How Companies Can Lead the Way to Climate Neutrality
E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-593-46142-7
Verlag: Campus Verlag GmbH
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Marian Krüger ist Gründer und Geschäftsführer von remove, einer Non-Profit-Organisation zur Unterstützung von Carbon-Removal-Start-ups. Zuvor leitete der studierte Verhaltensökonom das Sustainability in Business Lab an der ETH Zürich, beriet Industrieunternehmen und öffentliche Institutionen zur Dekarbonisierung und gründete ein erfolgreiches Solar-Start-up. Marian Krüger is the founder and director of remove, an organization that supports European, Indian, and African carbon removal start-ups. Previously, the behavioral economist headed the Sustainability in Business Lab at ETH Zurich, advised industrial companies and public institutions on decarbonization and founded a successful solar start-up.
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CHAPTER 1
THE PATH TO NET ZERO
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Attributed to Mark Twain, origin unknown
The history of many companies can be encapsulated in a single, sobering sentence: If you don’t recognize the signs of the times, you’re destined for extinction. This is precisely what happened to Blockbuster.
Blockbuster’s rapid ascent to becoming one of the largest video rental giants in the U.?S. began in the 1980s. At its peak, the blue and yellow “Blockbuster” sign, which resembled a torn-off movie ticket, was displayed on more than 9,000 stores nationwide.
But despite its meteoric rise, trouble was brewing beneath the surface. Many customers were becoming increasingly frustrated with the hefty late fees for overdue returns. Among these disgruntled customers was Reed Hastings, who balked at paying a 40 USD fine for returning a movie late.
The name Reed Hastings may not be familiar to everyone, but the company he founded certainly is: Netflix. However, Blockbuster’s future could have unfolded very differently.
When the founders of Netflix climbed to the 23rd floor of a gleaming steel-and-glass skyscraper, they had one goal in mind: to sell their fledgling company to Blockbuster. They had waited weeks for this meeting, but they couldn’t shake their unease.
As Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph later told : “I was already feeling a little like a country mouse in the big city.” Blockbuster CEO John Antioco and his legal advisor strode in, dressed in crisp white shirts and polished Italian shoes, while the Netflix team sat in their casual Hawaiian shirts.
At the time, Netflix wasn’t in a strong negotiating position. The dot-com bubble had just burst, leaving many investors to pick up the pieces at the dawn of the new millennium.
Blockbuster, with its extensive network of physical stores, seemed like a solid, tangible business. But the Netflix team had done its homework. Reed Hastings leaned forward and delivered what Randolph would later describe as the “shit sandwich” – start with something positive, follow with something negative, then end on a high note.
Yes, Blockbuster had many stores and millions of active customers, but its online business was lagging. So, Hastings proposed a partnership: Netflix would handle the online side of things, while Blockbuster would continue to dominate retail. Hastings sat back, leaving the offer up in the air. Would the CEO take the bait?
“If we were to buy you, what [price] are you thinking?” the Blockbuster CEO asked. A brief silence followed. “50 million,” Hastings replied. The CEO, an industry veteran with a calm and approachable demeanor, maintained eye contact with Hastings. Then, something unexpected happened. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the corners of his mouth began to twitch upward. As Randolph later wrote, “But as soon as I saw it, I knew what was happening: John Antioco was trying not to laugh.”
The meeting went downhill after that. The Netflix founders soon found themselves back outside the skyscraper. “Blockbuster doesn’t want us,” Randolph said with a grim smile. “So now it’s clear what we have to do. It looks like we’re going to have to kick their ass.”
And that’s exactly what they did. Today, only one of Blockbuster’s 9,000 stores remains. It’s in the small town of Bend, Oregon, kept alive by a few thousand loyal fans and curious vacationers. Airbnb has even listed the location where you can spend a nostalgic night.
The fall of Blockbuster was also captured in a documentary film, . And fittingly, you can stream it for free – on Netflix.
But Blockbuster wasn’t alone in its demise. Many companies fail to recognize or take seriously major external changes that have the potential to disrupt their business. This is especially true for companies that are currently thriving in the existing system; for them, changing course can be particularly challenging. Instead of pivoting to new products or business models, they often focus on refining their existing offerings for their current customer base.
Digitization, as seen in the case of Blockbuster, is one such external change, but other forces like artificial intelligence and demographic shifts also have the potential to be major disruptors. Meanwhile, the average tenure of a company in the U.?S. benchmark index has plummeted from 61 years in 1958 to just 18 years today.
But there’s another major disruptor looming on the horizon: climate change. People increasingly want to know how companies are managing their environmental footprint. Public criticism is growing, investors are scrutinizing more closely, and political decisions and regulations are tightening. In addition, the resources on which companies depend are becoming scarcer and more expensive – think of rare earths from China or lithium from Chile.
Transitioning to more climate-friendly business practices doesn’t necessarily come cheap. But the cost of inaction is even higher. Sooner or later, regulation and competition will force companies to adopt a more sustainable approach. Compared to other megatrends like AI, the upside with climate change is that we have a clear, evidence-based roadmap for the coming decades. While this clarity underscores the gravity of the situation – we’re heading for disaster with our eyes wide open – it also means there’s still time to change course.
Blockbuster also recognized that digital could become a serious threat. Unfortunately, by the time they acted, it was too late – the ship had sailed.
So, how do we prepare for the world of tomorrow?
Intro
In this chapter, we’ll explore:
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why ambitious climate targets are critical for preparing for the future,
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what constitutes an ambitious climate target,
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why reducing carbon emissions is vital, and why neutralizing any remaining emissions should already be part of your climate strategy today.
The World of Tomorrow
Let’s kick things off with a quiz: Which was the most valuable car company in the world in 2023? Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, or General Motors? If you guessed one of those, you’d be wrong. As many of you probably know, the answer is Tesla, the electric car maker.
Over the years, established companies have repeatedly misread the writing on the wall, often with near-fatal consequences. Take German energy giant RWE, for example. As recently as 2012, RWE CEO Jürgen Großmann famously claimed that solar energy in Germany made about as much sense as “growing pineapples in Alaska.”
In the years that followed, RWE continued to lose ground in the energy transition and increasingly struggled financially. It wasn’t until the company shifted its focus to renewable energy that it began to recover. While RWE is still not a perfect example of a green transformation, in recent years, it has become one of the world’s largest producers of renewable energy.
There are, of course, many reasons why companies miss out on major trends, including bureaucracy, competition, and poor planning. But this doesn’t just happen to careless companies – it also happens to many vigilant companies that invest heavily in new technologies and stay close to their customers.
In areas like artificial intelligence, predicting the pace of technological change and its...
