Everyone Talks About Climate Change, No One Does Anything
As the old joke goes, everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. The same appears to be true about corporations. A new study from consultancy Accenture "surveyed more than 500 business leaders from China, Germany, India, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States" about climate change. Of those, 45 percent thought that change was "current a major business issue" for their companies. That number jumped to 59 percent when given up to five years for climate change to have an impact on their businesses. However, climate change isn't quite so high on strategic priorities:
Only 5 percent of survey respondents named climate change as their top strategic priority. In no region of the world did that number rise above 8 percent. Just 11 percent of businesses stated that climate change figures as their second or third strategic priority.Some of the additional findings are interesting. Although two-thirds of the respondents felt a responsibility to manage the impact of climate change, only 42 percent felt "well positioned" to do so. Maybe that has to do with the lack of nuanced understanding of the topic, or it could be the result of concern over shareholder displeasure. And then there are all the other things that executives have to do:
Competing strategic priorities mean that climate change may receive less attention than other business imperatives. Climate change ranked as only the eighth strategic priority for businesses, named by only 16 percent of respondents—lagging behind sales growth (47 percent), cost reduction (46 percent), developing new products and services (45 percent), the war for talent (39 percent), growth in emerging markets (29 percent), innovation (28 percent) and technology (18 percent).And then there is the triple threat of paying for new technology, trying to get employees and management to act differently, and managing the response to new regulations. In short, companies are highly sympathetic to the problems, but for various reasons cannot or will not make the issue a strategic priority. That suggests calls to let the private sector deal with climate change are effectively the same as suggesting that we all stick our heads in the sand.
Labels: climate change, regulation, strategy, study
Permalink posted by Erik Sherman at 5:35 AM
2 Comments:
Businesses have this crazy habit of wanting to stay in business. This fraud called manmade climate change would bankrupt many of these corporations.
I allowed this comment so I could specifically address the ignorant and foolish premises.
>> Businesses have this crazy habit of wanting to stay in business. <<
They often do - but not always. There are mangers that run businesses based on ego and personal greed, and not on the interests of the shareholders. The evidence that has come out of the rash of civil and criminal cases against higher-ups starting with Enron and coming down to the current situations clearly shows this. And if it didn't, anyone with any practical experience in business and management knows it.
>> This fraud called manmade climate change would bankrupt many of these corporations. <<
Let's break this into a couple of pieces. To call "manmade (sic) climate change" a fraud would mean solid evidence that over a hundred years worth of pumping pollutants into the atmosphere could have no impact on climate. Anyone with any grasp of history knows that material introduced by nature (ash from single volcanoes, for example) has in the past caused significant changes in weather patterns, albeit temporary. To say that all climate change is definitely caused by man is an extreme statement that could not necessarily be backed up. But then, neither could this statement.
And even if people are not causing climate change, there is ample evidence that there are massive changes going on. Any business that wants to ignore such conditions is burying its head in the sand, not "wanting to stay in business." Might as well say that the advent of the horseless carriage should not have caused buggy whip manufacturers to examining their entire business models.
Now, it may be that having businesses - and consumers, let's be fair - modify their activities might do nothing. Either people might not be the cause, or it might already be too late, the system called climate already making the irreversible shift into another state.
But even so, perhaps things could get even worse if human habits continue as they have. Or maybe some damage could be averted. In any case, to argue against this is to say that we should only take action when we know for a fact that we've had an impact, that is, after a disaster has occurred. Back to heads in the sand.
As for saying that taking positive action "would bankrupt many of these corporations," please, don't make me laugh. Companies do not fare well as businesses when everything is made smooth and easy. Years ago, when the clean air act came into existence, there were plenty of people bemoaning how all of business would go bankrupt because of those regulations.
What happened? Businesses got smarter, improved their practices, and made even more profit. Conservation saves money. Smarter manufacturing saves money. Wasting less saves money. Reducing energy consumption saves money. On the whole, I suspect that companies would, again, become more profitable. Why do so many people insist on treating business as feeble, incompetent, and incapable?
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