Our house is on fire - this is what I’m going to do about it

My family and I recently returned back home from an amazing 3-months trip through Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic states. After 13 exciting but also very intense years dedicated to founding and growing Zoovo to a 150+ team members, $25M+ funded global market leader, I truly enjoyed spending time with my wife Tina and my son Julian. One thing that really unites us is our love for nature and obviously this passion came totally alive during these three months. So we spent most of our days exploring the abundance of nature around us.

We hiked to beautiful glaciers, such as the famous Briksdalsbreen glacier in Norway and were overwhelmed by its beauty, however sad to learn that the glacier retreated by more than half a kilometer (0.3 miles) during the last 20 years and by almost two kilometers (1.2 miles) since 1950. Chances that Julian can show his kids even a small piece of glacier one day at that spot are equal to zero.

One of Julian’s favorite activities during our hiking trips was to always keep his eyes open for reindeer, which are incredibly adorable creatures that we frequently met in the woods.

After getting so close to these animals we were shocked to learn that further north more than 200 reindeer starved to death earlier this year. Increasing temperatures have increased the frequency and amount of rain in the high Arctic. Heavy winter rains turned to ice, preventing reindeer from reaching their usual vegetation. Once rain gets on the top of the snow, most often it completely freezes to solid ice that completely covers the plants reindeer are dependent on.

During numerous trips in our inflatable kayak - which took us down breathtakingly beautiful rivers and into steep fjords - we learned that fish are also increasingly under pressure. To give an example, the Atlantic Salmon is threatened by multiple factors like escaped farmed Atlantic salmon and salmon lice, hydropower regulation and physical habitat alterations, infections related to fish farming, and rising water temperature. Also in my home country Austria certain species of fish are under threat. Fishermen fear that for example the local type of char - Ausseer Saibling - will become extinct in more and more lakes due to the fact that the maximum water temperature increased from 20 to 25-27° Celsius within less than 20 years, thereby reducing the amount of oxygen below the level required by this species.

Unfortunately the examples above are just a small selection of experiences that got us to witness and feel the impact of two major global crises first hand this summer:

1) The sixth mass extinction / biodiversity crisis 

For the first time in the history of our planet one species is causing the extinction of hundreds of thousands of other species thereby putting Human society under urgent threat. The UN warned earlier this year that the health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide. Land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23% of the global land surface, up to US$577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss and 100-300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of loss of coastal habitats and protection.

2) The climate crisis

A recent report issued by the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA), with contributions from the former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, environment ministers from China, India and Canada, the heads of the World Bank and the UN climate and environment divisions warns that the climate crisis is here, now: massive wildfires ravage fragile habitats, city taps run dry, droughts scorch the land and massive floods destroy people’s homes and livelihoods. The report says severe effects are now inevitable and estimates that unless precautions are taken, 100 million more people could be driven into poverty by 2030. It says the number of people short of water each year will jump by 1.4 billion to 5 billion, causing unprecedented competition for water, fueling conflict and migration. On the coasts, rising sea levels and storms will drive hundreds of millions from their homes, with costs of $1tn a year by 2050. And they conclude that up until now response has been gravely insufficient.

However during our trip we also experienced encouraging things, like encountering wild brown bears in their natural habitat. The brown bear was once close to extinction in Scandinavia due to intensive hunting practiced by humans. Meanwhile approx. 5000 brown bears call Scandinavia their home again and we were absolutely thrilled to meet five of them in person in their natural habitat. 

While the recovery of the Northern European brown bear population gives hope that humanity can avoid the worst, “solving” the biodiversity- and climate-crises will require much more effort from all of us.

My son Julian is going to be 34 years old by 2050 and 84 years old by 2100 and today nobody is able to say to which extent climate change and the biodiversity crisis will impact his chances to live a healthy, peaceful and happy life. However probably every expert in the field will agree that our kids will suffer from the consequences of our unsustainable actions and that it’s only a matter of how soon and how adversely they are going to be affected.

I’m convinced that a couple of years down the road our kids will start asking us, how we reacted when a 16 years old girl from Sweden and scientists and leaders from around the globe made sure that every person on this planet was made aware that humanity is facing it’s greatest threat in thousands of years.

I for my part decided that I better make sure to have the right answer - as a father, as a citizen, as a consumer, as an angel investor and as an entrepreneur. I’ve therefore decided to fully commit myself to leverage my experience, my network, my acquired assets and to dedicate my time to help mitigating the worst in my various roles:

1. as a father: by doing my best to ensure my children (#2 is on his way!) develop a deep relationship with nature and join my efforts to protect it.
2. as a citizen: by supporting politicians who make biodiversity and climate a key priority.
3. as a consumer: by voting with my money for products and services that avoid a negative impact on the environment to the extent possible or ideally even have a positive impact.
4. as an early stage angel investor: by primarily investing into startups with globally scale-able business models with a significant impact on biodiversity and climate
5. As an entrepreneur: by founding and developing a startup that supports consumers around the world in taking choices that are better for the environment and better for the future of their kids and grand-kids. Thereby sparking fierce competition amongst companies to offer more and more sustainable products. More on that at a later stage - meanwhile let me know in case you know someone with a strong track-record in building global market leaders who is passionate about contributing to a better future. I’m currently looking for potential co-founders and members of the leadership team (COO, CPO, CSO,...).

To digest what is going on on our planet and trying to reduce our personal impact as a consumer unfortunately is difficult, can be overwhelming and can easily create anxiety. And anxiety can easily lead to paralysis. 

As a consumer I’ve therefore decided to break down the problem into many small pieces and I’m planning to make one little change a week in my personal life to step by step reduce the impact my family and I have. As not everyone is in the comfortable position to spend time on in-depth research (and so that you can keep me accountable :-) I’m going to keep you updated on this initiative through my social channels. And obviously I hope that some of you decide to join my efforts thereby increasing the chances that our children and grand-children will be able to live a healthy, peaceful and happy life in the decades to come.

I could obviously tell myself that my actions don’t matter, because I’m anyway only a 0.000…% part of the problem and tell myself to better wait for my government, China, the president of the United States or whoever to solve the problem. But I’m convinced that this kind of thinking is wrong. Because our actions and especially our consumption behavior matters: What would happen if only 5 out of 100 consumers stopped buying a certain cookie brand because the product contains non-certified palm oil and cage eggs from chicken fed with soy from the Amazon? Right, that brand would lose 5% of their market share. And once a brand loses 5% of their market share typically one of the following two things happens: a) the brand’s management team identifies the underlying cause and fixes the problem or b) they lose their jobs. And while I understand that it’s not realistic to expect every person on this planet to change their behavior I refuse to believe that we can’t get 5% of consumers to vote with their money for more sustainable products. 

I could also tell myself that this problem is too big and that only our governments will be able to solve it. However I’m convinced that unfortunately no matter what we do and what our governments do, we will not solve these crises. The maximum we can achieve is to mitigate the worst. You and I and practically every human being on this planet have caused and are still causing every day irreversible damage to our ecosystems, habitats, to our planet. All we can do now is to take many little steps that help steering the ship away from its current head-on collision course. A collision is already unavoidable but every single muscle that we flex on this planet will help to cushion the blow. Every contribution matters, no matter how big or small. 

And again: One thing I’ve no doubt about is that our children and grandchildren will look into our eyes in the not too distant future and will ask us whether we did everything we could do, to maximize their chances of being able to live a happy, healthy and peaceful life. And I’m committed to work hard so that I can answer this question with a loud and clear “yes” and I hope that you will do the same.