Rethinking how we think about business... Trudi Bishop Bee Licensing trudi@beelicensing.com
... being ‘more good’ not ‘less bad’ 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of the 2015 Paris Agreement when the 17 Sustainable Development Goals were created and agreed to work toward by a record number of global nations. Yet five years in we are failing at almost all of them. There have been lots of promises but very little true action by governments and businesses around the world. The target was to keep the earth within 1.5°C global temperature warming by 2030. It’s almost 2021 and we already sit at an average temperature rise of 1°C. If the earth was a business and failing so spectacularly on these targets, heads would roll. But it’s not.We continue to treat our natural resources with such a level of contempt we are literally killing ourselves (or at least future generations). The earth will survive the climate crisis, but humanity will not. It really is time to act – but not with incremental change – we need transformative, systematic change. What’s the effect from this temperature rise? To name but a few; ice caps melting, warming oceans, more extreme weather, increased intensity of storms, more frequent flooding, more risk of diseases (such as Covid19), food and water shortages, extensive loss of biodiversity critical for the balance of the planet and all living beings, negative effects on our economies.
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What’s the potential effect on business? The poorest are usually the first and worst hit by the increases in disasters and disease. This vulnerable group of people are also often those who work in our factories on low wages, producing the goods to satisfy our insatiable appetite for “stuff”. If your workforce can’t get to work (or have been wiped out) because their home or your factory has been washed away in a storm surge or hurricane or they are struck down by a global pandemic, business becomes challenging to say the least. But that’s just the start. Increases in intense storms affect shipping too and therefore the delivery of raw materials and goods around the globe. Increased risk means increased insurance premiums. Business suffers at all levels. When the bottom line is affected, CEO’s and shareholders tend to sit up and take notice. But it is the short term, continual growth, maximum
“The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.” Albert Einstein profit for little cost that is costing our life on this planet. It is time to change our thinking. We run our businesses very much in the now or the very short-term future. The licensing industry is no different. A multi-billion-dollar industry driven on maximising profit at every turn – we encourage over consumption to drive continual growth looking at new ways to slice the pie. Black Friday sales, (started by Amazon) the ultimate over
