NOW WE'RE GOING TO JAPAN - WITH THE WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT DIALOGUE IN THE WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT REGION

The world is entering the fog on double flanks. Partly with decades of growth and consumption that give us climatic death throes for the planet we all live on. Partly with European war, inflation and an economy generating a society that makes it harse for people. Some would argue that the latter might not be so bad for the former, with a lower consumption and climate footprint as a result. At the same time, the economy has such dire consequences for both electricity as a solution to the climate crisis and people in developing countries, that a "constant crisis" never can be something to strive for. Nor can we naively continue to wait for increasingly toothless politicians to dare to make unpleasant decisions and "solve" the problem within the framework of their own election period. Instead, we must rely on those who today truly have the power - i.e., companies and us consumers on whom they depend – to forcefully take on the challenge seriously, and even see it as a strategy that will provide the strongest competitiveness as well as attractive growth and profitability. How do we achieve that? (in swedish here)

Heading into the fog

For the first time since the Second World War, on February 24, a military superpower led by a dictator launched a bloody attempt to invade a European country, Ukraine.

At the twilight of the same year, not only do we have immense human suffering of a bravely fighting Ukrainian people, but we have a global energy crisis with extreme prices for both oil and electricity, with consequences in the form of sky-high inflation, increased interest rates and heading towards global recession. The height of the fall is also higher than ever after we doped the economy for nearly a decade with a political experiment of negative interest rates, the results of which we now see.

Parallel to this, we live on a planet that is dying out, due to the way we managed our burning of oil with CO2 emissions and the destruction of forests, which has caused 68% of all the world's species to become extinct in the last five decades. Consequently, the 800 million people who suffer from hunger today, will socially and biologically implode when a global warming not only forces more species to flee and die out, but force 1-3 billion people to become climate refugees.

The science today completely agree that it is exclusively humans who are the cause of this misery. And if they had not been, some curves kind of speak for themselves.

So, for this not to happen, we all, every single person, every single country, and every single company, must reduce our emissions by 5.6% every year for the next eight years.

Should we “never waist a good crisis”?

So apart from the fact that the situation, through increased energy prices, financially benefits dictators like Putin and various sheikhs in the Middle East, it may simply not be so bad for mother earth that the oil price is skyrocketing, and that we are heading into a recession with lower consumption and thus lower climate footprint for the planet?

The pandemic showed clearly how, by speeding up our journey to becoming a "remote species", we could reduce man's global climate footprint by 5.4% - i.e., almost exactly the number we must decrease by every year until 2030. And the only time we have managed to bring it down even further, is when?

Exactly, just in case of previous extreme recessions, more specifically the big recession during the 2030:s

At the same time, firstly the war and inflation risk the price of electricity also continuing to increase, one of the decisive ingredients for solving the climate crisis going forward. Secondly, the miserable effects for especially the developing countries during a prolonged recession are not to be trifled with, and something we never could "wish" for as a reactive means of saving our planet for ourselves and our children.

The realization that whoever eats the fewest marshmallows wins

So, what should we do then? Should we "wait" for the politicians to finally get the hang of it, and risk the votes of the citizens by "unpleasant" decisions that fit within their terms of office instead of long after they have resigned? Well, that would be probably as "naive" as not understanding that today's politicians are becoming as powerless as the monarchies they replaced, where the world today is ruled by the companies and those the companies depend on, i.e., all of us as consumers.

But how will companies and consumers be made to make these unpleasant decisions of giant "marshmallow character" - i.e., production decisions that have negative consequences on the companies’ economy today in order to be able to take the leading market position tomorrow, and individuals' consumption decisions with negative consequences for their wallet or hedonistic desires today, but which will save the planet for their grandchildren tomorrow?

One of the world's most important dialogues in the world's most important place

This weekend I will go (of course with emission rights) to the continent that historically had the least debt in the climate footprint in the world, but which after an impressive growth journey is taking over as "the center of global gravity" with over 40% of GDP, i.e., more than Europe and the US combined. Because of the Asian growth companies' production and the less poor people's well-deserved consumption, Asia is also the continent where today also 60% of all CO2 emissions occur, as well as the very largest increase.

At the annual congress "Horasis Asia Meeting", this year in Kitakyushu in Japan, I, together with 400 of the world's leaders, will discuss how we can together more proactively tackle these issues and "how to adopt innovation to build towards a resilient post-COVID Asia" in general and its "sustainable growth" in particular.

Once there, I have the honor to moderate a panel of international delegates from three continents on the question of how we should manage various stakeholders' "net-zero" expectations, i.e., how our CO2 emissions as soon as possible must go towards zero. How can we persuade all companies that new processes that are sustainable will also be profitable? How should we persuade us consumers to look at long-term consequences when we make our consumption in the present? And which of all these changes will best care for our planet and our children's future?

The first embryos for how we will succeed

There are those standing on the barricades with panic in their eyes and shouting about dystopia. I get just as much "panic" about the scenarios that will become true if we fail in the mitigation. For me, for my two 9-year-old boys, for my friends, for you and all of us. Total panic.

At the same time, as a digital strategist and tech entrepreneur with good portions of data science as well as EmTech such as AI, AR and blockchain to generate impact for people and/or planet, history has showed enought for me to be still extremely optimistic about how we could (!) be able to solve the whole mess. And here I am not just talking about hopes for a values-based upgrade a la NexGen with a newly awakened sense of responsibility and ethical pragmatism with reinvented philanthropy 2.0.

I am more stiff than that and what I instead talk about is tech, i.e. how we bring about sustainable tech innovations within CleanTech, FoodTech and GreenTech as a solution to the climate crisis, how an explosion in global digital education and clim8 tracking form the core for us to understand which efforts that will be required of all of us, as well as how we can demonstrably achieve an impressive sustainability through genuinely net positive innovations in large organizations.

The overture to an entrepreneurial crescendo in net positive innovation

That and much else, I look forward to moderate during interesting debates this week. And I am fully convinced that not only will I myself become monumentally wiser, but that among this core of brilliant world leaders in both business, politics and research, seeds will be sown that will be able to contribute to us being able to generate the sustainable disruptions that are required to save our wonderful and only mother earth. More on that ahead :)

Rufus Lidman, Fil. Lic.

Tech entrepreneur Rufus Lidman has a background with PhD studies in digital change processes, with a solid background in scientific methodology and data science, backed by double degrees in business and applied statistics. Armed with cutting-edge knowledge in specific digital areas, he has written 4 books and hundreds of articles within digital strategy and innovation, was the founder of the IAB, long-term Chief digital advisor for 600 companies at WFA and active as a digital strategist for 100 companies, such as Samsung, Mercedes, PwC, IKEA, Electrolux etc. To this can be added an entrepreneurship as main founder of 6 digital companies and co-founder of as many, where he built some of the country's largest sites in their categories with millions of users, as well as heading some of the world's largest apps in their categories with 15 million downloads - resulting in two-fold award winner of growth (Gasell) and 2-3 "ok" exits. Since his twin boys were born nine years ago, both analog and digital efforts have been redirected to social impact for People and/or Planet. During the wave of refugees in Europe in 2015, Lidman founded an NGO for refugee aid with boots on the ground in 17 places along the Balkan route all the way down to Syria and Iraq. Since then, also in his digital adventures he has converted from serial entrepreneur to social entrepreneur, with efforts in areas such as EdTech, HealthTech and GreenTech, operating in 20 countries on three continents. Since the pandemic, he has returned to his family in Sweden acting as a leader in data innovation and digital disruption with connection to impact for People and/or Planet.