Net Positive by Andrew Winston and Paul Polman

Let's get started. I know that, Paul, I think you approached Andrew about the thought of writing a book. Is that right? Because I want to know why now? Why did you— why last year? Why did you decide this was the time? And why together?

No, thanks, Louise, for doing this. And I wish I would have found out about the book club before. Client Earth is an amazing organization, by the way. and that James has built. And increasingly, I think we need to use the legal system and the courts as well, as you've seen in the Netherlands, as you've seen with Shell and many other places, to drive this agenda forward faster and drive this systems change. So it would have been a fascinating discussion. Also, I know John is there, and John has been always a great mentor. When he wrote his book, Cannibals with Forks, I actually was in Newcastle at that time. Oh. And it was by coincidence I had just moved to the UK and I went to Glasgow— no, to Edinburgh— because he was giving a talk. I had no idea who he was and what he was talking about. So then I end up in this bookstore in Edinburgh and I was looking for the book because I wanted to buy it. And I asked this man, you know, have you heard of John Elkington? And I'm looking for this book, Cannibals with Forks. And he says, I am John. So that's how we met, actually.

I didn't know that story. That's a great story. Yeah.

So, and since then I've been obviously following you guys and actually indirectly or directly, John has been a great mentor. And a lot of the things that he talks about in his book, Green Swan, or regenerative capitalism if you want to, is actually also where we, from a different angle perhaps, come towards. You know, I never wanted to write a book, to come to your question, because I've seen many CEOs writing books and I've said it many times also in my book, it's usually to stroke their ego or to rewrite history. And that wasn't really appealing to me. Plus, I felt with some modesty that everything I was applying in Unilever or tried to talk about is actually what I'd learned from others. There are so many books out there. So I had this little feeling, you know, what can we do and add value? Then in discussions with Adi and others, they said, you really have to put down from a business person, because there are a lot of consultants and academics out there, but you've had a lot of experience in what you've done. Can you actually lift that up and make more people privileged to that? And I've always had a respect for Andrew, his Big Pivot book, From Green to Gold. These are classics that we grew up on and that heavily influenced us. So I like his thinking, I like his writing style. So we went together and I hope we're still friends because this has been an intensive project. And so that really resulted in the book. And what we really wanted to do with the book was more not just write a book, but really start a movement. It's very clear, I don't have to tell this audience, that we're well exceeding the planetary boundaries, that we all have discovered that we can't have infinite growth on this finite planet, and anything we can do forever is by definition unsustainable. The damage we've done just in our small generation is just incredible. If you think of the world being here for 4.6 billion years and you put it on the scale of 46 years, You know, we've only been here actually as human beings less than 4 hours. Oh, yeah. And the Industrial Revolution only has been 1 minute and we've cut half the world's forests. And, you know, so inequality is another element of our growth system that doesn't quite make it beneficial to all of the world's population. So we felt that we needed to write a book where business has to step up, where we have to move our mindsets from CSR being less bad, which is still bad, but to thinking more regenerative, restorative, reparative. And that's really what the book is trying to do. We point out what some of the characteristics are of these companies that we can talk about later that are net positive. But more importantly, we don't really spend too much time anymore on the why. We very practically go into the how, talk about human transformation, organizational transformations to get to systems transformation. And then the need to be consistent. You know, we don't shy away from the tougher calls in our book on how to deal with corruption, tax, money in politics, CEO salaries, human rights, and some of these things. But all in all, I've learned from John as well, you don't change the world with fear. You have to change the world with hope. And I think this book is actually a a positive book about the enormous opportunities that we have. Increasingly, the indications that we get that companies that move into this direction, that embrace purpose, put sustainability at the core of their strategy, operate under these longer-term multi-stakeholder models, are actually also the companies that are more resilient and are performing better. So it might be that we're at the point that the forces of shareholder primacy, which I've never been a big advocate of, as you know, Yeah. and the forces of multi-stakeholder are actually coming together. And that the best way to build long-term shareholder value is to start practicing what we are trying to explain in the book. So I'll hand it over to Andrew and see if Andrew, if you want to add some more to that.

Yeah, well, thanks, Paul. Paul always says such nice things about working with me. And I don't know why I kind of like maybe skimp on it because everyone just assumes that Paul's a great man and it's obvious why I would work with him. But I realized I should probably say more about that, that it has been an honor. I didn't know Paul well. I worked with Unilever in North America for a while on their sustainability advisory board and had crossed paths. But when he and Jeff Seabright, you know, kind of reached out to me, it was Climate Week in 2019, and said, hey, you know, we're thinking of doing a book. Paul's been asked to do a book for years. And I was even kind of surprised. I knew, I guess I knew Paul had never done one, but it was still surprising in a way, right? Like that he had been out there for so long and hadn't put this down in book form. And I got a lot of grief from Ben and Case Kreuthof, who ran North America, if people know him, because I left that dinner and I hadn't said yes. I just kind of— I was not ambivalent, but I sounded ambivalent. And the reason was, I always say that Paul knows so much about the world that I can't, like how do you run a €50 billion revenue company? I don't know how to do that, but I know kind of one thing of a couple, which is writing a book. And I knew I was signing up for a year or 2 of my life and I actually underestimated how much work it would be, which I can't believe I keep doing. Every book I underestimated. And I always wonder with John, you know, John's one of those people that he's just— if he calls and asks you to do something, you do it, right? And I've discovered Paul's another one of those. And watching him kind of call on his network in the last year has been pretty remarkable. But— and Paul talked about John being optimistic or positive. That has been kind of the joy of working with Paul. He is just much more positive than I am. And so it helps kind of pull the— I think helped pull more positivity probably into the story than I expected. But, you know, once I kind of, you know, got over the ridiculousness of pausing it all, I said, yeah, let's go do this. And then we started talking only a few months before the pandemic started. And then we started having calls and just, you know, first call was around between Christmas and New Year's in 2019. And so—

Mm-hmm.

We met a few times. We met once live in New York, right, I think the first week of March, like right before we all shut down. Paul was still coming to New York for some reason. It was like right before everything went down. And I think I've only seen you, Paul, live once since then in New York. So it's all been virtual, which has been quite an experience. And I don't know why I'm still surprised by— like, I didn't expect for some reason to see some of my American friends on this call. I just pictured you guys like a book club being kind of like you sit around in a living room and it would be It would be local, you know, it would be like around your offices. I don't know why I had that in my head when everything now is global. So I had a few friends text me, I'm coming on. I'm like, what? I just saw Gil Friend pop up. You know, there's just like a bunch of some of my favorite people on here. So this is— this will be a really fun, I think, a really fun conversation and a really knowledgeable one, obviously. So, you know, I hope we can kind of really dig in. And I saw a question go by about love already, and we're jumping right to the

Oh

yeah. So I'm excited to be here. We do— I mean, I think Paul definitely does every day. I'm probably on at least a daily talk or podcast or interview or something for the last 4 months, and it's picking up actually. I, you know, these kinds of books, I think John can probably concur, and at least in my experience, they have a long tail, right? They're not take the world by storm books. They're richer. They take a little more time. They're they're harder, right, than some of the great business books that we all enjoy that are kind of quicker reads. And so it takes time. Like, people are just telling me, oh, I finally found the time over the holidays or in January to finish it. And then they tell people, oh, this is great. So it kind of builds.

Yeah.

And I think we're still in a build mode on this and we've done well and it's doing well globally, which is really nice and somewhat expected, but it's really good to see. I mean, I've always been an American writer and business person. So I didn't have the kind of reach. Obviously, we've sold a lot in Holland. But it goes well beyond that, you know, it's, it's selling well in England and in India and Japan. And this is before we get translations out there. So I'm just excited to kind of see where this year takes us, and how much of an influence we can have on the dialogue and bring the ambition of net positive into the business community as much as possible. I mean, obviously, there's lots of other work out there, everything about regenerative, restorative, all that work is moving. I think we're just trying to add to that and get the ambition level up and pick up the pace on change dramatically. That's my goal for all of us. So if we can talk about how do we do that, and I'd love to listen to you all as well. This is a group, this is quite a brain trust.

It's a brilliant group. Yeah, so that's the challenge for the chat. We normally will open the chat in a little while, we'll chat a little bit first, and then we will see what happens. As you say, questions and comments are already coming in. One of, I guess, something you said, Paul, just triggered in me, you know, the, we're moving from the why to the how. And for me, that's one of the reasons for optimism, right? Why can be quite depressing. But the how is about creating and about changing how how we do things and figuring out, which is, I think, a really human and creative process. One thing that struck me was, for me, this was a very coherent book that was really easy just to agree with everything. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, got this. This is an— oh, this is an interesting example of that. Did you guys have anywhere in the book where you disagreed? Is there any kind of discussion where you were like, no, I don't want to include that? Or just even for inclusion versus Versus sort of big topics. I'm sure you both agree on democracy and purpose and other things like that.

Yeah, but if we did, I was wrong. I mean, I came up with that.

No, that's boring.

I don't know. I don't think— I mean, I have a couple not really major things. They're more kind of nuanced or kind of when you talk about something or how you talk about it more than philosophy. I don't think we had any philosophy gaps. I mean, I think there was one really kind of tactical concrete thing that I probably have disagreed a little with Paul on, but his take on it is really interesting and worth exploring in the book, which is about incentives for mid-level managers, senior people. I kind of believe in a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic, and that you actually really do need to pay for things, not because people are just mercenary, but because it just signals. And there's a more nuanced talk about that in the book. that Paul can expand on, but about the expectations in a company that has got purpose, that of course people are going to, you know, going to hit targets or be shooting for more sustainable practices. And you don't necessarily have to pay them on that if they're rewarded in other ways, like they're the ones who get promotions, they're the ones who do well and get more and more responsibility if they're doing the right thing and living their values. And so I think I had a little bit different take on that going in, but not really radically. I know that's one of the only things I can think, I guess. Well, I saw one question that we definitely have to get to about growth. And I think we handled that as well as I feel like we can, but it's kind of the core. It's the hardest question I ever get at any talk I ever give, right? Is what about consumption and growth? How do we live within the planet and raise everybody's standard, right? And we should talk about that. I have an answer. I don't think it's the perfect one. And I think Paul uses the phrase growth more than, than I would have, but I get why. And we need to grow the good stuff. So that's probably all I can think of that was even in minor ways different. I don't know, Paul, if you would hang up with me and talk to Jeff Seabright and say, what the hell is Andrew talking about? I don't know what he's doing. I don't think we had that too often.

No, not at all. But also deliberately, it's a little bit complementary here. You come from a perspective of the business and have to deal with a lot of these tension fields because this is not an easy transition. Everything has to change. What we're trying to do is optimize a current system that isn't frankly designed to deliver. And the bigger challenge is the systems change where we really are pushing against boundaries when governments or multilateral institutions don't quite work to give us the answers. And that's why we're advocating even more so now that business needs to step up. In the US, you are closer to Wall Street and incentives and some of these things than perhaps we Europeans are. If you grew up in the Netherlands, you probably were smoking pot already when you were 12 years old. And so we have a little bit different perspective on what the business models need to be. The chapter 1+ 1= 11 was easy. It takes 3 to tango. Where you really work together with civil society and governments is probably more difficult to see in the US. And then how you tackle some of these issues of the elephants in the room, which are very important nowadays. The say-do gap is too big between what CEOs say and what the employees actually see. And that undermines trust. And that's why you have the Great Resignation or the walkouts and all the other things. And this book is really attacking that. It doesn't mince words around that. And that's pushing the boundaries. Some people feel uncomfortable about that. But I think what we're trying to do is not to be arrogant and giving all the answers, but on the one hand, show how complex it is, but also making CEOs think about possible solutions in positioning your company well for the future and being on that path to net positive. So, for us, it was good to get Andrew's long experience and also examples from other companies and having a little bit of an outside-in look. and myself being more of a CEO activist from the inside. And it was that complementary effort that I think makes it more interesting.

I

can just add quickly that what was, I guess, what was difficult, it wasn't a difference, was Paul's a systems thinker. I try to be as well. And that means you're making connections all the time. It's like one big website where there's links going back and forth. and you're seeing these connections in so many areas, that a book is linear. And that's challenging, right? Like, I mean, a website that describes Paul's brain would be perfect, right? A neural net, you know, that kind of gets at how you make decisions with so many different inputs and how you have judgment. But trying to tell that linearly is probably— when I said it was harder than I expected, that's really the thing, how we would go back and forth on what the table of contents looked like, and what was the order of battle, and making conscious choices to put, you know, culture at the end. That was different than most books, right? It was kind of a, you know, culture is mixed up in everything we were talking about. It was almost like a summary, like when you did all these things before that, you developed this culture, you know, those kinds of choices about how do you tell this in a linear way when, yes, there's starting points and we're trying to help with additional materials now and how do you get started, but you have to start on 5 different dimensions at once in sustainability, right? Yeah. Or 20 or whatever. So it isn't always linear, but you have to tell it in a way for people who don't come to this with the level of knowledge that this call has, right? Which is 99.9% of business people. And how do you bring that to them and meet them where they are? And I get into these battles with sustainability folks all the time, like how honest are we right away with people? How much do we push them? How much do you meet them where they are? I mean, all these kinds of questions about making change happen are not easy. So I'm sure we take heat from some that it's not— we don't push hard enough. Others, we push too much. You know, you can't get the right, the perfect balance.

And just picking up on— maybe we can start with growth in that, Paul, you talked about, you know, the— and I see it with our clients, these dilemmas that are happening now with the need to commit to net zero and other very big targets. But really having to make some very, very tough choices as you transition through. Do you prioritize that net zero emissions, or do you do it slightly slower and take more social concerns and making sure it's a just transition, which everybody knows it needs to be? Those kind of things. And presumably, to a certain extent, growth could be one of those dilemmas. You know, you need to grow, you need to provide shareholder value, and so on. and make sure that your share price is in the right place and that you compare favorably to your competitors. And yet, is there a limit from if you are doing things in a net positive way? Let's start there.

Yeah, to me it's all— and that— yeah, I thought I was on mute, but no, it's— first of all, the book really thinks that with net positive, we need to go beyond net zero. It's increasingly clear from the work that we're doing. And I was in Glasgow for 10 days that some companies making 2050 net zero commitments, they don't mean anything.

Yeah.

You can go to church and pray about carbon capture storage solving all the problems in the world and still being an enormous emitter, which some companies are doing, and claim net zero. It doesn't mean anything to still build a coal plant and have the people around there die 12 years earlier on average. because you're planting a few trees somewhere else. That's not anymore acceptable. So we need to get out of this concept of net zero because it actually introduces a concept of what I might call lazy thinking. So we really bring that to net positive in terms of actually going well beyond that, but also delivering it on a shorter timeframe than what we see companies do now. So in anything, when you have these major transformations and you have to deal with all of these Sustainable Development Goals, There are trade-offs. Most value creations in any company happen 5 years or more out. If we build a factory, you first have to build it and spend the money, but before you get your money back, it's probably 5 years later. If you go into a country to expand your business, it might take sometimes 10, 15 years. If you invest in people, it might take 25 years before you have someone at the board level. So we are able to make these investments. and look at the longer-term returns and sort of deal with all these factors because you have always choices. That's what a CEO does. What I argue is, why not think about the most important investment, which is the future of humanity, and make that the core of your decisions first? We cannot exist in societies that don't work. Nor do I think that business can be a bystander in a system that gives them life in the first place. And one of the key questions the book is asking is, You know, how can you create profit from solving the world's problems, not creating the world's problems, which we still all do, frankly. Every company has these negative externalities. Now, what is now interesting to see is also for the shareholders in this world, with the work that George Sarasand is doing, for example, at Harvard with the weighted impact accounts that you're undoubtedly familiar with, we're actually seeing, if you look at it by sector now, and you looked at over 3,000 companies and you compare within shipping or in mobility or in food or in any of the other sectors, you see that companies that are attacking more aggressively the negative externalities, that they actually are also higher valued already by the market. So somehow this non-tangible or what some people call non-material has become material. And so CEOs would be well served to actually aggressively reduce these negative externalities. Within that, you have to make choices. That's why it's a longer-term plan. You know, sometimes in Unilever as well, we had to invest in the factories. That means you can't increase your profit, or you have to invest in your people. That means you have to invest a little less in your brands. So these trade-offs will always be there. And it is the skill of a leader, of a leadership team, to actually work that over the longer term. I think it's very well doable and increasingly actually easier to do because we have waited so long to tackle many of these enormous challenges out there. We're actually at the point where the cost of not acting is now becoming higher than the cost of acting. COVID has cost us $17 trillion in Europe and the US alone. Kristalina from the IMF estimates that we've lost $27 trillion in the global economy. And that compares with a paltry now $3 to $5 trillion a year we need to spent to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. I would argue that in each of the Sustainable Development Goals now, we incur— are incurring costs because of our inactions that are higher than the implementation of all the Sustainable Development Goals. Right. So this all of a sudden makes it such an enormous business opportunity. My final point is coming to your growth levels. I really— it's the discussion of growth and the discussion of capitalism is a little bit a difficult discussion if you don't really align on what you mean by it and what the words are. If we simply pursue growth by using more of our finite resources and we have this linear production model where we dig stuff out of the earth, where we put it in a factory, where we dump it in the oceans or in the landfills, that's not sustainable. And if we call that growth, which is the narrow definition of GDP, We shouldn't really aspire that anymore. That definitely has come to an end. So, but and by the way, Simon Koshnik, who invented who invented the GDP measure, he was very clear that when he invented it, like by the Second World War time, you know, guys, this is industrial output. It doesn't measure externalities. It doesn't measure income inequalities. It doesn't measure finite resources. Please don't use this. And increasingly, we see countries. going to other measures that try to get to overall wellbeing of— Yeah. All of a sudden we say it's better to have clean air, to have peace, to have quality education, things we don't measure in GDP. So if we can move to the right measures, that's why the announcement in Glasgow to create a Sustainable Standard Board or the European Green Deal or increasingly these things like the taxonomy and all that, are moving us in the right direction. If we can get the returns on financial capital for sure, but also the social and environmental capital, then I think we can have a different type of growth that is a more inclusive growth, that is a more well-being quality growth, and gets closer to what you might call these national happiness indexes or development indexes that we really should aspire to. So it's in the definition of the word, not in in getting emotional of, you know, if we—

Growth, no growth. No, no, thank you. And, and in that answer, you actually covered quite a lot of questions that are going on in the chat about growth and the well-being and, and how we, we get the investment world and others to sort of take, um, to take that on.

I mean, just add on the growth thing. I think, I mean, yeah, we talk about obviously we want to grow the right things. And I think we even say it's okay to have growth in output if it's the right set of outputs, right? I mean, if Patagonia is making a jacket that lasts 3 times as long as other jackets, and it's made from recycled materials, can be recycled, and all of that, you want them to sell more, right? People need jackets. So it's not necessarily wrong, but I think we also talk about the fact that until the technologies are there for all the meat to be regenerative agriculture sourced and everything to be recycled content, we are having an impact with the choices we make for consumption. And I think what that means is that if we're gonna also see an increase in wellbeing and we're gonna get what will be 9 or 10 billion, get those 2 or 3 billion that are within the— that are not in the donut shape, that are not at sufficiency. Yeah. To get them there does mean physical output, right? Until, I mean, you're not gonna leap. We can leap on some energy sources. Some places can be given energy with renewables, but there's still more stuff. for people to get to sufficiency. And so I think that means that the richest billion, the level ones of the Hans Rosling factfulness thing, the level ones of us, the billion or so, probably, I think, need to have a hard conversation about slowing our consumption now. And that means going to less meat every day, those kinds of choices, flying less. We're discovering with Zoom we can do that. And just, we have the line in there from Gandhi that says, the rich must live simply so the poor can simply live. It's not a one-for-one trade-off, but it's also— it is related, right? It is. We have to be honest with ourselves. So this is the really hard conversation. No company wants to hear degrowth. And I don't know how else we have it at this point. Had we started where we are on, say, climate 20 years ago, great. But that's not the case now. We have to radically shrink carbon emissions in 7 or 8 years. Remember when we had 12? Remember when the 1.5-degree report was 2018? Exactly. And it's still gone up. So, you know, we're leaving ourselves less and less room for this perfect world where there's no sacrifice whatsoever. You know, we can then talk about, is it a sacrifice to not be on a plane for 4 days to go to Europe, to go to Asia or something? Is it a sacrifice to use less if you already have enough?

Yeah.

Probably not totally, but people feel like it's a sacrifice because their freedom is impaired, right? And, and

Now you're talking like a true American, Andrew.

Well, no, I'm telling you, I'm telling you what we hear here, right? I mean, it's about freedom. It's all about freedom. Whether that means real freedom or not is another conversation.

I've got US democracy on my list of things to talk to you about, don't worry. So, oh, so for me, so 2 things. One, one of the things I really like in the book, apart from, you know, the way the arguments are structured, are some of those quotes. So for people like me who like quotes, That's another reason to read and buy the book. But for me, actually, all those sacrifices you're talking about, that's where I love the younger generation. You know, my 3 children have all gone, sorry, no more meat in this house, thank you very much. And, and, and gone down the vegan route, actually. And Sophie, who keeps us all on track in the office with those kinds of things, with reminding us that actually maybe we don't need to fly and so on. So for me, that's one of the incredibly optimistic sort of signs is that they're not debating whether it impinges on their freedom. At least certain— some of them don't. But that, I think, is— just want to kind of make sure we get there. I want to jump— maybe it's slightly backwards, but 2 things. I heard from John Andrew that you have a database of corporate targets and that you've been maintaining for a while. What do you think of the increasing number of companies setting higher targets? And I was amazed in Glasgow how many people were like, oh, I didn't realize this was an issue. Have I been asleep at the wheel? Ah, yes. So that's one question to you. And similarly to you, Paul, you now work with a lot of sectors. And so I'm going to find my question. I actually wrote it down. you're doing sort of entire sectors and groups of businesses, International Chamber of Commerce, UN Global Compact, and so on. Are you finding that there has been a shift to mainstream, or is it still a minority? You know, a couple of things you said, like, this is no longer acceptable. I would agree. I think most people on this call would agree. But does it feel different now than it was? So To, you know, where are we now, do you think? So, Andrew, on the corporate database.

Yeah, so the database was kind of spun out of my last book, Big Pivot. So it's just called pivotgoals.com. It's not as big as it's ever wanted to be. But there's a partner firm, SustainServe, now, colleague of mine, a friend has been kind of running this for years. And he went to go work at SustainServe. It has the ESG goals of the 200-250 largest companies. has the Future Fit benchmark elements in there as well now.

Right.

Look, the goals have obviously increased, the number, the scale. I mean, and we— so we'll do the data every now and then for an event and show like, what has the database shown us in the 8 or 9 years we've had it? I'd say the biggest— I mean, even 8 or 9 years ago, most big companies had either an energy or a carbon, you know, like it was already starting to be pretty normal. Now it's everyone, right? 95, 98% of the largest companies have carbon goals. I think what's changed that's interesting in the last 5 or 6 years has been the quantitative goals on the S side. We did this analysis once where we read the first few years we had the database, there were, of the biggest companies, there were zero goals that had numbers in them for women or human rights or race. They were all directional. They were all, we believe in gender parity. And then there started to be a rapid increase, which I believe has increased a lot in the last year or two as well on the racial side, but there were more specific goals about we want 40% of management to be women and we want parity by this date. There started to be much more specifics. And on the carbon front recently, I think what we're still missing, there's been this huge rash of net zero by 2050. What we're still missing, and I think it's starting to ramp up now, is the interim ones. If you saw Citi, Citi put out, I think, one of the best bank goals I've seen so far in the last week, because it was 2030. By 2030, they want 63% or something reduction in their portfolio. All the other banks until recently have been 2050 to be net zero, which is useless. I mean, if you're funding assets that are 30 years long, you probably need to stop funding fossil fuels now. So it's good to see the dates coming sooner. Which is what the countries need to do also each year at COP as well. But the companies, I think, are leading now, are more aggressive in their goals on average than the countries. So I think they'll push the shorter range ones. And that's what we have to encourage all of our clients, companies, everyone we interact with is to move the dates forward.

Yeah, no. And actually, as part of— so we were co-founders of Bankers for Net Zero in the UK. And one of the biggest issues is getting banks to have small interim goals. Right. They're fine saying 2050. But when you ask them, okay, so how are you going to manage that divestment over the next 2 years? They're not really sure yet, which has been quite disappointing. Paul, what are you seeing?

You know, we, since COVID we've seen a step change in behavior. There's no question about that. I think culminating in COP26, which probably overdelivered on the expectations in a lot of respects. Certainly on the political side, but probably underdelivered on the science side. But everybody when COVID came was saying that, you know, ESG would be dead, we would go back to the same behavior as during the financial crisis, where we became very short-term as companies, where governments were really propping up the banks but didn't really do anything to right-size the global economy. People felt that banks were too big to fail, but people were too small to matter. And in fact, the opposite has been true. We had 20% of the countries making net-zero commitments on climate change before COVID It's now 65%, 95% of the emissions. We have seen, you know, 5 times more companies making science-based targets commitments just in the last year alone. The Global Compact, which I chair for the Secretary-General, had 12,000 members. We instituted membership fee for the first time. People were worried about that. We've never seen such a fast growth of membership than since COVID We now have 15,000 companies. We've never seen that increase. So, you know, the job of the sustainability director is, you know, increasing in value. Every company now needs a sustainability director and there just aren't enough around, you know. So there are many signs to say the world is changing. But unfortunately, we're changing linear whilst the issue is exponential. So every CEO will say, you know, my predecessor was here, I moved this company here. It's very hard work because I have to deal with a lot of other things, keep my company afloat and the technological revolution. But actually the needs of society are moving like this. So we're at this very difficult moment right now in society where the gap is actually increasing whilst everybody feels they're working their butt off, if I may use some French. And actually, That is going to result in more pressure, more pressure at the political level, more pressure at the citizens' level, more pressure at the employee level. And this is why CEOs need to step up. We cannot say that we do enough if we are at 2.4 degrees at best, if all the commitments of Glasgow are implemented, which we know will not happen. So yes, we are a little bit better than we were before, but this is every 0.1 degree means, you know, 100,000, you know, 100 million more people losing their lives. This is it, right? I don't want to be responsible for that. We also have seen with COVID more people going back into poverty. So I think we've actually put ourselves at least 15, 20 years behind on the Sustainable Development Goals. So there is no way that we can celebrate despite seeing more companies stepping up. Now, if you look at the macro data and you want to be really hard on yourselves, There are only 8% of the companies that have made commitments for 2030 that are science-based targets of the bigger companies. There are very few companies that have issued human rights reports. There's only 20% of companies that have sustainable sourcing strategies that they actually publish and report on and so forth. So if you look at the macro numbers, we're in this little echo chamber where we keep quoting the Unilevers or the Nestlés or the Microsofts or whatever example we can get hold of, but these are the same companies recycling themselves and they're great companies, but we now need to move at scale. Yeah. So this is what I'm focused on really. And the reason I put myself as the chair of the ICC or the B Team or the World Business Council or the UN Global Compact is really to get the private sector to move higher. At the same time as we have these leading companies move up the ceiling, We need to move up the floor much faster. And what is the reality is that the CEOs themselves now are held to much higher standards than they actually can deliver on themselves. Issues like climate, like deforestation, plastics in the oceans, human rights in the value chain, moving to regenerative agriculture. You cannot do that even if you're the biggest company at the speed and scale that is needed. So increasingly we need to push these partnerships, we need to push these collectives. And as the book talks about it, it starts with your own courage. First of all, it takes courage to set the right targets that are needed, not the targets you can get away with. It takes courage to take responsibility of your total impact in the world, not just Scope 1 and 2 or what your PR department says you can deliver on already. It takes courage to work together with people in these broader partnerships, which are uncomfortable, But it starts with leadership. I don't know if we put it in the book, but at the end of the day, I don't think we have a crisis here of climate change or inequality or food security. Ultimately, this is a crisis of greed, of apathy, of selfishness. And if we don't rise to that higher level, bring humanity back to business, you know, and this word love is perfectly acceptable. It's not a soft word. It's a very hard word actually. But bring that humanity back to business. And that is still a big gap. That's why I keep saying we're short of leaders and trees. can be done. It's actually much better now. So I'm hopeful for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned, but it's going to be hard work and it needs to pull all of us together. And this partnership notion, we need to talk a little bit more because that's probably the most difficult part to do. And,

you know,

no,

no, no. And I definitely want to come to that. And that, you know, also the risk in being an advocating or activist as we're trying to push for CEO or company. But let's go to get to that love question, because Tina's one— she's based in the US and heads up a wonderful NGO for girls called Rockflower. If anybody's interested, Tina, you can put a tag in there. But her question was, and it was the first one we had in, was one of the many things— oh, that she compliments us— that elevates Volans above other above other think tank consultancies is the willingness to use the word love in our communications. Thank you, team. There's a lot of love in this business book. Would it be possible for you two to give an example of a time when you brought love into a business decision or a problem and saw how that transformed either the other individual or the situation or yourselves? Big question. Who's going to go first?

I don't have an easy answer to that. I mean, I don't know if it's love exactly, but I feel like, you know, I work with and speak with a lot of sectors, right? And there's problems with all of them. There's always footprint issues. And, you know, I, like, I spoke this week to Association of Pavement guys who pave roads in the US, actually huge economic thing. I didn't realize this. I learned this this week. You, some of you may have known this, that asphalt is the most recycled material in the world. I just had never thought of that. I guess part of what I did, one, I mean, this was a super conservative group, total cognitive dissonance. Conservatives hate government, but big government's the only way that infrastructure happens. So like total dissonance. But I had one guy come up and say I wasn't tough enough. I didn't push hard enough. And I kind of feel like I go into every sector, except for maybe, I'm not going to go talk to Exxon, no offense, but into most sectors, and there has to be kind of a love for what they do. and who they are and start from that place of like, the guys paving the world or using cement are not trying to create 5% of emissions, right? They're trying to make a road, right? They're trying to make a building and just come at it with kind of a— still have a love for business and the scale of what business does and love of like manufacturing, just, you know, have a love for it all that got me into business in the first place so that you are talking— it's not just meeting them where they are so you can convince them or confuse them or something. It's actually just truly, I think, to truly change with someone and work with them and influence them, you have to honestly and genuinely appreciate who they are and what they bring to the table. And there's very few sectors you can talk to that are all bad, that aren't accomplishing something important. Fossil fuels have brought us energy and brought billions of people out of poverty in 100 years. So I think So to me, it's more of a general just starting with that, even with the, with the sectors that need the most changing, is starting with appreciation and love for what they do. And then you can talk about, here's your problem, you know, here are the problems that you're creating.

Thank you. No, that makes sense. I'm now— oh, wonderful point, Andrew, it says in the— there's lots going on in this, in the chat. Send it to you both afterwards.

The chat is like a book unto itself.

What I'm realizing, everyone, is we're not going to get through all the questions, but maybe if I may, I would send them on to you guys afterwards and send you away with them, and then you can see if you have time to answer. I think that would be useful. There was a couple Gil, I'm going to pick on you again. Gil Friend, who starts with, Paul, you say it's over, but so many capitalists still ignore Kuznets of the limits of GDP and probably haven't even really read Adam Smith. Aside from setting a better successful example, what's getting that thinking to change when there's so much wealth and power entangled in not changing? That's a very, very big question.

Yeah, that is a very big question. And, you know, I think like Martin Luther King was talking about, the arts of morality will ultimately bend, but we just don't have the time anymore, as Andrew was saying. So whilst I also believe in morality, I don't think you'll get the financial market to move on morality in real life. So what needs to change is really incentivizing our economic system to get the money to flow to the right things and not the wrong things. Very practically on where we are. And there are different things to do. There are ways to incentivize people differently. There I agree with Andrew. Capitalism optimizes right now, as I mentioned, the return on financial capital. If we can actually expand that to social and environmental capital, that will go a long way. There are different ways of working the broader system changes that I talked about, the partnerships where governments incentivize the right behavior, behaviour versus disincentivize with the perverse subsidies that we now see in fossil fuel or agriculture. That will go a long way. Where there is actually a higher level of leadership, where people need to understand that putting themselves to the service of others is actually in their own interest, a certain level of love, if you want to come back to that discussion. So we need to start to see if we can create better leaders in society. And we see a shortage of that right now at the CEO level, at the board level, where we need drastic changes to attack these things. So these are systemic changes that we can drive, I think, in a timeframe that is totally actually acceptable. And where we're starting to do that and where we're starting to see that, the results are there. So use the economic process. And use it as a positive force. You know, the shaming and the fear is not what drives change. It's hope and to a certain extent what you mentioned, Louise, optimism that drives the change. Otherwise we get in our amygdala of fight, freeze, or flee, and that's not what we want. And that is what actually love unlocks as well. Love is about compassion. Love is about empathy. Love is about the golden rule, you know. You know, do unto others and the planet what you would have liked to be done to yourselves. And anytime in Unilever when I had a tough decision to take, I actually would go back to the golden rule and say, "How would you like to be treated if you were in these shoes?" Compassion is not, you know, compassion and empathy. Are quite important in this whole thing. And it's not that you can put yourself in someone's shoes, that's very difficult to do, but you can certainly take others into account at a very deep level in every decision you take. That is the essence of this multi-stakeholder model. True leadership is really putting yourself to the service of others, knowing that by doing so you're better off yourself as well. And can we get people to that higher level of consciousness. So one of the things we're working on is really changing the future of the MBA program, for example. The MBAs, which is still the most followed leadership education, are basically Milton Friedmans on steroids. So I'm on the board of the Prime Principles for Responsible Management Education. The reason I took the chair of the Saïd Business School and I'm working on some other things is really as part of that effort. Yes. One of the things we want to do with Net Positive as well is get into young people and education. to really do that. So it's at these levels that we need to start thinking.

And I know you're involved in something we're involved in a little bit, Shuzenken and Nieser having the Future of Capitalism module for MBAs, which those are the kinds of things that, you know, that makes a lot of sense to me. I make it, this is a conclusion that actually, as you say, we have to change leadership. there aren't enough good, sort of well-equipped leaders right now, does it mean we also need to move away from this idea of kind of hero leadership into a much broader-based group leadership in a different way? Is that the solution rather than hope that we're going to get lots of Paul Polmans in CEO jobs?

Well, there's not one solution, Louise, but what we have seen during COVID for sure is a little bit of a bifurcation in business models. Where companies that were running the more purposeful multi-stakeholder models were actually more resilient, you know, less mental stress on their employees, better employer brands, more stronger relationships with their communities or their suppliers. But we've also seen a bifurcation in leadership where leadership was operated with a higher level of humanity, humility, more purpose-driven, embracing partnership, thinking multi-generational. These leaders exhibited trust and actually any change that we want to make, any building of prosperity in whatever way you define it, starts with a strong building of trust, which is actually the real currency that is missing in society. So these leaders are definitely different leaders. They are not the ego leaders that we have celebrated in the past. They're probably more the eco or human leaders that we need to celebrate in the future. And We're getting more of those, but they're still far and few in between for us is what we need for the bigger systems change. But we've definitely seen that difference happening. I also think we're at the crutch of that leadership change. And many people are thinking about how can we get a higher voice of the young people, not only have them cosmetically at the table, but give them a real seat or give them the table and empower them. One of the initiatives in Glasgow that I really liked was Board 2030.

Yeah.

Yeah. Today I had lunch with Clover. She's a youth activist. You know, I know.

She used to work for us. She used to work for us.

Yeah. I know. She was talking about you guys. So this is a funny thing how the same day always you have these links.

But,

you know, I wish I had listened to her when I was running Unilever. And I wish I had a board of these young people. in a way that we really would empower them. I would have been able to do so many more things the right way versus making the mistakes. So that's the type of change we need to drive and celebrate. And these are the type of leaders that understand that. Unfortunately, we're blessed with more and more of those leaders. And what we are trying to do is with our CEO Circle we've created, with these collectives that we're putting together, is really bring these leaders together because one of the things we discover is, and this is a surprise probably for some, but not for others, that if you put courageous leaders together, actually they become more courageous. And that courageous collective can drive change at scale. That was the idea of why we created the B Team. That's why we have these collectives of CEOs. So perhaps we need to do more of that and try to accelerate the changes that we're after.

Yeah, I would argue, because obviously I love Kliva and many of of the youth activists, but I feel like they need to set our ambition level, right? And we need to solve the problems rather than ask them how to solve the problems.

It's not asking them how to solve the problems, but it's actually inviting them in to be part of the solution.

Yeah.

But not running away and delegating our responsibilities to them. That would be really—

Yeah, it feels a little bit—

100%.

Yeah, no, no, agreed. There are a couple of questions around marketing and kind of that fine line with purpose and greenwashing. And I feel like I also want to make sure, Andrew, I'm sure you have quite a lot of answers to this. I'm not sure whether you've been writing them in the chat because I'm not seeing the chat right now. But Camilla has written, when reading the chapter about marketing and creation of purpose-driven brands, it felt like there was a really fine line between genuinely marketing something for the well-being of others and just pushing a nice story to sell more deodorants? How do you ensure that stays true to the purpose, marketing stays true to the purpose and doesn't slip into that greenwashing space? Andrew, I'm going to ask you.

You're going to make me do that first?

I am going to make you do that first. We might not even ask Paul. Yeah, we know you have that.

This comes back to the growth and consumption question. It's really hard, right? I mean, I use the example all the time about when Unilever started doing the purpose-driven brands, and some of them obviously made sense, right? Lifebuoy had been about health and hygiene since its founding in the 1800s. But I always joked, when I was an advisor there, I was like, how are they going to do this with Axe? Like, nobody needs body spray, right? It's not like a health and hygiene thing, but it has a purpose. People like to smell good, whatever you want to define it as. And we kind of purposely in the book used for one of the brand love key. We use like a deodorant, we use something that's not the most critical need in your life, but it's part of people's feeling good during the day, and it has its elements. Look, the genuine thing, it sounds like it's really hard, but on some level, if you've connected to some larger issue, the way Lifebuoy has with handwashing, or Domestos does with with open defecation and toilets, and you're showing real progress on that. I think getting, you know, you're helping a community build more toilets, you're having this many campaigns, and you've reached this many people on handwashing, and you have data, and you show transparently what you're doing. I think we could get into semantics about is it cause-related marketing or CSR or net positive. And in a way, I don't care. You know, it's like, as long as the action is happening, and there's data, and it's improving and growing. then, you know, it's not like every piece of marketing for that brand has to just be about that mission and purpose for it to still be a purpose-driven brand. There's still going to be in-store end cap 20% off, you know, there's still going to be normal, normal marketing stuff. And I think you've seen over the years, companies come up with cute, but I think helpful categories. And I think Indra Nooyi was one of the first that did this really well with the fun for you, good for you, fun for you, blank dot, whatever. There's 3 of them.

I don't remember that one.

Yeah, but they were really smart because it's like Doritos aren't good for you, we get that. But like, you also— and the same with Unilever, people want some ice cream every now and then, Ben& Jerry's. There's going to be other needs in life that don't have some deep, dark purpose, but you have to be honest about what category this falls into. There was— what company I was just looking at and they called it like, comfort product versus, you know, there was like, they used a similar kind of thing to say it was a hotel, it was a hotel I was just in, they had comfort and healthy food. The comfort food was like steak and potato, you know, like, but they used it to apply to more than just food. They were kind of talking about lifestyle stuff. It's that kind of thing where I think we have to be honest about it. And then it is genuine, right? This is comfort, right? We're selling you more. And it's a normal sale. This one over here, we think has a larger mission in the world. And we're selling you more, but this is what we're doing with some of those profits, and this is what we're doing in terms of getting the brand out there. We're doing it through these community helping campaigns. It's a fine line, right? I think you know it when you see it.

Oh no, it is. And actually, I won't give the same question to Paul, but there's a couple of things coming together for me here. So I've been building sort of challenger brands with purpose since 2007. Method launching into Europe, I was on the team, and sort of B Corps and so on. And so I agree with, you know, purpose is hugely important. And it's woven through the whole book, both purpose for companies, but also purpose for what do we want the system to do, and the markets to do and so on. There are some questions around, I guess, that purpose. Can you— do you need to say, as I think it was Mathis Bagenakel who said to me, he said, well, isn't the first question, does your company do something the world needs or not? If not, doesn't matter what purpose you have. And for me, it sort of echoes what you said, Paul, earlier, that yeah, we're improving very incrementally when we need exponential change and business model change. I just want to kind of— can we weave that into purpose, or is it 2 different conversations? I'd love your reaction.

No, brands can be an ideal vehicle for systemic change, for cultural change, for habit change. It's also— we have to be careful that it's not for us to judge what other people need. I've been in many discussions, you know, yeah, I like a fabric softener, but why do people in the emerging markets need a fabric softener? You know, I've always felt that in countries where brands could compete and innovation could thrive, quality of life is better and some of these challenges will be faster solved. So perhaps I'm in that sense a product of my past, but I find it fairly difficult to tell other people what not to do or be judgmental on that when we are on this side of the world fairly hypocritical to these things. But I think the brands that do very well are the brands that actually create, that address these broader societal issues that are outside-in brands versus inside-out brands, as I call it, and that actually are part of a movement. It's clear that people increasingly don't only want the quality of a product anymore or the price. These are basically hygiene factors. Nor do they want the brand to tell them what they need to hear. They want to associate themselves with brands. That stand for what they believe in. So I've always felt that a tea brand could be an ideal brand for a movement of decent work conditions in the tea plantations and giving people a chance to life. Lifebuoy clearly became a brand of helping a child reach the age of 5 with handwashing and addressing these basic issues of sanitation or hygiene in many of the countries. Domestos should become a brand of attacking the issues of open defecation. 1.5 billion people still dealing with that, women more exposed and all. So brands that are part of this broader movement, which could also be cultural change. A brand like Brooks Bond in India, which is doing extremely well, really brought the Muslims and the Hindus together and deliberately used its advertising to portray a more aspirational future. That's also why we started the Unstereotype campaign to, from a very simple level, not have the women always in the kitchen and serving the tea to the men, but trying to change those. So if you understand some of these trends in society and some of these movements that are needed, often related to the Sustainable Development Goals, that's why it's so powerful. And yeah, some brands are more difficult, I think, to identify themselves with that. But the stronger your purpose is, the stronger you can reflect it on the brands. the more motivated people are. You know, it's a difficult, different table discussion to say, I work on Domestos because we need to clean toilets versus I'm going to attack the issues of open defecation. If you worked in Unilever on a food brand versus another company, it's a different discussion than you say, we're cutting food waste because we want to make more money for our shareholders, so we're cutting costs. Or to say it's morally unacceptable that we have food waste when you still have— nearly 1 billion people going to bed hungry, not knowing if they wake up the next day. So it's that higher order that you need to bring into everything what you do at a corporate level, but obviously ultimately at the brand level where you have the connections with society.

And that is a perfect— thank you. That's a perfect sort of segue into what I threatened we would talk about, democracy and democracy in the US. But maybe first we just start with You have a few basic principles you lay out, and principle 4, and I've written it down, sort of embracing collaboration and transformative change beyond the company, which I love and I couldn't agree more, which is very boring for a conversation like this if we were all in agreement all the time. But, you know, it was one of our kind of conclusions in our big Tomorrow's Capitalism inquiry was companies must engage in society and actively work to change the rules of the game. So I'm assuming you guys agree. I want to talk to you about how far that goes, because you give some great examples in the book. And I see our friend Paul Ellingstad has turned up. He had something else to do first. So I just want to talk about how far that goes, and whether there are sort of any limits. I know it's in Three to Tango. So I don't want to hear what's in the book necessarily. But just what do you think? When is it that pushback. And you wrote a great article recently, was it last week or this week, Paul, in the FT? Sorry, the weeks are blurring, around the work capitalism issue that's coming up in the US. Yeah, let's talk about that. Are there limits to what companies should get into, or is it really just how they do it?

Well, there are some things— Andrew, you want me to kick it off, or you want to start? Sorry about that.

Go ahead.

So there are, in my mind, there are 2 different levels, but it's for everybody. Again, it's not that I have that wisdom, but there are some things I would always fight for and I've always done. And these are the basic human values on which humanity is based. And it's dignity, respect, it's compassion, it's equity. And anytime these values are violated, and that's why I'm a champion for LGBT, or I chaired the Valuable 500 with Caroline Casey. On disability, or I would always speak up when you have things like Charlottesville or January 6th in the US. These are the basic values of democracy. And that is very important because if they erode, you erode humanity, you erode our reason for being. And then the second thing is on the major issues that are relevant for, you know, you have to speak up on issues that are relevant to your business. That society has fallen short on. I've always been, you know, not shy on speaking up on corruption or human rights or deforestation or climate change. These are issues that affect businesses directly. Now, there's a difference between lobbying, as we talk in the book, and speaking up. So I want to make that very clear. But, you know, business needs society, society needs business. It's the same for the SDGs. I looked at the 169 targets and I was fortunate enough to help develop these SDGs. But 85% of these targets need business. So you need to speak up. And it doesn't mean that you are undemocratic or it doesn't mean that you're influencing the political process. It is important that people have the right to speak up. My article on woke capitalism in the Financial Times, which created a lot of comments, by the way, which is good. But my essence of the article was We need to be able to have the discussions and to have both sides talk about it. What you see, unfortunately, is that there is one side that is saying ESG is socialist, comes from China and undermines the freedom that Americans are used to and making it a political issue. That's when you have to speak up because it's very difficult to defend that, in my opinion. And it undermines these very values on which society is based. What happened during the Trump administration, frankly, was that too many people were silent. And by implicitly being silent, you move the boundaries of acceptability and actually you become culpable yourself to this erosion of morality that is taking place in society. And then it's very difficult to move back. You know, we've not done a great job. Right now, we've seen since COVID about 100 countries in the world where democracy has gone down. Including here in the UK, by the way. So we need to talk about that. We have seen morality go down in many respects. Look at the vaccine distribution we talked about. It's just unacceptable. So we need to talk about these things. So I think that that is true. Now, a CEO doesn't need to speak up for everything and be knowledgeable about everything. But if it's relevant to their business, if it's an urgent thing for society on the basic values, if you can make a real difference, individually or collectively, then being a societal leader is an important part of your job. And frankly, 80% of society expects that. 95% of the employees expect that. If you don't do it, even though it might be controversial at times because now society is so polarized, everything has become so political, you know, I would say the companies that have that courage and that do it, are actually getting rewarded for it more than that they see negative business effects. So it's a good thing in that sense as well.

Thank you. Andrew, anything to add? Where's the line? Where should we not have CEOs meddling, if at all?

I mean, look, some of the issues are just— look, we use the word existential all the time. I think maybe we've overused it, or we use it so much we don't stop and think about what that actually means. And the list of existential threats is not long, but they're scary. And I think for a company to say, well, we're not— look, companies used to say, well, we're not a big emitter, so we don't have a role in climate change. I still actually get emails like, oh, I'm in a tech company, we don't have a climate change thing, even though data centers are 2%, 3% of energy. There's still this sense of, well, some industries are more than others, but I And something like democracy, who exactly is not a part of that? Like, what sector does not have a role in or need for democracy? Look, last year, January 6th was surprising, right, to the world and to all Americans to see that there could be a coup attempt in the US. But for my work, January 7th and 8th was almost more surprising. Like, January 6th had been building. But to see a bunch of companies pull their money from one party, in the US, where they have been equal opportunity, above-board corruption, above-the-table corruption in the US, it's legal. They give to both parties, some sectors a little more to one than the other, but both. To see companies say, I'm not giving to these 150 people because they voted for overturning the election, was new in our space, I think, was surprising. Now, depending on the article you read, you'd say all of them went back on it. or say a lot of them stayed with it. It's a mix. Some companies have continued to not give money to those people, which I think is surprising. All of this, like with climate, is woefully inadequate to the scale of the problem. It's good there's action on it, but companies should be really jumping up and down about democracy. If American democracy falls, which is looking more and more likely, how is that good for these companies? I just don't understand what world they think they're so enamored with the party that gives them tax cuts, that they don't even sometimes support the policies they need for their own advancement. And a quick example is the auto industry, which has now set goals to be entirely EV. And the Build Back Better bill is one of the only places where they're spending to do things like build EV infrastructure. And they let the, the US Chamber of Commerce and others speak for them and kill it. Right? They let them kill it. because of tax rollbacks instead of getting that government investment that allows them to hit their own strategy and targets. That's just not strategic, yet it's so ingrained to fight tax increases that they didn't even do what was best for their own business. So I don't know how you break this, how you break the sense that one party's always going to serve business better. That's breaking down now, but not fast enough.

Is it something to do with breaking down that view of business versus society and actually taking a more regenerative systems view that we're all in this together? And unless you, as a company, when, you know, your financial value creation or your value creation should be inextricably linked to social and environmental value for the whole system, this idea that a CEO is actually also often a husband, father, investor, consumer, all that. And we need to do something with those silos and bring back what Paul was talking about, humanity and decency in how we act as individuals versus, I'm a CEO, so I can't actually act how I feel. Is there something about that?

Yeah, I would totally agree with that, Louise. I can only echo that. At the end of the day, I've always felt that companies are living beings by themselves because they're made up of these individuals. And they come to work, they have their values and their beliefs. And stress and pressure happens when corporate values conflict with individual values, or when behaviors deviate from what people say and do. And so that responsibility as a corporation goes way beyond just the shareholder and the bottom line, as you say. And by the way, many fiduciary duties would point at that, to operate for the long-term benefit of business and society. It's just that we have started to interpret that the wrong way. So if we don't see ourselves, you know, you cannot do, you know, Kumar says it very well that you cannot do economy if you don't do ecology. You have to take care of the operating of the system, can only work if you understand the system in the first place. So that's an integrated concept that we need to build into business as well. Increasingly, that's starting to happen, but it takes a lot of education because a lot of the leaders that are now there also in these companies have just not grown up in that thinking. That's why a leadership change in many respects is probably required.

It's needed.

You know, someone told me yesterday in another discussion, and I'm not sure if this is true, Andrew, you told me, I think, that the average age of board members is 68 years old or something. I mean, that's dreadful. Nothing wrong with 68, we're all going to get there. But it's dreadful if you think about that. So to get into these broader issues that you're you're rightfully poking at with people that have grown up in a different era, have not really had to deal with any of this, is not where you're going to find the answers. You know, sometimes you have to cut the umbilical cord and move on.

Yeah, well, we had Margaret Heffernan on at book club, I think less than a year ago, but at some point, about her book Uncharted. And she had a rallying cry for many people to retire now and allow space for the younger generation just to get on the ladder of their first jobs and second jobs rather than just to allow some kind of movement in that. I wanna complement that with, there's a comment earlier from Lorraine Francoeur, and she says, and I'll read it 'cause it's a little bit long, but it's great. Systems thinking is key as stated in the book. Systems that exist today are not broken, they're doing what they were designed to do, e.g., produce cheap food with little consideration for environment and social impact. Changing a system means changing its purpose as well, which is a great point in the book. Yet to change the world, we need hope, not fear. How do we square that circle, change everything without generating a lot of fear in society at every level? I think it's a— we're coming up to the end of our time, so I want to make sure we get that one in because I think it's beautiful. Thank you, Lorraine, for putting it in the chat.

I don't know. Look, we always say it's better to motivate with hope than fear. I think there's mostly truth in that, but let's not disfear. I'm reminded I went years ago to see a meeting in New York with the Dalai Lama, and they brought in different experts and just had them sit down with them. And one was Helen Caldicott, you know, the anti-nuclear proliferation. And she was talking about fear and all the things that were nuclear and everything it was doing to the world. And he said something about, you know, you can't use fear. And she said, well, and she started to describe the amygdala or the brain. And she said, fear allows you to sometimes get that jolt of adrenaline that allows you to jump the fence when the lions chasing you. So she was basically saying there's a place for fear if it gets you moving in a productive way. If it gets you to a place where you just curl up in the fetal position, you know, then it doesn't do it. So this is always the balance on climate, right? Climate and now democracy, they're terrifying. They really are. If you're in this field and you're not terrified, you're not paying attention, right? And so I do think we need some fear, but there has to be with that the hope that we can do something, that we have enough of the solutions, we have enough of the— and that's what I kind of always jump to quickly in these conversations is, yeah, climate's serious. And we better get used to the fact that there's going to be some losses. I grew up in South Florida, I don't think Miami is going to survive very well. I just think we're past the point. So let's be honest, but then say, look, we have the capital. There's trillions sitting on the sidelines just in corporate coffers. There's $20 trillion we just spent globally on, you know, repair— trying to repair the economy. We have trillions. We have the capital. We have most of the technologies to do a lot of this. So let's just accelerate. But we should be fearful. Like, I mean, it's okay to be fearful. I just think we have to pair it with the hope of what we can do and what we have available already, which is a huge list of things now, right? Yeah. I mean, we have an amazing amount of the solutions in place and some time to solve the really big problems like mass sequestration, right? That's later.

Yeah, no, and I knew you were gonna— well, I had a sense that this was gonna be the angle you come from. And I sit in a much— I don't know anything I do well when I'm fearful, to be honest. But I agree, being in this world today, we know we have to live with at least dipping in and out of feeling overwhelmed and fearful about the future.

There's a difference between being fearful and being outraged about something or just not accepting. I think that might be in the words, but we all need to have this high level of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Yes. And we all need to realize that we are in a position, I always point out, that is very fortunate where we've won the lottery ticket of life by where we were born and what we had access to. I wouldn't be talking to you if I wasn't born in the Netherlands where education was free, or my parents had a bar of soap at home and I got food so I didn't end up being stunted. But I didn't do anything for it. So unfortunately, it's only 5% of the world that has won that lottery ticket of life. And we just need to be outraged that it's only 5%. And if we are in that position, we need to just give it all to put ourselves to the service of the other 95%. That's our duty. So being driven by that desire, that strong drive to do that is very important. But not to let negative thinking or skepticism or fear dominate our brains, which all too often happens. It's not very healthy and it doesn't lead to anything. We all have that, by the way. We also doubt sometimes and have this little voice. But I've tried to go at times into that direction and let it be dominating me, but then I discover very quickly it doesn't lead to anything. So part of it is also our own mental training to not let that happen, to be honest.

And can I ask you a slightly personal question on that, Paul? You have a little dot dot dot on your LinkedIn about almost becoming a vicar. Do you think that having faith faith, a sort of grounded faith, whether it is in a strong religion or some kind of faith, is helpful here. Has that helped you?

Well, for me it's helpful. For me it's helpful because sometimes it, you know, that, you know, I do believe that we're here for a reason. I do believe in the goodness of human beings. I do believe in helping each other. And these are concepts that come, in my case, from Christianity. And whilst the church itself is a separate discussion with all its ups and downs and positives and negatives, I do find comfort in not having to answer all the questions, but know that there is something bigger than ourselves. And that we are all these love angels sent to this world, in fact, to do something that has a bigger impact than each of us individually can do. And that we're here for a reason. So for me, it is reassuring. It's also reassuring to face the next stages after life. It's really helpful for me. I don't fear that. And, you know, sometimes I wonder if I would be an atheist, or, you know, how would I feel about that? So I do wonder that. But then I'm probably a chicken because I go back to the comfort of how I was brought up. And it puts me in a zone that I can put my energy in the right directions without worrying about myself. So yeah, it does help. And I also think there are common values globally in these religions that, you know, although we are driving the differences and like anything in society, we seem to cherish and amplify the differences, but 99.9% is the same. In fact, every religion in the world has the Golden Rule, if you believe it or not. My wife wrote this book, The Immaculate Self. I've read it. which is basically about the Golden Rule, and you find it everywhere. So a lot of these things in religion are important. The institution of the church is actually important to take the time out and have a moment of reflection. Having some rituals are important. So if you take the good things from religion and do that consciously, I think it can actually strengthen yourselves if you want to.

Yeah. No, I think that was beautiful. I love that we're the love angels. And I did have the chance to meet your wife very briefly about a couple of years ago at the Ripples of Hope. And I love how she speaks about the Golden Rule and what she's built around that. I think it's brilliant.

Yeah, it's

amazing. Oh, and we are running out of time, I'm afraid. Apologies to everyone who's written. I can see Andrew is now in the chat going full on.

I've been on it the whole time. I've been like multitasking.

You can stay here and just, and do the chat if you don't want to do anything else. I just wanted to end with one little question. And again, it was one of the quotes you end again with, a quote, sort of quite a well-known Rungari Matai quote, that this is a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness to reach a higher ground. And the time is now. Yes, it is, which is kind of my kind of optimism. So thank you, Andrew, for not putting fear at the end of the book. Are we still feeling— are both of you still feeling hopeful that we can do this? And what would you like everyone to do? We've talked a lot about what CEOs can do and leadership. And of course, everybody has the opportunity to be a leader, even if they're not in a CEO's position. But if you were going to give a sort of brief A, are you hopeful? And B, what would you like these 100-odd people on the call to do or think about doing?

Let me give you the end, Paul, because you'll speak in greater vicar terms than I will. And let me start with actually the small little, like, shameless plug part of it, which is, I always forget to ask people to do things to help us get the book out. I hope most of you have had the time to read it. I ask if you haven't to take the time. That's a big gift. to an author to just take the time, because I know it's not easy. Um, and I saw in the chat we were talking about where to buy it. I'd love for everyone to buy it from independent stores and everything, but if you have a chance and feel inclined, maybe go post a review on Amazon, even if you don't buy it there, because it changes the algorithm when there's lots of—

I think Sophie will post— will post—

It drives sales. I put in the beginning of the chat that the netpositive.world is our site. You can sign up there for kind of ongoing contact from us and and there's links there to like international retailers, like places all over the world you can buy it so that you don't have to go to Amazon. So that's the kind of operational stuff. Yes, I do have hope. Otherwise, I don't know how you do this job. I don't know how we'd be in this job if we weren't optimistic. I think we have to be fundamentally. I do have hope. But like I said, I think we have a lot of the technology, we have a lot of the money we need, it's about will, right? It's about kind of fighting against the vested interests and taking power from them. And what individuals can do, I mean, look, we talk about 5 attributes in the book of leadership, courage is one of them. And I just had this really interesting call with a writer about how do you cultivate each of those attributes, which we don't spend a lot of time on in the book. And it's a fascinating thing to think about. How do you cultivate, say, courage? Sometimes it's just making little courageous choices during the day, right? If you're a guy and someone makes a joke about women or minorities, do you say something, right? Like these, there's these little moments of living your values that we have choices on all the time. Because it's easy to say, go and talk to your CEO, but like, it doesn't start there, right? It starts with feeling comfortable in your skin and your values and living them. And finding that empathy gene. And I think we can cultivate empathy. That's the core gap in the world right now. And it's core to being net positive. Is to cultivate that empathy and ask people around you to do it as well. I mean, that's the kind of theoretical thing I'd like to see people do versus read the book and, you know, fill out forms and whatever. It just is kind of how do you cultivate the way of thinking and run with it during the day.

Paul, you get the final word, it sounds like.

No, I've used the time to look at Rockflower and to see what they're doing with women and girls, and that's incredible. So I can only encourage everybody who listens to look at the website. I'm having it in front of me and I'm getting fascinated. So that's what I'm going to do after this talk, go really through it. But here we are, you know, Desmond Tutu in a panel I had with him at the UN said it very well when he was asked, are you optimistic or pessimistic? And he says, I'm a prisoner of hope. And I think that is the right way to describe it. We have a cost of inaction is now higher than the cost of action. So that makes it a very attractive proposition for many people. We have the young people stepping up, speaking up, walking out. That is a very good force. We see technology moving faster than we have thought. Lots of things are now possible. In fact, 70% of the solutions that we need between 2022 now and 2030 are already available now at lower cost. And then in fact, we see the financial market moving. And as I said, that's a sign that something is happening. So although we have a lot of challenges, need to move faster, there's a lot of things going for us. But the most important thing is what can we do ourselves there? And that is really start to work in our own sphere of influence, try to understand what is happening there. As Andrew says, level our, you know, increase our level of consciousness. It was Rumi, a 13th century poet in Iran, who said it very well when he said, yesterday I was smart, I wanted to change the world. Today I'm wise, I'm changing myself. So if we can get ourselves to that ultimate level of purpose, you know, the Dalai Lama said, if you seek enlightenment simply for yourself to enhance your own causes, you miss purpose. But if you seek enlightenment to help others achieve their causes, you are with purpose. So my simple message to everybody here is, Live a life with purpose.

Beautiful way to end. Thank you so much, Paul. Thank you, Andrew. It's been such a pleasure, and thank you everybody for for turning up. Yeah, if you want to, you can unmute yourself and say goodbye. This has been a great conversation. Thank you.

Thank you all. This was great.

Thank you, Louise. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.

Thank you.