Time for a Change in the Business Climate

One thing that always amazes me about business is that so many of its practitioners are completely rubbish at it. At the conclusion of a strategic environmental assessment, my colleagues and I recently submitted our findings to one of the most 'successful' companies in the world. In addition to fulfilling the client's brief, we had identified possibly the biggest commercial opportunity this corporation has seen so far this century. Not only that, they already have the tools for delivering this massively profitable deal to the world's governments and people. No development costs, no establishing credentials, just articulate the problem to a very willing audience and deliver the solution, extremely profitably, from stock. Climate change is the problem, the company has a completely scalable means to reduce it by a vast amount, among hundreds of millions of end-users all over the world.

"They bit your hand off," I hear you say. Wrong. They're not all convinced that climate change is for real and they aren't confident they've got their own house in environmental order. They're therefore worried about seeming hypocritical when selling a climate change adaptation and mitigation tool.

A couple of thoughts:

1. This means they go on polluting while missing a huge profit opportunity. Not only that, they're in a 'clean' industry and could tidy up their own house in no time and at little cost. I'm reminded of a story I heard a few days ago. At election time in Indonesia it seems wealthy families buy up blocks of votes, a neighbourhood at a time. When asked why he didn't just take the money and then vote for a different candidate, one voter replied: "That would be unethical!"

2. I'm not entirely sure that Donald Duck is real. It doesn't stop Disney making billions out of him though, does it?

The whole thing's a bit Mickey Mouse if you ask me.