It seems one of the biggest global climate events of the year, Climate Week NYC in New York last week, turned into a bit of a joke.
The big headline on the event website read “Uniting the world on climate action“.
All the reports since the end of the event (and the tweets during) said it was more like a high budget, corporate greenwashing jamboree.
While the headline included a word I love seeing in this space – “action” – it seems the general tone was of cover-ups. Corporations on stage, like Shell (ha!) talking about what they’re doing to be just a little bit less bad (a quick reminder that Shell spends billions of dollars each year on advertising trying to paint itself as a renewable, forward-thinking corporation, when only about 2% of it’s operations are renewable, the rest is oil and other fossil fuels).
Shows that people on stage talking about nice things, simply doesn’t change what they go back and do while sitting at their desks.
Don’t be like Shell.
Build your climate policy on what you’re doing as well as what you’re not yet doing.
It’s ok if right now, only 2% of your operations are clean… talk about the 98% you’re working on – that’s where the real buy-in and loyalty happens.
For self-employed creatives, normal business traps are easy to fall into and overcomplicate things - but they’re totally avoidable when flying solo.
Learn how to keep things simple, enjoyable, and climate-smart in around 2 minutes a day by joining The Climate Soloist.