Tradeoffs
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is well known, taking the kingdom to a post-oil, socially (more) liberal, and economically globally-integrated future. But, I’m here in Kenya this week, and I didn’t know they have a Vision 2030 too. Kenya’s aim is to take its economy ‘up the value chain’ so that it becomes a middle-income country by 2030 — and is both clean, and secure.
I can report that they’re not there yet, but here’s the paradox, in one picture:
I was here the other day, at Hell’s Gate, a beautiful wildlife park that happens to be on top of one of the world’s most active geothermal sites. Kenya has been drawing power from underground heat for 50 years, and by 2030 50% of its energy will be geothermal. But can we really argue with clean energy being provided to a society that lives on GDP purchasing power of $4000 per year (it’s right between Myanmar and Syria)?
Or, what about the $3b Chinese-funded rail project that takes freight from Kenya’s port city of Mombasa to its capital, Nairobi? Uniquely, the city has a wonderful wildlife park in the middle of the urban sprawl — and now a railway runs right through it, albeit elevated to allow animals to wander freely.
Question: What strategic tradeoffs do you need to make that are unpopular but, on balance, desirable?
When simple isn’t
I’m in Nairobi working with the UN which, to global applause, passed a resolution last week to end plastic pollution.
Now, I’ve been a plastics consumer all my life and you probably have too. But we’re about to be weaned off the stuff. Well, at least that which ends up as waste. Incidentally, can you guess what percentage of all plastics produced since 1950 still floats in oceans and lies in landfills in 2022? (I was shocked - the answer is below).
It seems like a simple enough proposition: “End plastic waste”. But here’s the tricky part: “What exactly is considered plastic?” Yes, of course, it’s plastic bottles and packaging. That’s the easy part. But what about microplastics — the tiny beads in cosmetics, and in threads of fabrics — that I guarantee you never think about, or have even heard of? And plastics in medical devices? In electronics? In building materials?
We’re utterly surrounded by plastic, and the drinking straw and the shopping bag are the tiniest edge of the problem. Boldness and brainpower — and collective will — will be brought to bear on two areas: (i) defining which plastics are the biggest parts of the problem and, even more importantly, (ii) which economic levers will eliminate or replace these, recognising the vast flows of money and productive activity that plastics currently stimulate.
Question: What ‘simple’ issue must you tackle in your business that requires a mix of boldness and definitional clarity?
Would you ever archive your emails?
On the subject of disposal, a conversation with UN colleagues over dinner stimulated this question: “When is it worth keeping information — and when should you just let it go?”
Back in 1985, I worked for the Defence Department, on one of the first data digitisation programs in Australia. We had to unpack entire warehouses of military records (going back to the Boer War) and work out what was worth scanning, and what was thrown away. My recollection is that about 20% was kept; my other is that the scanner + CD-burner at the time cost about $1m — within 20 years, you could buy that same gear for about $100.
Ironically, since we’ve gone electronic, it’s less likely that information is archived: in the 19th-century people made copies of letters they sent; today, nobody bothers to keep emails (after all, who’s going to read “The Collected Emails of Donald Trump"?).
But think about the use cases for good archiving of digital information, especially with artificial intelligence applied to it. Sometimes these can literally be life and death. One of my health sector clients realised that analysing archived text messages of teens can reveal suicidal thoughts; another analysed archived Facebook posts of women and identified thousands of unreported cases of pelvic mesh complications (globally, settlements on this one are likely to reach $10b). But texts are ephemeral and rarely archived, whereas Facebook is archived by Facebook, and not easily viewable at that level.
Question: What archived information could help your organisation make better decisions, or even breakthroughs?
As you’re reading this, I’m on my way here — to the Amboseli Wildlife Park on the border of Kenya and Tanzania, under the snowy cap of Mt Kilimanjaro.
I’ll be back on firm Terra Australis next week, when I’ll be with you again next Friday. In the meantime, keep the 5MSM machine happy by clicking the heart to let me know you’ve enjoyed reading this week.
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See you next week,
Andrew
And, the answer to the question above is that 75% of ALL plastics ever produced are still in existence as waste, and 75% of that is in landfills or oceans.
Hi Andrew, Thought provoking photographs and questions that you pose. What contrasts those photos depict.
Those images are so powerful! Hope your having a hoot of a time!