Some praise for Conscious ESG
We’re just getting started, so this section is a gaping void :)
Conscious ESG is not for everyone
It is only for business leaders who are pissed off about the burden of bureaucracy and ridiculous reporting requirements of emissions cuts that ESG and/or NetZero obligations impose. Conscious ESG is for business leaders or sustainability professionals who want alternatives, but don’t know where to turn.
Say, what, I thought the planet was burning?!
Two logically-flawed concepts have been callously imposed on businesses globally:
Net Zero by 2050: the organising principles by which the world intends to keep global warming within two degrees by 2050, and;
ESG: the governance mechanism by which the business world must report their progress towards Net Zero.
Both concepts are unscientific and logically flawed.
Most savvy business owners and leaders intuitively sense this. However, they are caught between a rock and a hard place:
On the rock side, zero emissions (by any future date) is a physical, chemical and engineering impossibility; running a zero-emissions business is an economic impossibility.
On the hard place side, shareholders, investors, suppliers and the user/customer community demand action to save ‘the burning planet;’ compliance with the vagaries of the conflicting ESG standards is enough to ensure sleepless nights for even the most astute sustainability professional.
What is a conscious business leader to do, without triggering a media backlash or sending their share price plunging?
Conscious ESG is an exploratory journey to develop an extended internal model of the world so that we can consciously process and respond to the ESG challenges these conflicts present.
“The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.” - Michael Crichton, 2003 speech to the Commonwealth Club
Let’s face it: climate change is a sensitive, polarizing topic. That’s precisely why we’ve started this publication. As a business leader, you deserve more than what your auditing firm tells you about your company’s “commitment to stopping climate change.” You may not always agree with our decidedly non-mainstream findings. What you will get is “the other side of the coin,” allowing you to make more informed decisions about your company’s ESG strategy.
What we’re planning
Conscious ESG is published in South Africa, but with a global perspective. Much of our thinking is informed by South Africa’s Just Energy Transition, which is anything but just. Our research into what’s going on behind the scenes informs our writing of Conscious ESG.
That’s the negative perspective. The positive perspective is that Africa has climate solutions the Global North doesn’t have access to. These solutions are available to anyone willing to look at the climate challenge differently. As a continent, African nations believe (and know) that this is our time to play a leading role on the global stage.
For the past 3 years, we’ve been gathering inputs from African wisdom keepers. We intend to publish a distillation of this collective wisdom in 2023. We already know, from the wisdom collated already, that the insights will be very different—and far more practical and meaningful—than “Net Zero by 2050.”
So, if you’re a business leader who thinks that ESG obligations are a pain in the proverbial, subscribe to get full access to the preparatory thinking prior to the book’s release. You can see what we’ve published so far in the archive.
We promise that this is a spam-free zone and we’ll respect the sacredness of your inbox (that means NetZero ZERO promotions of any kind). You can unsubscribe the instant we piss you off more than ESG does.
What you will learn
In this courageous, groundbreaking guide to be published in 2023, you will learn:
The historical context of ESG;
The (dubious) origin of climate science and the IPCC;
How science and academia have been hijacked by technocrats;
Why measuring (and reducing) your carbon footprint misses the Big Picture;
How to respond wisely and consciously to ESG (without worrying about emissions or your share price plunging).
You might also want to learn why we started this publication.
Join the community
Our intention has always been for Conscious ESG to be a community-led collective wisdom initiative. The topic we’re addressing is far too complex for an individual or even a small group to adequately cover.
When you subscribe, you’ll be part of an under-the-radar community of business leaders and sustainability professionals who share your frustrations and want to speak frankly. We know you cannot do this in public, so we’ll host a safe space to do so.
Once we reach, let’s say, 200 subscribers, we’ll start a private LinkedIn group, where we can engage with each other and share ideas.
We’ll also investigate anything related to ESG that you’re curious about (from a non-mainstream perspective), so every newsletter will include an invitation to suggest a topic for exploration. We’ll also request reader submissions, so if you have a thought to share with a sympathetic and understanding audience, this is your chance!
Stay tuned and meantime share this with your colleagues so they can sign up too!!
Who is Michael?
That’s a good question! Here’s one version: I’m a solo dad to a daughter who will turn 21 in 2035. When she was born I asked myself,
“What is the best 21st birthday gift a dad can give her daughter?”
The answer continues to be some version of “a world or society or community that works for everyone.” That question continues to drive everything I do today.
You can find everything about me—and connect with me—on LinkedIn. Photo of both of us is below.
And here’s the second version, which tells the story of the two very different careers I’ve had:
1. Technology: The first was a very logical and pragmatic career. I was one of the thousands of people involved in the launch of mobile telephony in South Africa in 1994. After being headhunted to Sydney Australia, I went on to program-manage the implementation of multi-million dollar computer systems in 16 cities on 6 continents.
Sabbatical: Between 2004 and 2006 I took a break from corporate life and dived deep down the rabbit hole of Eastern & Western philosophies and consciousness studies. My exploration was conducted in a self-directed manner while I travelled through Thailand and Malaysia.
2. Systems Change: After a Sabbatical like that, I couldn’t easily go back into the corporate world, so I took a course on systems thinking. Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at patterns & relationships rather than looking at each part in isolation. For the past dozen or so years I’ve been involved in various systems change projects.
Right now, I’m building bridges: bridges between seemingly unrelated topics; bridges between North and South; bridges between People, Public and Private sectors. Conscious ESG helps with the foundations of those bridges.
But more of that another time… That’s what we’ll cover in Conscious ESG, and I hope you’ll consider subscribing.
Conscious ESG is brought to you by the MagicInitiative.com.
Senior editor and lead writer is MichaelHaupt.com.
Cover image courtesy of Samuel Austin.
