Karma, Climate, the Vatican & Your Stakeholders
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by Richard Maltzman,
Dave Shirley
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Dave Shirley
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Date
Sure, it sounds like a great name for an edgy punk band. Or not. But rest assured, it’s just the name of our blog post, for reasons which will make themselves clear presently.
Recently, on our companion blog site we posted a story about an editorial by George Will who wrote about the fact that sometimes (and he’s right here) folks with a message about sustainability can be a bit… preachy. You can read that post here – our main point there was not to disagree with Will about the preachiness, but rather to take issue with the way he denigrated sustainability as a subject, by putting it in quotes and generally denying any possibility that the science was right – or even that science matters at all.
The very next day, Will’s editorial appeared literally directly next to an editorial in the Cape Cod Times which we’ll quote from below.
There was simply too much karma here (irony intended). The story next to Will’s was about how the Pope will be taking action in terms of an upcoming Encyclical which will deal quite directly with Climate Change from the Vatican’s perspective. Why does this matter to project, program, and portfolio managers? Well, when 1 billion Catholics are getting advice from their leader, it’s a bit of a game-changer. These people, this belief system – it is likely threaded through your stakeholders, whether they be stakeholder individuals or stakeholder organizations. And since stakeholders have influence, interest, and attitudes towards your project(s), it pays to understand the underlying context from which they are driven, and from which they’re basing decisions.
Actually, we think it would behoove you to read both editorial pieces together to see just how diametrically opposed viewpoints can be on this topic.
That said, here is the first piece of this editorial piece, which was entitled "Climate Action":
"Vatican poised to challenge religious, political leaders
Pope Francis is poised to call on all Catholics — more than a billion of them — and political and religious leaders around the world to take climate action. The Vatican is set to host a major conference on climate change this month that will feature leading researchers on global warming and an opening address by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The meeting is another sign of Pope Francis’ “green agenda” and another potential red flag for far-right conservatives who are already alarmed over an expected papal teaching document on the environment that is scheduled for release this summer."
By now we hope you agree that wherever you stand – religiously, politically, and demographically – the fact that there is significant information transfer that involves the UN Secretary-General and the Pope, and at least one billion people – is good to know. We are not saying that you must agree, just that it is good to know.
It’s not just Catholics, by the way:
The one-day summit on April 28 will also include participants from major world religions and aims to “elevate the debate on the moral dimensions of protecting the environment in advance of the papal encyclical,” as the papal document is known.
The pope is looking at the Bible’s mandate to “subdue the earth” in terms of stewardship and sustainability, in contrast to the rapacious exploitation of fossil fuels executed by the most profitable companies in history. The Catholic Church has embraced the issue of climate change as a moral and social justice issue, giving voice to what should be hollered day in, day out: Our consumption-based economy of global trade, travel and transit is reliant on fossil fuels, and the energy giants that enable it are serving a very small group and punishing the rest of the planet … and in the end, no one will profit.
Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson is quoted in Naomi Klein’s 2014 book, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate”:
“This really involves a large-scale transformation. It would require an effort comparable to the Apollo moon project or constructing the interstate highway system. But it is possible, without even having to go to new technologies. We really need to just decide collectively that this is the direction we want to head as a society.”
Again, we’re not asking you to agree. But we think you should agree that the transition of which they speak is going to involve many of us as project managers – quite directly in some cases, as new projects and programs (and even portfolios) will be launched. However, there will also be just as large, if not larger, of an indirect effect because of the not-so-subtle shift that this will create in existing and planned projects that have nothing to do (apparently, anyway) with sustainability. Certainly, as we started off the post, it should cause you to step back and reappraise your stakeholder set.
The editorial from the Cape Cod Times ends with this piece (note the stress on long-term decision making):
"We like to argue that China and India should account for their emissions, but can we be so blind as to ignore for whom their factories are running? It is for our appetite as well as theirs -- we in the world's largest markets in Europe and North America. Too many of our energy decisions are made based on current market conditions rather than long-term solutions.
It is our hope that Pope Francis’ anticipated encyclical to the world’s 5,000 bishops and 400,000 priests will offer practical things that anyone, not just a billion-plus Catholics, can do: reducing demand for power, and for goods that come from across the planet; shifting taxes from fossil fuel subsidies to public transportation subsidies. The Pope is right. It is a moral and social justice issue. And action is needed now, not only from policy makers and corporate executives, but from each of us responsible to one another for the future survival of our world."
We hope you agree. Not necessarily with Pope Francis, nor with George Will. But rather, we hope you agree with us. That is, we hope you agree that it makes sense to look at sustainability in a new light – that of an influencer of your stakeholders, who in turn, are going to influence your projects, like it or not.
Okay – that’s enough preaching from us, at least for today.
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: April 20, 2015 05:30 PM |
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Interesting point of you. Thanks for sharing
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