Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism

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Younger people have every right to be angry. I’ve gone on a couple of school climate marches, talking to younger people, and I sense something happening. We’re facing an intergenerational crisis, the like of which we haven’t seen, where younger people not only lose confidence in older folk, but actually start to see them as a very big part of the problem. Engaging all generations is crucial – giving all of them a vested interest in what comes next, and, for younger people, the experience and resources to make sense of all of this. My father was very keen that I either went into the armed forces or become a merchant banker. I was completely ill-suited to either of those worlds. Instead, I went to a brilliantly creative and liberal school which suited the way my brain works way better. I then spent a couple of years wandering around, not knowing what I was going to do.

Fifth and finally, there is the phase of Regeneration. This is the phase where the entire system shifts from a linear resource-consuming system to an increasingly circular, regenerative system that can sustain over time without harming our planet, even restoring it. In the case of electric vehicles—as well as in virtually every other case—this phase has yet to be tried properly. What Can I Do? Professor Jørgen Randers, Professor Emeritus of Climate Strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, and science-based activist since co-authoring The Limits to Growth in 1972. What is exciting about Elkington's Green Swans is, as he describes them, that they are 'dynamic trajectories to seemingly impossible outcomes and solutions'.I think it is the leadership challenge of our generation and of the sustainability industry, if I can call it that, to just help people see what's going on, make the connections and then as fast as we can, get multiple solutions [going] at the same time," he said. "[It’s] immensely exciting, but off the scale challenging." Staying positive

This isn’t the first time Elkington has injected a new word into the sustainability community’s collective language. In 1994, he introduced the concept of the triple bottom line (and the following year, "people, planet, profit"). In 2018, 25 years after he first introduced the first idea, he distanced himself from it. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. We're going from a world where we talked about responsibility through a time where resilience will be on everyone's lips. Financial institutions need to start building forward-looking analyses using tools such as Climate Value at Risk—a quantitative model that measures climate-related risk in an investment portfolio—and by conducting stress tests like the French exercise. There’s is an optimism that comes from doing things," he said, "and one of the great privileges of your job and mine is we're meeting extraordinarily interesting people the whole time who are experimenting with new technologies and business models and regulations. I couldn't have wished to be born in a better time."

Enter the Green Swan

While he foresees that in a couple of decades, people will remember today as a painful and demanding period, he remains refreshingly optimistic about the promising opportunities that lie at our feet. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, issued a request for comment regarding policies that mandate corporate disclosures around climate risk. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup, among others, have committed trillions to the advancement of sustainable finance—defined as sustainability-focused financing, research, and advisory services.

See also NGFS and INSPIRE launch a joint research project on 'Biodiversity and Financial Stability', NGFS press release, 6 April 2021. There's something about the operating environment into which we are now moving, which will turn lots of things exponential," Elkington said. "The good stuff, the bad stuff and the ugly stuff." The NGFS has focused extensively on providing practical guides for central banks and supervisors on building their capacity to act. As our collective knowledge is evolving apace, this guidance will need to be continuously updated. That is why I am very pleased to inform you that the NGFS is currently exploring how it can help build capacity within the central banking and supervisory communities and is considering developing training initiatives in cooperation with some other key stakeholders. We will announce progress on this soon. Moving with the tide European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde recalled how a first review of eurozone banks' efforts to account for their exposure to climate risks was "not entirely satisfactory" and that banks were now "on notice" to do better by a scheduled 2022 review. While my interest was piqued enough by the title and topic of this book to add it to my Goodreads list when I learned about it, I don't think it would have risen to the top of my priority list if I had not won the giveaway. (Thanks Goodreads and Fast Company Press!)

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I have to admit, when I put in for Goodreads giveaway on this book, I was a little fearful of potentially receiving a tomb that would be difficult to read, and even more difficult to digest. The topic, however, intrigued me. I'm so happy I took the chance . . . and even more grateful that I won the giveaway. This book is AMAZING!.

What would he say to those tasked with leading through this crisis? “Get out more. When the roof is coming around your head the temptation is to stay chained to your desk. The future is out there and the future is incredibly exciting. It’s going to be quite challenging too, but my God it’s exciting! Go out and see some of the people who are helping to create it. Then see what you can do to play into that and support the inevitable transformation.” We firmly stand by Elkington’s perspective that businesses play a deciding role in supporting and accelerating the evolution of emerging green swans, who in turn will solve the most critical challenges humanity is faced with today. The writing started very early. Neither of my parents were writers, although my mother wrote constantly – long, beautiful letters. I wrote short stories in prep school and later read to the younger boys to keep them quiet. Then I started writing in magazines and newspapers, and published a regular magazine for business focused on environmental issues.Is the idea easy for a target user to embrace, and is the barrier to entry (e.g. upfront cost) low? So, on the whole, I found his book interesting, and liked reading his perspective on so many things-- his involvement over the span of his career with global corporations, governments and the U.N., as well as his take on the many things that can damage this beautiful world we live in and the technologies that he believes hold promise for the future. In these dire circumstances, and faced with these daunting prospects and challenges, the call to pursue the required structural changes is mounting. More and more countries have made a commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. More and more of these countries are now translating these commitments into legislation and concrete action plans. And more and more countries are stepping up their earlier commitments. On 21 May, the G7 made a commitment to keep within reach the target of limiting the increase in global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The tide is truly turning towards climate action, and the flow is gathering force. The underlying concept posits that from a Risk Management perspective Climate Change introduces (besides other changes and risks) a new type of Systemic Risk that involves interacting, nonlinear, fundamentally unpredictable, environmental, social, economic and geopolitical dynamics, which are irreversibly transformed by the growing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The biggest mistake today’s leaders can make is to think of this system as an alternative to the one we currently have. Instead, our interconnected global economy requires it to be one and the same.