A crucial part of growth comes with learning and the kind of learning which makes oneself uncomfortable, vulnerable, and open to ridicule as learning is embedded with circuits of knowledge production and performance metrics which is unforgiving.

The inability to learn with dignity and patience stifles innovation and risk taking which prevents growth. Learning and risk-taking go together. Growth is about pushing the envelope.

For me writing is sacred, and I enjoy the craft, and I like telling narratives that are muted, erased, and do not neatly fit within the neat contours of the publication model. I have been dismissed by literary agents, academic supervisors and have been told the nastiest of epithets. Yet I write, as when I do I exist as despite attempts to write me off, I am here scribbling on digital feeds, my blog and author research papers. I shall leave behind my own archive.

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.

Sustainability disclosures reflect the new social contract between companies and society that includes carbon and community. Survival as a species is a new business normal. As society evolves, capitalism evolves as well. #sustainability

The Energy Transition is a Human Transition, and unless communities are engaged and even better cared for all technocratic thinking will fall short. There will be variegated geographies of decarbonization, and the context will be key to unlocking impact.

All plans look good in a report, the implementation is where the true transition tale will span out.

#energytransition

As a dyed in the wool ESG/ESIA (with a lens on S) practitioner I look forward to the convergences between the environmental planning mechanisms and the deluge of disclosure standards that have the potency to overwhelm. ESIA and ESDDs are disclosures within ESG risk frameworks when they are a part of disclosures on MFI websites as a part of transaction transparency.

The old and the emerging need to speak to each other, as good data is actionable data at asset level aggregated to the scale of the global organization.

Impact in Climate Innovation requires a bunch of things- a problem to solve deeply and at scale – an understanding of science, finance, law, and culture. The problem is often interdisciplinary scholars and bridge builders operate from a white space with poor institutional backing.