79: Everything Is Possible with Sanda Ojiambo

Christiana Figueres: [00:04:02] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not government policy. No, what we currently have is we have a law that establishes a moratorium on oil and gas exploration, but that's just a moratorium that can be turned over. And there were quite a few of us that were actually advocating for a law that prohibits oil and gas exploration. And in the middle of this comes this brilliant idea on the part of some that we should have fast and easy income by our drilling here for oil and gas. So honestly, I feel like it's a dagger in my heart. And it's a dagger in the heart of the country, not just mine. So here I am, having promised that I would keep a very, very low profile in my home country for many different reasons. Having now to

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:04:56] Hang on, if this is going to be Christiana Figueres's declaration of a run for the presidency in Costa Rica, I think we're going to have a drumroll. Oh, it's not OK. Sorry.

Christiana Figueres: [00:05:05] No, no, no, no, no, no.

Paul Dickinson: [00:05:08] Oh, yes, it is.

Christiana Figueres: [00:05:11] No, no, no. But it is a declaration that I will be joining a campaign against these voices that are calling for oil and gas exploration. Anyway, that's just to balance out how many times have I been on this podcast singing the praises of Costa Rica? So just to let you know, that we have optimism, but we also have outrage in Costa Rica. There you are.

Paul Dickinson: [00:05:31] What about Costa Rica becoming a country that's a kind of museum of industry? So you build this oil and gas, you link it up with like typewriter manufacturing films, photocopiers, you know, there's a whole lots of technology.

Christiana Figueres: [00:05:46] Kodak. 

Paul Dickinson: [00:05:47] Exactly. It could be kind of like: go back to the 20th century in Costa Rica, enjoy nature and things that people don't do anymore.

Christiana Figueres: [00:05:54] That's a brilliant suggestion. I think I will make that the cornerstone of our campaign.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:05:59] Costa Rica, the museum of things people don't do anymore. I reckon that they might go with something better than that? You know what, it is funny you should mention how that's going in Costa Rica because I don't know if you've heard, but Paul and I are from the UK and actually, something quite impressive happened in the U.K. It's very rare that we get to say something which positions the UK environmentally above Costa Rica. So we need to enjoy it.

Christiana Figueres: [00:06:21] Oh, no. Is this the moment when I have turn off? I'm turning my recording off.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:06:29] So one of the things that happened this week is Boris Johnson came out with his ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution. And interestingly, one of the places where I get some of my news from is Business Green, which I think is a brilliant outlet. James Murray is a great writer. And he said that it's the first time in his estimation that a world leader has not just talked about the desire to bring down the curtain on the fossil fuel age within three decades. But has explained in real detail how he intends to do it. The ten-point plan includes things like ending sales, the internal combustion engine by 2030, creating a quarter of a million jobs in green energy. It's really quite impressive. And critics have looked at it and said it includes pledges for new funding, a significant proportion of which, of course, is repackaged from previous commitments. But there is some new money there. But I think what's interesting is it demonstrates, and I don't know what you guys took from it, but what I took from it is that with the best will in the world, the current prime minister of the UK is a political opportunist. Right? He does what he needs to do in order to get the political momentum of the moment. And I think that it's no accident that this comes out now. New Biden administration coming in, the realization that climate change is the way that he builds bridges with the world with which he has in large part burnt bridges if you think about Brexit and some of the relationships he's had with Trump. But he sees climate change as a way back to establish good relationships with others and how the UK can burnish its credentials as a global leader in the 21st century. And that's great, right? If those things start to align.

Christiana Figueres: [00:08:08] And as the host of COP 26, not that we should forget that.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:08:10] As the host of COP 26. But if those things start to align, if the national political interest and reducing emissions and creating a resilient world align politically, I'll take that. That's good news.

Christiana Figueres: [00:08:21] That's exactly the way it should be.

Paul Dickinson: [00:08:23] It was reported he had a famous fallout with his principal adviser, Dominic Cummings. And there was a suggestion, and this is all kind of hearsay, so you can't take it to court, but there was a suggestion that Cummings was predicting that this would not play so well with certain people in certain districts of the UK that may not feel themselves to be part of this kind of decarbonization revolution. Cummings was actually the architect of Brexit, which actually I think, you know, who knows if the UK will come to regret. So there is a bit of a question about the narrative and how we can make sure together that the narrative of jobs and opportunity manifests itself in real industries where people feel in their pockets richer as a result of this decarbonization. I know it can be done, but it's got to have the right story behind it.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:09:13] But your mention there of stories is interesting. So, I mean, it's no secret that I and probably Paul and certainly Christiana were not fans of Brexit. But the moment when I thought that Brexit were going to win was I saw Nigel Farage on TV like two months before the Brexit vote. And he was being questioned by someone and they said, oh, but Brexit is going to be bad for the economy and what about this? And he said, who cares about that? This is about identity, this is about our story as a country. I said oh, my God, he's going to win. Because actually, that's more powerful than appealing to people and trying to frighten them. I'm not saying that the Remain campaign was all about frightening. Some very good arguments behind it, as we're now realizing. But actually that need for a new story, which, Paul, I think you've thought about this that Ben Rhodes talked about, it's arguably behind what's in this Boris Johnson ten-point plan.

Paul Dickinson: [00:10:01] Yeah, I mean, just to remind people about this incredible interview we have with Ben Rhodes, where he said the USA needs a mission, and actually decarbonizing and responding to climate change could be that mission. And I think that notion that we need a kind of national purpose that we can articulate and feel proud about, have identity around, does have some meaning. But neither you nor I, Tom, have ever been in politics. Whereas, Christiana, you've spent all your life with politicians. Would you agree with that?

Christiana Figueres: [00:10:22] Yeah. I mean, obviously, we need. Stories are very powerful. And for people, it's much easier A, to understand and certainly to remember a story than to remember facts, hard data. But here's a story that is fundamental in facts. So I don't know if you two know but when I lived in London, I used to follow a Twitter account that is called MyGridGB, and they publish every so often what the grid of Britain is actually looking like.

Paul Dickinson: [00:11:00] The grid as in the power grid, like what's the mix of power creation.

Christiana Figueres: [00:11:04] The power grid. Yeah. What fuels are producing electricity in Britain? And so I just looked it up as you were talking and so here's the story that just went up ten minutes ago on MyGridGB, highly recommended for you to follow this. It says there have been approximately four thousand eight hundred and eighty-three hours, approximately, right, Four thousand eight hundred and eighty-three hours.

Paul Dickinson: [00:11:28] A minute here, a minute there.

Christiana Figueres: [00:11:29] A minute here, a minute there. Of coal-free British electricity so far in 2020. Coal has provided just two point one percent of British electricity over the last 12 months. I mean, if there is a story of a country that has decarbonized certainly away from coal, but now from Boris Johnson hearing the beginning of the story of the next chapter away from oil, that is, it's fantastic. It's fantastic to see that we are at that point in which that national interest and the strength of the economy really is being fundamentally understood to be fully aligned with the global need and with climate science because as long as we've talked about this ad nauseam on the market, as long as those two are seen to be competing with each other, I think we know which would win. But the fact that it is being increasingly understood that those two actually are aligned and are mutually reinforcing is just so refreshing. And I think we'll be seeing many of these stories and many of these coming certainly from their own states, but increasingly from other countries. I think 2020 is going to be the turning point for this, of understanding that addressing climate change continues to be a responsibility but we're moving from the burden to the opportunity.

Paul Dickinson: [00:13:07] Well, let me throw in a little fact, maybe a big fact, actually, that kind of supports everything you just said, Christiana. I mean, like anyone who's worked on climate change for a while will have looked at that graph of where energy comes from, you know, British Thermal Units, or BTUs or whatever they call it, and you can normalize them against everything. Nuclear, renewables, coal, oil, and gas. And certainly, when I used to look at that in the last 10 years or whatever, you'd see these giant sections, coal, oil, and gas, they were huge. And then just a few slathers for nuclear and renewables. Now, get this, the International Energy Agency, whose job is to know about this, have just announced that solar and wind capacity will overtake gas capacity by 2023, which nearly anyone in business will tell you is basically tomorrow. So that's the message to those Costa Rican policymakers, I'm afraid, Christiana if you're going to leave it to them and not take over the country yourself, which is our recommendation. That really fundamentally the mathematics is changing at a deep level. Renewables are accelerating. And it was Nigel, our dear friend Nigel Topping, who says, you know, if something's kind of very small, but it's doubling every year, lookout.

Christiana Figueres: [00:14:16] Well, and I think it's also the IEA who has put a new spin on the term King Coal. They're now talking about solar as being the king of power. A very interesting turn of events there.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:14:34] It reminds me of the old quote about how you go bankrupt, the joke, which is that you go bankrupt first very slowly and then very fast, and actually for a long time solar and wind renewables seem to be kind of nowhere. They were bumping in the bottom, in my family all work in oil and gas, it was always a bit of a joke about the fact that it wasn't really anywhere, then all of a sudden, boom, it's everywhere and actually will become the predominant energy source in the world in just a few years. Amazing, amazing progress. Now, one person who actually has a very important role in this is Sanda Ojiambo, who is the executive director and CEO of the United Nations Global Compact. Are we ready to pivot to the interview?

Paul Dickinson: [00:15:12] Well, yes, because, I mean, Christiana may have something else she wants to say, but I just want to say that I think that Global Compact is this fantastic organization, all these corporations all kind of together under the auspices of the United Nations. And I feel like I sort of woke up from this brilliant dream and there was the Global Compact. There it was.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:15:28] So as far as I know, Paul Dickinson's wet dream has always been a kind of united corporation to go. And the Global Compact is basically it. It exists. So do you want to introduce what the Global Compact is before I introduce Sanda?

Paul Dickinson: [00:15:43] Well, I would say it is an extraordinary initiative that brings together 10000 corporations now to focus their energies on delivering the sustainable development goals and maintaining.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:15:57] From how many countries? 

Paul Dickinson: [00:15:58] All of them. I'm guessing. 

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:15:58] One hundred and sixty. Not bad. Okay, sorry. Carry on.

Christiana Figueres: [00:16:00] How many country networks? We're quizzing you now.

Paul Dickinson: [00:16:03] People who are listening, Tom's got a piece of information in front of him. And I'm doing this from sort of memory and from my heart.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:09] How many universal principles would you say that they promote?

Paul Dickinson: [00:16:14] All of them, all of the universal principles, all the important ones.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:18] The answer is ten, Paul. They promote ten universal principles.

Paul Dickinson: [00:16:20] Ten, ten important principles.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:16:23] Sorry, carry on.

Paul Dickinson: [00:16:24] Well, suffice to say that the promise they have is to be able to sort of bring the dignity of the nation-state to the corporation and to allow corporations to sort of, as it were, stand shoulder to shoulder and together, do the work of bringing our society forward to where it needs to go, dealing with the economic and the social system conditions of all the SDGs. And I just think it's a fantastic way for us to kind of reinvent our 21st century whilst it's still only a fifth old.

Christiana Figueres: [00:16:54] So, Paul here's the next quiz question, which is actually the largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative in the world?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:03] That's what I was going to ask!

Paul Dickinson: [00:17:06] I'm going to go for the U.N. Global Compact.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:10] Wow, look at that.

Christiana Figueres: [00:17:12] You got it! 

Paul Dickinson: [00:17:12] Although there are some other interesting collaborations. But no, absolutely the U.N. Global Compact is.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:17] So, anyway, moving on to the introduction.

Paul Dickinson: [00:17:19] Tom, if you'd like to complete the process.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:21] Paul, thank you for that generous and thoughtful introduction for Global Compact. Now, Sanda, herself, the executive director and CEO of the United Nations Global Compact, is the second woman to be appointed.

Christiana Figueres: [00:17:32] Wait, wait, wait. Who has just arrived in New York, like, a week ago.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:35] Yeah, yeah. Totally appointed in June 2020, of course.

Christiana Figueres: [00:17:40] But had to work out of Kenya and has just arrived in New York, probably still living out of boxes.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:44] Attentive listeners will realize that was during the first lockdown. Absolutely, only just arrived. The first African citizen to be appointed to the post. Herself since 2010, she serves as the head of sustainable business and social impact at African telecoms company Safaricom in Kenya and was the senior manager of Safaricom before that. Before she made her transition to corporate sustainability, she worked for NGOs across Africa, addressing the issues of inequality and discrimination. She is, as you're about to hear, a remarkable and inspiring, and thoughtful leader. And personally, I feel, and I expect my colleagues would agree that she is going to have an enormous impact at the U.N. Global Compact. So here we go, here's Sanda. And we will be back afterward with more thoughts and analysis.

Christiana Figueres: [00:18:36] Sanda, how wonderful to have you. Welcome to Outrage and Optimism. Sanda, you know, some of our listeners may not even have a clue of what the Global Compact is. So I would love for you to explain a little bit about the Global Compact, but I just wanted to give it a little bit of a context, because, first of all, you took the job. And I really want to know why did you take the job? But then you weren't able to move to New York and you had to stay at home in Kenya and sort of remotely control an entire organization in New York that I presume you had actually never met. How was it to start a completely new job via Zoom, I presume, or at least via remote control?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:19:26] Great. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on here. Paul, Tom, and Christiana, just really great to be here and have this conversation. When you ask about why I took this job. So, you know, my first instinct was to say it was a persistent headhunter, but

Christiana Figueres: [00:19:42] There you go. There is truth for you.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:19:47] Yeah, there are some very well-paid, persistent headhunters. But, you know, I was also at a point of reflection in my life. I tend to do this thing around my career where every five years I sort of ask myself, it's been five years, what is the next five look like, or is it time to ship out? Shape up and ship out. So I do this renewal every five years. But, you know, 12 years ago, I broke that five-year rule.

Christiana Figueres: [00:20:14] It's a very healthy behavior. May I congratulate you for that behavior? Very healthy.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:20:19] Not very traditional inside the U.N., if I can venture that.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:20:24] I'm yet to find out. But I broke this rule because 12 years ago, I joined a fantastic organization in Kenya that really had at its heart what I think the Global Compact does, which is using business to transform society. So I come from a previous role in the Telcom sector where I drove sustainability. How do businesses look at sustainability? How do businesses impact more than simply their customers with that transactional sale? So 12 years hit and as I call it, I've missed five years. You know, I missed five. I missed five plus five. And I'm onto two and a great time for reflection. And so it just coincided with a job vacancy, a headhunter, and my reflection moment. And I'll be very honest, that was it. This was one of those things where I think the ducks were lined up, the stars were aligned, the

Christiana Figueres: [00:21:22] The universe was calling.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:21:24] The universe was calling. And I kicked off actually probably about a seven-month conversation on a recruitment process around joining the UN Global Compact. So that's why I'm here.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:21:37] Did you know much about the compact before you joined? Were you very familiar with the Global Compact?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:21:42] Actually, I was, because part of those 12 years that I talk about, 10 of the 12, I had led the portfolio in a company that was one of the U.N. Global Compact members. So to be honest, I knew this organization, but I knew it from the outside. So I knew what it stood for. I knew what it was trying to achieve. I love it that I knew probably about a third of the team even before I joined. I got to know how aggressive and follow how big they are and follow-through from the outside, even before I knew them. But so I knew the organization. I knew what it stood for. I knew its positioning. Every year for the last seven or so years, I would come to New York for the General Assembly week. That's a big week and people come together to review progress on some of the UN big goals. And so it wasn't an alien organization to me, but I had seen it from the outside and I was going to be deep in the inside and leading it.

Christiana Figueres: [00:22:39] Now, that tells me, Sanda, that therefore, Safaricom would have been one of the active members of Global Compact. The Global Compact has almost 12000 companies. I would venture to say that they're not all active in the Global Compact and how delightful that Safaricom was via you. And therefore, you got to know the Global Compact and the all-female team that was running it. Now that you are there because I think you're finally in New York. Now that you are there, what have you found that surprises you in the sense of this ain't good enough. This really has to change under my leadership. What is your vision for transformation?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:23:33] Yeah. And as you acknowledge, where I worked before, Safaricom was one of the active members and that's true. We weren't perfect, I think we were doing well as an African company, Now that I'm here. But, Christiana, now that I'm here, you know, I'm here in a very strange time. I'm sitting in my office today.

Christiana Figueres: [00:23:56] Really, I hadn't noticed that.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:23:56] You didn't think so?

Christiana Figueres: [00:23:58] No idea what you're talking about.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:24:01] So I'm sitting in my office here and it's Thursday, right? It's Thursday. I think there are four colleagues in the office. I come in one or two days a week. I moved to New York about five weeks ago. And so it's very hard to speak about what is and what the status quo is because I don't know when I'll get that chance to be with my team fully, to see what the vibe is, to see this, you know, it's a lovely office, but I think it holds about 100 hundred people. I don't know when I'll see these hundred people together. I got the chance to meet them on Zoom. I think we meet every two weeks on Zoom and the energy comes through. But there are so many things that you miss. You miss empathy. You miss the connection. You probably don't joke the way that you would. We don't have the around coffee machine banter. You can just tap someone and say, hey, let's go out for lunch and quickly brainstorm an idea. So certainly there's a lot of dynamics that are missing. I get that you can do a lot online and virtually. But I miss that so that that's a unique challenge. But certainly joining and I mean, you mentioned one of those, which is great.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:25:14] We have a very large membership. My question is first, are we getting suitable and equal value to that entire membership? Because that's, I think, what would spur levels of activity and engagement in the work that we do. So my first question is now that I have, we have this membership of close to fourteen thousand, there's eleven thousand businesses and three thousand non-businesses. What are we doing with them? What's our level of engagement? What's the value creation that we have for them? And what value do they get from us? It's a question that I really do want to interrogate really well, as so happens with the rule. I mean, I come at a time when I need to develop the new strategy going forward. So we are working on that right now to just clarify what the Global Compact will be for our next chapter going forward. And I think that's a great opportunity to address what we feel could work better to also actually because everything has just been so unprecedented this year, maybe it's time to just make unprecedented changes and see what the Global Compact can do.

Christiana Figueres: [00:26:18] There you go. I like that. I like that.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:26:21] Everything is possible.

Paul Dickinson: [00:26:23] Everything is possible. OK, Sanda, I've been watching this tough news program so I'm going to hit you with the really tough questions. To give you a little bit of background, I did write a book called Beautiful Corporations. So you've got to figure out yourself, you kind of know where I'm coming from here, so I put it to you that all leading businesses should join the Global Compact, will you agree?

Christiana Figueres: [00:26:44] I would. Could you help me get them all on board, please?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:26:49] That's the Dickinson line of tough questioning.

Paul Dickinson: [00:26:51] I'm going to follow up, though. I got to follow up because I think I've got you on the ropes here a little bit. Would you agree that all leading companies that manage to successfully join the Global Compact should be active in the Global Compact?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:27:04] They must. 

Paul Dickinson: [00:27:05] There you go. I mean, in all seriousness, I really admire your organization. I'm fascinated and excited by the idea that business can evolve from its kind of like, you know, historically it's been, you know, sort of without a kind of purpose above and beyond its product or service. Can I ask you, how do you see business sort of in society over the next 10 years, even over the next hundred years?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:27:33] Yeah. So I believe in this concept called the Three P's. Actually, there's probably four P's. So, I mean, you know, over time I think it has evolved on this. Four P's. So you first have to be clear on your purpose. So the business purpose is central. Then you've got to be able to define the principles by which you're going to execute or live through your purpose. Because purpose runs the risk of being very sort of esoteric and up there. But you can ground it in principles in ways that you're going to be. Then you need to have people who are really aligned to what that purpose and principle is going to be. And I firmly believe that thereafter the profit will follow. But I think it's got to be in that order. You know, if you put in any other configuration, in my view, and this is my business theory, it doesn't work out to the end that you want. I firmly believe that purpose and profit can and should coexist. But you've got to be able to look at putting your purpose first and understanding what it is that you're here to do.

Paul Dickinson: [00:28:29] And can I ask a tiny follow on question? In your previous work at a very successful company doing fascinating things with dematerialization of growth and financial services and telecoms. I mean, it's just an amazing story. What was your experience of identifying purpose within that company? And how did it manifest? Just because we've got thousands of listeners who work in businesses and if they want to find their own relationship to purpose, what's the route?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:28:58] Yeah. So, you know, I'd love to take full credit for this, but allow me to just recognize my former CEO and leader, who is a fantastic guy, Bob Collymore. Bob was a, he was just an amazing an astute purpose-led man. The most authentic guy that I know. So, you know, first of all, I worked in telcom. Telcom is not one of the most loved industries around the world for a number of reasons. But, you know, Bob joined Safaricom and challenged us because he said, look, beyond data, SMS and voice, what are you selling? What are you selling to customers? And once they're connected to you, then what? You've got to have value that is bigger than the transactional exchange that you're going to offer your customers otherwise, one day they're with you, one day. It's kind of like serial dating. They'll be with you, they'll be with someone else because they're not getting. No loyalty, no value. You know, at some point, everyone prices out the same. So Bob's challenge to us was to really think about the transformation that as a business we wanted to cause for society. And so in my formal organization, you walked into the office, you never saw anything that would indicate we're Telcom? We never spoke data. You wouldn't see a signage about pricing or a bundle or anything. What you would see was a purpose which was transforming lives. You would see indications around our sustainability goals and you'd see a team that was looking at Telcom to the extent the Telcom could influence agriculture, could influence health, could influence education. A team that was looking at how we could have cleaner, greener operations in-house, a team that was committed to fighting corruption as best as it could within the organization and its ecosystem, a team that engaged in supply chain and sharing the same principles across the board.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:30:44] And so that's the environment in which I work. That's the environment that made us a great partnership with the UN Global Compact. And that's really what our view then was. And, you know, things like financial inclusion then become second nature because you're not going to have a customer if the lady that you're serving just is not able to access some form of financial inclusion, she definitely will not have the paperwork to walk into a bank like you and I would. She definitely wouldn't have an ATM card or a cash card but if she can save her money on her mobile phone and do a transaction that's empowering, that's inclusive, and that those are the kind of very micro changes that I think businesses need to look at. And that's why I say, purpose, principles, get it going and the profits will come. I mean, admittedly, I don't know if I told you, but I come from Kenya. I worked in Nairobi, Kenya. And, you know, obviously, the socio-economic environment and therefore the opportunities are immense. For me, I look at my continent of one filled with opportunity. A lot of people see it as one filled with, you know, risk. I see opportunity at every corner because there's enough problems, enough challenges to create fantastic, innovative solutions. And I think that's what my former company Safaricom did.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:32:02] That's such a beautiful vision of purpose as the driving force behind business and profit as an outcome of that. But let me just sort of go back to, because in a funny way, if you look at the history, the existence of the Global Compact wasn't always assured. I mean, you know, back to the founding of the U.N., the world's nations coming together to solve big problems. You know, the famous quote at the beginning that it wasn't to deliver us to heaven, but to save us from hell. And then as time's gone on, you know, the UN, the collective will of the world's governments, largely democratic, but not exclusively, has kind of come together to deliver these big outcomes. You mean as far as humanity goes, if we have a purpose statement, probably the closest thing is some combination of the Paris agreement and the SDGs. In terms of what we're trying to do beyond profit. And the Global Compact sort of exists to help deliver that purpose. But is it, it's a slightly unfair way of phrasing it, but I'm very curious to know your response. Does it exist because the U.N. has failed?

Christiana Figueres: [00:33:09] Sanda, I just want you to know that Tom no longer has a UN passport. Neither do I. But if he did, he would have just lost it right now.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:33:19] Has it had to come in because the UN hasn't been able to deliver on its promise?

Paul Dickinson: [00:33:23] By the way, Tom, if you say you don't believe in fairies, one of them dies but Sanda, you have the question.

Christiana Figueres: [00:33:30] Did you even hear the question?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:33:32] I think I'm in a deep enough hole. I'll pass it over to you to respond.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:33:35] Dig yourself out. Dig yourself out. Look, as with all organizations, I believe the UN is on a continuous process of evolution. The U.N. recently celebrated 75 years. The Global Compact recently turned 20. Now, this is my view, I think that at the time that we were founded in the year 2000, there was a clear recognition that business had to come to the table. Business had to come to the party. So I think we came in at the right time, right place with the right vision. I mean, the purpose was clear and I think the overall acceptance of the role that business can and should play in what the U.N. is trying to achieve is much clearer and was much clearer fined by the forming of the Global Compact. You know, when Kofi Annan founded it, what he said was he wanted to put a human face to this global market. And I do think, you know, timing was right, positioning was right. And 20 years on, here we are. Here we are.

Paul Dickinson: [00:34:41] Well, you have quite a machine there. Quite a network. Enormous sort of potential. But now, just before the final question that Christiana will ask, I mean, I'm still intrigued by just trying to get a little bit more from you about how you think. Just go to 2050. That's a horizon that a lot of people are looking at now. I mean, do you think businesses will be collaborating more with each other? Do you see closer relationships with shareholders? Do you see citizens getting more conscious in the way they purchase or invest? How do you see business evolving? We talked about the U.N. evolving. How should business evolve?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:35:16] Yeah, I think there's a couple of key things that will likely happen. And I want to say, I think covid has provided a great time for pause and reflection in terms of that. You know, I think one of the most interesting things is, you know, trust surveys show a slight decline in business and business leadership, but also just an increase in enlightened consumerism. And, you know, that's pretty much been a focus, I believe, of the global north. But I'm beginning to see a lot more enlightened consumerism even in the global south. So I think the first thing I'm going to say that will change is I think the customers and consumers will have a continued but much bigger voice in shaping the longevity and the perceptions of business. I just don't think that businesses can go around, at some point in time willy nilly doing what they please. There's a lot that puts business right now, I think, front and center of what consumers and customers will say, that's one. Secondly is that I don't think that in the long term, businesses are going to take things such as supply chain sustainability lightly anymore. I think we have seen so much challenge over the last eight months in terms of what it means to have a broken, a fragile supply chain. You could sit in a headquarters somewhere in, I don't know, somewhere. Let me talk about Montreal. That's why I went to uni and I had a great conversation ten minutes ago about Montreal. So you could be sitting in Montreal and wondering and not actually knowing who your supplier is, you know, around the other end of the globe. But when a crisis hits you, like now and you can't get a very small input for what you need, you will know who your supplier is.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:36:59] Yeah, the question is, what could you have done better or different to protect your supplier or to support your supplier to be able to better weather all the adversity that comes through. I recall when I was back home, we were able to pivot a lot of the manufacturing lines and produce hand sanitizer. But, you know, if you're going to put in a bottle and put on a pump, I think that pump component had to be imported. So we had lots of bottles of sanitizer, but no pumps. And I think that's what it means to understand the fragility of a supply chain because at some point the response slows because you couldn't get, you know, so there's a lot of shifting and lots of innovation that have happened, but it shows you fragility. The second thing for me is that people are going to be more conscious about where the supply chains lie and how to create sustainability around that. The third is, I think because we've seen so much devastation and challenge, I'd hope that businesses are very aware that, one, we will not thrive unless social justice is addressed. And for me, social justice, as you know, we cannot go on in a world that has become increasingly unequal all the time. And for me, the social injustices for me are gender. There's a statistic that will take two hundred and sixty-seven years to close this gender gap. I mean, who's going to be here in two hundred and sixty-seven years? But look, if any of you have a daughter, what can we promise them?

Christiana Figueres: [00:38:28] Not two hundred and something years, for sure no.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:38:31] In this generation. No there's nothing to promise them. The second is, I mean, I think we're going to take a look at climate. I come from a country with a fantastic ecosystem, wildlife all around, and everything. But you look at the decimation that's happening. You look at the ongoing famine, flood, destruction cycle. There's big issues there. So for me, it's enlightened consumerism, looking at supply chain sustainability and look at the fragilities that actually threaten all of us, and I just make it very practical by saying, look, what are we going to leave for our next generation? And businesses actually lie at the root of solutions for all of those elements? 

Christiana Figueres: [00:39:13] Well, three very, very important points. Sanda and in the context of those three points, we usually ask our guests at the end where you lie in the spectrum between outrage and optimism because we think we need both. So I'm assuming that you are starting a job with a lot of optimism, but would love to hear you how do you express that? But also, what are you outraged about that we haven't done yet?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:39:45] Who's we?

Christiana Figueres: [00:39:48] Good question. We the Global society. We the global society.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:39:53] We the Global society. So I am outraged that we have allowed ourselves to live in such unequal times. That for me is it. I think the gap between the haves and the have nots just continues to increase exponentially. And I think that we, the government's policymakers, businesses just need to look at a more inclusive model for which businesses and society can co-exist and thrive. There's you can live in two worlds in one city. It's not possible. It's not possible. And so for me, I'm outraged that the inequalities continue to rise and exist and some of those inequalities and play out in issues, again, like climate and gender that are just, you know, two really areas where I just put primacy in terms of urgency and things that we need to really take on very seriously, the collectively so government, policy, business. Civil society and all of us together. Those are some of the things that outrage me.

Christiana Figueres: [00:40:54] And your optimism?

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:40:55] Well, look, I'm optimistic that everything will get back to what it is. It's an odd time to be in a city that, as you know, has been ravaged but is recovering from the covid pandemic. I'm optimistic that we will find solutions that will allow us to be where we were, get back on the path to recovery. And certainly, if I look specifically at my organization, I'm just optimistic that we will be able to, through our new chapter and new strategy, provide solutions that make practical sense for business because we've all had collectively a moment to pause this business. And I think, now more than ever, we've had the chance to really understand what the role of business has been because either business has been decimated by the pandemic or business has thrived through the pandemic. Let's take the lessons learned from both and chart a way forward.

Christiana Figueres: [00:41:49] Yeah. Which kinds of businesses with which conditions have actually thrived. Sanda, thank you very much. And you use the word pause. I just remember that at the beginning of this year, we used to think that history would look back at 2020 and recognize it as the great pause. And now as we come to the end of the year, I think we're revising our view of future history and saying history will look back at 2020 as the year of the Great Reset because that's what we have to do. We have to reset. Reset our mind, reset the economy, reset gender relations, et cetera. It's certainly a reset environmental management in all its aspects. So here's to a great reset. Reset New York, because, you know, we're talking about it all. Sanda, thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time. And welcome to New York. Welcome to the U.N. Welcome to the Global Compact. I hope you're hanging on to your U.N. passport because Tom has lost his.

Paul Dickinson: [00:42:56] I like how much distance yourself from me in these conversations.

Sanda Ojiambo: [00:43:02] Thank you for having me on. It's been an amazing conversation.

Paul Dickinson: [00:43:05] Thank you. Great to be with you.

Christiana Figueres: [00:43:06] Thank you. Bye.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:43:17] So what a privilege to have a chance to sit down with Sanda. So insightful to get that sense of what she's thinking coming into that new role. Paul, what do you leave that conversation with?

Paul Dickinson: [00:43:26] Well, I love the way that she was so kind of blunt and clear and honest and direct about seeing this opportunity, taking it and her belief in the U.N. Global Compact and its potential. I do think that that comes a lot from the brilliant work she did in her previous company and her ability to see the role a company can play in transforming a whole sort of sector. I mean, that company giving so many people banking facilities through their phones, it's just an extraordinary leapfrog in the capability, and I think that she wants to bring out, draw out. Educate means, I guess, in a way to draw out from thousands of companies all that they can do to improve the quality of people's lives, which is really the heart of, I think, the kind of mission of the modern corporation.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:44:16] Christiana?

Christiana Figueres: [00:44:17] Well, I'm excited about two things there. I am excited that she brings both a corporate approach to this because honestly, that has to be done. I think of the Global Compact as bringing business rigor and discipline to the U.N. rather than the other way around. So I'm very confident that she will be doing this. I'm also incredibly excited that she brings her African knowledge to this. Because, you know, let's be very upfront here. If there is one continent that somehow always seems to be at the end of any list, it's Africa. And the fact that she is going to make sure that Africa is at the front of the list I think is very exciting and about time.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:45:11] Totally. And I mean, I think the other thing which I took away from that is, I mean, as we know, Christiana, you can achieve so much at the UN, the UN is such an important institution in the world right now. But it's also, to some degree, kind of dehumanizing because it's all about this system and this process that everybody has to sort of fit into. And what I was really impressed in her, both in the conversation we had on air and also the discussion prior and after was she's really focusing on the human elements of this and I think she's really saying that those human connections are where she can make progress. And the Global Compact, I mean, I've always had huge respect for the Global Compact, but it's a difficult job, right? Because you're sitting at that intersection of a very bureaucratic system and a very fast moving private sector. And I feel hugely optimistic that she'll be really effective in that role.

Paul Dickinson: [00:45:58] And I'm just going to throw in a quick word for sort of technology now. There are smaller companies and medium-sized companies that are part of the Global Compact, and they've all got their role. But there are enormous companies that are also part of it. And these really big global companies are probably some of the first organizations in the world with the kind of information systems that they can really understand the world as an integrated unit. I've spoken to many people working in huge companies who truly understand climate change because they see it manifesting. For example, I remember big food company talking about moving their food processing plants north, north, north, north, north, as it kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter. So just the idea that that fantastic, you know, technological infrastructure and information systems can kind of combine and help us think about how to manage Spaceship Earth a little bit more realistically, incredibly, and effectively. This is something that fills me with great excitement.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:46:54] Now, I can't resist, but to riff off Spaceship Earth and introduce our musical artists for this week. So, so sorry about this, this part. But Gaeya is the name of the musical artist this week, which of course is a play, although it spelt different, e, g, a, e, y, a. On the brilliant idea developed by James Lovelock in the 60s and 70s that the Earth is a self-regulating system. I don't know if I've shared with either of you, my very first job ever when I was about 21 was driving for the Hay Festival and I used to go and pick up the authors and drive them to hay. And so one of the fundamental pillars of my education was picking James Lovelock up in Cornwall and driving him seven hours to hay and spending seven hours talking to him about the self-regulating ecosystem that was the planet and how he came up with the idea that really set the course of my life. I also picked up Goldie Hawn, who I picked up in Bristol Airport, and she came out of the airport and immediately stepped into the Mercedes that was parked behind my very small car. And I had to go to her and say, Miss Hawn, it's not this car. She goes, you're *beep* kidding me, right? And had to get out and get into this small car. Anyway, back to the point.

Paul Dickinson: [00:47:59] There's a beep. Isn't that interesting that James Lovelock got you to spend the rest of your life working on climate change?

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:48:05] In seven hours in a car.

Paul Dickinson: [00:48:06] Yeah, no, but to be honest, you know, the discovery is a lovely story about where he got the theory of Gaia theory from is he was employed by NASA to look for life on Mars and he noticed all the chemical reactions had stopped. And he looked around on Earth and he saw the unbelievable richness of the chemical reactions constantly going on. And he realized that that was the biological replicating organism's life on Earth that was causing it.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:48:27] Do you know he talked about that actually during our 7-hour car ride. And I've always remembered this where he said that the insights arrive when you stop trying to think directly about them. And it's when you step back and you have spaciousness in your mind that the real jumps occur, which I think is an amazing perspective actually, for all of us. Anyway, the other thing that James Lovelock said is he presumably inspired this musical artist to name her musical name, Gaeya. And this song is called Contact. This song, according to the musician, not only focuses on our relationship with nature but also a call that we need each other. She wanted this single to call out for unity rather than the separation caused by fear, thinking that we have to fear one another. We lose the foresight of triumph via togetherness. She says we are not alone. Fear drives away our creativity, the love and compassion. We need each other, and we more than ever need to show one another that we are here to support the people around us. She also says that the role of the artist during the climate emergency is that it is not only the climate but rather the environment all over we should be focused on. She believes that all artists and creatives should use their voice to enlighten people with new ideas that can support a sustainable future. Everything that is happening on this planet is in one way or another connected to each other. And therefore the focus does not have to be on the climate or even on the environment, but also on the social structure to question the failing systems or even to question the mental training that we receive as human beings. In the end, if we start healing ourselves, we will start to automatically heal the planet. This is Gaeya with Contact. Thanks for being here.

Paul Dickinson: [00:50:10] Bye. 

Christiana Figueres: [00:50:11] Bye

Clay Carnill: [00:54:17] So there you go. Another episode of Outrage and Optimism, the track you just heard was Contact by Gaeya with Anders Raine on piano. So Gaeya filmed the live performance of this song at Vintage Loft Studio, so you can go watch it. You know what's cool is we ask for a performance in audio performance and in this case, we get an audio performance and this incredible, amazing live performance, you know, filmed perfectly mixed. It's just like, you know, it's great. It's amazing. They filmed it in CinemaScope, which is, you know, sounds just as cool as it looks. And it looks like a movie. The video is currently unlisted on YouTube. So in order to watch it, you have to click the link in the show notes of this episode to see it, which, you know, the show notes they're important. There's cool stuff in there every week. Links to check out the music video to check out Gaeya to buy and stream the music in the show notes. All right. Onto the credits. Outrage and Optimism is a global optimism production executive produced by Marina Mansilla-Hermann and produced by me Clay Carnill. I missed our team meeting today and I'm very sorry. Apologies to Sara Lau, Katie Bradford, Lara Richardson, Sophie MacDonald, Freya Newman, Sara Thomas, Sharon Johnson, and John Ward, and our hosts, the Paul Dickinson, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Christiana Figueres. Special thanks this week to Bougiante Gomez Badillo, Alexandra Gey, Dan Thomas, Shaun Kroos, Molly Donohue, Samuel Katz, and Ivan Abraham. And of course, our special guest this week, Sanda Ojiambo. For LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Clay Carnill: [00:56:09] We're @GlobalOptimism. If you need some optimism in your feed, we got you. That's my new thing. I keep saying we got you. I think it might be my new phrase for the winter. If you're enjoying the podcast. We are so happy about that. Please rate us five stars on Apple podcasts, write us a review. And, you know, we've been getting some really phenomenal reviews from teachers and just fans of the podcast. And, you know, we'd love to read yours, to submit yours and thank you. As we said at the beginning, Tom and Christina's book, The Future We Choose. I actually have it in my hand here. Real pages, real pages. It's up for a good reads choice award, which is amazing. Go to goodreads.com/choiceawards. Click on the science and technology category and vote for The Future We Choose. Thank you. OK, done. That is episode seventy-nine. For Episode Eighty, next week we have The Future of Fuels. It's our second episode in our investigative look into the future of transport. We have some phenomenal guests. Next week I'm going to list off a couple of them here. I have them written down. The CEO of Daimler, Martin Dom. Alejandro Agag, the founder of Formula E Racing, which is like Formula One racing but electric. Monica Araya, the transport lead for the climate champions, and Craig Knight, CEO of Heizen Motors, this really cool startup that's doing zero-emissions, hydrogen fuel cell-powered commercial vehicles. So next week you won't want to miss it. Hit subscribe. We'll see you at.