Are You Willing To Make An Impact?

It’s time.

After a prolonged period of wrestling with my conscience this, finally, is the moment for action.

So here we go:

I hereby renounce a lifetime’s commitment to sceptical enquiry.

From now on, I identify as a glass-half-full guy.

Hold on - Is this a joke?

Ok, so admittedly that may sound a little theatrical, melodramatic even. But we live in momentous times, and big decisions need to be made. This one has been a long time coming, and if you’ll bear with me I’ll run through the timeline that led me to launching @Tech For Impact, and why I think that you should join us in our campaign to “make a difference.”

The seeds of my conversion were sown eight years ago, while I was still a news anchor with Al Jazeera English. In preparation for the COP climate summit of 2012 I interviewed Christiana Figueres, the then head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (UNFCCC).

As you can see in the interview I was, at the time, very much in the aforementioned sceptical enquiry mode. But I remember clearly being very impressed by her steadfast optimism and determination to get people engaged, so much so that the interview led to me taking a greater interest in climate politics.

Unfortunately the global TV news industry at the time was entirely indifferent to the climate story, and our editorial meetings at Al Jazeera English were no different. (Shout-out to former colleague Nick Clark, who gallantly waged a solitary campaign to get more climate and environment-related news into the AJE output.)

I didn’t take action.

But some years later, when I decided to call time on a near 30 year career in news and search for something more meaningful to do, the environmental theme was at the forefront of my consciousness. (Don’t get me started on why I think "the news business" is no longer meaningful. That’s a different story altogether.)

Anyway, it took a couple of years of study and general consideration, a long time dabbling with various hare-brained schemes, and a spell hanging out with, and learning from, friends at Eco-Business.com, before I eventually teamed up with the Asian Development Bank to plot this new journey.

Re-thinking priorities

My first step was to change my location. I chose to return to East Asia because I am pretty convinced by the argument that we are now in “The Asian Century.” My young son’s future, I reasoned, will be more secure if he learns Chinese and has access to the fastest growing region on the planet. (Post Brexit and Trump/Biden, this decision seems even more sensible to me now.)

But there's a niggling problem - markets. Growth. I have a problem with them. I don’t believe that GDP is the most appropriate measure of national success. And I certainly do not believe in the kind of consumer-focused strategies that dominate modern economic policy.

In fact, it seems pretty evident to me this growth-at-all-costs, shareholder-prioritising, cost-externalising mindset is at the root of many of our global problems - political, environmental and social. And it’s driving us to the brink of suffocation. The earth is creaking along its fault lines as mankind blindly rushes towards catastrophe in an easy chair, taking millions of blameless species with it. (No easy chair for them, obviously)

Think about it. If the estimated three billion people in Asia who are poised to join the ranks of the “middle class” choose to fully buy into the consumer mindset, and to buy multiple SUVs and get their electricity from coal-fired power plants, then the jig truly is up. We might as well all party like it’s 1999.

“You cannot be serious!”

Obviously many of these assertions are somewhat simplistic, perhaps even a little problematic. The uber-capitalists will already be yelling “BUT, STALIN!” and the anti-capitalists will be demanding that we abandon, immediately and completely, every system and institution that we know, committing instead to a radical, uncertain tomorrow.

The fossil fuel interests will be urging calm, and mapping an orderly transition to a renewable world in, ooh, maybe a hundred years from now, and somewhere out there Elon Musk is already trying to persuade someone that there’s really nothing to worry about because he has a Terraforming startup iterating at his Mars colony right now which will soon make the Earth look, like, so yesterday.

Now obviously I don’t have the answer to any of these issues. I don’t think there are any definitive answers. But to avoid getting overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness it's necessary to take some kind of stand, so these are my personal positions: I am reluctant to completely dismiss “the market” as a useful organising tool in our economic affairs, and I do not believe that the current order can be overthrown and re-invented overnight, however much it might be necessary. But I do believe that we must do our utmost to change what we can, while we can, using whatever new products and processes that are viable and deployable right now.

And we need to keep talking about it, every single day, until we figure it out.

I also believe that, through dialogue, enough individuals, communities, companies and institutions can be inspired and motivated to appropriate action, and together can create significant enough impact to drive us towards a better future.

And I want to be part of that movement. As I keep telling my son, you’ll never find an answer unless you approach the problem with the right attitude.

Which brings me back to Christiana Figueres and the glass of water.

Ubi Nunc?

For me, making a difference begins with making the conscious decision to adopt a constructive activist attitude when addressing our climate catastrophe. But what does that involve?

In short, it means just doing something, anything, and trying to get others to do the same.

Based on that proposition, the Tech For Impact initiative follows a few simple principles.

First, there are an awful lot of good ideas and products out there, things that can teach us about - and help us create - a circular economy. There are solutions that will reduce the pressure on natural systems and resources, the problem is that not enough people know about them. So our mission is to spread the word and provide the knowledge, and get enough people to adopt them.

Secondly, technology is our best hope. Now I’m not saying that we need to be grooming more Musk-type inventors to sell "cool" products, nor am I suggesting that all we need to do is create high-tech "cleanup" solutions to clear away the mess we make while carrying on with the same growth-and-profit mindset. Business as usual is not sustainable, and an existential reckoning with the essence of capitalism will come.

In the meantime, what I am saying is that, in the meantime, every positive action will make a difference. Every Asian nation that decides to forgo a coal-fired power plant and opts for renewable solution represents a major victory, and helps the cause. Every developer of a condominium or builder of a factory that chooses to employ sustainable materials and circular economy principles represents a major victory. Every municipal leader who commits more resources to developing their town’s sustainable transport solutions rather than simply building more roads represents a victory, as does every individual and group that takes action in their own community.

So for the purposes of our mission we choose to define “technology” very broadly. We include “deep tech” like AI, and everyday tech like 5g networks and mobile. Also, we think innovation is tech, kind of. Not just brilliant new ideas but those clever combinations of existing tools into a new system or protocol that can make a difference.

And we look out for those fascinating individuals who somehow merge into the fabric of their own networks and become “superconnectors”, able to single-handedly unite and activate large numbers of people.

 Finally, and perhaps most importantly, our purpose is impact. How do we move people away from research, theory and “recommendations” towards actually getting stuff done? To making a difference? That’s the tough part.

Time for re-framing

In the modern world there’s no shortage of knowledge and information, but so much of the output from media, academia, NGOs and others is presented in ways that are either not easily accessible, or not practical enough to inspire real action or adoption. With Tech for Impact, we want to create a new frame through which to view things.

Can we, through stories and conversations, connect research and theories to the makers and doers, and help them incorporate that knowledge into real world solutions and better policy-making?

Can we bridge the communication gap by turning book-length white papers into readable articles for a general audience?

Can we, by showcasing the practical application of sustainable technology, help to nudge Asia’s development down more sustainable paths? 

And will a glass-half-full attitude be enough to make a difference?

I asked some members of staff at the Asian Development Bank for their thoughts on these issues last year, and I was extraordinarily inspired by the number of people who shared my attitude.

I’m extremely grateful for their support, and I hope there are enough people out there who share our hopes, and who will join Tech For Impact on this mission.

ADB Staff speak about making an impact

#sustainability #impact #Circular economy