If not now, then when?

24 Jan 2022

In his annual open letter to corporate bosses, BlackRock founder and CEO Larry Fink has told chief executives that firms who fail to adjust to the changes brought about by the pandemic “do so at their own peril.”

He adds: “Companies expected workers to come to the office five days a week. Mental health was rarely discussed in the workplace and wages for those on low and middle incomes barely grew.” “That world is gone.”

Well, going, but who wants to be the first to put up prices to pay for the “new normal”? I think that Global Warming needs to figure large in strategic planning, but in practice CEOs, like governments and Louis XIV tend to take the view “after me, the deluge”. The global CEO of Deloitte says there is a “disconnect between ambition and action” when it comes to businesses operating sustainably, saying that while firms are aware of the impacts of climate change, they are struggling to embed climate considerations into their company culture, or to return to the Black Rock warning: “Companies not adjusting to this new reality and responding to their workers do so at their own peril.”

My question remains, while pandemic adjustments may be easier than climate change ones, where is the incentive for companies or governments, or consumers, employees, or voters to support policies that are sensible and necessary if their neighbour doesn't?

I mean no sacrilege when I say it is difficult to remove the spot from our own eye when through it we can see the log in our neighbour's.