The cost of thinking big to net zero

Have you ever considered the cost of thinking BIG? This month I have been challenged by the words of Anne (see details below) who reflects that it costs the same to think small as to think big.

In this post I share our progress in March on our mission to help multinationals accelerate the transition to net zero with my re-energised mindframe to think and act big! 

We’re excited to launch our Abundium Leapfrog Carbon-Free Energy Initiative, powered by Schneider Electric. The initiative is centred around accelerating the decarbonisation of cross-sector multinational subsidiaries and not-for-profits in Australia.

Sustainability highlights in March

I joined an inspiring Schneider Electric Innovation Summit in Sydney and we hosted a special guest Anne Ascharsobi, APJ Digital Innovation Lead, Sustainability at AWS at our final workshop for the PLUS UTS Business Futures + Abundium Sustainability short course.

Insights from the Summit

• The opportunity for innovation and electricity to drive sustainability
• The reframe of waste as a resource to embrace circularity
• The Inflation Reduction Act as the most important Climate Action in US history with electrification at its heart
• The opportunity to rewire Australia is the best investment opportunity we have
• Think of the electricity grid as the conductor to an orchestra

Insights from Anne

• Innovation as a habit and a consistent stream of thought versus something you turn on and off
• Being stubborn on vision but flexible on the details
• Thinking 10x and thinking Big - thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Starting with materiality, analysing which issues are the most important and why do certain stakeholders think how they think
• Always keep focused on the end customer need, working backwards from that and ask lots of questions
• Building impact into commercial frameworks

What struck me after these two learning experiences is the importance to embed a mindframe of innovation into our sustainability endeavours.

As Einstein famously said,

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Steps towards making 24/7 carbon-free energy a reality

We are excited, in partnership with Schneider Electric, to combine the power of co-creation with technology and thought leadership to establish aggregated Purchase Power Agreements supported by complementary actions that improve energy efficiency, energy management, and decarbonisation.

Here in Australia, we are in a unique position with our abundance of sun and wind in addition to our electricity grid’s planned capability to operate a 24/7 real-time consumption of carbon-free energy by 2025.

Capitalising on that, this initiative is leapfrogging the typical approach towards buying renewables, which has successfully driven acceleration of renewable generation capacity in the market, but which must become more sophisticated if we are to decarbonise the electricity grid.

We’ll keep you posted on our progress and please reach out if you’re interested to get involved!

What’s lighting me up

Here are a few resources that have inspired me this month.

• Peter Diamandis’s blog
• Paul Polman’s ‘Net Positive’ movement
• Yvon Chouinard‘s ‘Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman’ Book

I leave you with these poignant words from Paul Polman (one of Abundium’s masterclass speakers).

"The best advice I was ever given is you either make the dust, or you’ll eat it. Be bold, and don’t waste time on things you don’t believe in. I’ve never felt more motivated to help put business in service of humanity. I want to prove that the most successful companies are what I (and my exceptional co-author Andrew Winston) call “net positive” in our book. Net Positive means you thrive by giving more to the world than you take. Put another way, you can profit by helping fix the world’s problems – including runaway climate change, rampant inequality and diminishing biodiversity – rather than by creating them." 

I would love to hear anything that resonates with you and what’s lighting you up on this crucial topic in the decade of action.