ESG Transformation - making it work and be impactful

“Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist — someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations.”

― Peter Senge

Is ESG going to significantly impact #the-necessary-transformation or is it just #follow-the-herd reflex?

The story of Tariq Fancy is an example of what happens when one tries to start a transformation from a wrong starting point - from the frozen middle of beneficiaries of the current status quo... 

One player of a bigger game cannot simply start playing by some other rules of the game than the rest of the players during the game - all players need to start a new game based on the new set of goals and principles, and on a different pitch too. 

The necessary transformation needs to start from redefining the rules of the game on a deeper level. In my Good Companies book I advocate for the rules of the game to be derived from a meaning making system. We need to start from Humanity Purpose, and only then redefine the Societal Meaning of Business, and only then deriving the New Mental Model of the Economy, and only then we can expect different behaviours of companies.

Please find the reference to the original material @medium.com here:

The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor’ — Part 1

By Tariq Fancy
August 2021

Kate Raworth - economy designed to thrive not to grow! TED talk

I am apparently a few years after the pioneers, still trying to catch up, even with the whole research I did for the Good Companies book... :) And it still feels good that my ideas are genuine so that I can contribute them to the world! What a year that was - the Pinker's book and Raworth's book published!

Here goes the summary of Kate Raworth TED talk.

• It is time to reimagine the shape of the progress curve - do we need economies that grow, whether or not they make us thrive?
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) invented in 1930s and very soon became the overriding goals of policymaking
• Governments still think that the solution to their economic problems lies in more growth
• W.W. Rostow,  The Stages of Economic Growth, 1960 book installs the believe that growth is necessary for something beyond than itself, like national dignity or better life for children
• Roster left us flying into the sunset of mass consumerism. Yet the plane can never land. He knew this, and left us with the unanswered question:

What to do when the increase in real income itself loses its charm?

• We are financially, politically and societally addicted to unending growth, through ROI in business, GDP in politics, and a century of consumerism propaganda in societal dimension, respectively.
• GDP is 10x biger than it was in 1950s, brought prosperity to billions of people. Yet economy became devisive - 1% rich problem, degenerative - destabilizing this delicately balanced planet on which all our lives depend, 
• Politicians offer new destinations of growth, yet

    I think it's time to choose a higher ambition, a far bigger one: to meet the needs of all people within the means of this extraordinary, unique, living planet so that we and the rest of nature can thrive.

• No economist from the recent century saw this picture (of the current state), so why would we imagine that their theories would be up for taking up its challenges? We need ideas of our own because we are the first generation to see this, and probably the last with a real chance of turning this story around.
• The new economy must be regenerative by design and distributive by design. 
• We intuitively understand that when something tries to grow forever within a healthy, living, thriving system, it's a threat to the health of the whole. So why would we imagine that our economies could be one system that can buck this trend and succeed by growing forever?
• We need to overcome the structural dependency on growth so we can instead focus on thriving and balance
• It is boundaries that unleash our potential

The front-runners: We are not slaves of GDP - TED Talk of Michael Green

Another building block to raising awareness of sustainability and civilizational debt we have been creating - Michael Green's TED Talk back from 2015, just after the United Nations announced their Global Goals by 2030. 

I encourage you to watch the whole talk, let me just quote the breakthrough observation:

Social Progress Index representing the UN Global Goals by 2030 cumulatively can grow unrelated to growth of GDP per capita.

There are countries that prove it is possible to get lot's of social progress even if your GDP is not so great. 

(...)

Costa Rica has prioritized education, health and environmental sustainability and as a result it's achieving a very high level of social progress, despite only having a rather modest GDP.

(...)

And that's really important because it tells us two things:

First of all it tells us that we alreay in the world have solutions to many of the problems that the Global Goals are trying to solve. It also tells us that we are not slaves to GDP. Our choices matter. If we prioritize the wellbeing of people than we can achieve a lot more progress that our GDP might expect.