The Net Positive Transition has many layers built on the foundation of quality of living (carbon is about clear air too) and thus essential services, something we learnt well during the dreaded lockdowns. We are in a climate lockdown. We face flooding and heat events each year.

Shopping malls are the cathedrals of global capitalism as one finds uniformity and familiarity in common brands.

Jio World Drive in Mumbai is on par with Ion Orchard and Dubai Mall.

It was great to find Bateel Dates here after Dubai Marina and The Wave in Muscat.

Global spaces are comforting for the certain set of values they evoke. Exclusionary yet the target audience needs that very exclusion.

Decarbonization conversations need to account for energy access and food security as carbon tunnel vision is part of the story. Each sector will have its own peculiarities in their respective geographies. The drive for datafication creates the baseline, however local context and requisite allocation of capital is needed for impact.

Brokers, mediators, facilitators or the quintessential Dalal is a mildly valued negative notion as we presume that systems work as we are rational human actors with no force field to navigate. One of the greatest skills in life is to convince people that helping us is helping themselves or the art of the sale which consultants often preach. We need to convince stakeholders at all levels from the home boss to the work boss.

In low trust societies the figure of the man Friday who will negotiate the quotidian for you so that you can do work normally is a superpower. Countries like Singapore with seamless systems have eliminated the need for such actors, although SME business consultants do exist.

Reminds me of Prof Lisa Björkman ‘s Bombay Brokers, an ethnographic work which shows the role which everyday intermediary actors play.