Horse-trading by a burning home

Everywhere you look these days, someone makes a big show around the promise of carbon neutrality by some future date. Yes, questions do remain, such as how is that ‘zero carbon’ defined (Read Forbes: How not to commit to “net zero”); or why is climate drift seemingly accelerating while business reporting on sustainability has never been so loud? (Read Harvard Business Review: Overselling Sustainability Reporting). Yet overall, a positive momentum toward sustainability.

But that momentum too often hits the wall of "what’s-in-it-for-us". First, a historical perpective. In 1941, President Roosevelt said the following upon approving Lend-Lease to fight the Nazi peril: "Suppose my neighbor's home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away... I don't say to him before that operation, "Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it."... 

Roosevelt of course was reminding his audience that when a house is burning, the right thing to do is to help put out the fire now, without first asking for compensation. Because some things are self-evident and need no incentive.

So why do some decision makers still demand to understand what they will gain from sustainability before acting on it? Is climate drift not enough of a burning issue when it threatens all human life, including that of their loved ones and friends? Is acting now on such a clear and present danger not the self-evident right-thing-to-do? This isn’t realism vs angelism. It’s about priority. Indeed, the neighbor’s burning house of 1941 is now our collective home in 2021. 

Business creates wealth and is undeniably hard and competitive. So, this is not about blaming X, Y or Z or pushing the responsibility to act solely on business leaders.  We all contributed/contribute to climate drift.  But we should reject the notion that business is incompatible with having a heart. Nonsense. The ‘why’ of what we do is in the heart. It follows that we should act on Sustainability not IF we are going to make more money from it – although we most probably will as well as attract/retain the best talents and boost innovation like never before - but because it is the right thing to do. For ourselves and those we love. This is the mother of priorities: should living become increasingly impossible on Earth, as climate drift promises to make it, then there won’t be any business left nor communities to benefit from it. 

We are at a historical turning point. As always, some will pull out the calculator and demand reward before they move a finger… As if they don’t live in the same house. Meanwhile, true Leaders will stand up and do what’s #bestfortheworld. Just because it is. Human, after all.