing the benefits more evenly, but they don’t then draw the logical conclusion.

You’ve gotta share in the responsibilities more recently, but to your point, I think we’ll get there when we lead with we and understand that you’ve gotta enable those changes to happen for the market Force’s reasons. So for example, if I, as a consumer, don’t make a conscious choice to buy a product from a new company that is more responsible to my future.

How am I gonna expect that company to succeed and get more funding it needs from the investor class and so on so that more and more of the industry transitions to where it needs to go. So it’s not just the job of the investor. It’s not just the job of the entrepreneur. It’s not just the job of, , the policy maker.

It’s also the job of the consumer because all of these different sort of roles. Interact to create the market forces and who’s gonna be rewarded and who will grow. And so the whole idea of we is that we’ve all gotta participate in this change. And every decision we make, what I buy in my groceries, what car I drive and so on and so on will enable one version of the future versus another.

So I think my great hope is that we’ll recognize that, Hey, I’m only one person and I’m just one family and I’m just doing one grocery shop, but everything I can do, everything I choose can be done intentionally. And the more of us that do that will enable those market forces. So things will change. So I, I think that’s a big part of it as well.

Do you think

 

Heather:

Elon Musk subscribes to the lead with we thesis? that is a great question. .

 

Simon:

True, true, true story. I was once invited to dinner by a colleague and I couldn’t go, or I was tired or something. Next day I found out that. Elon was at that dinner of a very small number of people and someone else.

So I would’ve loved to met him in person because otherwise I had no idea what he’s thinking and he’s urial, and, and no one knows that, , I think his, as his stated intention for Tesla all of those years ago was to make, to enable sustainable mass transportation. And I think he has a keen sense of the challenges to this planet and perhaps the needs for colonize another planet.

There was a, a gentleman I spoke to Rick Ridgeway not long ago who said, , tell Elon that it’s, we can turn earth into Mars, but it’s very hard to turn Mars into earth. So let’s look after planet earth. But with all of that said, do I think he believes in this league with we mentality?

I think he does in as much as he has created and taken a lot of heat for a disruptive approach to an industry that has really revolutionized one of the worst carbon ERs and so on, on the planet, I think he opened up his IP to other, auto makers to accelerate the proliferation of charging stations.

So it was both self-serving and also, serving everybody’s wellbeing, I think, , He has taken actions at different times, which confuses the hell out of everybody. And they go, well, it sounds like you believe this, but then you’re acting like this over here. So I would that put down as that as a solid question, mark.

I have no idea. What do you think, do you think he believes in? Yeah,

 

Heather:

I’m very, I don’t I mean, I UN I understand that they’re, that’s, it’s a great, they’re creating a great product. Their product is a great product. I just don’t, I don’t feel a hundred percent comfortable about how they go about doing it.

How, how the, the Tesla workforce is treated, how the sure. and they’re also just not very transparent, you know? And, and I think that transparency in this a day and age is an important thing. , and I, so it makes me question, you know, what the motives are, why, why the, why the, why are you so secretive about how you’re operating principle?

You know, you’re really operating and maybe I’m being, , unfair. Maybe there may be more transparent, but I, I don’t. I don’t feel you know, I’m, it’s, it’s one of those companies I feel very conflicted about because you know, they look good on as on their product, but then you know, how they go about doing it is not the way that I would think about a company of the future going about doing

 

Simon:

 

No, I, I completely agree. I mean, it’s, it’s no company is all good and all bad, but when you do these first movers out there, like Tesla, you know, you almost put putting your hand up and self-selecting to, I’m gonna show up meaningfully across the board and there have been lots and lots of issues there.

, it’s and I also think it’s really complicated. I mean, you’ve got the pressure of the street. You’ve got all the capital raising that you do. You’ve got all these different stakeholders you’ve gotta serve. You’ve got global supply chain shutdowns. That’s not that doesn’t excuse any bad behavior. It never will.

Mm-hmm but it’s never as complica as simple as this is what I want to do in the world, I’m gonna enable it. And I’m gonna be a purist all the way through. It’s always, it’s always really hard, mm-hmm, . .

Heather: So I’m gonna go back to a question that I think you like answering or thinking about, maybe your answer changes every day.

So what what’s, what’s got you feeling optimistic right now.

 

Simon:

You know what? I am looking forward to the future because here’s why, here’s why Heather, we’re all throwing up our hands with good reason about what the future can look like. But the reality is we haven’t even begun to try and fix it. And what do I mean on one hand, as a species compared to others on the planet, we’ve arguably done everything we can to ruin our future and the planet’s future in the li in the span of one human’s lifetime over the last 80 years of sort of the last eight decades of just, you know, the industrial capitalist approach.

On the other hand, we have never, never have we. Done several things at once, which is we’ve never had all stakeholders at the table. As I mentioned before, refocusing what they do because of the urgencies of the issues that are gonna affect us all never before have we done it in a way where we are gonna leverage all the resources and reach and expertise that’s unique to business.

It’s always been off about making money and so on. We’ve never squarely focused. All of our unique attributes in business on that never before have we had the majority of disposable income be concentrated in younger demographics who are values driven and really concerned, about their, their future.

Never before have you. Different sectors from governments, , through to, the private sector through, to the public sector, all working together on these same issues and never before, have you had such high stakes and existential crisis and such urgency? I mean, we are talking 3, 5, 10, 15 years beyond which there’s a cascading effect.

We can’t control. It’s almost like we haven’t even begun. So I’m not in the business of throwing up my hands and saying, it’s over. I think we should all be in the business of like we’ve got work to do and let’s get going. Let’s see what we can achieve when we work together. Let’s see when, what is possible when we concentrate.

All of those different things that I just mentioned that have never existed before independently, let alone collectively, what the hell could we achieve? I mean, if we, this is not the fight of our lives, this is the fight for life itself. And if we don’t get that. Then where us, our species humanity is gonna be the only casualty.

But if we do, and we rally to that, this great earth shot as they call it, I think we’ll be blown away by what we’re going to achieve and not without great cost and not without great pain and not without a shake out of what wealth or success or growth. God knows what looks like. But if we want a planet that we can actually thrive on and we want societies in which our businesses can actually succeed, we are gonna have to show it very differently.

And I don’t think we’ve even begun to explore that process. So I’m optimistic because I look at it and go, let’s see what we can do. Let’s leverage the innate goodness in us. Let’s actually reconnect with the natural world and, and draw inspiration from the abundance it provides and its innate regenerative capacity and see what the hell we could achieve achieve if we serve that rather than ourselves alone.

And so, I and, and you, and so many others, I feel like we’re all committed to just realizing what that possibility can look like. And until we’ve exhausted every avenue together all at once, I don’t think we’ve got any reason, any excuse, not to try harder.

Why are you optimistic? Why are you tell me, why are you optimistic, Heather? What gets a smile on your face in the morning?

Heather: there are two, I would say there are two big things. One is just listening to generations younger than me, , and opening my ears to their points of view and to their passion and to their innate belief that this is possible.

And that we sh that if you’re not pulling with us, you’re pulling against us and get outta the way, just, you know, I think that the determination, so I feel very, , Encouraged by the folks that are coming up into leadership roles and that are joining, you know, that are rising in the ranks of companies are going to change the mindset.

They’re, they’re coming out of school with this whole philosophy. That the way you do business is not the MBA program way of the past. It’s this way. And that, that sort of embedded this philosophy of regeneration and of the need to honor nature in, in, in its resources as part of a business, I feel like that’s innate in, in, um, you know, young people and then those coming into, into leadership roles.

The other thing is, I mean, I just, the proof of COVID again, is, is that, you know, number one, People can move really quickly and mobilize really quickly when they, they felt the urgency. So if you do get a cause , , that requires attention, that we’re, we can act. Um, and so it’s just a matter of keeping, keeping the focus on that.

you know, and also just, I think it changed a lot of philosophies about why you do things, you know, what what’s really important in, in our lives. People don’t wanna go back to the wor to those offices because they have more time with their children. They have, they can go watch those games and spend that time, you know, that time you’re never, ever gonna get back.

You’re never, ever gonna get back certain times with your family cert that sunset that you could go out, you could, you know, the, the things that you can do. You know, so I think COVID really helped push reset. And as far as like a philosophy. Again, maybe that’s a very us centric point of view, cuz we’re all like workaholics, , here.

But I think that’s kind of true of, of around the world. People just sort of stepped back and said, this is what’s important. This is how I wanna act in my life. And my life is my professional life and my personal life.

 

Simon:

I, I couldn’t agree more. I think, , it gave us cause for pause. And it made us reflect on what’s important to us.

And I don’t know a person who didn’t walk around the streets and look at gardens or go to the ocean or go to the mountains. Everyone went to kind of restore themselves. And I think the more that we, I think the through line for us all to get, where we need to go is to reconnect with nature, to stop looking at life through these pinhole cameras on all of our screens, and literally immerse yourself in water, commune, you know, get out there in the forest and to kind of feel what it means to be alive in the context of life itself.

And I think that will put us back in proportion in the sense that we’re not at the center of our own universe, but rather we’re part of something much larger than ourselves. And once we kind of reframe that perspective, We can be part of the system and serve the system that will ultimately provide for our future.

And, and I think that’s, that’s the great opportunity for us all right now. And Heather, I can’t thank you enough for, , your leadership and what green business has been doing and for your time and perspective today. And, I deeply believe we can get there as long as we work together. So thank you so much, Heather.

I really appreciate it. Really

Heather: appreciate the opportunity.

 

Simon:

Thanks Simon.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of lead with we, our show is produced by goal 17 media, and you can always find more information about our guests in the show notes of each episode.

Make sure you follow lead with we on apple podcasts, Spotify, or Google podcasts. If you really love the show, share it with your friends and colleagues. And if you’re looking to go even deeper into the world of purposeful business, check out my new book and wall street journal bestseller lead with we, which is available, Amazon barn and noble and Google books.

See you again soon, and until then, let’s all lead with we,

 

“Learn more about GreenBiz at https://www.greenbiz.com/

Connect with Heather on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherclancycollins/

Visit leadwithwe.com to learn more about Simon’s new book or search for “”Lead With We”” on Amazon, Google Books, or Barnes & Noble.”