 So we need to secure the future of terror and humanity. And I suggest a new concept for this, a new term, which I call future ranity, future ranity, because this future of terror and humanity is something every reasonable person should be able to agree on. And the advantage of this concept would be that we can distinguish between that which is sustainable and that which is kind of the overall goal, the vision. Because if we use the same word, sustainable, for the apple we buy and for the great vision for humanity, we risk that the great vision gets damaged if we realize the apple is not as sustainable as we thought. And this happens actually quite often that we think things are sustainable. And then in a few years, a few decades later, we realize, well, it might not have been the best idea. Take for instance, bioenergy. 15 years ago, we thought that the energetic use of biomass is a good thing to do. Today, we have a totally different perception on that. And that is an illustration if people now say, well, scientists said 15 years ago, this is sustainable. Now they say it's not sustainable. Well, then sustainability cannot work anyhow. And I think kind of an airbag against this solution is to have a concept that we agree on. We need to secure the future of terra and humanity. We need futurinity. And if we do that, we can argue about the details. This John Berg is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Christian has extensive professional experience as a sustainability lecturer and keynote speaker for corporate sustainability. Among others, he worked as chief sustainability architect at SAP and led the task for sustainable economic activity and growth within German Chancellor Merkel's Future Dialogue. His book, Sustainable Action, Overcoming the Barriers was accepted as the new report to the Club of Rome. Therein, he gives a comprehensive account of barriers to sustainability and suggests action principles for sustainability which support actors in contributing to the realization of the sustainable development goals. He holds degrees in physics, philosophy, theology and engineering. I want to welcome Christian. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks a lot, Mark, for having me. It's a pleasure. It's so good to see you. And just to let our guests know, we are going to meet live for the first time, not digitally, at the European Hansen Museum in Lübeck. They're going to do a nice panel discussion with a couple of superstars in the food area about how we eat and food. And you're going to be the wonderful moderator and hopefully sparring partner to get some good topics and information out of each one of us. So we kind of had the fortunate ability to talk about that upcoming event as well, to get to know each other. But I've seen you from afar in many different areas and aspects and you've been in the sustainability arena for quite some time and done some amazing things. And that's why I really wanted to have you on the podcast to kind of break down and talk about some things. So again, it's an honor. And I'm glad my listeners have the chance to also get to know you and hear about the wonderful things you do. Thanks, Mark, very charming. Let's see. Yeah, I want to start out first and foremost in this time of pause and pandemic, I want to ask you, how have you weathered? How have you been? And are you doing okay? And with all your years of experience of doing sustainability, has it helped you weather the pandemic any better than you think other people have you been? That's a tough question. Well, I personally, I'm doing fine. I mean, I've had some problems with my book because the English version appeared in winter time, just prior to the pandemic. The German version appeared in March, about a week before the lockdown in Germany. So that was quite unfortunate. We did have, I did have some media coverage, but not as much as I wanted. And this was kind of ironic because in the book, I have kind of the starting point that we're, yeah, we're in a constant mode of crisis. And so in the early 2000s, we had terrorism as a crisis, security issues. Then we had, after Al Gore's movie, we, Convenient Truth, we had some attention on climate. And then we had the subprime crisis and the state debt crisis. And then for climate, it shifted out of focus again. And so on and on, we are moving from crisis to crisis. And in the book, I argue, let's look at the root causes. What's actually the problem? And that's a kind of an irony, and I'm sure we will talk about that soon. But just to answer your question, I personally, I'm doing quite well. I'm very privileged in a Northern German village close to Kiel. I work a lot from home. I had to cancel and a lot of my talks were canceled. Some were done virtually. I encouraged the clients. And in one case, I could even make a bank, which is the most conservative industry in a way. I could convince them to do a private equity conference virtually, which was a success. So things are changing. And I'm definitely a very privileged. I've personally had a good time. But on the other hand, it's really sad to see how we as humanity are doing and how we treat the planet. And I can only hope that this will be a really an alarm clock for us and that we all wake up and see we need to change something. I think the pandemic showed us so many things that showed us how humanity can pivot on a dime to make a change and adapt and get some action. I also think it's a wonderful pause and a wake-up call for us to see the world in a different way, to see that the pandemic is a global citizen and it doesn't just affect us in India or Africa or China. That it's something very global. Recent media obviously as President Trump just got the COVID and all sorts of drama around the craziness of that as well. I'm a big fan of the Club of Rome and really started back in the 70s shortly after the Limits to Growth book came out. My father and family got the book and I read it fervently. And probably one of the first books I read for a long time and I'm a big fan of it now. And the thought process. But I like the unique way that it started out as a report from the Club of Rome paid for by the Volkswagen Foundation, Stiftium in Germany. And that for me in my climate area, my climate circles, it's kind of like the climate Bible for me or the systems thinking Bible. It really give us some things that are going on in the world. It was written in 1972 though. And then in 2015 Volkswagen had dieselgate, right? So I'm like, didn't they read their own book that they paid for that it was originally a report? What happened? What went wrong? And I'm like, why aren't we listening? Why aren't we, you know, this information we've been talking about it forever. Why aren't we doing something about it? And, you know, that's, I guess really the first question and it's also something we're going to get into right afterwards in your book. It's about sustainable actions and doing things. Why is it that some of this knowledge has just been around? You talked about Al Gore's and Communicroof and all these things that we hear all this and then it just piddles out. We don't do anything. We don't take any action. We forget that we even read it or paid for it or wrote it. Yeah, all good questions, Mark. Maybe first the word on the Volkswagen Foundation to be very clear, the Volkswagen Foundation and the Volkswagen company don't have actually much in common apart from their name. So they are legally separate and they are no, there have no, I mean, there are probably interactions but they are in no ways obliged to work for the other. So that's really two separate entities. But on the other hand, I agree. We have, and this is also frustrating. I mean, we've discussed these issues like almost 50 years now. That's half a century. And there is so little progress. And that is actually also one of the reasons why I thought I need to write a book about my own view, what can we do? On the other hand, the car industry, and I think this is also for me as a German, it's a very kind of painful experience. But from my point of view, the car industry showcases that politics needs to set the proper boundaries for industry. And if politics is failing to do that because for instance, in fear of losing jobs or having pushback by lobby groups, they miss the opportunity of innovation. Innovation doesn't come by itself. Innovation is driven by scarcities. I mean, necessity is the mother of invention. That's the proverb, isn't it? Scarcities drive innovation. And if you always say, we cannot change anything because we need to make sure that we don't lose jobs, then you're out of order at some point or out of operation. Because innovators will surpass you and will be more agile. I'm not saying that it's easy. I mean, the car industry is a huge industry with billions of euros in assets. And you cannot from one day to the other change that. But talking about the German car industry, I would say, in the 80s, we had the discussion about the catalyst. And in California, the German car industry could produce cars with the catalyst. For the German market, they said, it doesn't work because it reduces efficiency. In the 90s, we had that same discussion with the diesel or the particle filters. Engineers said, no, well, then efficiency will go down. The French showed the way. Peugeot did it. All of a sudden, we could do this as well. In the 2000s, discussion about electric vehicles. And then again, discussion was, no, this will never work. And now we have, I think, 20 years of the hybrid model of Toyota, the Prius. And we have almost 15 years of the Tesla. And all of a sudden, the German car industry goes itself as well. So again, I don't want to bash here any person or any industry per se. But I'm saying that this is really a systemic issue. We need clear guidance from politics, anticipating the development tomorrow and setting the right framework for that in order to boost innovation. And that is something which I think the German car industry has not done very well. You do a lot with also kind of financials, future finance, or a little bit as well, or you've had some talks in the past. By no means did I want to bring up a Volkswagen to bash on them or even to go into them because honestly, they were one of the first companies to come out with a plant-based fuel, fabulous, wonderful company, good auto manufacturer. I know those two companies, the foundation and the company are separate, two different type of organizations, institutes, so to say, but they are tied together. And this is kind of a financial thing as well. A lot of companies start a foundation or nonprofit to help charity to do other things, but it's also, let's be honest, a lot of companies use it a way to funnel money as a way to, if we do this, we pay less in taxes here if we can do so much, things like that. And it's changed over the years, it's gotten better or worse. And I really don't even want to get into that. The more important thing is the book because the book set the standard in some ways, moving forward, especially with a systemic view, that systems thinking approach, because it was based on the world model three, which was a complex systems thinking dynamic model, the world model three that ran numerous scenarios that hold us where we would be in the future. Even the second book, Beyond the Limits to Growth was all beyond because we'd gone beyond the limits to growth. And the world model three evolved over transitions. And today we've got much better scenarios and models, but that even if there was that separation, they're different. Why aren't we seeing that not only is it a better business model, but why aren't we seeing right there? We're always looking for the proof, we're always looking for the science, the math, the data of what's coming in the future and how can we be prepared? And it's been there for a while. We need to actually just apply it. And then like this pause, this pandemic, we've seen those applications of ESG divestments, investments and sustainability investments and a system approach as such good return for businesses, as such good long-term models that provide resilience. And so I don't know if there's a question for that, but I kind of wanted to clarify why I brought that up because it really brings me to, and you can mention anything if you want, but it really brings me to your book. It is sustainable action overcoming the barriers. And it's a Club of the Rome authorized report come out in German and English. And it was kind of a unique way how you went to that book and I'd like you to tell us that story and then maybe go back, because I want to even hear before that when you were with Merkel on the German Chancellor's Council for Future Dialogues, how some interesting things happen there I want to hear as well. Yeah, thanks, Mark. Actually, these two questions are related because maybe I start actually with the last part, my experience in the Future Dialogue of Chancellor Merkel. It was very honorable and also interesting task because you as a scientist or as a, yeah, as somebody driven by strong internal conviction that we need to change the course of our path as humanity if you get the chance to talk to the Chancellor of Germany who is at that time was supposed to be one of the world's most important female leaders, then you think, well, this is my once in a lifetime chance. I tell her what she needs to do. And then naively you think that this changes the course of her politics. And that's of course, stupid, absolutely naive. She is very, very smart. And I really admired her compassion towards the future, towards a really wise and good leadership of Germany. And I can maybe mention that we did these series of meetings with her during the height of the financial crisis, the Euro crisis. And she was all day long. It was so time consuming and very, very stressful to secure the Euro and the stability of the Eurozone. And within that, in the midst of that, she took five hours, for instance, for a meeting with just 10 people to discuss what can be done, what needs to be done in the time horizon of 10, maybe 20 years. And I thought this is extraordinary. Yeah, energetic and compassionate and really positive. But at the same time, I realized that after one and a half years, we came out with 12 suggestions. And it was supposed to be very short paper because the chancellor was supposed to be able to read this. And I was only one out of 18 groups. Other people did similar things. So we came out with 12 suggestions. For instance, abolish environmentally harmful subsidies or get sustainability as a state goal in our constitution or you name it. And one was we needed what we called meta label for sustainable products because in Germany, we have like 400 product labels. And at the point of sale, the poor consumer asks him or herself, do I want now without child labor or without toxicity or energy saving or organic? And I mean, no reasonable person will try to decide. If you're an enlightened consumer and an aware consumer, you might say, well, I want a product that doesn't do any harm to the environment and to people. And that suits my needs. So we thought, okay, why don't we develop a label which is kind of on top of the existing ones and secures that the product is from cradle to grave or from cradle to cradle is sound. Doesn't do harm to the environment, doesn't do harm to people. And this was a suggestion that the German government should develop such a label. It's not easy. You need different product categories and it is a lot of work, not saying that it's easy, but it could be done. And this actually went into the coalition treaty of the last so-called great coalition or big coalition social democrats, Christian democrats in Germany. And one year before our last federal elections, I was invited by the state secretary of the respective ministry to work on a paper for sustainable consumption. And my first question was, I would be interested to hear what you did with this suggestion on the meta-label. And he said, well, there are hundreds of reasons we didn't execute on this. And one of them is sitting in front of you. And I was struck and said, well, if that's the problem, what can we do? There are so many barriers to sustainability. And apparently the best intended and the best elaborated concepts didn't work out because there was one state secretary not behind the idea. And that brought me. Now, I give you a chance maybe to ask again. I don't want to- No, please go into it. Please tell us about how you now got into the book. Yeah, but this kind of was a sparking event for me because I thought this cannot be, there are so many great projects, so many ideas, so many initiatives, but we don't get this on the street. And therefore I thought, okay, what are actually the barriers? The systematic conceptual barriers that prevent us from being more sustainable. And I found out actually that there are many different ones it has to do with market issues, with externalities, market failure basically. We have the tragedy of the comments, which isn't a great issue. We have a lack of governance. We have, especially in the global arena, we're lacking proper global governance for global issues. And global issues need to be dealt with in a global framework. And we're lacking that. I mean, we do have global institutions like the UN, but you would have actually have to invent the UN if it were up there, but we all know that the UN has issues. It is not as powerful as it needs to be. It has internal bureaucracy, sometimes in the past there were problems of nepotism and others. So we do have global institutions, but not as powerful as needed to fight our global challenges. Then, of course, we can look into ourselves and see we have moral deficiencies. I mean, an inconvenient truth is much likely to be heard than a convenient lie. I mean, everybody wants to be convenience and wants to have convenience and wants to be, yeah, amused. An inconvenient truth is not really, cannot really be sold very well. We have system inertness. Even the sociologist Max Weber said a hundred years ago, if you have a fully elaborated bureaucracy, there is hardly anything you can do to change course because the routines, the processes are so rigid for good and for bad. I mean, we established bureaucracy because there is some need for it, to structure processes, to do justice to everybody and so on. But at a certain point it gets too rigid. And so our systems are so rigid that it's hard to change them. So there are many different barriers. And I could go on, but you wanted to chime in. No, I mean, I think it's fine. I'd like you to go on because it's so important. There are some things that I do want to unpack even more. So maybe it's kind of more behind the scenes because especially for our listeners, maybe you can give us that nice unique insight to be accepted and to be included as a report with the club of Rome. In my opinion, it's a great honor. A lot of the mentors, a lot of the people I talk about in my climate discussions. By the way, I'm in both Inconvenient Truth and the sequel to Inconvenient Truth. I'm both of those movies because I was one of the first 50 people trained by Al Gore as a climate speaker back in his ranch in Carthage, Tennessee. And so when you see him giving the original presentation and his barn, I'm in the back on the right and looked much different then. A lot fatter, a lot bigger person. But what I really wanted to unpack about the club of Rome, about your book and the honor. So not only, this is my newer version of the limits to growth by the club of Rome. I have the original tattered one on the shelf as well. Donel Meadows, Dennis Meadows, your grander Steve Barron's, then Gunter Pauley's book, the blue economy, 100 million jobs, 10 years, 100 innovation, things like that. Fabulous book as well, similar in comparison, a little bit to Paul Hawkins' Drawdown book as well. And then there was another smaller book as well that I really liked from the club of Rome and the quality, the standard, the update, the information, I think, and I've gotten a book myself from them and gotten that support. But I wanted to know what's the barriers of entry, what kind of things are they looking for? And boy, we're very honored to have you on our show to now get insight from an expert who's actually been chosen to that. You promised me a signed copy of the English version when we meet each other live here in Lübeck, so. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there is, you're right. And as a child, I wouldn't have imagined that I could at one point in time be actually a candidate for such a book. It is really a great honor and privilege that's absolutely clear. I mean, the club of Rome has, from its beginning and has always had three kind of basic principles. One is we need to have a comprehensive, a global view on the barriers. This view needs to be interdisciplinary and systemic. We cannot do with just one isolated perspective and it has to be long-term. So it's a global, comprehensive, holistic and long-term view on the challenges of humanity. That's the kind of DNA in a way of the club of Rome. And that, I would say, makes it so unique because it doesn't just focus on just, quote unquote, on the natural environments, on the ecosphere, on the human rights. It is really a comprehensive view. Which route are we following as humanity? And of course, there are, I mean, the process, I'm not sure if that's here, what you're after, but the processes that you submit in manuscript, it has to be within a certain period. So it must not have been published yet. So it's still in the process of the making prior to the production process. And then it has certain, of course, academic scientific criteria that's kind of a no-brainer. That's, it has to be scientifically sound up to date and so on. But it has also to be original contribution, which is in line with this DNA of the club of Rome, as I just outlined it. And it has to be a positive contribution to the dealing of our treatment of the problems and challenges. That's perfect. And that's exactly what I wanted to know. And also our listeners to kind of get away. I have a couple of other questions as well. And so the book from Good for Polly, the blue economy was some copies, I don't know some editions were printed on rock paper, which is calcium carbonate and waterproof and so on. Do they have restrictions on books like that that they're sustainably forestry type of books? Do they have say, not only we're talking about sustainability but about the future, about kind of these resilience systems thinking, but now we're going to show some innovations and things of how we can print it different. Or is that kind of all up to you or the blogger? I honestly, I cannot tell you in general the rule. I personally made sure with my publisher, which is Routledge, that they have printed it on sustainable sources, FSC certified sources, but I cannot really tell you in general. Well, that's good. I'm just interested in knowing because I really think that the quality, the level, I mean, I haven't read all of their library of what they've kind of supported and how about the majority that I have read is just amazing. I also have another connection and you know about this as well as I sit on the, level Rome, the UN and World Economic Forum, many other businesses and conservation and activist groups and organizations have come together and they've done a group called the Planetary Emergency Group and they have monthly, sometimes weekly updates and emails and letters when we just published a paper and so that's kind of my little connection as well as a lot of other friends and mentors and people in the club of Rome and I just really like that they keep the world, they keep the world's international organizations feet to the fire, their voice of light and pushing us into some actionable things and into directions to kind of open up that spectrum of where we need to be focusing, making sense of what's going on. And so I really, that's my connection. I know you're involved in other ways and pretty busy but for all my listeners I would definitely, the Planetary Emergency Paper that was published was just published in The Guardian as well, I suggest you look that up and look at that and how many country leaders and business leaders have signed off on that so. But I just kind of wanted to tie those connections and that thought process is also how we've come together and what things that we're working on especially as you as fabulous. Yeah, and maybe Mark I can elaborate a little more on the principles because you ultimately we need to get into action, of course. And the book, by the way, I'm not sure have I showed it here? So this is the re-uniform action. You can show us a German copy too. Some of my listeners also speak German. So the German one is sustainability utopian. Okay. How we can overcome barriers and act future-oriented. So the idea is in the analysis part in the first part of the book I say we need a comprehensive view in line with the Club of Rome's DNA a comprehensive view on the barriers. Why do we not make any more progress? And actually I have a little illustration here which I used to explain sometimes. If I ask you Mark, if you know phase transition, you know. I do, yeah. You have water, liquid water, you know. What do you do if you want to get this liquid water into a water vapor? What would you normally suggest? Well, there's a couple of things that just increase the heat or to, yeah. Yeah, increase the heat, put a plate, you know. Yeah, yeah. This is the so-called phase diagram. The physicists talk about here we have the surrounding pressure and here we have the temperature. And here we have ice, we have vapor and we have liquid water. And if you are here and you want to have liquid water and want to get into the vapor phase you increase the temperature. Of course you put it on a hot plate but also lower the surrounding pressure. And without changing the temperature and then water will actually boil at maybe 50 degrees or 20 degrees. And now that's interesting because we have a phase transition here and I'm saying, well, we actually need a phase transition from our current society into a more sustainable society that's also a phase transition because in the new phase will look totally different where water vapor looks totally different than liquid water which is totally different than ice. So you have three phases with totally different characteristics. And so our coming to be sustainable society needs to be totally different in a way. Now this phase transition here in this case depends on two parameters. In this very simple case it is two parameters. And if you only focus on the temperature and somebody else is putting increasing the pressure you move this line, you know and you will not reach the phase transition but if you maybe lower the surrounding pressure and increase then you will reach the phase transition even faster. And I take this as an analogy so we need to address the barriers in their complexity in the economic sphere. We need to internalize the cost in the political sphere. We need to work on global governance in the moral sphere we need to work with the agents how can you actually make your contribution to the improvement of the situation and so on and so forth. This is in the first part, you know where I do the analysis of the system and where I suggest solution perspectives for each and every barrier. And the second part I take a different view I take the actor's view and say we are not all decision makers we are not all German chancellor or CEO of XYZ we are every normal people like you and me but we also want to contribute. And here also comes the problem with the SDGs with the sustainable development goals. They are, there are 17 great goals with 169 targets all great targets but how can I contribute? That's a tricky question. Ask two economists how do you actually alleviate the problem of hunger and you will get three to five answers, you know under this condition you could do that under that condition you could do this but what can I do? That's the question. So I said we need to work on principles for sustainable action principles for sustainability in a way. What can I do? And I developed these principles I mean I basically gather them I don't invent them and most of them are pretty old but maybe not used in this context. Take for instance the polluter pays principle. When I wrote polluter pays means somebody who's doing a damage should also make sure that the person who is hurt or damaged is compensated appropriately. That principle you wouldn't believe it is 4,000 years old in the oldest text legal text of humanity the code of Hammurabi it says if somebody is building a dam, a water dam and this dam bursts and the fields of the surrounding neighbors are damaged the person who did the damage is going to be sold into slavery and with the money gained from that the people who were damaged are compensated. That's quite tough. And I can tell you when I wrote these lines the dam of Vale in Brazil, Minna Garech for the iron line broke and more than 200 people died. And Vale had just to set aside one year's profit for compensation. And I thought, can we call ourselves civilized? I mean 4,000 years ago it was pretty clear if you do a damage, you have to compensate it. So what I want to say with this this polluter pays principle is very, very old. We as humanity have lots of great heritage here but we need to apply this also and take it serious in our business today with regard to the environment and with regard to people with regard to society. So this is one principle and there are many others like for instance, celebrate frugality, celebrate simplicity. If I show you a black and white image I don't have one here but let's assume you have a nice photograph of a, I don't know, anything, a black and white. You will probably not blame the artist, the photographer why she or he didn't choose a color image. I mean, that's a stupid question. You ask, what does the photographer want to say? Reduction is a means of concentration, of focusing. And therefore, I mean, we know for instance the tradition of fasting. I know you're doing a lot of great things on food, you know? And thing is very important for a variety of reasons and many traditions have this tradition or practice this fasting and you reduce your consumption for a certain period of time because you want to focus, because you have other goals and not because eating per se is negative or bad, no way. So these principles need to be put into perspective. And as I argued in the previous part of the book we need a multi-dimensional, multi-actor approach. Here I would also say we need an approach that makes sure that everybody can do his or her contribution wherever he or she stands and wherever the company stands, wherever an NGO or an association stands. I wanna ask you a couple of questions on kind of unpack and maybe hopefully we won't get into any rabbit holes. Is a part of this first principles thinking or is it different? Sorry, say it again. It's part of this first principles type of thinking, basic laws of physics and first principles type of thinking. Yes, I mean, I'm not really sure where you're coming from but maybe- I kinda like what Elon does when he gets his raw materials to produce a car, use a lot first principles, basic laws of physics, things like that. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, partly there is overlap. For instance, in the book I talk about E-Roy, energy return on energy invested. The E-Roy for the fossil fuels, especially for coal and gas has declined from 35 to one to 18 to one 15 to one these days. That means that for every barrel of oil, you need, or for 35 barrels of oil you gain, you need to invest one. This ratio has declined these days to now maybe 15 to one. So, and we as society need between 10 to one and 12 to one. If you only have one to one, you can basically pump the oil out of the ground and look at it, that you haven't done anything with it. If you want to carry the oil to the refinery, if you compensate the truck driver, if you compensate the health insurance, if you compensate the school, then you need all of a sudden you don't need three to one, four to one, you need eight to one. And if you want to get the plastics out of the ocean, you need maybe an additional energy. So today our society in the Western world needs maybe 10 to one, can you imagine? Now, the oil has already declined to 15 to one. So oil will come to an end anyway sooner or later. But the problem of course with oil is that we cannot afford to burn it anymore because of the greenhouse gas footprint, you know. Yeah, the Goldman Sachs is saying that fossil fuels are stranded assets. And it's just a bad business model. It has been for a long time. It's just an imbalance. And there's a lot of imbalances like that as well in the food industry where we're putting more energy efforts and time and waste and emissions into giving something that's giving us a very little return with extensive horrible effects for human health and environment in the long run. Another thing that you touched upon that I kind of wanted to go into is actually there's two other things that you mentioned that I want to go into. And one of those is basically this total environmental cost as percentage of EBITDA or true cost is not calculated in there. You know, there's no, you know, how much energy, how much water, how many finite resources are we using to get this result? And are we paying the fair trade? I mean, are the true cost of it? So a mango from Vietnam cannot in any way cost one euro in Germany. That's just not the true cost, right? Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. And some of that is what you were unpacking and what you were discussing. And so I want to maybe see if you can go into that a little more. Yes, absolutely. Well, I've been actually with, as you mentioned in your introduction, I've been working in IT for a large German software company, actually the global leader in enterprise resource planning. I'd say P, yeah. And enterprise resource planning, ERP, is the kind of backbone of every businesses IT. It does all the financial controlling, all the bookings and the process support and modern IT, without modern IT, hardly any business can be run, maybe a bakery, but anything else is probably not possible. The problem is here for ages, we have focused on the financial aspects. And we have, I would say, we have almost neglected the non-financials. And these days, we realize that the non-financials are getting much, much more important. In the 1970s, 20% of the company value were intangibles in a way. And 80% were physical and financial assets. Today, it's just the opposite. Physical and financial assets sum up to maybe 20% of the corporate value, of the company value. The rest is so-called intangibles. That is, of course, IP, that is the workforce. That is the plans for the future, what you have in your strategy. It's the networks you're in and so on. So if that is the case, we need a new way of doing the balance. We need a new way of doing the accounting because investors want to know, is this a good investment or not? And if you look into the annual report, you will not find sufficient data on that. And here sustainability comes in. We need to develop new forms or to do accounting for new forms of capital. We cannot just stay with the financial capital or the physical assets. We need, of course, human capital. We need social capital. We need intellectual capital. But why not consider natural capital? Today, we assess corporations. I would sometimes I say, of course, a bit extreme, but I say politicians judge or evaluate corporations in one dimension. That is jobs. Much less so taxes because we have many tax avoidance strategies. And the investors account profit, profitability and revenue. And that's it. But nobody accounts for the loss in maybe the ecological losses, the losses in natural capital. And why is that? I mean, why don't we as a society value companies that actually do not lose natural capital but build up natural capital? We appreciate that companies build up social capital or financial capital, but why should they not build up natural capital as well? And I'm very sure that this is a trend we will see in the future, that we have a much more comprehensive look at the performance of companies. I agree as well. And thanks. I mean, we could probably go down about 10 other rabbit holes as well, just on that aspect as well. There's a lot more companies evolving that are slowly centered around planetary services now, carbon capturing and some form of geo-engineering to pull carbon or greenhouse gases out of the air or to do other ways to improve our soil health and many, many other forms of geo-engineering. What a lot of people don't understand is we've been running a big geo-engineering experiment since the Industrial Revolution already, not only automotive and logistic and transportation but also heavy industries and the types of things that we're putting in our atmosphere. And so if people are concerned or critical at geo-engineering thoughts or things, we've been running that experiment at will wildly for decades now. So the last part I wanted to unpack is kind of my passion. As you know, I'm a sustainable development goal advocate. I love the SDGs. I want us to reach them. The reason I love them is because I understand them. I like to talk about them and unpack them for people. And I love that you mentioned that in your book, you kind of touch upon that and how can we realize and achieve and also how in your work and principles, how we can move in that direction. One reason I do a lot with food is because all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are tied to agriculture, seafood, food and beverage industry and 11 of them are tied intrinsically very intensively to those industries as well. And the way we need to view them is as a system. If you were to say, okay, I'm just working on no poverty, number one, red, it'd be virtually impossible not to touch on the other ones at the same time because it's a much more systems of you and they are set up as a system not only with concrete monies behind the targets and indicators and reaching those goals, but also the way that they were developed in a similar model to systems thinking and dynamic modeling with back casting but that there's some processes and steps and actionable things that we can do year over year. One thing that you could probably address or maybe you've touched upon it is that a lot of things, there's two things that people don't know. One, they're all tied to us as humanity. It's not for countries or cities or corporations, they're for each individual human being. They're very similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They're the basic needs of humanity to protect our biosphere, to have food, to water, shelter, security and those things. Those are all tied to the SDGs. And the second thing is if we do absolutely nothing and we continue on this business as usual high carbon scenario, we're going to spend $89 trillion regardless by 2030, just keeping the old model afloat. When a building gets old, dilapidated, moldy, whatever, we tear it down and build a new one in a high carbon way. Same thing with anything else we do in industry. Whereas if we do it the sustainable development way, which is development is like a commercial or a residential development project, it's just done in a sustainable way. It's only, I think, $14, $15 trillion more to do it that sustainable way and it has much long-term better effects. And so that's what I wanted to mention about your points of what you said on the SDGs. And I don't know if you could maybe enlighten us more and how you go into them or what you're doing to realize them. Yeah, that's also a very, very good question. I mean, I'm absolutely a fan of the SDGs in a way. I think for the first time in human history, humanity has agreed on these goals and every single one of them is good in itself. However, I think we're now at one third the way from 2015 to 2030. And I think there are some really serious challenges about around them. And one is that they don't answer, I think I touched on this before, that they don't answer the question what I can contribute. So if you want to address poverty, that's not so tricky, it's pretty tricky. It's not so easy to answer the question, what I can do. I mean, in the concrete situation, I'm in the supermarket choosing between different brands, which brand do I take? Might be a bit oversimplistic, but in principle, it's not so easy to say what can I do? Secondly, the problem with the 17 goals is that no single actor can follow 17 goals at once. But the SDGs are, as it's stated in the 2030 Agenda Outline, they are integrated and inseparable. So ultimately, this means you can have sustainability only if you have them all at once. Or all at the same time. And that's really the problem. It is like a pie in the sky. Nobody knows whether it's actually possible to have them all at once. And nobody can follow the 17 goals. Now, and I'm not making this up, I have actually experienced that, for instance, companies say, okay, we're also following the SDGs. We're now after SDG eight. And guess what this is? Growth, sustainable growth. So this is what we've always done. And if you now follow SDG eight, I mean, I'm a bit exaggerating here, but if you disregard the 16 other goals, you might actually have trade-offs which make things even worse. So we need to be as comprehensive in our approach as possible. And therefore this is my argument why I say we need some principles which guide us also as corporations. And just, yeah, in order to get the SDGs realized, you know, get the point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I definitely get the point. I think that there's a couple of things that I, and this takes us more into the systems approach or the view or the direction that we want to go, correct. And I have a way that I just discuss or explain the SDGs to people quite a bit. And one is to embrace complexity and realize that everything in our world is made up of very complex systems and of systems and this elevator pitch, the TED Talk, the short version is not doing it for us anymore. In 2018, all international organizations, UN, World Economic Forum, World Trade Organization, et cetera, all switched to systems view approach, a systems dynamic view approach at solving our global grand challenges. They said this linear siloed approach is no longer working to solve these global grand challenges. We must take a systematic approach. I love that, but it's really, and as you said, so eloquently and so correctly, it is extremely hard for humanity to embrace complexity, embrace systems thinking, and they're like, I need the short version, that is too much, I can't do all 17 at once, it's too much information, my brain's gonna explode. Yes, and that's why we need to maybe give you the tools or give you, calm you down or calm each individual down to a point where they can understand how that works. So your body is the most complex thing on this earth, our brain and our body is made up, our entire body is made up of 11 systems. All of those systems work in harmony, gooey, so to say, not one of those systems controls the other 10, they all work together. But if you were to break a bone or have a nervous system problem, digestive or some kind of break a bone, the other 10 systems try to compensate, to get you better, to get you back to health, but they do it automatically, gooey, holistically, homogenically, I guess, I don't know how to best say it, but that's how systems of our planet, systems of businesses, that's how they work. And the minute you start going the siloed approach, you're only working on one or two, there's others being neglected, and that breaks down the entire system. That complexity is so hard, but we need to make them so easy or so embrace them that you can handle those complex things. And I think you have some tips or tricks in your book, probably to do that, or how you can first, it's not, you just don't take them all on at once or start drinking from the fire hose, that's absolutely not how it goes. First you have to take care of yourself, find a habit or routine, get into a flow for yourself, then you can spread out to your family, your home, your community, and the system gets better and more effective and you realize how it works. That's one thing that I wanted to kind of address as we transition into our discussion about systems, but I don't know if you know, I also wrote the manifesto for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the reason I wrote it is because, one, people don't understand how to envision them or what they're for, who they're for, but most humanity doesn't have a clear vision of what the future looks like. And so this SDGs and the Paris agenda are basically a roadmap and goal of plan to get us to December, 2030. And if we can give them a vision or a manifesto of what that would look and feel like by 2030, then we can also envision how we can engineer, create, act, architect and design it and move towards that direction. But if we can't even envision it, if we don't have a movie or a TV program or a book or something that can kind of say, here it is, here's what it looks and feels like, this is how we're gonna reach it. That's why I wrote it, but I won't read it to you now, but you can go online and read it as well. It's called the UN SDG Manifesto. I did that for the UN because the feeling that you get when you read and understand what that world looks and feels like gives you a better understanding how you can embrace the system, but also how you can start addressing those specialties or those areas that maybe are the easiest for you at the moment to get to that future. And it's like a roadmap or goal or post. I couldn't agree more, Mark, very well said. I might only add that I absolutely agree that we need this vision, you know, where we actually want to be, where we want to go to. The problem these days is that we see so much tension, both internationally, geopolitically, but also intra-nationally. We see populists on the rise and it's very hard to get to a common understanding, a common goal, but I said in the book, I argue, we need to have at least a vision for that, which we should be able to agree on regardless where, which culture, which background, which discipline, which ethnicity we come from, and that is to secure the future of terror and humanity. And because that is something, which I mean, nobody can, no reasonable person can actually say we need not to do that. Secure the future of terror, of our globe and humanity. And humanity here also, yeah, links to the cultural dimension, not the physical existence of humankind, that's I would say far too less ambitious. We need much more because our cultural traditions, our values, it's much more fragile. So we need to secure the future of terror and humanity. And I suggest a new concept for this, a new term, which I call future-ranity, future-ranity, because this future of terror and humanity is something every reasonable person should be able to agree on. And the advantage of this concept would be that we can distinguish between that, which is sustainable and that, which is kind of the overall goal, the vision, because if we use the same word, sustainable, for the apple we buy and for the great vision for humanity, we risk that the great vision gets damaged if we realize the apple is not as sustainable as we thought. And this happens actually quite often that we think things are sustainable. And then in a few years, a few decades later, we realize, well, it might not have been the best idea. Take, for instance, bioenergy. 15 years ago, we thought that the energetic use of biomass is a good thing to do. A horrible thing. Today, we have a totally different perception on that. And that is an illustration. If people now say, well, scientists said 15 years ago, this is sustainable. Now they say it's not sustainable. Well, then sustainability cannot work anyhow. And I think kind of an airbag against this solution is to have a concept that we agree on. We need to secure the future of terror and humanity. We need futility. And if we do that, we can argue about the details. I love how you describe that. That's perfect. I don't want to, I mean, there are so many rabbit holes we could go into and we're already starting to get deep. But there's another thing I'd like to caveat. We've been talking about sustainability at Nausium for decades. And it's where we need to go. It's where we need to be. But sustainability isn't something that you reach or achieve. It's something that you'll always improve on. It's not an endpoint that somehow we've reached and now we're sustainable. It's a continual process for one thing. But secondly, and this is maybe something different, it doesn't matter how sustainable you are because we're beyond the limits to growth. And if tomorrow Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Katrina, whatever it is comes and hits you, it can wipe out sustainability, 100% infrastructure, 100% farming agriculture infrastructure within hours of such a natural disaster, huge climate catastrophe, crisis issue. And that's not build up the very next day. And in the case of Costa Rica, which had no sustainability or infrastructure, in my opinion, wiped out 100% of its infrastructure, about 90% of its agriculture. And I think we're in the third year now and they're still not rebuilt. They're still not back where they need to be. And there's some other bad or good or OK examples of that. But this is kind of where I want to bring up resilience. If you have resilience, if you have a resilient infrastructure, that automatically has sustainability in it. Whereas sustainability tickles a little bit on resilience, but the other way around it's there. And so really, yeah, we want sustainability, but the next step, and this is one of the agencies that I'm working with, with the UN or one of the projects, is called Resilience Frontiers. It's the goals from 2030 to 2050. What's the iteration thereafter? What's the roadmap, the goals, what are we working on? Because once we've had that sustainable development goals and that infrastructure build up by 2030, that's a nice springboard for us as humanity to get into some resilience so that because we're going to continue to see pandemics and things, we need to get back into the safe operating spaces of our planetary boundaries, circular economy, but build in that resilience so that once we have that, now we can start to go with the re-imperatives, regeneration, recycle, reuse, circular economy, all the re-imperatives so that we can, in the future, I hope we're not talking too much about sustainability. We're talking about, wow, this is a resilient, desirable future if we're looking towards. It's really beautiful. It's green. We have what we need. It's a different way of living. And the sustainability development goals, sustainable development goals are definitely not add-ons to business as usual. So if anybody out there might listen or think that, just cast that out of your mind, that's a sheer to fail. That's a bad plan. It's an actual new global operating system model to get us to an infrastructure and basics for humanity set the bar higher at a global level so that we can springboard off into something else. And so I don't want to get down any more rabbit holes, but I think I've touched upon some things that you also address or you have different ways of formulating that you've worked on for years that I'd like to have you tell us about. Yeah, yeah, again, I agree. I mean, I would say we're in the transition and you're saying we might not need the term sustainability in the future anymore. And I would say maybe that's correct. And the problem today is we need to make sure that each and every individual is empowered and really is empowered to do the right things wherever she or he stands. But on the other hand, there are big questions that politics needs to answer and the business needs to answer. And ultimately in an ideal world, we have the institutions set up in the proper way that the individual actions are relieved and are relatively easy to do. These days, and this is the state which we need to really go for because these days individuals sometimes if you're really enlightened consumer and really kind of an activist, you sometimes think every apple I buy needs to make a good contribution to this planet. And that is such a huge burden on you that you can only fail because either you say, well, I do everything and these stupid nuts around me don't do anything that it's not fair. And then you get frustrated or you get a cynic or you get addicted to alcohol or whatever. That's not the solution. So ultimately we need to have the institutions in the right way. That means the price needs to reflect the true costs. We discussed that before. The cheaper things should be the more sustainable things and not the other way around. The more convenient things should be more sustainable and not the other way around. Today's sustainability is expensive and complex and maybe sometimes even unsexy. So this needs to change and we can change that. And we're already experiencing that this is changing. So we're living in a time of transition and we see that currently we're still in this process where individuals are really, really important and activists, but ultimately the institutions need to be adapted. And talking about resilience, I think here we see an interesting parallel between climate and COVID because during the COVID crisis we realized that we are so fragile. We are fragile as humans. We are fragile as societies. Fragile definitely are our health systems and fragile is also the planet. And we see that we need to fight to kind of flatten the curve is the motto not just for COVID. It's also the motto for the climate crisis or the biodiversity crisis or the nameless other crises we have. So we see our dependence on nature much more and that we cannot argue with nature. You cannot argue with the virus. And that is a learning I think we can really and we should make during these pandemics and yeah, and apply this also to sustainability thinking. And maybe if you allow one more word on Corona and sustainability, I was really struck by the fact that we see we see such a great solidarity these days. I mean, especially we care for our elderly people, for our sick people, but there isn't, yeah, I call it an asymmetric relation with regard to our planetary emergency because people who are born today, they have the best chance to be still alive in 2100. And that is the exact, the kind of magic year the climate experts always use as a reference point by the year 2100, we will see XYZ. And if we continue on our current path, for instance, with regard to climate, we will get to at least three degrees increase in temperature by 2100. So we're not talking about any doomsday scenario, which is maybe in infinite time in the future. It is that today's newborn babies will experience that. So it's a question of our solidarity. We must not just be solidarity or practice solidarity with the older people, but also with the younger ones. You feel like you are a global citizen and how would you feel about the removal of all borders, walls, divisions and limitations of humanity? Or what are your thoughts or understandings or feelings about this? Honestly, I don't think that the borders per se are the biggest problems. When you'd asked me this question, it immediately came to my mind, we have the biggest borders and walls within ourselves. And that is maybe the most difficult ones to overcome. National borders, I mean, we have that in the European Union, as you know, and I'm really a fan of that. And I really think this is a great idea. And younger people cannot really even imagine that there were times when you had to show your passport if you go from France to Germany. For me, it is still when I was born as a little, or I was born in the late sixties and when we went to the Eastern part of Germany, we were so closely investigated that I was even anxious that I even have to take off my underwear. I asked my mom at one point in time. So you cannot imagine, you know, that today we live in Europe without any borders. That's great. But these outside external political borders are of course only one element of the many, many different borders we have built. So maybe we need to work both on the political and national borders front, but also on our internal ones. That's interesting because, you know, water, air, species, birds, animals, the pandemic, they're all in some respects, global citizens. They're not making one mention about politics. They're not making one mention about borders or divisions. And you said earlier, let's still, and let's get back into some of these natural systems or try to cooperate or work better with natural systems. But yet, and us as humanity, even though we have some pretty good things with the EU and going on, we're still in this, even not in a pandemic, in this lockdown type of state, this permission that, you know, and it ties closely to the climate because it wasn't just the Syrian refugees that were climate refugees and moving across the world, but now there's talk of upwards in the billions of climate refugees in the future that we're going to be seeing moving around our world. So whether we talk about it or deal with it now, do you think it's gonna maybe come in the future or do we have some ideas or thoughts or what your opinions are on where we should go, what we should do or your feelings on it a little bit more? Yeah, I think, so the question is behind, I assume, is what kind of global order are we striving at? And my personal favorite would be a global governance situation in which we have an independent, or we have an arena of independent democracies which collaborate with each other and where we have the rule of law as the common ground, you know, that we find collaborations and allies between these democracies where I don't really believe that a world state would do the job. I mean, we see that, I mean, you can argue that it's hardly possible to have really an effective governance within a world state because the world is so diverse and not really sure that could work. And then other concepts like hegemonies and so on have also their downsides. So I think if you look into the world and you have a nice map behind you, you realize that liberal democracies are really at the moment have hard times. They are really under pressure on the one side because they get internal problems and populists are taking over. And on the other side, democracy takes time. As you see in the European Union, we have so much negotiation, so many negotiations going on and so much discussion going on. It takes time and people get sometimes frustrated, but on the other hand, quite often the results are not too bad, you know. So we all need to be more patient, maybe. I didn't mean to pressure you or put you in any big political debates, but I just like to always get my guests thoughts and feelings in this direction. I truly believe and feel that the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agenda, the 2030 Agenda is really not, like I said, not an add-on to business as usual or to different types of policies. I see it as more like a new global operating system, a new global economy, where we kind of raise the bar and we say this operating system will get us to sustainable development. This is where we're never gonna go below for humanity. We can still have nations, borders and culturels, hopefully tons of diversity, but we just say as a globe, we're all agreeing that we're not gonna operate for humanity under this level ever again. So it's a different list on where we're gonna set the basic rights for humanity that we're not willing to go below. And I think in that process, it raises the entire humanity to a different level of how we operate and can operate for the future. That's really kind of where I wanna go into now that the most hardest question for you today, I think, and it's really the burning question, WTF. And no, it's not the swear word, it's really for you, what's your view? What's the future? Yeah, what's the future? You mean like my vision or prediction? Both, it can be both, you can give us both. I mean, I don't expect you to tell us what the politicians or the countries or whatever someone else, but what's the future for you? What's your hope, your plan, what direction are you going on? And it could even be you say, I'm a firm believer of the new Green Deal for the EU, and that's the plan I'm following, that's my future. Every answer is different. Yeah, maybe to start with the European Green Deal, I think that's maybe a good starter. I think that is extremely, really an extraordinary program. And it is not even a year that the European Commission had initiated or launched or published, publicized the European Green Deal. And if we really even come close to realizing the goals within that, that would be a huge step forward. Not saying that we should be content with that, but as a region, I think that would really be a great step forward. And the problem these days is that the biggest hurdles for realization are in the capitals of the European Union and not so much in Brussels as it used to be, maybe. So I think we're really seeing progress. Regarding the future, that's really tricky because of course, you can try to predict the future or you can try to shape it. And I'm more, yeah, towards the later, you know? I think we need to realize that life is so beautiful and so wonderful and nature is really a miracle. And we need to realize that there is still so much we need to protect and to preserve and to celebrate and to appreciate that it is worth all our effort to try whatever we can to maintain this as long as possible. And whether it will be enough or not, others should join, others should judge maybe our grand-grand-grandchildren will have to, but this is something which I think is definitely worth investing. Thank you. I have three last questions for you, but they're really more for my listeners. They're sustainable takeaways that they can use in their lives and their businesses to move forward. The first one is, if there was one message that you could depart to our listeners that was a sustainable takeaway that had the power to change their life, what would it be? It's basically your message. I think every step counts. I would really appreciate Gandhi's dictum, be the change you want to see in the world and also the small steps count and they count much more than you think. Seek mutual understanding, seek win-win, respect the other, appreciate the small, foster diversity, foster transparency. These are principles that are so fundamental and so easy ultimately, but we just need to apply them and then every single action can make a difference. That's beautiful. The next one is, what should young innovators in your field be thinking about if they're looking for ways to make real impact? First, I would say follow your heart, have a good and broad understanding of the issues. Have a clear understanding of your competency. What can you do best and where is the need? And then envision the future and see, anticipate, I would say, the scarcities of tomorrow. How will the market look like tomorrow? How will consumers behavior look like tomorrow? How will political, the regulatory landscape look like? And then anticipate that and develop and shape your business idea in a way that you address the market of tomorrow. That's the best route to success, I would say. I love it, I love it. What have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start? Yeah, I go back to my second answer, follow your heart. Maybe I regret a bit that I haven't started earlier, just relying on what I think is needed. Not so much looking to the left and the right, what others think or what others think I should do or should be doing, but just follow what you think is needed and be yourself. And then you can also make a difference. I love it, thank you so much. And I want you to know that, so you've written eight books, I'm gonna put your website in the show notes and any links of anything important that we've talked about in our show notes. But I really wanna thank you for your time and unless you have anything else that you'd like to add or ask me a question, we're done and I really just appreciate your time. And I'm looking forward to seeing you at the Oil Patient Museum there in Lübeck. Thank you very much, Marc. And it's been such a lovely discussion. I could have gone, we could have gone on forever. Thanks very much for having me. It's been a great honor and pleasure. I definitely want you to bring that book and I hope you'll give me another time and we can have maybe in a year or a few months have a second podcast and kind of go into some other things that we didn't cover here today. There'll be some new things we see from the election in November and some other things that might spark some different thoughts that we wanna discuss. So I'd love to see you then. See you then, Marc. Thank you very much for having me. Bye-bye. Take care, bye-bye.