Planting Seeds

Solving for Saving the Planet – it’s the challenge of our lifetimes, and time is running short.?“It’s now or never,” says the IPCC.?As we mark Earth Day 2022, fortunately now more than ever, solutions are taking root – literally – from the ground and in the sky. ?

I recently had the privilege of joining with my fellow Salesforce board members, co-CEO’s Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor, alongside John Kerry, President Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate, as we hosted a cohort of entrepreneurs to discuss how their burgeoning companies can carry the baton forward in the next leg of the race for sustainability.

Salesforce can teach a lot to the next generation of corporate leaders, having already achieved Net Zero and 100% renewable energy, challenging all in the Fortune 1000 to do likewise.?We are also making huge investments to sequester 100 gigatons of carbon by conserving and growing 1 trillion trees.

Meanwhile, last December, 118 years to the day after Orville, Wilbur and their sister Katharine Wright tested their flying contraption, powered by a rickety four-cylinder gasoline engine, Archer Aviation tested its revolutionary electric powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, called “Maker”.

As an investor and board member in Archer, watching footage of this demonstrator craft evoked memories of those grainy images of Kitty Hawk, only this time on the opposite coast in California.?The space age craft, with six small propellers fixed to its overhead wing, lifted gracefully from the tarmac, hovered a few minutes, and gently touched back down to whoops and hollers of celebration. One small step, but also a giant leap towards a clean, sustainable future of personal aerial mobility.

Archer partnered with a pioneering logistics firm, REEF, to transform the tens of thousands of parking structures that currently blight North America’s urban spaces into green 'ecoports' that will allow convenient takeoff and landing. United Airlines bet big the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market, becoming seed investor in Archer and committing to buy $1 billion worth of these ‘Maker’ aircraft, which can travel at speeds of up to 150 mph and with a 60-mile range.?

Meanwhile, if you happen to be driving down Interstate-90 from United Airlines' Chicago hub at O’Hare International Airport, in a little more than an hour you will reach the Midwestern town of Gary, Indiana.

There, in the heartland – nestled among the old smokestacks and cornstalks - you’ll find Fulcrum BioEnergy at work building its new Centerpoint BioFuels Plant.?There, they will use a cutting-edge technology that converts municipal solid waste into low-carbon, sustainable aviation fuel.

Yes, you read that right.?Like “Mr. Fusion” from Back to the Future, trash goes in, and clean, sustainable jet fuel comes out.

This is the result of choices we made early in my tenure as CEO of United. I committed us to cutting our carbon footprint in half, and scaling our investments so that we accounted for more than 50% of the entire industry’s purchase and use of sustainable fuel.

Though aviation accounts for only 3.5% of global warming annually, the size of our purchasing power as individual airlines and as an industry makes us a powerful force for change.

While I was a strong evangelist for the business and moral case for making these long-tail investments, my successor Scott Kirby has made it his personal mission, racing ahead to make United the first 100 percent ‘green’, carbon neutral airline by the crucial 2050 timeline established by the Paris Climate Accord.

Carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that literally pulls carbon out of the air, was thought to be technologically and financially unscalable. It’s now a central part of United’s business strategy and other airlines are following suit, thanks to Scott’s visionary leadership on this issue.?

In another sector of our economy, CBRE, the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, where I serve on the board, recently acquired a majority interest in Turner & Townsend, a leader in transportation, environmental and power generation projects, as well as renewable energy, alternative fuels and life sciences technologies.

From the auto industry embracing the EV revolution, to manufacturers producing next generation fuel-efficient aircraft that reduce emissions up to 20% compared to previous versions, big industries are using their leverage to scale change.?New markets are being created that better balance supply and demand, improving the supply chain for sustainable technologies, and reducing costs once demand is sufficient to build an economical infrastructure for production and distribution.

While it’s great that big capital allocators are planting green shoots, allowing a thousand flowers to bloom, it’s important that the green revolution be a grassroots one: a people-powered crusade.

I recently joined as a partner in Lat VC, a venture fund focused on supporting U.S. Latino-owned startups that demonstrate high growth potential.?Within that portfolio of exciting companies, we invested in two brilliant young entrepreneurs, Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora, funding their brainchild startup, Back to the Roots. It's built on the insight that you can grow organic food from spent coffee grounds as fertilizer.?Their brand has grown from a small urban farm into a national bestseller that’s sold in stores across the country, allowing families to grow their own affordable organic gardens.

Another fascinating startup, Progeny Coffee, founded by CEO Maria Palacio and her husband John Trabelsi, has disrupted the coffee trade, working with Colombian coffee farmers to create a more sustainable and ethical supply-chain that benefits all parties.?They’re even finding a way to recycle their production byproducts into a syrup that adds taste to water, bottling and selling it in stores throughout Texas.

When it comes to saving the planet for future generations, the hour is late and there’s not a moment to lose.?Yet, I am optimistic because when I watch so many seeds being planted everywhere, many of them already beginning to bear fruit, I’m reminded of an old proverb. ?

A wise old king wanted shade in his garden.?So, he called for the gardener and told him to plant an oak tree the following day.?The groundskeeper shook his head and told him not to bother because the tree wouldn’t reach full height for another fifty years.?The king thought for a moment and replied, “Then don’t delay. You should?plant it this afternoon.”

It truly is now or never to save the planet.?So, if you have an idea that can help make a difference, don’t hesitate to follow through because you think it will take too long to see results.?That’s all the more reason not to delay; begin planting this afternoon.