Green cities, climate risk, and values-based leadership.

It has been a career highlight for me, to work on the City of Vancouver's Greenest City Action Plan from 2010-2020, alongside dozens if not hundreds of people who inspired me and shared their wisdom and way of thinking with me.

I learned early on in life that there are different way of thinking, and different values we can prioritize in our decision making. I was born in England, to Pakistani Muslim parents, and in the 80s, we moved to Saudi Arabia, where I grew up as an Expat on an American compound alongside kids from all over the world. We visited Saudi families and Bedouin families, the nomads living in the desert. At one point, my dad was offered one hundred camels for my hand in marriage, so, life could have turned out quite differently for me!

To identify which climate solutions will be most effective, we also need to intentionally redefine the values we prioritize.

When you travel, you become an observer, and I observed how important values are to decision making. Are we trying to make the most of scarce resources? Are we trying to prioritize specific needs? And whose needs get prioritized? In another transformative moment for me, my mother died when I was 9, and I learnt quickly what it means to have a voice that will speak up for you, and what happens when you don’t have that voice. I became sensitive to ensuring all voices are invited to the table.

As we transition our world towards net-zero, it requires coordination and collaboration across all industries and disciplines. From human health to the price of food, climate change is 'everything change', and impacts every aspect of our life on this planet. To identify which climate solutions will be most effective, we also need to intentionally redefine the values we prioritize. What is the mental models of the world we are working with, and how do we need to adjust it to make better decisions??Decisions that will allow us to provide enough food, shelter, energy for an expected peak of 11 billion people by the end of this century, while still living within the limits of our planet? The wealthiest 26 people on earth today own as much wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people. That’s not sustainable, and quite frankly, it’s outrageous.

So, climate and economy are two sides of the same coin, and we have to think differently about the economy.

I think the most compelling thing about Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan was that we put the values of a green economy at the heart of the climate action plan. The latest IPCC climate report tells us that, without question, man-made carbon emissions are responsible for overheating the planet. The climate modelling and climate science have improved so much, scientists are now unequivocal. And it doesn’t take long to realize that this means we need to change our economy, our energy system, our agriculture. The International Energy Agency says we need no new oil and gas development, if we are to get on a net-zero emissions pathway, and that window is closing fast if we want to avoid massive global heating.

So, climate and economy are two sides of the same coin, and we have to think differently about the economy. And that’s what we did in Vancouver, in 2010. We developed new metrics to measure the green economy, like the number of green jobs, the number of businesses that are greening their operations. We looked at what we could do to help them. We looked at questions like: How will climate policy impact local businesses? What opportunities does it create? Because there are opportunities in this transition. There are risks, and these are undeniable and already catastrophic. But if we can acknowledge these climate risks, understand them and prepare for them, we still have a small window to ensure a more orderly transition of our economy, rather than a chaotic one where people get left behind. Policy making will shape these 'transition risks', and good policy has the potential to not only mitigate climate risk, but create economic development opportunities.

Policy making will shape these 'transition risks', and good policy has the potential to not only mitigate climate risk, but create economic development opportunities.

For example, in Vancouver we looked at green building codes. As many others have shown, retrofits can contribute to hundreds of thousands of jobs. Our study also revealed a massive market, $3.3B just in Vancouver, for green technologies, because of these greener codes. We used this data to identify an opportunity for local manufacturing, for improving relationships with international suppliers. Mapping all this out helped us understand: what can we build, what can we trade, and what can we export to others?

We worked with businesses to create these win-wins for people AND planet. Business leaders everywhere were telling us how they were changing the way they ran their businesses in order to address climate change; entrepreneurs moved here, with green solutions and ideas, because they shared our vision. And we mobilized impact capital, too, that wants to invest in ideas that make the world a better place. This is transformative for any economy, and the number of green jobs in Vancouver grew by almost 90% during that 10 years. The number of Vancouver businesses greening their operations quadrupled.

Mapping all this out helped us understand: what can we build, what can we trade, and what can we export to others?

Sustainability used to be seen as this nice to have, public benefit, but it was a cost centre. I remember a VP at a construction company I worked at saying, sure I’ll build you a green building. Here’s your 12% premium.

Over time, we made the business case for sustainability. We showed that you can save money, or even make money. You can use less energy, waste less paper. You can attract the best talent and fiercely loyal customers, you can innovate new products. The conversation shifted from sustainability being a cost centre, to being about value creation.

But now, climate change has arrived. The conversation about sustainability has expanded, very quickly, to be about risk. Today, climate action is about heading off massive value destruction. You can’t afford NOT to do something about climate change. Many of us will never forget the extreme weather events of 2021, with the havoc that climate change is causing around the world.

Today, climate action is about heading off massive value destruction.

A stable climate is the foundation on which we built our society. Where we grow our food, where we consider it safe to build our homes, where we locate critical infrastructure. But the climate is stable no longer. All our models are based on outdated weather patterns, they are out of whack now. This is what happened in Texas, for example, earlier this year with the Polar Vortex. The electricity grid just wasn’t designed for the types of extreme weather, that we can now expect to see much more frequently. Same for our cities, when it comes to heat waves and flooding. We did not build to withstand these conditions.

We hear a lot about the Paris Agreement and limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. The Glasgow Pact has failed to meet this target, and now all hope is placed on COP27 in Egypt. The Ice Age was only 6 degrees cooler than today, which highlights how even a few degrees can completely transform the face of the planet. Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, and we are currently experiencing the impacts of about 1 degree of warming, for which we are already really ill-prepared. And each additional degree will lock in feedback loops that we can’t undo.

Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, and we are currently experiencing the impacts of about 1 degree of warming, for which we are already really ill-prepared.

This is important for businesses to understand and prepare for. How will extreme weather impact your business model or your profitability? Will it force you to close your office, or your factory? Will your equipment withstand the heat or the cold? Are new technologies, like electric vehicles, going to have implications for your business model? Cities are on the front lines of all this as well, will we be able to build resilient infrastructure like roads, community centres that are doubling up as cooling centre most summers now. Social housing. Will our most vulnerable be protected from these conditions?

Right now, only about 7 percent of boards are climate competent, and know enough about climate change to understand how it affects their business. In Canada, the Prime Minister's mandate letter for the Minister of Finance directs her to develop mandatory climate-risk disclosure (aligned with the recommendations of the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures), for federally regulated institutions, including financial institutions, pension funds and government agencies. Addressing the climate crisis requires that we learn a new currency beyond dollars and cents, and at Canada Climate Law Initiative, we provide board education on climate risk in order to help Canadian directors prepare for these regulatory changes, and understand how these risks impact their organizations, so that they can provide the strong and capable leadership we need to navigate this massive economic transformation.

Right now, only about 7 percent of boards are climate competent, and know enough about climate change to understand how it affects their business.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how critical it is to have good leadership and good governance, in order to survive a crisis. When leaders create a culture where people can share their opinions or challenge the status quo, without fear, they create what is called psychological safety. This is key to a positive team environment, and that builds resilience. And resilience is something we are going to need a lot more of, as we head into a more uncertain future.

Without psychological safety, we feel we will be punished for mistakes. We feel blamed or harassed for our ideas. And then we shrink our world. We limit our thinking and we don’t take risks, we don’t bring ideas forward, we stagnate, and then we can’t problem-solve effectively. Even today, 30% of adults experience bullying at work. That’s so much lost productivity, such a toll on our mental health, when we need all systems firing to climate change, together.

Leadership, and culture, are going to determine what we prioritize, and whether we will be able to prioritize well-being and resilience, for ourselves and for the planet.

So, we need to cultivate good leadership. We need self-aware leaders, and we need good governance, too. Culture is set at the top of an organization, and determines what we value in our decision making. Leadership, and culture, are going to determine what we prioritize, and whether we will be able to prioritize well-being and resilience, for ourselves and for the planet.

It was an honour to be elected to the board of Vancity Credit Union earlier this year, Canada’s largest credit union. And I have had an opportunity to observe what a difference it makes when you put human values - or in Vancity’s case, cooperative values - at the heart of what you do. You get organizations with a purpose. Vancity’s purpose is to be a financial force for change, and it has set a target to reach net zero emissions in lending by 2040.

I see a lot of effort around the world to shine a light on this issue of values, and how it informs our decision making. Cities like Amsterdam are testing out how to use Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics model, to inform their decision making. This is the idea of regenerative economics, that we will respect the planet’s limits, while meeting society’s most important needs.

Most cities have more ambitious climate targets than their national governments.

Local governments have had the foresight to try to reduce emissions for a couple of decades now. Most cities have more ambitious climate targets than their national governments. In Canada, the last Federal budget prioritized investments in green buildings and electric vehicles – which seemed like it took the Vancouver playbook and replicated it for the national stage. In Vancouver, new buildings pollute 70% less carbon than they did in 2007, because of our high performance building codes.

3 million people move to cities every week, so we need climate resilient infrastructure, to the tune of $6.3T per year. 1 billion people lack access to electricity, so we need to triple investment into electricity and smart grid solutions, to the tune of $789B per year. Half the world’s food is wasted, while another 1 billion people go hungry. So we need sustainable agriculture and food systems, to the tune of $265 billion more in annual investments.

This is a massive economic transformation, that goes hand in hand with urban innovation and climate action. We need to be able to collaborate, and work together towards these goals with our values clear and aligned. This time around, we need to ensure we have enough for everyone, without breaking the natural boundaries our planet can bear.