I currently concentrate my  blogging  on LinkedIn (in English) as well as the following formats (in German):

WhatMatters: Alice in Sustainability-Wonderland
brutkasten: An Optimist's Guide to a Sustainable Future

Ikigai (proncouned ee-kee-guy in case you are wondering) is a Japanese concept that roughly translates into “reason for being”. It is essentially about finding a purpose, and about that balance between your passions and your profession. It is about improving your work and your life at the same time.

This is where the link with the Covid crisis comes in: We need better lives and better work. As many countries are slowly tip-toeing out of the Covid crisis, they must build back. However, going back to normal would be wrong. We must build back better, harnessing opportunities for environmental protection and social justice as we start greasing the economic wheel again. Neither a better life nor better work is directly related to money (though basic financial stability is a prerequisite of a good life as much as a financial reward can be an important token of appreciation at work).

Ikigai offers a roadmap. Let’s dissect its four dimensions and intersecting circles:

1: What the world needs: This is about what people really need, not about what the market values. The Covid crisis has brought those things to the fore: we value health and wellbeing, we value a walk in the park and a just society, we value actual expertise over self-proclaimed experts, and we value time with our loved ones and that smile of a stranger. These are the things the world needs, not economic growth for the sake of it. To be sure: up to a certain level, financial stability is important for our health, happiness and wellbeing. However, beyond that, other things than money make us much happier.

2: What you love: What the world needs overlaps with some of the stuff you love. Do you love activism for a cleaner environment? Do you love caring for others and getting smiles and appreciation in return? Do you love digital work? Science? Music? Organic farming? Enlightening the world through public speaking? Many of these are the things the world actually needs. As an individual, you might be highly passionate about these. And chances are, you are going to be great at some of them. For companies, this is what should be in their mission statement.
 
3: What you are good at: What is your core competence? What can you do better than others? Whatever it is, you are likely to be very good at some of the stuff you really love, whether it is music or activism or urban gardening. The Covid crisis has thrown us all into life on the internet. You may be great at finding new digital solutions that solve people’s needs, and perhaps you only discovered this during the crisis. If so, think about making it your profession. This is where what you are good at links with what you can get paid for. 

4: What you can be paid for: Doing unpaid work, whether by running errands for elderly citizens or by providing your expertise for free in online seminars, has become part and parcel of our Covid experience. Voluntary work can be very rewarding. Nevertheless, being paid for good work should be the rule. Many people have already lost their jobs or fear for them. Unemployment sucks and it quickly becomes tragic where the social safety net is weak or non-existent.

The Covid crisis forces us to rethink and presents us with an opportunity to find our vocation. It is now much clearer what the world really needs, and this is where many opportunities for business and innovation open up. Want to contribute to curing disease? Consider a medical or research career. Want to care for others, make masks or sell local organic produce? You might find your vocation there. These, like other professions underpaid so far, may just benefit from a more widespread realization of what the world really needs, and hence will be better compensated in the longer term.

We have come full circle. Your ikigai is about finding your personal balance that is in tune with the world, whether as an individual or as a company. It is about using the crisis as an opportunity to move to the next level, to find a job with purpose that lets you demonstrate your talents and live your passion. You are already there? Congratulations! The world needs you to share your experience.

The new coronavirus is rolling over planet Earth, making its way from continent to continent. As it wreaks havoc on underfunded health systems and economies alike, fear spreads as much as do predictions of a better, brighter future in the aftermath of the epidemic. It would be wrong to talk about COVID-19 as a good thing, and much of its impact, particularly in poorer countries, is yet to be understood as the crisis unfolds. However, in some ways it may have been exactly the kind of cathartic experience we needed in order to appreciate what matters, namely health, community networks, real political leadership and global solidarity. Here are some key lessons we have learned so far:

Lesson #1: Solving COVID-19 has little to do with social distancing: Politicians, doctors, scientists and literally everyone is talking about social distancing these days. However, that’s quite a misnomer. What we are seeing is physical distancing at the same time as we see social convergence. The governments that do well in this crisis are those where partisan and cross-party differences are put aside, and where leaders actually lead, by taking decisive action and communicating transparently. Families, communities and even nations are moving closer together, though mostly through virtual means. Younger community members run errands for the elderly and other people at higher risk; activists promote local buying from small enterprises to help them survive economically; we sing together on our balconies; experienced professionals are streaming their insights for free; and we give standing ovations to health workers and others at the frontline for doing their job. Stressed parents struggling to work from home while home schooling their children now appreciate the herculean task of educators. And there is another benefit of all that physical distancing: when checking in for morning meetings online we even get to see our bosses and co-workers in their pajamas, surely a bonus from a social convergence point of view! :)

Lesson #2: Global solidarity will come around. At first sight, COVID-19 seems to have pushed global solidarity down the drain. Donald Trump tried to snap up a German company with promising vaccine candidates and make it exclusively produce for the US market. Germany has been trying to limit the export of protective masks to other European countries. Just a few weeks ago, border closures or even controls all over Europe would have been unthinkable, now they are a basic fact of life. Rich countries are struggling to keep their own health systems in check, and the support they have promised to poorer countries is becoming an afterthought. But thinking again, we realise that it is the very nature of a global pandemic that it can only be fought successfully through concerted, global efforts. What good would it do for the American or any other economy to beat the virus if it could no longer let people or goods in from elsewhere in the world, for fear of re-introducing COVID-19? And we are seeing a great deal of solidarity already: Cuban doctors fly in to support the Italian healthcare system, at great risk to themselves. Europe, who sent scientists to help fight the virus in China early in the year, is now receiving more of this kind of support in return. Border checks to keep the virus at bay may well be the last measure to be lifted, but they will not last forever.

Lesson #3: Their socio-economic contributions now will define companies for years to come: we have been talking about the ‘triple bottom line’ for decades, about the reconciliation of people, planets and profits, asking companies to account not only for finances but for their social and environmental impacts as well. While the success of this is debatable as pointed out by John Elkington himself (the man who coined the term 25 years ago) the crucial socio-economic role companies play and which is sometimes forgotten in sustainability debates, is brought to the fore by the COVID-19 response. Those companies that do not dismiss their employees right away play an important role in preventing even bigger damage due to unemployment. Those who shift their production of arguably less socially desirable goods, such as fast fashion or perfumes, to producing the stuff we really need right now, such as disinfectant, masks or other protective equipment, lead the way. We keep hearing about fascinating innovations, such as 3D-printing of respirators. It is these companies - going back to basics and trying to serve people what they really need - that will be fit for the future.

Lesson #4: There will be winners and losers. We are moved by, and publically applaud, the dedication not only of our health workers. We also celebrate the people working at the front line in supermarkets and pharmacies, and those keeping our utilities and public TV stations running - basically by moving into their offices and giving up real life for a couple of weeks - to avoid service disruptions for all of us. We beg pharma companies to come up with diagnostics, vaccines and medicine. And as we are leapfrogging into digital forms of work, education and service provision, we thank telecommunications companies for ensuring broadband continuously lives up to its promises. Arguably, many of the industries and companies who provide the goods and services considered essential right now (think pharma, medtech, IT, telecoms, etc.) will benefit economically in the longer run. And that is exactly the point of triple bottom line thinking. 

Lesson #5: Systems change is becoming a realistic prospect - if we want it. Humankind has overcome many enormous challenges in the past. There is no reason why we would not be able to bring this one behind us as well. Recent reports from China, the origin of the pandemic, as well as other Asian countries that have been successful in containing the spread of the virus, such as South Korea, are encouraging. However, whether we manage to use our newly derived insights for broader systems change towards a more sustainable and socially just economy remains to be seen. The main ingredient for systems change - a strong external push - is there and the opportunities are clear: as governments bail out failing enterprises, for example in the travel industry, they must impose conditions that will help them reach their environmental targets. Investors have plentiful alternative to fossil fuels these days, and they would be well advised to use them.

Lesson #6: Getting our priorities right. If nothing else, COVID-19 has been a timely reminder about the paramount importance of health and wellbeing. Some of us have rediscovered the little (and in some places guilty) pleasure of going for a walk in the park. We realise we can do without constant business travel or shopping trips abroad, and that cooking at home is a viable option vis-à-vis taking out fast food or eating in restaurants. And we may just begin to realise that taking climate action sooner rather than later is the only option to prevent the next health crisis.

Lesson #7: COVID-19 is not a health issue. COVID-19 is not just a disease. It is not just a health issue the solution of which depends on doctors, nurses, medicines and other parts of a functioning health system. It is also an economic issue, an environmental issue, a social issue, a communication issue, a business issue, a scientific issue and many other issues at the same time. The exact same is true for climate change by the way.

Whether or not we will manage to harness the tragic opportunity offered by COVID-19 will depend on all of us. Let’s #stayathome and do it.

Civilisations, even the greatest ones, come with an expiry date. As we know, greatness did not protect earlier civilisations, such as Ancient Egypt or the Greek and Roman empires, from collapse. Research from the University of Cambridge tells us that the average lifespan of a civilization is a meagre 336 years.[i] What does this mean for our Modern Global civilisation? How many more years do we have? And what can we learn from previous civilisations and the factors that preceded their collapse?

Our civilization has achieved amazing things: from curing previously deadly diseases to travelling into space, from connecting people around the globe in an instant to developing carbon capture technology. Unfortunately this greatness tends to blind us to the severity and urgency of the risks we are facing today. We think that our civilization is better and more advanced than previous ones, and that therefore it is somehow resistant to collapse. We think of our own civilisation as permanent, as the ultimate civilisation that has achieved what humans can possibly achieve. We think of our world as the pinnacle of evolution. I bet you that those Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans thought the same.

This makes us too slow to respond when the risks finally dawn on us, and too focused on one-dimensional solutions. Many of us believe that technology and innovation, which have indeed served us so well in overcoming challenges of the past, are the servants that can continue to make sure we stay ahead. We think within civilizational boundaries which we do not question. But ignoring complexity and failing to look at the bigger picture from a systems perspective is dangerous.

No matter how advanced our Modern Global civilisation may be, it certainly is not immune to collapse. Greatness may actually be a risk factor: greatness seems to correlate with complexity, and both real and perceived greatness has led to the sort of hybris that makes civilizations blind to very real risks. Historically, it was rarely just one event or one factor that caused civilization collapse. A combination of factors seems to have been preceding collapse in many cases. Historical analysis suggests that besides external shocks through war, famine and disease (and sometimes simply bad luck) four main factors are linked to civilisation collapse: Climate change; negative environmental impact; inequality; and complexity.[ii] Does this sound familiar? Climate and other forms of environmental change, widening gaps between the rich and the poor and accelerating complexity are the very issues we are struggling with today. They are already keeping scientists, activists, policy makers and some enlightened business leaders who have understood the need for systems change very busy. We have recognised the trigger points, but we have not yet been able to move much into the right direction.

What does distinguish us from earlier civilisations is that our impact on the climate is human-made and much more pronounced than that of our ancestors. A narrow focus on economic growth, the very progress we cite as a means to push our civilization forward and assure it survives and thrives, is putting our lives at risk, and threatens our entire civilisation. The enormous degree of complexity and interdependence in a globalised world, the fact that we depend on a complex network of private and public entities across several regions and countries for food, water, medicine and other essentials, makes our civilisation even more vulnerable than previous ones.

So if greatness - real or perceived - cannot protect us, what can? The tools we have to arm ourselves against collapse are science, systems thinking and global collaboration. We must address complexity head-on. Science, technology and innovation can indeed go a long way in decelerating the pathway towards collapse. However, without a bigger picture perspective and long-term thinking as well as true global collaboration on policy and action across governments, businesses and citizens – and across countries and cultures - technological innovation will not do the trick. Many of the technical solutions are well known and their likely impact can be tested and demonstrated in very comprehensive and user-friendly ways, for example the EN-ROADS climate change solutions simulator developed by management school MIT Sloan together with Climate Interactive, a think-tank. We now “only” need sufficient political will and societal understanding to actually implement the solutions we have known about for decades.

Addressing climate change is a worthy goal and essential for saving our civilisation. However, it is not an end in itself, but rather a means to maximising health and wellbeing for all, and to save the billions of Euros and Dollars resulting from inaction. Not only at some distant point in the future, but right here and now, where seven million people die from air pollution every year and millions more are affected by drought, flooding, hurricanes, extreme heat and other effects of climate change, all of which has enormous societal costs.

Positive framing and harnessing the power of multisolving – of creating and demonstrating triple wins across the environmental, social and economic spheres at the same time – is the way to go. Rather than messages of doom and gloom this will ensure that action to address the climate crisis and improve global justice is palatable to politicians and business leaders alike, besides providing the necessary incentives for citizens to change their attitudes and behavior.




[i] Kemp, L. BBC Future http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilization-collapse. “The data is drawn from two studies on the growth and decline of empires (for 3000-600BC and 600BC-600), and an informal, crowd-sourced survey of ancient civilizations (which I have amended).”
[ii] Ibid

Want to start the new decade with a win-win-win? Digital detox will make you happier and healthier while benefiting the environment and politics at the same time

If you felt happier and more wholesome over this holiday period than during the rest of the year, this may well be because you were spending less time on social media and had more real-life interactions with friends and family instead. Perhaps you let life move a bit more slowly than usual, taking a break from constantly checking what your friends and colleagues were doing (or purporting to do) online, or agonizing over how many likes a certain post of yours received?
 
When people give up social media for a time, their happiness levels measurably improve. In one Danish study a group of adults had to give up Facebook for a week. By the end of that week, the detox group reported more happiness and less depression than the control group, which continued using social media as usual. Another study asked college students to limit their social media use to ten minutes per day per platform, and no more than 30 minutes in total. Compared to a group of people who continued using social media as usual, those who limited social media use felt less lonely and less depressed over the course of several weeks.
 
If you ended up using your holiday time to go for a walk in the woods, your happiness levels may have further increased: people who exercise in the natural environment at least once per week have only about half the risk of poor mental health compared with people who don’t. Each additional use of the natural environment for physical activity per week decreases the risk of poor mental health by a further 6%.
 
If, on the contrary, you escaped stressful family festivities by retiring with your smartphone to tweet, post and upload, this may have made the situation worse. Getting a glimpse of the joyous celebrations, lavish presents or perfect holidays your peers appeared to enjoy may have made you feel even more stressed and anxious. FOMO – the fear of missing out -  can be very powerful and very painful, particularly at this sensitive time of year. And the grass is almost always greener on the other end of the data highway.
 
So digital detox may be for you. And here is the thing: it will not only make you happier and healthier, it will benefit the environment at the same time. We rarely think about data and communications when we hear about climate change, but your data may actually be quite dirty. The servers and data centers that store and process your data have a massive carbon footprint since they consume large amounts of energy, energy that more often than not comes from fossil fuels. The carbon footprint of ICT (information and communication technologies) is already comparable to that of the aviation industry’s emissions from fuel (2% of global emissions). Some experts predict that the total electricity demand of ICT will be around 20% by 2030.
 
The beginning of this new year also marks the beginning of the decade in which our global carbon budget to remain within the 1.5C limit will be depleted if we continue business as usual. Where global leaders have failed, it is time for individual action, bit by bit. Consider this the next time you switch on Netflix, re-tweet a hilarious comment about Trump or upload photos to Facebook.
 
What’s there not to love? Your digital detox will boost your health and happiness, while also reducing your carbon footprint – and decreasing Trump’s airtime - at the same time. A great win-win-win for starting into this new decade.

This countdown clock shows an estimate of how long it will take the world to reach an amount of greenhouse gas emissions beyond which 2°C of global warming will be likely (Source: Nick Evershed, Carbon countdown clock: how much of the world’s carbon budget have we spent? The Guardian, January 19, 2017).

Are you more interested in the 1.5°C scenario? Click this link. In a nutshell: as of early 2020, we will have about 8 years left.

There is a lot of buzz around high tech solutions for doing business in low-income and emerging markets right now. There are some exciting unicorn examples of emerging market business models which use artificial intelligence, blockchain technology or drones to make supply chains more efficient. However, for many businesses in these markets the potential of low tech solutions is much more exiting right now.
 
These relatively simple solutions, such as online platforms facilitating business links, SMS information services for agribusiness and mobile apps to track logistics, are widely available in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Nevertheless, they remain largely underutilized. This is a missed opportunity in making value chains more effective and more inclusive, thus creating win-wins for small businesses and their multinational business clients, as well as the individuals and communities they serve.
 
In our new research we focused on IT solutions for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), including smallholder farmers. For enterprises in emerging markets challenges range from accessing market insights and gaining skills to accessing finance. While larger companies have the means to overcome many of these challenges, MSMEs typically face bigger constraints, and generally find it more difficult to succeed.
 
“The biggest leap for MSMEs comes from low-tech IT solutions that improve access to information, transparency and traceability in value chains, and those that facilitate access to finance and basic services, such as healthcare services and access to energy.“
 
Together with Fundes, Endeva has scanned available IT solutions that enable MSMEs to grow and become more productive. As production networks span ever more widely across multiple countries, the opportunities to better integrate MSMEs from emerging markets in global value chains are vast. Suppliers, distributors and customers who had previously been isolated can now be accessed relatively easily with the help of these IT solutions.
 
Click here for an overview IT solutions that make MSMEs more effective and thus facilitate their incorporation in large companies’ value chains.

Africa is missing millions of qualified health workers. As a result, many people in low-income contexts cannot access healthcare at all, or they receive poor quality care. Employing community health workers – who are less well trained than conventional health workers but closer to patients – has been a solution for decades. While community health workers (CHWs) have achieved a great deal they have been facing enormous challenges, ranging from lack of access to medicines to gaps in their own education and experience.
 
In recent years, pioneering organisations such as Living Goods have started addressing these issues by using technology to support CHWs with artificial intelligence. Living Goods is a social enterprise that works with CHWs to deliver health products and services to the poor in Kenya, Uganda and other countries. It has armed its agents with mobile tools to facilitate their day-to-day work, thus enabling them to provide better and more efficient care. In partnership with Medic Mobile, an mHealth company, Living Goods has taken the next step to harness the data it collects, making use of robust-real time data flows to bring additional capabilities to CHWs and thus provide even better and more targeted care.
 
In the health track of ii2030, a two-day event to develop solutions for intelligent diagnosis and treatment in low-income contexts organised by Endeva, stakeholders from business, academia and civil society came together to identify solutions that are fit for the future. They asked what it would take pioneering NGOs and social enterprises like Living Goods to share their data, thus supporting stretched healthcare works in low-income contexts with artificial intelligence and potentially with big data.
 
What ethical and legal challenges would they face? Would organisations be protective of ‘their’ data or willing to share for the benefit of their programmes and the people they serve? How could these data be usefully combined? How could big datasets be used to facilitate predictive analysis and thus improve the quality and efficiency of care? We want to continue this conversation and are looking for interested partners.
 

Last month I was invited to give a keynote speech on innovative and appropriate businesses solutions in the energy sector. The meeting was organised by the Global Forum on Sustainable Energy in the run-up to the 2017 Vienna Energy Forum, a bi-annual global multi-stakeholder forum.
 
‘Affordable and clean energy’ is #7 in the world’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is clearly related to many of the other SDGs, such as those covering health, gender, water and sanitation, decent work, sustainable cities, climate action and others. 1,4 billion people currently have no access to electricity and instead use kerosene and candles for lighting purposes. Three billion people cook and heat with biomass, causing 4 million deaths per year.
 
Therefore it is all the more surprising that debates often center on technology and supply side solutions rather than taking energy users, many of whom live and work at the base of the pyramid (BoP), as a starting point. In other words, they focus on what’s possible with technology in the short term rather than applying an effective multi-sectoral lens when developing solutions for these people in the medium- and long term.
 
All too often, well-meaning donors, NGOs and companies spend public or private money to provide top-notch technological solutions to these issues while failing to take basic realities into account. As a result, success is often short-lived at best, with negative implications sometimes more likely.
 
The lessons on appropriate solutions are clear and I have been working with partners to implement these effectively: solutions must respond to an actual need and be affordable; when considering affordability, not just the initial purchase of hardware but also cost for installation, maintenance and repair need to be factored in; local providers should be able to install, operate and maintain equipment using spare parts and appliances that do not become obsolete in the long-run; local labour and other resources should be employed as much as possible; and last but not least, equipment must be built with local conditions, such as heat, dust, etc. in mind.
 
Now it is time for all public and private actors to internalise and apply these lessons. This is true not only for solutions in the energy sector but for all sectors in which technology can make a difference to the lives of the poor, including medical technology and technology for the production of everyday necessities for example.