If the extinction of the human race was a rock concert, Covid-19 would be the opening act and the Climate Crisis the star of the show. It really is that simple. Covid-19, while devastating, is just the opening gambit for what is to come: the deterioration of our planet to the point where mankind will cease to exist. Already, the picture that scientists are painting for us of how our world will look like by 2025 is we do not make major course corrections is a chilling one.
Extreme heatwaves, constant coughs, and regular mask wearing as the daily norm in most parts of the world. In a way, it is a preview of what’s in store for us, a warning that nature will self-correct if we don’t get our act together and start taking action to preserve our shared home.
This is why the Iclif Executive Education Center’s annual conference LESA, previously known as the Leadership Energy Summit Asia, has now been re-imagined, taking on a larger role beyond leadership of self and business, to harness the energy of corporations in making a stand and taking action in tackling climate change.
LESA is now Leadership for Enterprise Sustainability Asia, a virtual conference that acts as a reminder and catalyst for corporate citizens and the corporations they serve to take action and lead the way in making Sustainability the default way of business.
Ironically, if you think about it, climate change did not catch us by surprise like COVID-19 did. We’ve known about this for most of our lifetimes. The problem is that most of us are in denial of the problem and/or hope that others will provide a solution.
The real question is: How do we move from denial and avoidance to awareness and action? As with most things, education is key. You cannot take action if your head is buried in the sand!
LESA 2021 attempts to educate us on how climate change can be managed from a business perspective, how there is hope, and how we the business community can lead the way to realizing that hope.
While the problem of climate change is simple to understand, the solutions are complex and require a deeper understanding of the systems and dynamics surrounding them. This is how LESA aims to empower participations: by learning the complexities, it will allow us to take collective action that moves the needle.
The ICLIF Executive Education Centre at the Asia School of Business is committed to sharing such knowledge with the wider community and is offering Discovery Passes to anyone who wants to be educated on sustainability and climate solutions.
The Discovery Pass gives you free access to sufficient content to get you armed to become a force of change and advocate for sustainable practices within your organization. In tacking the climate crisis, we have no choice… We need to be the leaders we are waiting for!
As Christina Figueres, internationally recognized leader on global climate change who led the process to define a universally agreed regulatory framework culminating in the Paris Agreement of 2015, put it:
“We can no longer afford to assume that addressing climate change is the sole responsibility of national or local governments, or corporations or individuals. This is an everyone-everywhere mission in which we all must individually and collectively assume responsibility.” (The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis)