Climate Change and Conversations at home. Part 1.
Daughter (above) left to spend 5 years, breaking her back (literally, bending over T-squares) to become an architect and earn no money. While architects are famously poor, the course is one of the most intellectually stimulating courses around — ask any architect, even those who’ve quickly left the profession and started selling things. So she is having a ball, hugging pillars and sketching bricks. And because she has overheard my ‘40% of all GHG emissions come from built spaces’ rant on my Climate Change sessions, she is feeling very important and thinking that after BV Doshi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._V._Doshi) , it is all up to her.
But the situation would not have been all laughter and jokes if she had a consumptive lifestyle. Learning from her parents, the girl is a minimalist, who wears pre-loved clothes, loves eating home cooked food (preferably others homes) and is a die-hard miser. I can’t contain my pride at her staunch refusal to spend any money. So when she doesn’t earn any, it will be life as usual. And she can go on to build climate-resilient houses for the poor, singing her way to the (mud) bank.
79% of the top 100 listed Indian companies, provided an ESG report in 2022–23, according to KMPG’s ‘ESG Reporting 2.0’. The number of organisations, including MSMEs, who I conduct ESG sessions for, has been increasing year on year. However, the translation of disclosures to action remains low, especially for the smaller organisations. Most of the employees want to know what is absolutely mandated so that they may do exactly that and no more. The desired outcome is to meet with Regulations and not to stop the Planet from burning up and choking. How does this connect to conversations at home?
Imagine you own an organisation whose business is damaging (take your pick of cars, fast fashion or anything that does not improve human or planetary health). The following are the possible ways that you will change your business processes for better/ reduce, stop production of the damaging stuff.
1. The customers demand a responsible product/service. You and I are those customers. If conversations at home are about the latest phone, car and brand names then we will continue buying those, which serve no purpose on this earth. Daughter does this fabulous deadpan expression if anyone, ever, mentions a branded acquisition. The acquirer just gets very confused about their (expensive) life choices for a moment. (Brand here does not refer to the ones which have planet and people at their core. Only the ones that cost a kidney and don’t do much else).
2. Customers stop demanding damaging (read useless) products. Does every celebration at home have a material possession attached to it? Do you have a store room crammed with stuff? We’ve been blessed with people coming home all the time — to spend time with daughter. They played hide and seek with her when she was baby and discussed crushes when older. I don’t even know what they talk about most of the time. There is no showering of ‘things’. There is heaps and heaps of time and love and patience. And food. The village that brought her up, is full of ‘time’ billionaires. It’s the other kind that we found no time for ( because they don’t have any haha).
3. Government mandates businesses to change for better. In every ESG session ever, employees demand that the Government makes changes in Rules and force sustainable production. There are two things.
a. Government is not going to do that if their voters don’t care about sustainability. Even with international pressure. You and I are the voters.
b. Second, the moment Government does it, the businesses want subsidies and incentives. Which will come from the tax payers. You and I are the tax payers.
4. If Government doesn’t provide incentives to go sustainable, how will the businesses do it unless customers pick up the difference? You and I are the customers. Are we willing to pay extra for a more responsible product but which is not a brand that you can flash around? Like say, organic food? We talk for hours till people beg us to stop, about the importance of spending more to eat chemical free. Daughter is almost a full-fledged quack in her hostel now, prescribing kitchen spices for indigestion, period pain and I think heart break ( or was it heart burn?).
5. If we are unwilling to pay the differential, and there are no subsidies, businesses can still clean up their supply chains and re-design if they are willing to reduce their profits in the near future. If the employees are willing to take a hit on their incentives today, to keep the planet alive for tomorrow. You and I are those employees. But can we support our consumptive lifestyle with lowered salaries? We come a full circle.
Daughter holidayed with us, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari (no seriously, we did both places and some more) through her class 12 and the only yelling she ever got was for not going to sleep at 10 pm. On that one night. Or two. She continued being the official photographer for our ‘Dilli Meri Jaan’ walks every weekend. We were able to spend gallons of time just sitting on her head and staring at her, because we don’t rush. To get that extra salary. To buy that extra thing. That we just don’t need.
Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia, famously shook his head sadly, when the firm became worth a billion dollars many years back, saying “I knew it would come to this”. Of course he has given away all his personal wealth for environmental action now and is back to being happy.
So unless conversations at home focus on ‘Happiness’ rather than external validation, we will keep killing the earth. And the little chance we still have, of being happy.
