We have enough problems…

If you haven’t heard of Larry Fink from BlackRock, he’s a guy in the US who writes an annual “Letter to CEOs” that’s become a bit of a holy grail for what the market at-large could look like each year (read the 2022 newsletter here).

It’s mostly about investing, and how CEOs of those companies need to keep up with the times.

In the 2022 letter that dropped recently, he spells out a point I haven’t seen said quite so bluntly.

Directly from his letter (bold mine):

In a few short years, we have all watched innovators reimagine the auto industry.

And today, every car manufacturer is racing toward an electric future.

The auto industry, however, is merely on the leading edge – every sector will be transformed by new, sustainable technology.

Engineers and scientists are working around the clock on how to decarbonize cement, steel, and plastics; shipping, trucking, and aviation; agriculture, energy, and construction.

I believe the decarbonizing of the global economy is going to create the greatest investment opportunity of our lifetime.

It will also leave behind the companies that don’t adapt, regardless of what industry they are in.

The decarbonising he’s talking about, is the target of reducing carbon emissions to zero by 2050 – which is a long way away, but also not all that far away – so a lot of innovation is happening already, and there will be a lot more.

He also mentions elsewhere in his letter that in the lead-up to 2050, more startups will come along and disrupt markets, some existing companies will change tact and become the disruptors themselves, and the ones failing to keep up will become, in his words, dodos.

It’s hard to know exactly what’s going to happen, but it’s all very hard to ignore.

We’re at a point where the standards for business are being re-written – It’s not just about outright profit anymore. Businesses are really being pushed into thinking about the impact their practices could have many years from today.

This stuff is pretty scary.

Personally though, I’m constantly encouraged by the innovations that are just around the corner, the solutions that already exist, and the opportunities that lay ahead for us to grab if we want them. The 20’s will be a pivotal decade.

As I write this, I think about my friends and people I care about who have run businesses all their lives. They could be the dodos. There are a lot of people who don’t have “climate” on their radars, probably because it sits somewhere between being too big a problem to think about, and my-business-has-enough-problems-without-adding-a-30-year-target-to-them.

It’s not my intention to create fear around this – but if reading any part of this stirs up some form of fear for you, I’d like to invite you to chat about it.

I’ll be holding an open discussion about the opportunities around climate for our businesses in the coming weeks – if you’d like to hear more about this, feel free to register your interest here. This isn’t an RSVP – you’re merely letting me know you’re interested in knowing more about it, which at most will result in a few extra emails.

Questions? Just reply and I’ll get back to you.