Greta Thunberg is not the only one listening to the science. CEOs of companies that generate almost half of Sweden’s GDP have returned to the classroom to learn about climate science and action. When deep insight about the climate crisis reaches this level of decision-making, real change can come about.

It’s thanks to Lisen Schultz that the Swedish CEOs decided to clear time in their busy schedules to take the course. In 2018, she transformed what began as an annual event into an executive programme for CEOs at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.

Standing alone on the stage under the strong lights, she felt the conviction grow. The worst thing had already happened to her, and so she had no fear left. Her husband, and father of her three children, had died in a bike accident in the mountains outside Nice, and now she stood there with all eyes on her. The room was filled with Sweden’s top business leaders, invited journalists and researchers, who had come to discuss sustainability and what could be done to speed up the transformation.

In memory of her husband, Lisen Schultz wanted to shape a business sector that respects the planetary boundaries and nurtures human potential. He had been editor-in-chief of a number of financial newspapers, and was passionate about issues like gender equality, diversity and sustainability in business. As a sustainability scientist at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Lisen saw a path along which his work could be taken forward.

Looking for a stronger impact

Amidst all the chaos that ensued from the accident, she created the foundation that bears his name: the Pontus Schultz Foundation for more humane businesses. But as the climate crisis accelerated, Lisen wanted the foundation to have a stronger impact on action. And even though her grief had caused her to doubt, it all started there on a stage in the glare of a single spotlight.

No sooner said than done; one day in early autumn, the taxis rolled up and Swedish business leaders – major shareholders like Jacob Wallenberg, Tomas Billing, CEO of Nordstjernan, Henrik Henriksson, CEO of Scania and Axel Johnson’s Pia Anderberg – entered the researchers’ domain and took their seats. As a whole, the class generated a substantial share of Sweden’s GDP and accounted for CO2 emissions twice the size of Sweden’s. It was mind-boggling, but the power of science gave Lisen a new glimmer of hope.

“With lectures being given by world-leading researchers, the message would be clear and no one would shy away from ruffling a few feathers, I knew that. But I had no idea whether or not it would work.”

“The planet has financed our way of life. Now the invoices are arriving.”

Professor Johan Rockström took the classroom floor: “The planet has financed our way of life. Now the invoices are arriving.” He then proceeded to describe the anthropocene – the geological epoch in which humans shape the climate conditions – and the safe operating space for humanity.

“Four planetary boundaries have already been crossed, while others are dangerously close to their respective tipping points. The situation is dangerous but we can still change direction”, he explained. Members of the audience started shifting in their seats, and that was before Kate Raworth, economist and creator of Doughnut Economics, took the stage and insisted that economic theory had to be adapted to the planetary boundaries; a radical message that challenged the idea of infinite growth and maximum profit.

Not everyone agreed, and loud discussions ensued, but eventually the discussion shifted towards what could be done. Participants identified actions they could take in their companies, but also who else they could influence in order to achieve zero emissions, such as suppliers, employees, customers, competitors, investors and politicians. Companies can influence the world’s development, and the course participants realised they were not making the sustainability journey alone. The nightmare soon became a dream.

It needs to be In a company’s DNA

“You can’t base a transformation on a separate sustainability strategy. Clear goals are all well and good, but sustainability must be in a company’s DNA, corporate culture and governance. Changes will only last if they’re value-driven; only then will employees get onboard”, said Henrik Henriksson, CEO of Scania. The others nodded in agreement.

So far around 50 or so CEOs and owners – and even Crown Princess Victoria – have been trained by Lisen Schultz and her colleagues. But, once they’re armed with new knowledge about circularity, resilient systems and planetary boundaries, what can business leaders do? What obstacles can they overcome together? And what system of governance could accelerate this sustainable transformation?

According to Lisen Schultz, there’s a limit to how much a company can achieve single-handed to, say, reduce emissions or recycle resources. And the playing field is often tilted towards unsustainability, since many business activities don’t have to bear the costs they impose on society.

“This is where politics plays a big role at global, EU and national level; there’s no getting away from it. But companies of this size can influence politicians, especially if they join forces. That power grows strong during the course”, says Lisen.

The regulations are often decided by the politicians, and they can be about introducing bans, subsidies or taxes and duties aimed at steering the market away from whatever is fossil and resource-intensive and towards circularity and sustainability. EU’s emissions trading system and the carbon tax levied in Sweden and 26 other countries is one example. The fact that New York City pays landowners around the Hudson River to have their trees and wetlands clean the water that runs into the city taps is another one. In other words, governance systems can be large-scale and comprehensive, as in the case of the EU’s taxonomy regulation, which benefits sustainable businesses or, as in the case of New York City, can work on a smaller scale in a specific area.

In the near future the discussion will become even more forward-looking

Of course, not everyone is convinced, but in the near future the discussion will become even more forward-looking. What are the barriers to the sustainability transformation which owners and customers are slowly but surely demanding? What can promote and accelerate the green transformation, and what leads to reluctance, stagnation and “business as usual”?

“Harming the planet should be expensive, but it is not”, says Lisen Schultz.

“Having to make financial concessions often leads to relocations, but there are cases where actors actually succeed in changing the playing field simply by working together. This may sound rather banal, but bear in mind that ten companies control almost three quarters of the world’s oil reserves or that five companies account for 90 percent of global palm oil production. Our future lies in the hands of a few companies.”

She sees the situation as serious, but just as it’s possible to see which companies are actually creating pollution, it’s also possible that they can be part of the solution. Because if the five companies that own almost all of the world’s palm oil production were to decide not to sell palm oil from chopped-down rainforests, the whole playing field would change overnight. And while the world’s three biggest carbon emitters – China Coal, Saudi Aramco and Gazprom – are unlikely to adapt as long as they’re earning money with the current model, there are others who are taking a stand nonetheless. The Danish company Ørstedt previously supplied gas and oil but decided that offshore wind was the future for itself and for the planet, and reduced its emissions by 86 percent over ten years. And its profits remain high and are continuing to grow.

13 companies made an agreement

Carl Folke, professor and founder of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, gives lectures in the course and has, among many other things, led a ground-breaking study on the global seafood industry. Most of this team know that a growing global population and a changed climate make onshore crops even more unpredictable. But most people don’t realise that the world’s oceans feed three billion people. Unfortunately, this food source is also threatened by overfishing, acidification, pollution and algae blooms, leaving the fishing industry under threat on multiples fronts.

Carl Folke and his fellow researchers have shown that 13 companies dominate the global seafood industry, yet they all rely on the same resource, so if they could sit down and talk to each other, would they manage to reach agreement on a form of exploitation that would benefit everyone while still being more or less beneficial to the oceans? No sooner said than done; the researchers succeeded in gathering eight of the biggest seafood companies in a neutral place where they could discuss the situation together. It suddenly became clear to everyone sitting around the table – who came from different countries and cultures – that there was only one way forward and that they all faced the same threats of pollution, acidification, antibiotic resistance and overfishing. But the biggest insight was that, together, they could make a difference without removing the competition between them. They could quite simply agree to, for example, improve working conditions, exert influence on laws and regulations, and make it easier for consumers and authorities to track fish from vessel to table and how they are caught, which would reduce the risk of poaching. From that point on, it was a short step to setting sustainability goals, taking responsibility for supply chains and avoiding highly vulnerable areas. Because no one benefits from polluted, depleted oceans.

Despite all her knowledge about the global situation, Lisen Schultz remains an incurable optimist, and she believes that climate communication represents an untapped resource.

“Martin Luther King didn’t say ‘I have a nightmare’; instead, he painted a vision of the future where black and white people lived as equals. The same logic can be applied to climate communication. Most of us want the best for the planet, for their own sake and for that of their children, but we need help to achieve that.”

It’s about setting scientifically informed goals, taking control of our climate footprint and working locally. It’s not about adopting an anorexic lifestyle; it’s about doing whatever we can at every opportunity and cooperating on reaching our goals within the planetary boundaries.

“It is in business and industry that those heroes are found”

The business leaders in the classroom in Stockholm also got a strong message from Nigel Topping, appointed by the British government as High-level Climate Action Champion, tasked with raising industrial climate ambitions in the preparations for COP26:

“Every disaster film has heroes who refuse to give up and who find a way forward. When it comes to the climate, I’m fully convinced that it is in business and industry that those heroes are found”. According to Topping, the Paris Agreement came about partly through the united voice from hundreds of leading companies who supported an international climate agreement.

Most business leaders agree that goals need to be realistic and time-bound. But at the same time, ambitious goals are pushing the boundary of possibilities, in the same way John F Kennedy did, when he decided that a moon landing should happen. This clear goal and a solid pot of money released creativity and mobilised initiative; the impossible became possible.

Lisen now sees parallels between her own story and personal loss, and how all of us now need to adapt to a new reality, however painful that may be. But to be able to do it, we must have a vision, a goal and a plan that is sustainable, one that enables us to take a first step on the journey, together. Because that’s how we humans work. Life always finds a way.

Julie Schoen’s company DBA has recently joined the Schibsted family, Sanni Moilanen works for our Finish marketplace Tori and Håkan Halvarsson is our new head of People & Culture. Get to know them and what they do.

Let all people blossom

One comment has haunted Håkan Halvarsson more than any other. Growing up, he was often asked: “Why do you always need to go against the flow?” Ever since, it has been clear to him that this is probably the most important thing he can do.

“My mother taught to always question given things.”

Perhaps this thinking will infuse Schibsted – as Håkan’s new assignment is to develop leadership and culture across the company. It’s not exactly a straightforward task in Schibsted, since it consists of many strong and independent brands, each with their own identity and culture.

“The pressure to be a modern and attractive employer has increased enormously. Not least has the pandemic fast forwarded us by 15 years with new ways of working, which is truly creating a global work force. Schibsted’s strength is that we are stronger together.”

In Håkan’s mind the key to fully acting on this advantage is through leadership. And building a common, overarching leadership culture is now high on the agenda. One step on this journey is the recently launched Harvard program in disruptive innovation.

“We also need to build our culture around how to find failures, catapult learning and optimise solutions. Failure is a great force if harnessed well. That’s how innovation happens.”

Going back to that comment about going against the flow, Håkan is also on a personal crusade to promote everyone’s uniqueness as a strength.

“When I think institutions in society, my impression is that they are made to crush uniqueness because it’s simply irritating. If our leaders and our culture could instead view individual uniqueness as a strength and let all people blossom to their full potential, I’m convinced that more success will come to all of us!”

Håkan Halvarsson
SvP People & Culture
Years in Schibsted: 10

Finding unknown treasures

Nice and engaging storytelling is great for inspiration and an effective marketing tool.

Julie Schoen has been working at DBA (Den Blå Avis, the Danish marketplace that recently became part of the Schibsted family) since 2017, and she and the marketing team have taken the idea of telling stories to the next level.

“When I started to contact sellers behind interesting ads, asking them to tell their stories – the effect and the engagement grew, it became a success.”

Today the DBA Guide is now a full site with stories about things for sale, tips on how to “upcycle” used things and guides on how to get your stuff sold. One of the most popular video concepts is about collectors.

“We focus on ordinary things that most people have at home, like puzzles for example. It’s great to show that things you might have in your basement can actually be worth some money.”

For other stories, Julie meets up with people who are selling more unique things, to create entertaining articles and videos, and to show people what they can do with reused things.

“It’s also nice to demonstrate that sellers and buyers are just ordinary people, like you and me. Sometimes people worry about meeting people they don’t know.”

Julie Schoen
Editor DBA Guide, spokesperson DBA
Years in Schibsted: 0.5

Supervisors will build the culture

When Schibsted bought Oikotie, there was a need to create something that could bind the company together with Tori – the other Finnish marketplace owned by Schibsted.

Sanni Moilanen, and the rest of cthe people team in Finland, began looking into a new kind of managerial role, to serve as an enabler for creating a strong united culture, for all 180 employees in the two different companies.

“We needed to build something from scratch that could give us a common foundation”, Sanni explains.

The idea was to define a role that would focus on people, coaching and leadership, instead of functional responsibilities, a concept that Sanni found so interesting that she decided to write her master’s thesis on how to define it – a role they ended up calling “supervisor”.

“The purpose of our supervisor is to empower employees to reach their full potential and to support a more modern way to lead. And we are convinced that this will lead to an innovative culture.”

The role is still new but it has already brought managers together. The onboarding included a “Supervisor Buddy” system in which two managers met and discussed the role regularly. And Sanni is quite happy with the results.

“I believe this is the first step towards our goal of creating a true learning organisation.”

Sanni Moilanen
Learning & Development Manager
Years in Schibsted: Almost 6

The world’s tech investors are turning their attention to electric planes; but are battery-powered engines enough to get airline companies up and flying again?

But first, let’s get the cultural reference out of the way: R. Kelly believed he could fly, and for a while he did. But he flew too high and ended up a dark hole he won’t be coming out of any time soon. Many of the companies which are currently flying high on promises of electric planes will suffer a similar fate.

Electric aircraft may seem a long way off right now, but things can move fast in the world of technology. No one could envisage a world without air travel, either.

A life-threatening virus and closed national borders knocked the wind out of the airlines. Some of them hit the canvas, while others clung to the ropes and tried to stay on their feet despite feeling groggy and confused. Their revenue streams were cut off, and no matter where you build your levee, water will always find a way. Virtual meetings and advanced presentation tools aren’t actually that new, but the pandemic struck at the same time as these technologies matured. Bit rates have now become good enough, so public and private enterprises – and people generally – were now forced to take a giant leap into a new reality, with communication technology which otherwise would have been lightyears away. They discovered that in most cases they didn’t need to fly at all.

And then came the reports concluding that we should do whatever we could to avoid flying.

Several alarming climate reports from the UN are causing passengers to lose sleep at the mere thought of helping the airlines to stay afloat.
A negligible proportion of the world’s population flies frequently, yet air traffic accounts for around 2.4 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. On top of that comes emissions of nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and soot. An EU report from the end of 2020 confirms that the combined impact of these emissions is at least as serious for the climate as the CO2 emissions alone.

Some airlines are trying to put lipstick on a pig by bragging how fuel-efficient their planes are.

Some airlines are trying to put lipstick on a pig by bragging how fuel-efficient their planes are. And to some extent they’re right; modern passenger planes use way less fuel than they did 20 years ago. But they still use a lot of fuel. And before the virus took off in Wuhan, people travelled way more than they did back then. So, emissions have not dropped over time; they’ve risen dramatically.

Everyone realises that the aviation industry needs to cut its emissions – for moral as well as economic reasons. Many countries have now adopted political strategies to dramatically cut emissions from air traffic in the coming decades. The first airline to offer passengers a climate-friendly, quiet plane – and a good conscience – will laugh all the way to the bank. You only have to look at the auto industry. Part of the reason why investors have money burning a hole in their pockets is that they missed out on Tesla.

A wonderful experience

It just so happens that, at the time of writing, I’m driving a Tesla all over Italy. There are still very few electric vehicles here (and the further south you go, the fewer you see), and the Model S, which is now a common family car in Norway, attracts as much “attenzione” in Italy as a Lamborghini Aventador. Besides, it’s a wonderful experience to move silently through the vineyards with the top down in the low yellow light before darkness falls. And the absence of a cloud of exhaust fumes trailing behind me makes it all the more beautiful.

The future of the auto industry is electric. There’s no doubt about it. Even the present is electric. But somewhere in the mountains in Abruzzo I discovered an uncomfortable truth: the amazing power of an internal combustion engine. There are still some areas where the electric vehicle is outdone: with a petrol-powered car I could have avoided spending endless hours at charging stations; I could have chosen other routes; and I could have driven to out-of-the-way places that lie far beyond the reach of any charging station. I would have avoided having a tiny heart attack from having just about enough battery power to reach a charger but making a wrong turn at a traffic circle and ending up on a freeway heading in the wrong direction.

But things could have been worse. I could have been flying a plane.

Here’s my theory: the further you are from the ground, the greater your range anxiety. If my Tesla runs out of power on a roadside somewhere in Tuscany, theoretically I’ll have time to down a bistecca and glass of a decent Brunello while I wait for roadside assistance. If a plane runs out of power at 20,000 feet, theoretically I’ll have time to say a short prayer before it’s all definitively over.

The apparently insurmountable problem is that the need for more battery capacity increases exponentially with the distance from the ground. Moving a plane carrying cargo and passengers from one place to another demands a colossal amount of energy.

Heavy as lead

In an ideal world, the airlines would simply have replaced the fuel engines in an already approved plane. It would be faster, cheaper and simpler than going all the way back to the drawing board. But it’s not that simple. Electric engines require batteries which (currently) are as heavy as lead. A plane that is approved with an engine weighing, let’s say, one ton with a full fuel tank, would not be able to fly with an electric engine that weighed ten tons with batteries. So, to reduce the weight, you would need to reduce the battery capacity – and consequently the range.

This is what’s giving the industry its biggest headache right now. If enough batteries were crammed into a Boeing 737 to make it possible to fly from London to New York, the plane would be so heavy that it would sink into the runway rather than take off from it. Nor would there be any space for passengers or cargo, which would make the whole exercise pointless anyway.

Big electric passenger planes will therefore not be a reality until the batteries are made considerably smaller and more efficient. We will get there sooner or later, but even the developers says we’re at least a couple of decades away – unless, that is, stopping over 30 times between Stockholm and Rome becomes a viable business model. But this doesn’t mean that electric planes are a bad idea.

Some of these developers may well succeed, but many will be kept afloat by tall tales and naive investors

Loads of companies are now working on developing electric aircraft. Tiny helicopter-like vehicles that can be used as taxis or delivery vehicles are generating the most hype. Many of them look ultra-cool, resembling the futuristic drawings we did in elementary school in the 1980s, with people wearing silver clothes, eating pills instead of food and whizzing around with jet packs and flying cars.

Some of these developers may well succeed, but many will be kept afloat by tall tales and naive investors. Many have already failed, and more will follow. The most exciting and promising developments are happening in the more conventional part of the aviation industry. Only once passenger planes become electric will they really take off.

Two trends stand out

SAS is collaborating with Airbus, United with Swedish startup Heart, and Easyjet with the American startup Wright Electric, and so on. Most of the airlines are desperate to get an electric plane into the air because it could prove profitable – and sooner than you might expect.
If you compare today’s aviation industry with that of the 1980s, two trends stand out:

• The regional airports are increasingly underused.
• The airlines are flying bigger planes with more seats.

These trends are driven by the fact that the cost of buying and maintaining an aircraft engine is roughly the same regardless of size and trip distance. This makes small passenger aircraft for short routes less profitable. In the 1980s, the average number of seats on regional flights was 20, whereas today it’s 80.

This does not necessarily favour the interests of passengers; they have to spend more time and money on reaching the large airports, they depart from somewhere far from home and land somewhere far from their final destination, and do so in huge, noisy and polluting planes.

Regional flight might be profitable

Investors and founders of companies like Heart and Eviation in Israel claim that the cost of buying and maintaining an electric engine is a fraction of the same cost for a fuel engine, and that electrification can therefore make regional flights using small aircraft profitable again.

In September Rolls-Royce completed a successful 15-minute flight test in “Spirit of Innovation”, an all-electric aircraft in the south of England. The aircraft only has one seat, but the experience gained will be used to develop a passenger aircraft.

Tecnam in Italy is hoping to have an all-electric aircraft with a capacity for nine passengers in the air in 2026, complete with a Rolls-Royce engine. Norway’s Widerøe has shown an interest, since a large proportion of its flights cover short distances in northern Norway. The range at the time of launch will be around 200 kilometres. Heart Aerospace, which is based outside Gothenburg in Sweden, is working on an electric plane for 19 passengers. The range at the time of launch will be 400 kilometres.

Sceptics would dismiss these performance properties as ridiculous compared to fuel aircraft, in terms of both passenger capacity and range. But here’s the interesting part: 400 kilometres is enough to cover around 80 percent of the routes in markets like those in the Scandinavian countries. Other interesting markets for this type of aircraft include island-hopping in countries like Indonesia, Greece, Japan and the Philippines, or indeed any country with mountain ranges or lakes that take a long time to traverse. Or for moving troops and crews. Air ambulance services. You name it.

This summer, the American airline company United placed an order for 100 of these aircraft with Heart.

Severe economic impact

It’s happening now … or soon will be, at least.

As we know, the aviation industry was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Few people wanted to travel, and those who did were not allowed. The airlines’ revenue streams dried up, and orders for new aircraft and engines were cancelled.

The economic impacts were severe. Rolls-Royce lost 4.5 billion USD in 2020, and had to cut around 7,000 jobs to save money as well as make some tough priorities in other parts of its operations. This will likely delay deliveries of new engines by several years, which in turn may create delays for Tecnam and Widerøe. So the chances of sitting in an electric plane any time soon are slim, though it may well be a reality by 2030.

In the meantime, see you on Teams.