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1 July: Melting Artic. BLM. Helping the poor.

Posted on July 15, 2020 Leave a Comment

Last week witnessed the hottest temperature ever recorded in north-of-the-Artic-circle Verkhoyansk, Russia. Polar heatwaves are very bad news. They accelerate global warming. Melting sea ice gives way to dark water that absorbs more heat. Melting permafrost releases huge amount of ice-trapped greenhouse gases while damaging all man-made infrastructure. These changes are often irreversible.
 
It has been hard to choose from what I read and listened to on Black Lives Matter. Feel free to share with me what you have found the most helpful and educational. I need it. I would suggest taking the time to listen to Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 podcast series: it is personal, it has good soundtrack, it provides a whole alternative narrative on how slavery shaped the American economy and how black people’s struggles and fights paved the way for other minorities’ struggles and fights.
 
The Center for Global Development published their 2020 Commitment to Development Index which uses over 50 indicators to assess rich countries’ dedication to helping the poor. While the UAE features last in the list of 40 countries for the overall index, it is in the top-5 countries supporting health multilaterals – assessed through their relative aggregated contributions to WHO, GAVI and the Global Fund. 

My quote this week is from Psychiatrist Julie Holland [28’53’’]: “In medicine, un-checked growth is called cancer. And to me it’s pretty much the same in business: If it’s all about growth and profit you are missing public benefits.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: climate change, governance, growth, health, racism

15 June:Leaders walking the talk. Peace Index. And naming the problem.

Posted on June 15, 2020 Leave a Comment

The UN Global Compact turns 20 and opens its virtual forum today. One background document by executive search firm Russell Reynolds looks at “Leadership for the Decade of Action”. It recalls a 2019 UNGC/Accenture study showing that 92% of CEOs believe integrating sustainability is critical to business success but that only 48% are doing it. It points to a 2019 Russell Reynolds study analyzing 4000 role specifications across industries and countries showing that while 15% of them make reference to sustainability (up from 9% in 2015), only 4% actually have sustainability experience and mindset as a requirement for getting the job. These numbers tell us that there is a still work to do to walk the talk in the private sector. To complement these findings, Russell Reynolds conducted in-depth interviews with 55 CEOs and found that sustainability pioneers are 3 times more likely than the control group to have worked in two or more continents, are more than twice as likely to have had experience in two or more functions, and are more likely to have had experience in operations and supply chains.  It finally argues that all sustainability pioneers in business have a “sustainable mindset”. That means that they display the following leadership attributes: multilevel systems thinking, stakeholder inclusion, disruptive innovation, and long-term activation – a lot of catchy words thankfully unpacked and exemplified in the report.
 
Since the beginning of the crisis, hundreds of CEOs have announced that they would share the pain with their employees and take salary cuts. Financial Times Fan Fei and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson analyzed – for 554 companies – how these salary cuts compared with returns from equity awards CEOs would be receiving this year. They show that these awards would far exceed the “solidarity” salary cuts as stocks continue to recover. That’s also because salaries only make a small portion of the income CEOs take home. 
 
This graph is from the Institute for Economics and Peace’s ”Global Peace Index (GPI) 2020”. The index is made of 23 indicators and covers 99.7% of the world population. The report shows that global peacefulness has deteriorated 2.5% since 2008, calculates that the global violence price tag is $14.5 trillion dollars, says that COVID-19 adds more tension and uncertainty, and argues that civil unrest and environmental problems could further affect the situation in the future. The graph below shows the percentage changes for each GPI indicator from 2008 to 2020. 15 indicators have deteriorated. Two indicators significantly changed in opposite directions: UN peacekeeping funding improved while terrorism impact worsened.

My quote this week is from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the Daily Show [1’18’’]:  “Feminism is about justice for everyone but you have to name the problem. And the problem is that it is women who have been excluded. So, we need to call it what it is.” And Trevor Noah’s response: “In many ways that’s what people say about Black Lives Matter.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: business, leadership, peace, racism

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