As a business leader, there are many reasons why you might want to have more than a passing knowledge of climate change in general and carbon emissions in particular.
On the surface, the answer to why, as a leader in your business, you should be educated on carbon emissions is obvious – as with any topic, being educated to the right degree makes life a lot easier: once you understand some fundamental principles, how different concepts interrelate and affect each other, and why certain things are so, it becomes much easier to appreciate cause and effect, to understand why, and to make informed decisions instead of shooting in the dark.
In global terms, it means you can talk to peers, your team and wider colleagues with some confidence about the big picture, appreciating as you do, why climate change is happening and which of our activities are contributing to it. You would also appreciate the effects of excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the potential consequences and the imperative to act.
At a leadership level, you are sufficiently informed to discuss and make decisions about the risks and opportunities associated with climate change; to understand that they are both physical and transitional, and the need to prepare to respond to them in a consider rather than reactionary way.
At a management level, you can appreciate the various principles, approaches and techniques of carbon accounting, how to interpret your own and others' GHG inventory, and you know which emission sources you’re responsible for and which you need to engage with others to tackle.
And at a personal level, the right education will help you feel part of a wider global ecosystem and society, where each individual should play their part in order for the future to be just and safe for all.
But beyond all of these relatively obvious benefits of education on climate change and carbon, there is a further advantage that the well informed business leader has over the ignorant: that of providing the means with which to think what is often unthinkable in many businesses: considering how it might be possible to do things differently tomorrow to the way they were done yesterday.
Of course, businesses go through change all the time - we've all heard the old adage “the only constant is change”. And it's true. Even if the change isn't generated internally, there are a multitude of externalities that are changing the landscape no matter what business you're in, so change is both constant and inevitable.
If we can accept that's true (and the evidence is everywhere), then you have a choice: you can be passive and let the change happen to your business or you can take control by looking for the opportunity.
This may seem a little abstract, so let’s root it in something more tangible.
Many organisations have already signed up to a Net Zero target – typically by somewhere between 2030 and 2050, and many more are considering it. The truth is that few of them have really grasped what it really means: they've yet to educate themselves on the fundamental ways in which reducing their emissions by 90 – 95% (i.e. what’s required to achieve Net Zero Carbon according to the Science-Based Target initiative) will impact the way they do just about everything.
Few have considered what reducing emissions from heating and lighting their buildings by 90% means. Or how they can reduce the energy consumption of their manufacturing processes significantly and source what energy they do need from 100% renewable sources. Few have explored the impact on their supply chain to find materials and their producers who can support their decarbonisation efforts. Or how the products and services they provide can incur 90% less emissions during their use and at the end of their lives.
Net Zero Carbon means a fundamental rethink of how a business is organised, how it operates and the services and products it provides. An exercise that is clearly far-reaching and almost certainly complex. Attempting to do that from a place of ignorance will be very hard, if not impossible, so education is an essential pre-requisite to developing and acting on plans to achieve Net Zero.
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