Something odd is indeed happening across the energy sector for, even as governments across the world are calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels, with some having made dramatic cuts already, utilities are buying up coal and – in particular – natural gas stocks.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy, for example, just spent billions to purchase thousands of miles of LNG pipeline recently shut down or banned by the U.S. Supreme Court.[2] What’s up with that, Warren?

And although many utilities are adding in renewables – in fact it’s only 1 in 10 who are actually doing so, according to a new report[3] – most are in fact stocking up on carbon.

That’s weird, too, right?

One possible reason is that many electric utilities, when faced with the choice of either refitting coal plants to comply with new regulation, or moving to renewables and eschewing fossil fuel altogether, chose the former – and sunk a good deal of money and debt into doing so.

Lower renewables prices should suggest a transition that would save ratepayers money but would sink much of those refit costs, a choice many utilities don’t want to make.

“In some cases, it’s almost immaterial that renewable energy is so cheap these days, because these utilities are still wedded to old fossil fuel plants and to their traditional business model,” notes Los Angeles Times energy writer Sammy Roth.[4]

Interestingly, as Roth points out, electric companies can transition to renewables and still make money selling their product: the source is not the defining factor. For gas companies on the other hand, a move to renewables is an existential issue, a complete repudiation of their core business. Hence, many are fighting tooth and nail to preserve their viability.

As Leah Stokes, author of a book on climate policy in the U.S.[5] told Roth, the gas companies “need to figure out some alternative, and I don’t know what that’s going to be. But they’re in the fossil fuel business, and the fossil fuel business is going out of business.”

Perhaps, but not soon enough, given how fast climate change is now moving and how far its ramifications are reaching.

It will be interesting to see if the brutal and terrifying climate events of the past few months begin to shift fossil fuel purveyors and bend public policy but, as recently as this month, a report surfaced showing public utilities globally remained heavily invested in coal and gas and many were not putting appreciable resources into renewable energy.[6]

The very title of the study – of 3,000 utilities worldwide – spells this dilemma out clearly: “A global analysis of the progress and failure of electric utilities to adapt their portfolios of power-generation assets to the energy transition.” (Italics ours.)

But… but we know renewables are growing fast, so how can this be? As the report notes, “Strikingly, 60% of the renewables-prioritizing utilities had not ceased concurrently expanding their fossil-fuel portfolio, compared to 15% reducing it. These findings point to electricity system inertia and the utility-driven risk of carbon lock-in and asset stranding.”[7]

In other words, it’s a classic case of climate policy paradox.[8] As noted above, companies have pre-invested in carbon technologies and facilities, and inertia strands them there even as (in some cases) they diversify into low-carbon tech. 

As the incoming head of Siemens’ Energy noted recently, “I’m happy with every coal-fired power plant that is not built. But at the same time, the ones we [have already] built…”[9]

There is another pattern emerging, one that in the 20^th century would not have surprised anyone but that now seems at odds with reality and goes far beyond mere inertia: carbon purveyors continue to legally, and illegally, financially support those in government who protect them. Rather than spending to transition, these companies were spending on gas stocks and carbon advocacy.

With governments essential to a true and potent check on carbon, utilities are going all out to sway local influencers, along with local and national leaders, away from carbon reforms.

Tom Perkins, writing in HuffPost, details payments by the ten largest utilities in the United States of more than $1 Billion over 5 years (2013 – 2017) in charitable donations to community influencers such as churches and political leaders, allegedly in return for testimony or shows of support at public meetings.[10]

Meanwhile the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives was arrested in July for taking about $60 million in electric utility bribes designed (successfully, as it happens[11]) to ensure passage of a $1.3 billion bill to check environmental regulations and bail out a number of energy plants including several that run on coal.[12]

Florida’s electric utilities funneled nearly $30 million to political campaigns in 2015 to urge passage of Amendment 1 which would have crippled ‘net metering,’ a rule that allows homeowners with rooftop solar to sell power back into the grid.[13] The measure was defeated but there appears to be a push to reopen the question again this year.[14],[15]

Utilities in Australia have also been pumping millions into political parties for some years, fueling – according to some – Australia’s ‘gas-led recovery,’[16] while activists are up in arms in Ireland over what Friends of the Earth are calling a “plan to expand fossil fuel infrastructure and continue to subsidize fossil gas investment and usage.”[17]

It’s unclear if the acceleration of climate-change-related disasters will impact these initiatives and spur utilities to finally move away from carbon. Based on the past, however, it seems unlikely.

So, while it’s true that renewable are crushing it on the innovation and new development fronts, in the short term at least they will have all they can do to keep up with carbon.

References:
[1] Forbes (Contributor/Robert Rapier), Renewable Energy Grows at a Blistering Pace, August 2 2020
[2] Los Angeles Times, Why is Warren Buffet, the ‘Oracle of Omaha,’ Betting on a Future with Fossil Fuels? July 9 2020
[3] Nature Energy, A Global Analysis of the Progress and Failure of Electric Utilities to Adapt Their Portfolios of Power Generation Assets to the Energy Transition, Aug 31, 2020
[4] Los Angeles Times, How Far Will Utilities Go to Protect Their Fossil Fuel Investments? July 30, 2020
[5] Stokes, Leah Cardamore, Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States, Oxford University Press, 2020
[6] Nature Energy, A Global Analysis of the Progress and Failure of Electric Utilities to Adapt Their Portfolios of Power Generation Assets to the Energy Transition, Aug 31, 2020
[7] Ibid
[8] Wikipedia, Carbon Lock-in: Introduction
[9] The Financial Times, Siemens Energy Chief Defends Reliance on Fossil Fuel Contracts, Aug 31, 2020
[10] HuffPost, How Utility Companies Use Charitable Giving to Influence Policy, July 6, 2020
[11] Note: efforts to repeal the bill are currently underway: WOSU, Ohio Legislature Misses Key Deadline for Nuclear Bailout Repeal, Oct. 2, 2020
[12] Energy and Policy, First Energy Scandal is Latest Example of Utility Corruption, Deceit, July 23, 2020
[13] The Miami Herald, Florida Utilities Spend Millions to Make the Case to Limit Rooftop Solar, Nov 1, 2016
[14] Clean Energy, If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it: Protect Florida’s Rooftop Solar Net Metering Policy, Sept 11, 2020
[15] Electrek, Florida Utilities Want to Gut Solar: Here’s Why, Sept 16, 2020
[16] The Guardian, Gas Industry Donates Millions to Australian Political Parties, Sept 15, 2020
[17] The Irish Times, Public Bodies Locking Ireland into Fossil Fuel Use, Friends of Earth Say, Sept 8, 2020

.

But this story is not about submerged risk. Rather, it’s about the very visible risk of being submerged: millions of people and their communities will be under water due to rising sea levels, riparian flooding, and storm surges from more powerful storms – all driven by anthropomorphic climate change – if something isn’t done.

A new report on potentially inundated areas (PIA) shows that, “by 2100, areas now home to 200 million people could fall permanently below the high tide line” and “rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods higher than land currently home to 300 million people.”[1] This will likely result in massive instability, millions of environmental migrants (EM), battles over land rights and enormous economic strains over how to pay for any actions taken.

.

Sea levels are expected to rise by anywhere from half a meter to two meters over the next 8 decades[2] – estimating is tricky because of the need to nail the melting rates of the polar and Greenland ice caps.[3] Suffice to say a person 6’ (≈183cm) born today at sea level may be mostly or fully submerged when he turns 80. A six-foot rise will inundate vast stretches of land currently occupied by, well, by you and your family, your house, your business, your baseball diamond or your rice paddy.

Clearly, we must do something.
But what?

Well, we could continue business as usual, hope nothing happens, and try to rebuild when it does. That has been the approach up to now. Get crushed and rebuild – in the U.S., often with the help of the taxpayer-subsidized National Flood Insurance Program – on the same footprint. Wait a bit and – literally – rinse and repeat. But this is tough to manage when the land isn’t just flooded but has actually been reclaimed by the sea.

Besides, as these events transpire, insurers, whose actuaries grasped and embraced the facts of climate change early, will begin raising prices dramatically to offset increased risk, or will refuse to renew policies in inundation-prone zones.[4]

We could rebuild homes differently, on stilts for example, as communities in flood- or tide-prone areas have done throughout history. The problem here is that tide levels at par may stay beneath the floor, but more frequent and more powerful storms means higher storm surges and water moving higher and farther inland than before on top of higher sea levels. It could work in areas not prone to such storms – although as we’ve detailed in our cyclone story above, there will be fewer places like that going forward – and this may have to be considered in targeted communities.

The third option is to simply pick up and move those hundreds of millions of people – along with their shops, pets, schools, churches, and community buildings – to higher ground. Just pick ‘em up, lock, stock and Main Street. This is known as ‘managed retreat.’

This is not a new concept and “prehistoric tribes regularly packed up settlements along riverbanks when periodic floods struck.”[5] Since then it has been done occasionally on a small – usually very small – scale: a house or two. A cluster of families. In a few cases whole midwestern towns or English hamlets prone to flooding have been relocated or rebuilt on higher ground.

The U.S. government has begun, on a piecemeal basis, “offering to buy storm-damaged homes and homes likely to be damaged again due to an extreme weather event—purchasing homes and converting them to natural open space. This program, however, is entirely voluntary for the homeowners,”[6] which is assisting certain foresighted individuals but not solving the problem of probable inundation.

Yet even on this scale, “managed retreat presents numerous complex challenges—legal, logistical, ethical, political, financial, and architectural.”[7] The implications of moving several hundred million peoples’ lives are almost incalculable.

.

In some cases, there is no high ground to be moved to. “Indonesia has proposed moving its capital to Borneo Island, because up to one-third of Jakarta could be underwater by 2050. The low-lying Pacific island nation of Kiribati has bought land in Fiji to allow a future migration,” and many other examples. The average height of the land in the 1200-or so islands of this nation is “around 4 feet above sea level, and the highest point in the entire nation is just under 8 feet (about 2.4 meters).”[8] Where will these people go as the rising tides they did little to produce sweep over them?

For context, consider the case of Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, on the banks of the usually placid Kickapoo River. According to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) case study,

With classic myopic optimism, the town recovered and rebuilt in place every time until “the flood of record in 2007 inflicted the worst damage in the state just 10 miles downstream in Gays Mills.” At that point, they found higher ground and skedaddled.

That’s what it took to get just one town to move.

.

And consider what’s involved from a purely logistical standpoint. On an already crowded planet, what kind of land will there be, available to move vast numbers of people to? If fishermen now live next to their boats and farmers next to their fields, what will the impact of moving be on their livelihoods? Who will pay for the new land? New schools? New stores?

And, while areas like Florida and Louisiana in the United States are vulnerable, “the threat is concentrated in coastal Asia and could have profound economic and political consequences within the lifetimes of people alive today.” Many of these nations have neither the resources nor the infrastructure to cope well with such large-scale migration.

At the end of the day, however the logistics are managed, there may be little choice. The seas are rising. The storms are intensifying multiplying. Insurance companies – where they exist – won’t cover perpetual disaster and even the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program has bankrupted itself – it is nearly $25 billion in debt[10] – paying claims for properties it undervalued and therefore emboldening property owners to build where they should not, passing the risk to the U.S. treasury.[11]

Now
So the question is not if, but when and how. When, of course, should be now. But a quick Google search indicates clearly that managed retreat has not yet advanced in the public mind or in government planning.

This will change soon, as the inevitable begins and the sea begins claiming land from us wholesale, rather than retail as in the past. In any case, it might be wise to keep some galoshes handy and to head for the hills soon. Those hills may be islands before long.

.

References:
[1] Climate Central, Report: Flooded Future: Global Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise Worse Than Previously Understood, Oct 2019
[2] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, John Carey, Core Concept: Managed Retreat Increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[3] Forbes / Earl J. Ritchie, University of Houston Energy Fellow, Contributor, Is the IPCC Wrong About Sea Level Rise?June 2018
[4] The Outline, Your Insurance Premium is About to Rise Like the Sea Levels, March 2019
[5] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, John Carey, Core Concept: Managed Retreat Increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[6] Planetizen, Managed Retreat from Sea Level Rise, April 2017
[7] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, John Carey, Core Concept: Managed Retreat Increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[8] National Geographic, Climbing the Highest Point in the Maldives
[9] FEMA, Village Locals Reflect Moving Was Best Flood Protection
[10] U.S. General Accountability Office, Flood Insurance: Comprehensive Reform Could Improve Solvency and Enhance Resilience, April 2017
[11] Union of Concerned Scientists, Overwhelming Risk: Rethinking Flood Insurance in a World of Rising Seas, Aug 2013

In case you were planning to calculate how much surface area it would take to power the entire world with solar, don’t bother: back in 2009, someone at Land Art Generator beat you to it.[1] The answer? 496,805 square kilometers (191,817 square miles).

That friends, is a lot of solar panels.

But how big is 500k kilometers² really? According to these guys, the uninhabited portions of the Sahara alone – some 9 million km² – is 46 times the area needed for the planet’s energy needs by 2030.

Then again, they say, if panels were rolled out as fast as rainforest is being burned for industry – 170,000 sq kilometers every year,[2] the project would be finished in only 3 years.

Okay, so clearly there’s enough sunny real estate available globally to more than get this done but even so it’s probably not likely we’ll blanket such enormous areas with a PVs. For the time being we need as much solar as possible in the minimum amount of room. The best way to achieve that would be to improve the power generation of solar panels and to allow more panels in a smaller space. How can we get there?

The answer appears to be simple: go vertical.

Going Vertical
This is not about the efficacy of laying standard rectangular panels upright versus lengthwise. This is about upright solar innovations that are radically different from – and take up far less space than – garden-variety solar farms, and may well revolutionize the industry in a few years.

One of these, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and building-adapted photovoltaics (BAPV) take ‘vertical’ to a whole new level – all the way to the top of steel-and-glass skyscrapers – and is so critical going forward that it’s the subject of our next story.

Another, and our topic here, is any of several innovative vertical solutions involving free-standing, upright PV structures that both require less room and generate more power than their reclining cousins.

One example of this thinking-outside-the-frame is the new ‘vertical polygen solar tower,’ unveiled in Los Lunas, New Mexico this June.

A village called Los Lunas – the moons – is admittedly an odd one for testing a device that runs on sunshine, but this 6-sided tower – built by New Jersey-based startup Wiltech Energy – packs 20kW into 4.5 square meters (49 sf)[3] and is topped by a bladeless wind turbine for additional power and generation during times of low light. A 22kW storage battery is included to keep power flowing continuously.

Designed to power the village’s recycling facility, the polygon approach is a radically different type of panel structure which involves a number of small panels set in vertical tiers at different angles in such a way as to gather light no matter where the sun is relative to them.

The other key to vertical is the way the angle of sunshine interacts with the PV materials. Flat panels are generally laid out in series and raked to specific angles depending on planetary coordinates. In Arizona, for example, “south-facing panels with a 57˚ tilt” are called for, whereas in Minnesota a range of 22˚(summer) to 68˚ (winter) is optimal.[4]

Horizontal panels, whether ground or roof based, are raked to catch the sun when it is directly overhead, and fall off considerably in output earlier and later in the day. Vertical panels, on the other hand, capture light far longer and continue to produce even as the sun is on the horizon.

The polygon structure does the same by capturing light more directly from east to west and – as each of the six sides is vertical – for longer than is usual. Such light is largely lost to standard panels, which thrive on overhead light but fare poorly at other times. In addition, the panels are hung on masts for maximum exposure and this allows more panels to be stacked on top. The whole contraption takes a fraction of the land space – about 4 square meters – so land costs would be lower.

But this doesn’t tell the whole tale. Horizontal panels, wherever they’re placed, lose power when all or part of their surface becomes obscured by dust, dirt, pollen, sand or snow. Such panels may be covered in snow for weeks or months while, in desert regions such as the Sahara mentioned above, or even the New Mexican landscape near Los Lunas, sand and dust storms pose a serious problem.

Complex equipment has been developed to clean them adding a fortune in time, money and that most precious of desert materials, water. Considering our original premise, powering the world by solar alone, cleaning half a million square klicks of PV is a truly Herculean task.

And the multi-sided approach means the sun has more surface to impact as it courses from sunrise to sunset and throughout the seasons. In addition, the vertical polygon approach is stackable… the taller the mast, the more panels can be loaded on[6] so ever-more kilowatts can be added without needing additional real estate.

As Wilson told Valutus, his inspiration to build vertical solar was looking up at New York City’s skyscrapers one day and realizing their height created more space while actually saving precious room on the ground.

Indeed, “Wilson says his system can generate two megawatts of electricity in a one-acre area, compared with just one megawatt in a 4.5- to 5-acre area with horizontal systems.”[7] 

“We believe this technology will change the way solar power is delivered,” Wilson continued.”[8] These systems are listed as “grid-tied, off-grid or a combination of both and scalable,” according to Wiltech’s website, and the Los Lunas power unit is closed circuit, neither taking from nor feeding into the grid.

It’s also the first of its type deployed commercially, so all eyes are on it awaiting results. If it is successful, we will see more power requiring less real estate… and more work for the guys who like to calculate how much solar is needed to power the planet.

3D Solar Towers
Meanwhile, in 2012 an MIT working group designed a truly radical prototype that uses conventional PV materials technology but, like the polygonal towers discussed above, configures them differently for the purpose of “collecting solar energy in three dimensions,”[9] as opposed to overhead light striking a single flat panel.

Placing double-sided squares of accordion-folded PV materials in a vertical frame – with or without external cuboid scaffolding – the researchers found these babies were capable of generating “between 2 and 20 times” more output than traditional materials.[10] Twenty times? Jumpin’ generators!

Like their polygonal cousins, the key to these solar towers – which resemble the compact disk racks of old – is not better materials, it is simply about capturing far more sunlight and for longer.

“By going vertical and collecting more sunlight when the sun is closer to the horizon, the team’s 3D modules were able to generate a more uniform output over time. This uniformity extended over the course of each day, the seasons of a year, and even when accounting for blockage from clouds and shadows,” noted New Atlas [11]

When tested on an MIT rooftop for some weeks, the researchers confirmed the folded materials could make energy at lower solar angles.

And, according to Wiocor Energy, which has now commercialized this design, the panels also receive a “boost from reflected and diffuse light” that flat panels can’t use.[12] In other words, once light hits a flat panel, some is absorbed and some bounces off and is lost. With stackable panels on the other hand, light reflecting from the ground, and light bouncing off panels above and below, can be absorbed by another panel, thereby raising the level of power these stands can generate.

As with the old image of humanoids learning to stand upright, vertical just might be the next step in the evolution of solar.

By Daniel Aronson and Dan Kempner
(Adapted from a July 24, 2020 interview with Andrew Gottlieb, Founder of The School for Humanity podcast series and digital marketing firm No Typical Moments.)

Recently, we spoke with Andrew Gottlieb, Founder of the purpose-driven online marketing and branding company No Typical Moments.

The topic was Gottlieb’s other passion, a podcast series called The School for Humanity wherein he speaks with thinkers and strategists from all over the spectrum, with a focus on entrepreneurs and those working on sustainable projects. (One of the entrepreneurial ventures highlighted happened to be Valutus and, if you’re interested, you can hear the results here, or read a portion of the interview in Sustainable Brands here.)

The worm had turned, however, and we were able to ask Andrew to share some of the things he’d learned through interviewing so many interesting and, often, CSR-driven executives. Here are the highlights.

Q: Why did you create the School for Humanity?

AG: So, just as an idea to test out this concept – because I’ve built a lot of friendships and connections in this space – I sent 15 emails to people I knew to see if they’d be interested in appearing on a podcast (thinking maybe five would want to say yes).

Before I knew it, 14 of them said they were. So it came about very quickly. And I started to realize how individuals who are doing something to make the world a better place really want to share their wisdom. And there’s also a part of them that really wants to empower and inspire other entrepreneurs to take this leap of faith: not just to create a widget, but to create a business with an intention of advancing the lives of people, and the environment, and big issues that are facing the world.

Q: I’m curious about the name, The School for Humanity. How did that come about?

AG: I didn’t want to have a podcast called, like, ‘how to build a purposeful business,’ that just doesn’t inspire anyone. The word ‘school’ is in front because it sets it up to be a learning environment. And I felt like ‘of humanity’ was a great kind of tail into that, because it really depicts the types of messages that we’re desiring to share through the podcast. It’s not a podcast of “Hey, come and learn how to scale your business to a million dollars in revenue per year!” It’s really focused in on how are you doing and being an individual in a business to make the world a better place.

Q: How do you feel the School for Humanity is making the world a better place?

AG: I see us continuing to interview and speak with leaders and organizations who are creating change and even greater scale. So I’d say with that, I see us as an entity building up educational products. I also see this really as a covenant community for these business leaders.

Q: Do you see a difference between passion-based entrepreneurs who want to make the world better, and regular entrepreneurs? And do you think there’s a difference in what you need to provide them versus what they get elsewhere?

AG: [For the passion-based people] it’s really a connection to the ‘why.’ That’s what gets them through the good and the bad. And whatever they’re creating, whether it’s a consulting agency, a book, a service product, nonprofit, whatever, yeah… there’s a very deep why for their continued devotion to this cause.

Q: You migrated more into purpose-driven entrepreneurship, have you experienced additional difficulties from that?

AG: I have, and I’ve also learned over the years that there’s certain elements of business that I can try as hard as I want to find a conscious business approach but, at the end of the day, filing taxes is just filing taxes, so there’s definitely certain dimensions of it that I’ve grown to just accept.

There are a ton of other areas in which I try my best to filter through the lens of social- and-conscious entrepreneurship and leadership. For instance, how do I treat the people on my team?  Or in terms of our agency, and the types of clients that we on- board, I definitely am held to a high standard by the rest of my team, to make sure that we’re bringing in clients that our values align with.

We have a handful of best practices set up. For instance, we donate one percent of gross revenue through 1% for the Planet, and we allocate a certain number of pro bono hours to support nonprofit causes over the years.

Q: You’ve had the experience of talking to… how many interviews is it now?

AG: We’re over 200. I didn’t think we had done that many. I had a lot of time on my hands during COVID, so there’s been a lot added over the last couple months!

Q: Well, first of all, that’s impressive. I’m curious if there was any theme to the type of leaders you were interviewing? Were you looking for people with particular disciplines, or just anyone who was attempting to impact the world in a positive way?

AG: I find it really inspirational to bring to light these stories, these authors, these companies that are doing amazing work in the world and aren’t necessarily getting the recognition that they probably deserve in some of the mainstream publications.

I enjoyed bringing their founders, their C-level execs, CEOs, whatever it is, into really authentic conversations and I’d say the commonality I’ve seen through all of these is that everyone is pretty much just like this normal, random dude who graduated from high school or college, and decided to get very serious about their impact, their success, and the legacy they were going to be building.

And it shows me time and time again that, man, no one is blessed with this superpower as a kid, and had always been a co founder and entrepreneur. It’s something that almost every person had grown into as they progressed with their career.

The only person I’ve interviewed who, I think, was that ‘kid wonder’ was Andrew Yang[1], well before he ran for president. I met him when he was still leading the organization called Venture for America. He may be the only one who was just, like, a whiz kid. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just normal people who decided one day that they wanted to make a positive impact.

Q: You’ve talked to all these fascinating people who are doing all these interesting things. And most of them came to it in sort of the same way, there’s some spark that took place. And how do you see the School for Humanity sort of being a forum for that?

AG: That’s a great question. It’s just something that I think will emerge. So the best way I know how is to try my best to interconnect the community, as many introductions as I can on a weekly basis.

I don’t really know but it’s there for something to emerge into. I always had this idea that there would be some type of in-person event or conference, or something would emerge one day – obviously on the back burner for a couple of years due to COVID-19. So maybe when we’re allowed to touch and interact with human beings again…

Q: You said some interesting things about the kinds of people and sort of their real-world struggles and everything. Were there any lessons that you learned, or interesting perspectives that you gained? If so, what would they be?

AG: The first is the question I ask at the end of almost every interview, which is, “how do you define success?” And I haven’t had one person say anything about money.

Q: Wow, that’s great stuff!

AG: I’d say the second thing – and maybe this isn’t something that you would learn in an episode but more about how people get on the episode. So, most of the time I’m reaching out cold via cold email to these individuals. And I think it shows the power of persistence. If you have some compelling copy to entice someone’s attention, it’s very possible to get into the email inbox of people you might believe are hard to reach.

Q: Hmm, interesting.

AG: The third would be that I’ve never interviewed someone who hasn’t described entrepreneurship as a roller coaster. Every single person talks about it. There’s definitely a lot of things to be proud of that you’ve achieved and accomplished over the years, but it doesn’t come without some major setbacks in that process.

Q: Got it. Finally, what’s the one thing you want to leave people with?

AG: On the podcast I asked one person something along the lines of “I’m sure you’ve had a lot of wins and losses: can you share what keeps you going through the good and bad times?”

The guy stopped me and said, “I definitely have had some great accomplishments and I’ve had some breakdowns and losses along the way. The thing though, is that each of those losses were moments in which I had to choose how I was going to respond: I can respond to it out of fear; I can respond out of anxiety; or I can look at it as a challenge and an opportunity to become better. That new framing – not viewing the losses and breakdowns as so personal – allows me to not beat myself up over the challenges of entrepreneurship.”

That really resonated, so I guess my final thought would be that achieving your goals is a lot easier when you get out of your own way.

[1] Author, Entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, Andrew Yang

Perched atop the world’s third-largest ocean, wedged between the Arabian sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal on the East, India has regularly dealt with tropical cyclones, averaging five or six per year, with just under half of them considered ‘severe.’[1]

Yet that number has been trending up and last-year’s Indian Ocean cyclone season was the “most active” ever recorded. This is a bland way of saying the country got slammed with “12 depressions, 11 deep depressions, 8 cyclonic storms, a record 6 severe cyclonic storms, a record 6 very severe cyclonic storms, a record 3 extremely severe cyclonic storms, and 1 super cyclonic storm.”[2] All within one year.

Then again, historically, most cyclones near the subcontinent occur on India’s East Coast in the Bay of Bengal – over nearly 130 years there have been 520 on the Bay to the West Coast’s 126[3] – due to complex geographical and meteorological nuances. However, in 2019 five of the twelve roamed the Arabian Sea, which last happened in 1902. This new penchant for battering the West Coast “indicates a surprise element in the behaviour of the Arabian Sea, which has long been known for being pacific.”[4]

In addition, though some storms do make landfall on the subcontinent in the summer months, they almost never do so in June.

On top of that, even when a rogue cyclical storm has gone roving through the Arabian Sea, it generally drifts west towards North Africa or the Middle East. Such cyclones do not hit India’s largest city, Mumbai. It’s not that they rarely hit Mumbai. They never hit Mumbai.

Which is why it’s seriously anomalous that a major cyclone just made landfall on the West Coast, in June, within spitting distance of Mumbai which, once again, miraculously – and just barely – escaped.

So, what’s up with this? Random chance? Did the Hindu God Varuna, astride his crocodile mount, intervene and pull the cyclone towards the coast?

Perhaps, but according to scientists, it’s just due to your friendly neighborhood climate change.[5]

Warming temperatures in the Arabian Sea have been on the radar for some time. Temps in that area have been rising by close to the world-wide average of .1˚C every decade.[6] (That average is about 40% faster than scientists recently thought.[7])

But it is not warming alone causing these shifts in cyclone behavior. The tropical waters around India, and in the Arabian Sea in particular, are already quite warm – in summer as high as 33˚C (91.4˚F) in some places.[8] Rather it is the combination of warmer waters – the perfect breeding grounds for tropical cyclones – and the gradient between temperatures near the ocean’s surface and air higher up in the atmosphere, that is changing the frequency and patterns.[9]

As the sea continues to warm, scientists predict, that gradient will be reduced, and the number of storms may eventually wane. Those that do occur, however, are likely to be whoppers.[10]

This is no longer theoretical, by the way. Cyclones are well understood and have been for some time. But the forensics involved in climate change’s impact on weather events – known as ‘climate change attribution’ – is still evolving. However, it has already come so far that, as we wrote in April, “experts can now sit in courtrooms just as DNA experts do, and say with “increasing statistical certainty,” that X event was increased in likelihood and severity by anthropogenic climate change.”[11] 

A new method using satellite data is adding certainty to the field, as detailed in a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study. “The analysis, of satellite images dating to 1979, shows that warming has increased the likelihood of a hurricane developing into a major one of Category 3 or higher, with sustained winds greater than 110 miles an hour, by about 8 percent a decade.”[12] (Eight percent each decade? That means by mid-century… holy smokes!)

Indeed, headlines such as “Cyclone Nisarga is Brought to You by Climate Change,”[15] are becoming more frequent as climate change attribution becomes more robust.

Okay, so the evidence is pretty strong, but so what?

Well, for one thing, Mumbai is home to more than 20 million people – about two-and-a-half times the size of New York City[13] – with millions more in the major cities along 4,600+ miles (7,500+ km) of mainland coastline.[14] Add in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Oman, Yemen, the Maldives and… let’s just say increased incidence and severity of tropical cyclones in some of the poorest and lowest-lying nations on Earth will likely lead to serious humanitarian crises.

And hurricanes and typhoons going where they have rarely gone before means those areas now need to prepare for major disasters they could safely ignore in the past. New Jersey and New York, particularly Staten Island, were unprepared for the fury of a superstorm like Sandy coming that far up the coast, and the damage was enormous, some $70 billion in addition to the human toll, as a result of a storm that had the largest diameter in history for an Atlantic storm: 900 miles (1448 km).[16]

As we’ll note in an upcoming story, The Advance of Managed Retreat, from expected sea-level rise alone, “the number of people who will be forced to move is likely in the hundreds of millions…”[17] Larger, more frequent, more damaging cyclones will likely increase both that number and the distance inland required for safety. 

And of course, as we detailed in Blame: The Worm Will Turn in 2020,[18] someone is going to have to pay for all this. Insurance companies are becoming less and less inclined to insure anything at risk from climate change, particularly the huge reinsurers who underwrite the rest.

So, who will be targeted now that we know, and can prove, what is driving this? Many sights will be turned towards already beleaguered oil and coal companies, other major polluters, auto manufacturers and more, and courts have begun weighing the merits of such cases, especially internationally.

By a razor-thin margin, Mumbai’s record of avoiding cyclones stands unblemished. Given the trends however, that city – and many other places previously thought immune – might do well to begin battening down the hatches. It’s not likely that record will stand very long.

References:
[1] YourArticleLibrary.com, Tropical Cyclones in India: Notes on Tropical Cyclones in India
[2]Wikipedia, 2019 North Indian Ocean Cyclone Season
[3] MSN News: India Today, Nisarga, an Exception: Why Mumbai Does Not Get Cyclones, June 3, 2020
[4] India Today, Cyclone Nisarga is Brought to You by Climate Change, June 2, 2020
[5] India Climate Dialogue, Climate Change Will Cause More Cyclones in Arabian Sea, Dec 2017
[6] The National: UAE, Arabian Gulf in Hot Water as Sea Temperatures are Rising Faster Than Expected, Jan 2019
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] Australian Climate Council, Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change: Fact Sheet
[10] Ibid
[11] Valutus Sustainability R.O.I., Climate Forensics and Attribution Have Arrived, April 2020
[12] The New York Times, Climate Change is Making Hurricanes Stronger, Researchers Find, May 18, 2020
[13] India Today, June 2, 2020
[14] Wikipedia, New York City, 2019
[15] WorldListMania, List of Coastal Cities in India
[16] Wikipedia, Hurricane Sandy
[17] John Carey, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Core Concept: Managed Retreat increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[18] Valutus, Blame: The Worm Will Turn in 2020,Feb 2020

Some moments are so terrible and so clear that they spur change and demand action. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of officers of the Minneapolis Police Department is one of those moments.

Millions have already sent a clear message, through their words and by protesting: Black Lives Matter. And they’re absolutely right.

Beyond the protests, many Americans are telling pollsters that they have changed their understanding of who we are as a country. In 2017, 57% of Americans had an unfavorable view of Black Lives Matter. Now, 53% support it. Now, a majority of Americans (57%) say that police officers facing a tough situation are more likely to use excessive force if the culprit is black, while in 2016 only 34% said so.

That’s a good shift, and long overdue. But it’s only the beginning. Now comes taking action, as workers, companies, and citizens, to bring our reality into line with who we want to be. Now comes the hard work of change.

At Valutus, our work has always been deeply personal, rooted in what matters to us. That’s why we focus on values as well as value,[1] and on the connection between them – for example, the connections between structural racism and economic opportunity and the fact that environmental harms hit Black Americans harder here in the US in addition to being harder on the most vulnerable elsewhere.[2]

Because of the importance of living our values, these times have spurred us to do some self-examination and to look harder at our place in addressing racism. We know we don’t have all the answers, so we’re doing more listening, seeking to understand how we can help make America and the world more just. We’re also looking for ways we can help amplify Black voices so they reach more people. And we’re examining what we do to see how we can be more effective catalysts for change, in our work and in our personal lives.

We believe combating inequality is an essential part of creating a sustainable future.[3] There are practical reasons for this – for example, we know that equality makes societies more willing to preserve the natural world, and we understand that we need to inspire everyone to pull together, and only a more just world will do that.

At a deeper level, though, justice and equity are simply fundamental values, part of the definition of the world we want. And we need to bring them to life through action.

References:
[1] In fact, we chose the name Valutus because it is the Latin root of both “value” and “values”
[2] The New York Times, Read Up on the Links Between Racism and the Environment, June 5, 2020
[3] The New York Times, Black Environmentalists Talk About Climate and Anti-Racism, June 3, 2020

Here We Are

“We are not fully prepared for the next global pandemic,” Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said in 2018. “The threat of the unknown pathogen – highly-contagious, lethal, fast-moving – is real. It could be a mutated flu strain or something else entirely.”[1]

And here we are.

Hubris

Why didn’t Gates’s prophetic warning (which he also featured in his 2015 TED talk[2]) take hold more broadly? One reason is hubris – in this case, the presumption that humans control nature and not the other way around.

But, as COVID-19 has brought into stark relief, the global economy is, undoubtedly, a subsidiary of the environment.[3] One tiny change, a wee mutation in a virus, and boom! The planetary economic system goes into shock.

Local Versus Global

This has always been true locally, to be sure. A hurricane sweeps in and devastates an island nation, batters a coastal mainland, or floods major cities, and life in that area is dramatically altered. But insurers pay out, and governments draw from disaster funds to stabilize the area, and things slowly return to normal.

Can this system hold when the disasters are prolonged and systemic, rather than brief and local? As we’re discovering, the answer is no.

Belated Awareness

A third of humanity lives along, works along, builds along, farms and fishes along the 372,000 miles (620,000 kilometers) of global coastline.[4] Both insurers and governments are beginning to question the wisdom of coastal settlement in vulnerable areas, and are looking askance at continuous rebuilding efforts. The entire system is built around insurance mitigating the consequences of disasters, but now those insurers are starting to see the entire carbon-based system as risky.

Investors and reinsurers are withdrawing support from climate-change agents such as Big Carbon. Credit agencies have begun considering climate when evaluating big corporations and cities – for example, Moody’s downgraded Cape Town’s credit rating after their water emergency and did the same to Trinity Public Utilities District in California after the wildfires of 2019.[5]

Bankrupting the Environment

The current pandemic is putting the scaffolds we have built our society around – carbon, credit, insurance, globalization, unlimited air travel and, especially, free-and-lightly-regulated markets – into stark relief. Our current approaches have bankrupted the environment, in other words, to the point where it is clearly threatening the global economic system. 

There’s some scientific sentiment that this bankruptcy – specifically, bringing animals in close contact with dense populations through habitat loss – creates the conditions for diseases crossing to humans.[6] “When we erode biodiversity, we see a proliferation of the species most likely to transmit new diseases to us,” Bard College biologist Felicia Keesing told Ensia.[7]

Climate and Pathogens

Another potential danger is that higher global temperatures may be selecting for disease agents that can survive in hotter conditions, neutralizing one of our bodies’ most effective immune responses: fever.

“As pathogens are exposed to gradually warmer temperatures in the natural world, they become better equipped to survive the high temperature inside the human body,” noted Time in February.[8] “The pathogens that survive – and reproduce – are better adapted to higher temperatures, including those in our bodies.”

Another potential impact of warming is that diseases usually confined to the tropics – malaria, dengue, Chagas disease, etc. – may become more widespread in temperate zones.[9]

In other words, a bankrupt nature doesn’t affect us through high water levels and more frequent devastating weather events alone. It can also unleash new pathogens and broaden the range and duration of both current and novel diseases.

Beyond the Immediate

Successful responses to COVID-19 are strongly making the case for community and global cooperation, with decisive action and public support helping contain the virus faster. It is a relief to see that we as a species are indeed capable of making a hard turn and changing course.

While we never wanted this, the course changes do show what is possible. In New York City, carbon monoxide was reduced by half, while NO₂ and CO₂ levels also fell dramatically.[10] China’s atmospheric carbon dropped “by around 200 million tons in February…roughly half as much CO₂ as Britain releases in a year.”[11] A bottlenose dolphin or two have been reported off Cagliari, and the Venetian canals are running clear and hosting swans, all rare sightings in the past.[12]

While these changes are beneficial, the pandemic that caused them is not. We need to find a way to recapture the declines in pollution and emissions that doesn’t depend on disease and suffering.

Not So Remote

As others have noted, our response to COVID-19 makes clear that the world can work remotely more than we currently do. “In a recent webinar snap poll, 91% of attending HR leaders (all in Asia/Pacific) indicated that they have implemented ‘work from home’ arrangements since the outbreak,” notes Gartner,[13] predicting that by “2030, the demand for remote work will increase by 30%.” The virus will probably drive that number up permanently and, if so, there will likely be a significant carbon savings globally.

That said, there are three things in particular we must remember.

First, as of now, this is a temporary stay rather than a pardon. For example, there is already evidence that China’s air pollution levels are ramping back up.[14]

Second, we’ve paid a steep price for what we’ve done to make diseases like COVID-19 more likely, for our lack of adequate preparation for them, and for the illusion we could separate our economy and our ecology. We’d all be guilty of dereliction of duty if we don’t learn from the mistakes we paid so dearly to discover.

Third, humans are social creatures, and our biology does not – cannot – evolve at the same rate as our technology.[15] As a result, when the crisis has passed there will be some changes but we will mostly go back to the way we socialized before – in person. That means we need to continue rapidly decarbonizing travel, work, and the economy.

When It’s for All the Marbles

The response to this crisis makes it clear that countries, sufficiently motivated, can make powerful decisions, mobilize their forces, and unleash the full range of human knowledge and expertise to solve problems. It also shows how hollow are the bleatings of those who claim the cost of sustainability is too high. To fight this emergency, trillions of dollars are on the table – in the United States alone – for business, social, and medical assistance.

The trick that has – so far – eluded us is convincing lawmakers and citizens that the climate emergency rivals that of this pandemic. Unfortunately, they both have this in common: “if you wait until you can see the impact, it is too late to stop it.”[16]

The Highest Stakes

The COVID-19 virus has shown how high the stakes are and how we must respond. Our economies, and our ultimate welfare, are wholly owned subsidiaries of our environment. We must nurse it out of bankruptcy, for all our sakes.

REFERENCES
[1] Yahoo Finance, Bill Gates: ‘My Biggest Fears About What’s Coming Next for this World,’ Sept 2018
[2] Bill Gates: “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready”
[3] This quote, often attributed to Herman Daly, has also been attributed to Gaylord Nelson
[4] NASA, Living Ocean
[5] Inside Climate News, Climate Change Becomes an Issue for Ratings Agencies, Aug 5, 2019
[6] The Guardian, Tip of the Iceberg: Is Our Destruction of Nature Responsible for COVID-19? March 18, 2020
[7] Ensia, Destroyed Habitat Creates the Perfect Conditions for Coronavirus to Emerge, March 18, 2020
[8] Time, The Wuhan Coronavirus, Climate Change, and Future Epidemics, Feb 6, 2020
[9] Scientific American, What Could Warming Mean for Pathogens Like Coronavirus? March 9, 2020
[10] BBC News, Coronavirus: Air Pollution and CO2 Fall Rapidly as Virus Spreads, March 19, 2020
[11] Autoblog.com, China’s NO2 Emissions Rising as Country Recovers from Coronavirus Lockdown, March 20, 2020
[12] Esquire Middle East, Covid-19 Upside? Dolphins Return to Italy and Clear Venice Canals as Humans Self-isolate, March 18,2020
[13] Gartner, With Coronavirus in Mind, is Your Organization Ready for Remote Work? March 3, 2020
[14] Bloomberg Green, Satellite Pollution Data Shows China is Getting Back to Work, March 2020
[15] In fact, while we need physical distancing to contain COVID-19, social closeness is important to our health, happiness, and productivity, as we discuss in a separate article
[16] Yale Environment360, Coronavirus Holds Key Lessons on How to Fight Climate Change, March 23, 2020

‘Close’ is, famously, only good in horseshoes. Trite, perhaps, but pithy. It has the benefit of age and the perfect touch of scorn.

It is also quite wrong.

Okay, full disclosure, I’ve never even gotten close in horseshoes. But I’ve done enough valuation to know that hitting close to the mark on the right target – to paraphrase the late mathematician John Tukey – is better than a bullseye on the wrong one. More precisely he said, “It’s better to solve the right problem approximately than to solve the wrong problem exactly.”

On my first trip to Thailand, I had to get to a meeting in Bangkok with no knowledge of the city or its streets.

Now these days there are many ways to find an address, even in a foreign land. Still, it’s always wise to be prepared, so before I left the hotel I printed the directions – what passes for the ‘old fashioned’ method in these days of electrons – and tucked them in my pocket.

Then, throwing my cautious approach to the warm Thai winds, I put the street name and number of my destination in the ride-share app – the thoroughly modern and incredibly precise way to get a ride to exactly where you want to go.

Naturally, I wound up on the other side of Bangkok, miles from my appointed spot. I had been taken, very precisely and exactly, to the right street name and number, but in the wrong place.

I learned then that Bangkok isn’t organized like Milwaukee or New York and, not knowing what I didn’t know, I had asked the wrong question and gotten a very correct but useless answer.

In Thailand – or in Bangkok at least – it seems there are many streets that share the same name, in different districts in various parts of the city. I had entered the wrong one in the ride-share app and that was that.

To get back, I remembered my printed instructions and simply handed them to the driver. They are far more general – they don’t account for shortcuts, police actions, accidents on the road, traffic, or any of the other up-to-the-minute perks we now take for granted.

But they did give the driver an idea which section of the city we were going to and which of the several roads with that name was the one in question. Eventually, quite late, I arrived near my meeting – not as precisely or with as much specificity… but I made it!

I had the power to call up the global coordinates, to call the restaurant and have them warp me in, even to simply give the driver my printed directions which would have gotten me close enough and, just as importantly, not have taken me almost to the Cambodian border. With electronics in my pocket that could tuck the Library at Alexandria into a tiny corner of a silicon chip, I still got the wrong answer.

A similar thing happened in Tokyo, where the street numbers can be based on the order in which the buildings are built rather than simply numbered in physical sequence. This time, however, when my driver got us close, he stopped the car and said, “I’m not sure exactly where this building number is but it’s close. Why don’t you walk up the street and ask the locals?”

To bring this around to business, it happens all the time when I’m in a meeting with top executives at a big corporation and they’re scrutinizing my numbers. I’m showing them that an awesome sustainability project they’ve been contemplating would bring in far more value than they had thought – in some cases wildly more.

There’s a pause and then someone says, well, look, I don’t know if that’s the right number?

And I’ll say, okay, got it. But this is an important source of submerged value and it really matters. If we don’t include it we are, in essence, giving it a value of zero. Better to have an approximate number for something that matters than to have it appear worthless.

So the wrong question in this scenario is not is this number exactly correct? The right question is, does the thing in question really matter? One way I like to frame this is: it’s not about the number, it’s about the decision.

Now this is especially critical when dealing with values-based value. Values – such as trust, leaving things better than we found them, helping others, etc. – are intangibles and often seem impossible to place a specific value upon.

It is possible though, and my forthcoming book The Value of Values is based on two key premises: first, that the impact of integrating values into the cellular structure of a business can be measured, and second, that the positive value created by doing so can be very, very large.

Let’s imagine the approximate value we get is substantially in the black. We don’t know to the decimal what the value will be but that is surely enough to work with.

Or let’s say we’re performing valuation on the impact of an outreach program, a charitable giving regime, or support for a health initiative in Africa, and we find significant value. Not exact value, but significant. That again makes the decision an easy one.

On the other hand, if a company asks how much will it cost us? that is an answer likely to have an exact answer, but it’s the wrong question, if there is significantly more value in going forward.

So I learned long ago to hedge my directional bets when travelling in Asia. But I also learned that getting close is not only valuable in horseshoes.

In a world where many live in scarcity, one commodity is always in full supply. And, while there’s always plenty of blame to go around, we expect environmental blame to be in overdrive before 2020’s in the books.

The effects of climate change are becoming too frequent, too severe, too onerous a financial burden to many large and powerful institutions, for denial to be maintained. 

The next ‘thousand-year-flood’ doesn’t care if it carries off the home of a climate denier or an environmentalist, and when the truth finally becomes personal, anticipate deniers howling for relief along with everyone else — and looking for someone to blame. 

They may not find such a receptive audience, however. As Fortune succinctly framed it, “for the insurance industry, global warming has advanced from a future ecological challenge to a present financial shock.”

Reinsurance company Munich Re called 2017-18 the worst two-year period for natural catastrophes on record, with insured losses of $225bn.[1]

The largest reinsurer in the world, Swiss Re, has taken in twice as much in premiums for disasters at it has paid out in claims over the past twenty years. Not bad, not bad at all. However, “for the past two years, Swiss Re has had to pay out vastly more for large natural catastrophes, those over $20 million apiece, than its models anticipated for an average year’s loss. In 2017, Swiss Re expected to incur $1.18 billion in large “nat-cat” losses, based on actuarial averages, but racked up a bill of $3.65 billion.” In 2019 hurricanes once again blew their projections out of the water – rain and floodwater in this case.[2]

So insurers at least, have no doubts whatsoever about climate change. Their prime question is, how do we protect ourselves? They are, after all, masters of managing financial risk. So, what are their plans?

For one, as Fortune notes, some are pulling back from insuring carbon-dependent industries such as coal. In our last issue we noted that there were two tipping points: one for climate change, the other for the movement working to preserve our world as it was. We did not, however, consider adding ‘lack of insurance for carbon polluters’ to the scales. Hmmm.

One reason such companies are easing back from insuring Big Carbon? As Fortune continues, 

“In January, the CRO Forum, a Netherlands-based organization of chief risk officers of big insurers, warned of new sorts of climate-related claims that may confront insurers. Among them: hefty bills from corporations they insure against lawsuits. At this point, legal action charging that big carbon emitters contributed to climate change or failed to react sufficiently to it is just beginning to emerge. But, as the insurance group noted ominously, the science of pinning climate blame on corporate polluters “is developing fast.” (Emphasis ours. -Ed.)

The oil industry, for example, whose documents prove they knew decades ago the effects their products were having on climate, may be in for a beating. We believe it will be in motion by late 2020. 

We also anticipate that politicians and individuals alike who denied climate science right up until it smacked them in the head, will zero in on Big Carbon polluters. Rending of garments and anguished cries of, “They knew but they didn’t tell us!” might be heard in committee hearings and courtrooms everywhere. 

The courts, too, will be busy assigning blame in their black-and-white fashion, and their decisions could have consequences far beyond any one decision. As we’ve seen above, insurers and investors are mighty touchy about backing or underwriting industries taking a pasting in the courts.

For those considering the current state of the U.S. judiciary, we suggest that such decisions are just as likely to happen outside the U.S. – and even from other jurisdictions, they can still affect multinational companies, including those based in the U.S.

References
[1]Financial Times, Sept 9, 2019, Why Climate Change is the New 911 for Insurance Companies
[2]Fortune, Oct 24, 2019

It’s 10am, you and I are at the office in Milwaukee, when we’re suddenly called to an urgent client meeting… in Gary, Indiana at two. Rats! We had lunch plans at that cool taco stand.

Gary is 120 miles away and , if we leave at eleven, we can cruise the scenic route at 40 mph with plenty of cushion. Unwisely, I stop to check with Bill about those reports and, poof! There goes fifty minutes.

Now it’s noon and we must average 60 mph to make it on time. You’re checking your watch but relax. If traffic’s okay, we’ll get there fine.

Except I left my bag and phone upstairs. Now it’s 12:30 but don’t worry, we can still make it at 80 mph, a dime over the limit. And that’s when the CEO buttonholes me at the elevator.

Now it’s one o’clock and you’re banging the elevator buttons. My new hybrid would have to average 120 mph just to give us a fighting chance. Not going to happen… it’s not a hybrid Ferrari!

The moral of this fable: if you wait longer, you will have to go faster and may run into the organizational equivalent of getting pulled over for speeding. There will be less leeway for problems or roadblocks, no flexibility, more resources needed, and less time to pivot. And that brings us to Science Based Targets (SBTs).

As we wrote in January, more and more companies have committed to a science-based target (SBT) – 805 as of this writing – and that’s a good thing. However, as we also noted, that means hundreds of thousands of companies in the U.S. alone have not yet done so.

Moreover, of those forward-looking companies, only 332 have actually set a target and had it approved. We’re not sure what the other 473 are waiting for, but we do know there’s a cost for such dragging of feet and that, the longer they wait, the higher that cost will be.

In fact, we’ve developed a tool specifically to help companies select science-based targets, and to plan for their achievement. Our Science Based Target Tool calculates, among other things, the percentage of annual reduction – of water, carbon, energy, etc. – that will be needed based on the timeline set for completion.

Let’s say your company decides to reduce carbon emissions by 50% beginning this year, with a plan to achieve it by 2030 – the outside limit for holding the line on climate according to the IPCC.

Great! Good call, and if you indeed start right away, you’ll have a full decade to reach your target and your Required Annual Reduction (RAR) will be a manageable 6.7% each year for the next ten years.

But wait a year to get going and that number goes up to 7.4%

Say you are overtaken by events and the carbon can is kicked two years down the road to 2022, what then? Turns out your required RAR has risen almost a full point and is now 8.3%.

Yet a third year of foot-dragging raises it to 9.4% and a full four years on it’s become a huge challenge, with a necessary reduction to reach your target of 10.9% annually.

As for the client meeting? Never got there. We were pulled over for speeding a mile out of Pleasant Prairie.

But hey, there’s a taco place just outside Waukegan and by now, some enchiladas and a Margarita would go down nicely!