Sustainable Blue Economy Investment Forum

"No healthy planet without a healthy ocean" (Peter Thomson) was the key word in last week's Sustainable Blue Economy Investment Forum. It was a pleasure to feel the dynamics and momentum around the sustainable ocean economy!

From the meetings I attended, I took three key insights:
- Everybody is talking about algae (my Korean mother-in-law would love to hear this)! Both as food, energy and material (replacing plastics) source, algae seem to be a key dimension in rethinking the ocean (and overall) economy - maybe one of the "next big things" to watch.
- Markus H.-P. Müller had a really good idea to add a National / Company stock accounting system on top of the GDP flow system we all know.
- And finally Fundação Oceano Azul's (mostly known for the Oceanário de Lisboa and its role in ocean's conservancy) President raised the point that Management Boards are required by Law to manage companies in a responsible and conservative manner - but that we don't see the same framework on Nature's relationship with firms and people.

Carbon Enterprise Value

This is a bit of a geeky post.

I recently heard of Carbon Enterprise Value, a methodology developed by Lime Rock New Energy on the subject of Green House Gases emissions avoidance - and I must say I was fascinated. The basic premise is that carbon emissions avoidance has a greater value (or are more important) the closer they are to the present day - meaning that, as you calculate now how much CO2 (or other GHG) a project avoids being put in the atmosphere, the future emissions are less important than the ones you avoid now. This makes sense (at least under some lenses), because of the inherent risk of any project.

Yes, the concept and calculations are quite similar to the basic (and always reliable) Discounted Cash Flow model used in Finance. So much so that Lime Rock New Energy uses the financial rate of DCF discounting on this new CEV concept - and here lies the biggest question mark of the model, as one may question if it makes sense to use a financial measure (that on itself is quite complex) to discount carbon emissions (a non-financial topic).

Still, the measure and approach seem incredibly valuable. It is a comparable, "easy" to calculate tool that can be used in any GHG emissions avoidance project - and can even be used as part of one's valuation, if you consider the market value of carbon emissions.

Did you know that every single time a website asks you to answer "Click on all the squares that have traffic lights" to prove you're human, you are actually training Artificial Intelligence to identify what traffic lights look like in the real world?

Make things work!

Today, I stumbled (in Chris Wedding 's Impact Newsletter) on a quote that made me think:
- "Pessimists sound smart, but optimists make money" - Nat Friedman.

I would actually say that "optimists change the world" rather than "make money", but the bottom lane stays the same. It's usually easier just to see how things won't work and say it loud, but the true value is to make things work out and make a positive impact.

Encontros com Futuro

Great start of the week in "Encontros com Futuro", an ESG dedicated talks series promoted by REN . Four good takeouts from these days:
- Companies tend to measure their ESG efforts - and not the impact from their initiatives;
- Ultimately it will be people that will make a difference on ESG implementation, both as decision makers and as consumers (thank you Luis Amado), highlighting the importance of emotional engagement at all levels;
- Profit is an important component of a sustainability strategy, or the strategy will dry out pretty quickly (Nuno Moreira da Cruz - who also added that a sustainability strategy is actually THE strategy nowadays);
- And last but not least, a study from Deloitte highlighting that mental health fringe benefits actually have a 5x ROI (and this reminded me of Kindology - be kind to all kinds and their great take on this problem).

Budgeting for innovation

There are two universal truths about innovation budgeting. Everybody thinks this is really important and everyone believes they aren’t spending enough. To put it simple, the effort of daily running a company and its operations (everything that needs to be done to simply “keep the lights on”) consumes a substantial part of the company’s available resources (around 85 to 90% according to a HBS study – 92 to 95% according to what I have seen in some realities) and not much is then available for innovation.

But the opportunity lies exactly in taming the daily operational turbulence. Systematize, create routines in your operations that free resources. Do less, track less, prioritize what is important from all the superfluous stuff so that you can free more resources. End zombie initiatives that are leading you nowhere so you can free more resources. And don’t manage the symptoms of a problem but zero-in on its’ root cause so that… you can free more resources.

I am 100% sure you need more resources for innovation (everybody does… - unless you are someone from Apple or Google, and maybe even so…). If they can’t appear out of nowhere, you need to create them from your current operational budget – the “how” needs a ruthless and focused approach that delivers results and allows for your customer focused innovation (be it a product, a sales channel or a very disruptive approach to the market) to shine through.

Can you reach Net Zero by 2050?

"Can you reach net zero by 2050? See if you can save the Planet from the worst effects of climate change!"

That's the challenge the Financial Times puts in their Climate Change game (https://lnkd.in/di9vsW6W

). You will have to take decisions to keep the rising global temperatures under +1.5Cs (the Paris Agreement threshold).

The 3rd of July was the warmest day on record globally. So, this seems to be the right time to take this challenge - do you have what it takes?

P.S- Thank you Andreea Sapunaru for bringing this game to my attention.