Age of The Chief Appeasement Officers

"I am a coward. I haven't any courage at all."

A consistent theme of conversations over the last couple of years in the weird world of the sustainability profession is the lamenting of who’s filling the top jobs. Heads of Sustainability, General Managers of ESG, Natural Capital Directors, on and on. I joke regularly that all it takes is a comment from someone with 20+ years of BAU business experience in the office that they went for a bushwalk on the weekend and they’re set for a high ranking sustainability role.

The qualification gap is real. I’d (rightly) be immediately dismissed applying for a financial risk job because I watched The Big Short. I read The Barefoot Investor a decade ago but that doesn’t mean I’ll get a senior corporate finance role. The qualification gap is maybe only a part of the malaise that infects non-action organisations. The larger and more problematic issue could well be the quality gap.

The qualities of the people that work in sustainability are many, but most often they boil down to a simple few - courageous, full of integrity, humble, curious and tenacious. Think of those whose books you loved and learnt from, and what does the author represent? Who’s a role model in the field you look up to and admire, and what are their traits? Reflect on you at your best in going about your own work and challenges, and what are the attributes you need for those efforts? The qualities of the sustainability professional differ significantly from the recently bushwalking <Insert Chief Sustainability Role Title>.

In an age of political turmoil we are seeing exactly why this quality gap matters. To stand firm and be vocal in what you believe and why you believe in it. To withstand delusional insanity and actually use the often vaunted ‘data-driven decisions’ frame. To remember the throwaway line ‘to do work that matters’ and make clear that discriminatory and simplistic headline-chasing snippets is the antonym of that effort. But we all know this character - The Cowardly Lion. And I suspect many out there lament the rise of The Cowardly Lion at a sustainability conference or headline role near you. We have entered An Age of Appeasement.

Head of Sustainability

A collective groan that climate disclosures are now mandatory can be heard. When was the last time you heard someone enthusiastically refer to their expanded reporting obligations that doesn’t work for a consulting or law firm? How often are investors directly offering feedback that the comprehensiveness of a sustainability disclosure affected anything to do with an investment decision? Have you ever managed to simultaneously report more and create more impact? Yet obedience follows. The Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) were launched in December 2015 when the parts per million (PPM) of carbon dioxide levels were 399.4. This week the atmospheric carbon PPM were at 425.4. More reporting isn’t the answer.

But where is the pushback? Where is the reality check? Why the obedience?

The traits of courage, integrity, humility, curiosity and tenacity are wasted in contexts and on tasks where obedience is expected and obligations must be complied with. All while The Cowardly Lion perceives progress. I have arrived. The Real Professionals are here now. I wonder if there’s a realisation that the existence of sustainability in organisational lexicons exists because the BAU is inherently not only unsustainable, but worse - dangerous, poisonous and unjust.

In a context defined by a couple of years of fear-based greenhushing and growing misintuition of greenwishing, the more recent blatant anti-science moves by conservative political groups and politicians plus the usual Murdoch nonsense here and abroad has many organisations rushing for their bunker. A nuclear plan dismissed at every stage by any sane analyst but best described by The Betoota Advocate. A hostage situation underway in US politics where fact, knowledge and rights have been ambushed by greedy, self-interested bullies.

It’s one thing for the insane to be delusional. It’s another for the sane to remain The Cowardly Lion. On the frontlines of holding a fort, where are the grandstanding media releases from pro-business and industry lobby groups that were prominent a couple of years ago in a ‘safer’ political climate? What happened to organisations addiction to the (muted) validation and platitudes they (hoped to) receive whenever they made a vague sustainability commitment?

Has the science changed? I guess a cyclone isn’t hitting the Queensland/NSW border at the moment. Perhaps the fires occurring in Japan in late winter are fictional too. I didn’t realise we could just choose whether those events are real.

The work of the sustainability professional involves risk. The contemptuous idea that a volatile climate outside the realm of anything humanity has ever experienced presents ‘opportunities’ is sickening. This is now about losing the least, not winning the most. Planetary boundaries are in the rear view mirror - but let’s financialise nature as a commodity to be bought and sold on a register like cattle or tobacco are or slaves were. The risks are in not acting, not speaking truth to power. Who have you been gravitating towards as nuclear energy lies are peddled here or Trump wrecks the lives of millions of Americans?

Gas Baron Roger Cook immediately apologised for calling JD Vance a knob. What’s the apology for? He clearly is one. Dutton proclaimed Trump to be a man with ‘big ideas’ before a measles outbreak erupted in the US where an anti-vaxxer was appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Quite the big idea. Albanese - The Ultimate Appeaser - has nothing to say in his endless attempt to be everyone’s pal. Where in the business community is leadership on anti discrimination language and actions? What about their reliance on actual science to determine and deliver their necessary actions to be net zero by whenever.

Where in the sustainability leadership community is truth being spoken to power? As always, it seems to be left to the activists we silently agree with. If your organisation’s sustainability program isn’t directly engaging with and responding to the context of anti-truth, aggressive political takeovers, or the threats to eradicate knowledge, then how can it expect to be meaningfully sustainable? A few less emissions through an energy audit. Another disclosure to go with the pile of reports already in the locked up stationary cupboard the company stopped buying stationary for as a cost saving initiative.

Someone I’ve learnt from afar is Dr Michael Gervais. A high performance psychologist who has worked and works with athletes and other performers in dangerous and consequential environments. Think Felix Baumgartner who skydived from the stratosphere, or Luke Aikens who jumped from 25,000 feet into a net without a parachute or wing suit. He speaks regularly about our tangled relationship to risk. I know personally how much fear consciously and unconsciously has and can drive my decisions. As a result I too can “play it safe, play it small. We (I) get busy as opposed to intentional.”

So I’m not immune to risk being a driver of my decisions or fear being a hidden reason for the decisions I make. I’d like to think I’ve improved in that area though. By knowing my fears - rational and irrational - I can now make more coherent decisions. Am I afraid of a changing climate, or The Cowardly Lion? That’s an easy one these days.

So where are the models of sustainability leaders that have both the qualifications and the qualities required to meet the challenge of this moment. Two spring to mind - J.P. Morgan and Fortescue (noting both turn up with a litany of controversies and imperfections). Two recent actions stand out though.

The first being J.P. Morgan’s Introduction to Climate Intuition. Ordinarily this would look like just another bank’s just another ‘thought leadership’ document. What makes this different is the author - Dr. Sarah Kapnick. Dr Kapnick prior to her role now at the bank as Global Head of Climate Advisory was Chief Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Quite the qualification. The document is clear - the climate crisis has arrived and while most of the scientific modelling results are predictable, the document makes clear that the reaction from societies in the face of a physically changed world are unknown. Expect volatility from a changed climate. Expect more volatility from a fearful and uncertain populace. Overlay unpredictable political responses and who knows how to price financial risk anymore…

Fortescue’s Andrew Forrest has been noisy on lots of topics - slavery, green hydrogen, anti-Meta (not so much First Nations rights and sovereignty). Their clarion call for US, Chinese and Indian leaders to sign a Green Armistice in September 2023 was complimented by the appointment of Dr Shanta Barley as their Chief Climate Scientist. Since then they’ve (loudly) maintained the necessity for real zero over net zero, and recently been vocal in their opposition to offsets as a legitimate climate action response.

The chinks on both organisation’s armour are easy to point out. Credit where it’s due though. They’ve hired extremely qualified people and both organisations are publishing on the unknown and actual risks their organisations face - unpredictable risk modelling scenarios for a bank and lethal humidity for a miner. That’s rare.

The people with the qualifications have the qualities. The qualities are grown and strengthened through the process of developing the qualifications. There is a virtuous cycle - the people who have the skills and strengths to lead through this period at all levels are the ones with the knowledge and mindsets that just about everything needs to change.

“If only I had the nerve” stated The Cowardly Lion.

Remember - you have the nerve.