Week 28: Back to What It Is All About

Dear all,

Heat. Sweat creeping in beyond the eyeballs. Constant heat. Slowly passing lonely clouds. Birds too tired to sing, dogs too tired to bark. Everywhere you go, people flock around air conditioners, eating inside, talking inside. Sweat as an accessory. Thoughts melting in the sun like ice cubes. A couple of weeks of vacation, never truly away from anything. Ticking time. Years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. Constant hyper-movement in circles. Space between asymmetries made of sun rays. A run into a brick wall. The world has baked for 12 consecutive months in temperatures 1.5°C (2.7°F) higher than their average before the fossil fuel era, new data shows. Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record, scientists found, creating a year-long stretch in which the Earth was 1.64°C hotter than in pre-industrial times.

The findings do not mean world leaders have already failed to honor their promises to stop the planet from heating 1.5°C by the end of the century – a target measured in decadal averages rather than single years – but that scorching heat will have exposed more people to violent weather. A sustained rise in temperatures above this level also increases the risk of uncertain but catastrophic tipping points. Questions heated brutally in the mornings and burned just before sunset. How come we have not come further in the quest for at least a more sustainable future? How come? All the efforts of the last 25-plus years. All the political and corporate commitments. All the conferences, speeches, seminars, books, TV series, films, even celebrity spotlights. People around the world are left alone with their fears, doubts, and hopes while their realities slowly boil up. In many instances, they are not part of the journey and, even worse, not even part of the narrative. Politicians have failed to engage citizens and voters around the world in one of the most acute political questions in the history of humankind: the existential threat to all life on this planet.

Yes, it is rolling over slowly, and it is still uneven across the world, but it is brutally real. As with many other existential topics, humanity takes behavioral biases towards left or right, mirroring some kind of political preference in relation to potential destruction. Naive as we are, some of us truly believe that the left or right will manage to change boiling into a foot bath. Billions of citizens around the world are left to adapt to hurricanes, droughts, unbearable heat, loss of homes and livelihoods. Politicians have indeed never managed to engage citizens in real discussion on what is at stake beyond their own short-term self-interest. In the places around the world where liberal democracies still prevail, political inability to engage citizens and voters may as well be the last nail in the coffin of democracy. Political disconnect on what to do in relation to the climate emergency and citizens and voters understanding what is at stake has never been bigger. That is most likely also one of the core reasons why worldwide apathy in relation to boiling is so widespread. On the corporate side, things are pretty much the same, if not even more dire. Sustainable transition in its sense is not about reporting according to guidelines X, Y, and Z. It is about changing the hearts and minds of people running these corporations as well as it is about clients, customers, and employees understanding what, why, and how respective corporations do this transition.

Sustainable transition as we know it today and as it has been developing is nothing even close to this. Companies ask why they don’t get paid when they put so “many resources” into sustainable communication while their clients, customers, and employees don’t even understand 2% of what they do on sustainability, let alone why. The need for democratization of sustainable communication has never been bigger than it is now. Current corporate sustainability-related communication is a game for a professional cadre operating in this space very often, for its own interest and benefit. When someone says we need more ESG data, we should say we need more ESG data that people on the street can understand and relate to. When we say we need better reporting, we should say we need better reporting for clients, customers, and consumers buying the products and services offered by the company. The corporate sector fails repeatedly in engaging its most valuable asset: its clients, consumers, and customers. ESG investments are not about fund managers; they are about companies and assets they make these investments in. Corporate sustainability is not about double materiality; it is about people you are selling your product and service to. Do they understand the value, can they relate to it, understand your effort, decide to buy from you and not someone else? We need to shift the efforts of sustainable communication if we are to make any tangible improvements. From compliance and investor questionnaire-centric to client, customer, and consumer-centric. The day politicians and corporations truly understand these things, reality may change far more rapidly than ever before.