Excerpt:

…An increasingly VUCA-driven business environment is now a hard-nosed global reality. VUCA refers to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that has turned into satire attempts at any long term, business planning.

Bob holds the view that this turbulence is partially a creation of business itself. He begins by singling out climate change with demonstrate-able fluency, ‘Part of the volatility that we are seeing in business is driven by the Plan A. Plan A for business, which we have been running for 200 years, has not taken us into a good place.’

‘In 200 years we have destroyed more on the planet than we have destroyed in the preceding billion years. That’s a shocking thing for us to say as a business community. If you look at how climate has changed – more than one degree rising on the earth temperature over the past 200 years – that’s a shocking thing.’

He continues, ‘What does that mean? That means we will see rising sea-levels. And as the sea-levels rise, islands will disappear…whole communities will disappear. We will see increasing droughts. Here in Kenya right now we are still having drought. Even with the rains it’s not going to be enough. We are going to see more challenges for scarce resources – and as you see those challenges for scarce resources, you will see more human conflicts. You will see more refugees…’

Bob decries, ‘…If you don’t have a different plan for it…if you do not understand why dealing with climate change is so threatening for us in the future – for our children and our grandchildren – then you do not deserve to be a leader either in business or in politics; or indeed in religion or any of those other leadership areas.

Excerpt from Sustainable Business Coffeetable Book BUILDING AFRICA: Legacy Piece  Bob Collymore’s Feature. Compliked & Written by Sheida