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Rules
Biz StrategyGovernance

‘Rules of Procedures’ of a Corporate Board: In the best interest of …?

May 25, 2021
One of the things usually approved at the constituent board meeting after every company AGM are the board of directors' ‘Rules of Procedure’. What looks, and is often perceived, as a formality though, at close looks carries not just formal weight, but indeed formulates – directly or between the lines – the duties of the board. What do these rules typically enshrine - and what not?
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Transparency
Biz StrategyFinanceFuture Tech

Make it Operational: Transparency, Tangibility, Relevance

May 18, 2021
How do you make ‘sustainability' tangible? The usual answer is – unsurprisingly – a ‘well, it depends’. Which it evidently does. Unfortunately, good case studies are extremely rare to come across. Hence, when I stumbled across such a gem in one of the primary Swiss news papers, I jumped at the opportunity to summarise it for this blog.
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Team Work
Biz StrategyOpinions

Collaboration & Team Work: Buzz or Drag?

May 11, 2021
Collaborations toward a common goal, across organisations, can be one of the most gratifying things we ever may get to experience. Funny enough: Neither collaboration nor team work is something outrageously difficult in principle. If the common and mutually beneficial goal is front and centre. But this is exactly where the hitch is. Some thoughts about the hurdles of genuine collaboration and team work.
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Measure and Manage
Biz StrategyFinanceGovernance

Measurement ≠ Data ≠ Information ≠ Knowledge ≠ Action

May 4, 2021
You can't manage what you can't measure. This often cited quote by Peter Drucker lies at the heart of many things: change management, quality management, staff diversity, environmental footprint, CO2 output … you know it. This is why many millions of dollars, and countless hours, have been invested in creating suitable measurement tools. It's just that: Measurement ≠ Data ≠ Information ≠ Knowledge ≠ Action.
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La vita e bella - with trash
Consumer-ismDefinitionsOpinions

Language Matters: Removing the gloss

April 27, 2021
Nearly a year ago I wrote about how the terminology we use abstracts from the fact that there are living and sentient human beings doing 'supply chain' work. Listening to a recent podcast it dawned on me that language can be just as useful to gloss over the seriousness and impact of scientific facts. And the resulting necessary actions. Climate Change vs Climate Emergency? Green energy vs renewable energy vs clean energy? Hence, some more thinking about the role of language.
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Peloton Bike Race
Biz StrategyConsumer-ismGlobalisation

Agri Food Industry & Carbon Trajectory: Returns over resilience?

April 20, 2021
Carbon – together with biodiversity – is one of THE most critical dimensions among the Planetary Boundaries. Because the already existing overshoot is putting our civilisation at risk. So far nothing new under the sun. The food and agri sector is - possibly together with the energy sector - one of the most important industries in this regard. Not only does it impact our living environment significantly - by how our food is grown - but also they play a key role to feed our global population. The big elephant in the room is of course: How well or badly do agri food companies perform right now in terms of their carbon footprint? And: Do they have at the least commitments to work on a Paris Agreement trajectory? I look into these questions. Spoiler Alert: There is not much to cheer about. Not at all.
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Mistakes and Learning
Biz StrategyGovernanceOpinions

Continuous Learning Mistakes: When time teaches to know better

April 13, 2021
Knowledge and data are two interesting entities: essential for decisions at any one time. And yet evolving with time. And with that, decisions taken some time ago, possibly decades earlier, may prove flawed – in hindsight. But what if years down the road these insights are resurfaced and either proven to be partially or fully inaccurate? What if the nuggets are suddenly being used in a context that has shifted significantly since? What if our best intended and best-possible informed statements of the past are called out years, decades later? A few thoughts on this dilemma.
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Anger
GlobalisationOpinions

Anger in the age of Climate Change: Fundamental change required

April 6, 2021
Anger … a strong, passionate emotion. Sometimes conducive as it gives loads of strength to fight for what we see as a ‘better world and society’. But also sometimes a shot into our own foot. In the sustainability world extemists views are common - on either side of the spectrum. Both sides advocating for fundamental change. But as it the choice of words suggests: fundamental change is only possible if we change fundamentally. All of us. Including the advocates and campaigners themselves.
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Oversimplification
Biz StrategyFuture TechGovernanceOpinions

Keep it Simple Stupid (kiss): Yet – how simple is too simple?

March 30, 2021
The KISS Principle is a design principle that stems from the 1960. It originated in engineering and its view point is that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided. But what about complex systems such as nature? How simple can we go before oversimplification results in incomplete, or biased data? Before absence of consideration of relevant factors inherently lead to regrettable substitutions? And before we willingly accept that there will be collateral damages to a decision, without knowing (or wanting to know) of what nature and in what order of magnitude these may be? One example that illustrates where this challenge may rear what is its ugly head: upcoming Swiss political referenda on agricultural practices.
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Regrettable Substitution
Biz StrategyCircularityOpinions

Regrettable Substitution: Life is full of surprises

March 23, 2021
Reducing humanity’s footprint on this planet is a journey of decisions. Some of them tough, some of them very clear. And some of them – let’s just say: with very limited available data. The journey we’re on, is the proverbial Designer’s Paradox. More scientifically speaking of course, we are faced with the ever lasting conundrum of Regrettable Substitutions. So: Is there a best possible AND least bad option (combined) at this very moment?
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Circle - Perpetuity - Forever
CircularityDefinitions

Circularity – A puzzle piece: Not a Silver Bullet, not a Panacea

March 16, 2021
It is quite astonishing: all the different contexts that the term ‘circularity’ or ‘circular economy’ is being used. They key point mostly is of course the waste reduction promises inherent in the term, and the subsequent lower dependency on finite resources. But, in addition to reducing waste, carbon – or rather carbon footprint – is a key factor. Unfortunately, the reality is sobering: taking fashion as example, at best between 3% and 6% of the industry's carbon footprint could be remedied that way. And even worse: in order to realise the potential, three fundamental hurdles must be addressed. Some efforts are underway, of course, but a steep hill remains to climb.
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Sound of Silence
Biz StrategyCircularityGovernance

Sustainability Tone Deafness: The Sound of Silence

March 9, 2021
The leadership team level at company X is not making the moves that might be expected and needed from a sustainability perspective. What to do? How to overcome the blockage? How to make progress without even mentioning the S-word in the discourse? The answer: Compliance, Risk, and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). Or in more tangible terms - start the conversation by focusing on legal compliance, Risk and Due Diligence, Efficiencies ... and good old benchmarking with the competition. No S-word needed. Not a big step for humanity no doubt. But a door opener to many more interesting conversations.
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Water Energy Nexus
Biz StrategyBook ReviewsFuture Tech

Water & Energy Generation: Conjoint or Fraternal Twins?

March 2, 2021
In last week’s post I looked at energy companies and their trajectory relative to the Paris Climate Agenda. The insights clearly suggested a mixed picture. A clear point of how important it is to decarbonised the way we fuel our economy and global society. But that’s unfortunately not all there is to the energy generation picture! What few people realise: Energy generation requires water. A lot of water. Not just in the energy generating processes, but also in the extraction of the energy source (coal in particular), and/or the making of the necessary equipment. Some insights ... illustrated at the example of China.
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Peloton Bike Race
Biz StrategyFinanceGlobalisation

Energy Industry & Carbon Trajectory: A tale of two Trajectories

February 23, 2021
Carbon – together with biodiversity – is one of THE most critical dimensions among the Planetary Boundaries. Because the already existing overshoot is putting our civilisation at risk. So far nothing new under the sun. The energy sector is the by far most impactful sector: directly and indirectly our carbon footprint depends on how they fuel our civilisation. The big elephant in the room is of course: How well are badly do energy companies perform right now in terms of their carbon footprint? And: Do they have at the least commitments to work on a Paris Agreement trajectory? I look into these questions. Spoiler Alert: The results are pretty much in line with expectations. Yet: among the innovators, not everyone does perform as well as they probably should ...
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Stepping into your Courage
Biz StrategyBook ReviewsGovernance

The Courage to Act: The inside view on creating change

February 16, 2021
Sustainability is usually thought of as an environmental issue. And it is. But but not only. It is in fact a mindset. One that takes courage. This magazine - come out of a creative collaboration - explores three key questions by interviewing personalities in business (Vincent Stanley from Patagonia, Eric Garnier from Choba Choba, Adriana Marina from Hecho x Nosostros, Fergal Smith from the Moy Hill Farm and Andy Middleton from the TYF Group), and by giving space to written creativity of sustainability professionals. The three fundamental questions are: How does ‘creating change’ feel from within? What does it mean to swim against the business mainstream because genuinely the status quo does not work? Where and how does courage come into play?
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The Spark
Biz StrategyOpinions

The Spark: The Resonance of an SME with vision, aspiration, commitment

February 9, 2021
We all interact frequently with SMEs of different types, characters, and offers. Yet there are two types of such businesses. Those where 'the spark' is graspable: Their vision, raison d'etre, motivation, aspiration, commitment. And then those, who at best surf the waves of third party demands. Content to be 'victims' instead of taking the courage to forge their own irons. A never ending fascination.
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Toshiba Robot
Biz StrategyFuture TechLabourOpinions

Digitalisation x Sustainability: A match made with pragmatism and opportunity

February 2, 2021
Computer Science and Sustainability/ESG: these two areas of expertise combine increasingly well with every passing month and year. In fact, I am tempted to say that the two worlds of sustainability and digitalisation are surprisingly similar to one another. In a number of ways – not in all, of course! – they overlap more than they differ. And mutually benefit each other. Both areas represent critical skill-sets for boards and senior executives in the current and upcoming decades. This is why I thought I’d take the time to reflect on the overlaps, the synergies, but no doubt also the differences. The key words: systems thinking, automatisation, fraud prevention and authentication, business model distruption, usability, and the Just Transition.
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Bias Lense
Biz StrategyDefinitionsGovernance

Cognitive Biases on the board and Corporate Climate Change Inertia

January 26, 2021
The influence of decision bias is nothing new when scrutinising corporate governance. And yet: by and large businesses continue to fail to adjust their strategic decision-making processes to become more climate viable. At best they have just barely started on their journey. Why is that? As we look deeper into the corporate discourse on Climate Change, it becomes evident that one of the silent yet crucial culprits behind the climate change inertia lies in the cognitive biases at play in corporate decision making. What are those biases, what do they mean for boards in the context of strategic Climate Change decisions, and what can be done about it?
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Drop of Water
Consumer-ismOpinions

How do you make it personal? The challenge of going from global goals to individual actions

January 19, 2021
Global Goals are called ‘global’ for a reason: they apply to everyone, everything. Every business, every government, every church, charity … In case there was any doubt about it: The Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement are global goals. In fact, probably the Global Goals par excellence. Yet, while organisations of all different types and characteristics are making progress in translating those to their different contexts, environments, business models etc. the same does not hold true when it comes to individuals. Beyond a few platitudes. A few arbitrary and personal musings on the role of the individual in achieving the goals.
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Peloton Bike Race
Biz StrategyFinanceGovernance

Finance Industry & Carbon Trajectory: Black Holes with a Sparkle of Hope

January 12, 2021
Recently we have learned how the Board of Directors of the 20 largests banks (under)performs when it comes to ESG, and the consequences this has on their future fit investments. This raises evidently the question: How do these 20 banks perform right now in terms of their carbon footprint? And: Do they have at the least commitments to work on a Paris Agreement trajectory? I answer these questions. Afterall: Carbon – together with biodiversity – is one of THE most critical dimensions among the Planetary Boundaries. Because the already existing overshoot is putting our civilisation at risk. So far nothing new under the sun. Spoiler Alert: The results are pretty much in line with expectations. ESG-experience on the BoD does make a difference.
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