I am consistently surprised by the initiative and leadership taken by businesses to address the climate crisis. Not all businesses obviously (e.g. ExxonMobil, the Koch brothers and the other vested interest that have funded climate denial movement and created vast climate confusion), but MANY businesses and business analysts, scholars and consultants are doing a extraordinarily better job than many governments have when it comes to taking the science seriously and responding accordingly.

As the urgent action to slow and reverse global warming became increasingly clear to me, and to so many others, my focus has turned to the ACTIONS in multiples spheres – individual, community, national, global; cultural, structural, lifestyle, psychological – to make vision an integrative path to sustainable futures (or, as process philosophers among others call it, a path from industrial civilisation into “ecological civilisation”). More on this later.

Today I just wish to share an accessible summary of climate change and its implications, a summary I wish I had many years ago. It has a business focus, a report published by Harvard Business School, and an appendix of graphs and references.

Climate Change in 2018: Implications for Business

Harvard Business School report by Rebecca M. Henderson, Sophus A. Reinert, Polina Dekhtyar and Amram Migdal

Abstract: “This note provides general information about climate change and its implications for business. Included is an overview of climate change science and a number of its impacts, including rising sea levels, changing weather patterns and extreme weather, pressure on water and food, political and security risks, human health risks, and impact on wildlife and ecosystems. Next, responses to climate change are outlined, including improvements in energy efficiency, moving away from fossil fuels, changes in land use and agriculture practices, and geoengineering. The note concludes with the debate over how much should be spent to mitigate and adapt to climate change, who should pay, and the implications for the private sector.”

Link to PDF: http://www.hbs.edu/environment/Documents/climate-change-2018.pdf