“Save the planet?! We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet! We haven’t learned how to care for one another and we’re gonna save the f’-ing planet?!” — George Carlin, the late comedian
I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of hearing about swanky global in-person conferences to discuss curbing climate change. You all know what I am talking about — the ones where well-meaning politicians, business executives, scientists, celebrities, and activists fly-in from all corners of the world, emitting tons of carbon in the process, to talk about reducing carbon emissions.
If you take the recent UN Climate Change Conference held in Glasgow, Scotland, their own estimates were that the gathering produced 102,500 tons of CO2 emissions, or the equivalent of the average annual emissions of over 8,000 UK residents. Good job! Way to help the earth, gang. Yes, I get that they committed to and did deliver what many would consider a climate neutral conference, but they are violating their own first principle or the “most favoured option” of their published carbon hierarchy which is “avoid carbon intensive activities and actions.”
I love this quote from Dan Rutherford (a climate activist at a nonprofit), that illustrates how the hypocrisy extends beyond these global ceremonial gatherings to business travelers who often work for companies who excel at virtue signaling and greenwashing, but not necessarily walking the talk. Dan’s quote was included in the Fast Company article, The Pandemic killed business travel. For the sake of the climate, it should stay dead:
“I used to call it the last socially acceptable form of pollution. People would never brag about buying a huge SUV, but they brag about flying 100,000, 200,000 miles a year.”
Dan must not be from where I am from because here in the southeastern United States, people do brag about having big SUVs and flying a lot. I am guilty on both counts. I have a Ford Expedition and I have well over a million miles flown for work. And I used to brag about the flying bit. Business executives, and especially those in professional services, like to literally wear their elite airline statuses and millions of miles flown as badges of honor and hard-earned privilege (just check out their bag tags and airline club membership cards). They like to tell “war” stories about their most harrowing work travel escapades. The reality is this lifestyle is NOT just killing the planet, it is killing the people. That is not just a huge carbon footprint I produced, but it is lost time away from my family and friends that I will never get back, wasted and unproductive time commuting to the destination and back home, and lots of travel-induced stress that can and does lead to health issues. I used to look like some Greek Adonis (not really) before I packed on the consulting thirty (pounds of excess weight).
We have learned a lot of hard lessons during this pandemic. We have learned who actually cares about their neighbors, the elderly, and strangers they may never meet. We have learned just how much we have underappreciated and under rewarded our teachers, nurses, retail and restaurant workers, truck drivers, and other people working frontline jobs. While not everyone has fully taken all of this to heart, I think many of us are realizing something bigger about the interconnectedness of our human existence or said another way, we need each other now more than ever.
The one big lesson I do not believe we have learned is that our aim on reducing business travel and commuting for the benefit of the planet is misplaced. During the big pause of the pandemic, most of the discussion was around how good the drop in traffic was for mother earth, nature, and all the animals. Before you accuse me of being against the environment or being a climate change denier (which I am not), please hear me out. I strongly believe we need to SAVE THE PEOPLE in order to SAVE THE PLANET. Now, I am sure someone can and will make a more intelligent argument than me about how if we don’t save the planet, then we will all be extinct. I posit we are missing out on inspiring and enlisting the vast majority of people, who feel no immediate consequence of climate change, into the environmental movement because we are too focused on what is in it for the planet and not on what is in it for the people. Even the Fast Company article I cite above in its title says we should kill business travel for the sake of the climate.
What about for the sake of the people, people?!
Pre-pandemic, we joked about how many of those time-wasting meetings could have been avoided by someone simply sending an email. Now we can clearly see how many of these compulsory in-person meetings, business trips, and painful commutes to and from the office can be avoided with video calls and team chats. I am NOT anti-in-person. I am anti-in-person-just-for-the-sake-of-being-in-person or just because it makes the boss more comfortable or because that’s how we have always done things. I love what Wharton Professor and Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant shared about the definition of tradition being “peer pressure from dead people.”
There is an element of resistance in this work from home, flexible work, and hybrid work debate that comes across as bosses just being paternalistic Luddites who do not know how to properly manage in a distributed tech-enabled environment. It is as if they need to physically see you sitting in a cubicle or office to believe you exist and are being productive. I agree that there are certain things that tend to be done better in-person — building trust, bringing together a new team, and innovating and creating, but those things have been and can be done virtually and we are getting better at doing them in new ways the more we practice.
I also hear and acknowledge the downsides of being all virtual, all the time. It feels impersonal. There isn’t as much nonverbal communication. There isn’t as much small talk or non-transactional conversation. There isn’t the serendipity of running in to someone in the break room and finding the missing piece to the puzzle you are trying to solve. Also, working from home and virtually definitely blurs the lines between when work starts and when work finishes. There is something nice about having the book ends of leaving home for work and coming home from work and being able to literally and figuratively shut down and compartmentalize our personal and professional lives. I just happen to believe that all of these things can be largely mitigated AND the amazingness that is unleashed— for those of us fortunate enough to be able to do it — by working on what you want, when you want, from where you want is worth so much more than these downsides. And employers, get ready to miss out on a whole world of talented people if you fall in the dogmatic trap of you must move here and be in the office 5 days a week, or no job for you.
So, what are the next steps to saving the people? First, stop making all this reduction in business travel and commuting about saving the planet and definitely stop flying all over the world to do in-person meetings to talk about reducing carbon emissions — have a video conference and make it about giving time back to people to be with their families and friends, time to pursue their lives outside of work, time to sleep more, exercise more, and make it to more of the things that matter to them. Spending less time stuck in traffic, spending less time waiting on a bus, train, or plane, and spending less time traveling from point A to point B and back, means we get to live more of our lives. Second, treat people like the adults that we are. Good business results and work productivity have very little to do with how much face time someone puts in with the boss or hours they clock in the office. Lastly, meet in person when it makes sense to meet in person. Be very intentional about what justifies bringing the team together. Doing fewer, higher quality, in-person meetings — I believe you will find — are more meaningful and magical than when everyone was in the office every day, just because.
