Rachel Kyte, Tufts University

Glasgow sits proudly on the banks of the river Clyde, once the heart of Scotland’s industrial glory and now a launchpad for its green energy transition. It’s a fitting host for the United Nations’ climate conference, COP26, where world leaders will be discussing how their countries will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

I’ve been involved in climate negotiations for several years as a former senior U.N. official and will be in Glasgow for the talks starting Oct. 31, 2021. As negotiations get underway, here’s what to watch for.

Ambition

At the Paris climate conference in 2015, countries agreed to work to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), aiming for 1.5 C (2.7 F). If COP21 in Paris was the agreement on a destination, COP26 is the review of itineraries and course adjustments.

The bad news is that countries aren’t on track. They were required this year to submit new action plans – known as national determined contributions, or NDCs. The U.N.’s latest tally of all the revised plans submitted in advance of the Glasgow summit puts the world on a trajectory to warm 2.7 C (4.86 F), well into dangerous levels of climate change, by the end of this century.

All eyes are on the G-20, a group of leading world economies that together account for almost 80% of global emissions. Their annual summit takes place in Rome on Oct. 30-31, immediately before COP26 begins.

Some key G-20 countries have not submitted their updated plans yet, including India. Brazil, Mexico, Australia and Russia have filed plans that are not in line with the Paris Agreement.

Details of how China will achieve its climate goals are now emerging, and the world is poring over them to see how China will strengthen its 2030 emissions reduction target, which currently involves cutting emissions 65% per unit of gross domestic product, moving up the date when the country’s emissions growth will peak, and setting industrial production targets for other greenhouse gases, such as methane.

A delicate dance between the United States and China, and deft diplomacy by France, was critical to reaching the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Six years later, a growing rivalry threatens to spiral down what had been a race to the top.

Meanwhile the world’s eyes are on the United States. Opposition from two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, appears likely to force the Biden administration to scrap a plan that would have incentivized utilities to switch to cleaner power sources faster. If their planetary brinksmanship guts that key part of President Joe Biden’s Plan A for how the U.S. will reach its 2030 emissions targets, the world will want to see details of Plans B, C or D in Glasgow.

Carbon markets

One leftover task from the Paris conference is to set rules for carbon markets, particularly how countries can trade carbon credits with each other, or between a country and a private company.

Regulated carbon markets exist from the European Union to China, and voluntary markets are spurring both optimism and concern. Rules are needed to ensure that carbon markets actually drive down emissions and provide revenue for developing countries to protect their resources. Get it right and carbon markets can speed the transition to net zero. Done badly, greenwashing will undermine confidence in pledges made by governments and companies alike.

Another task is determining how countries measure and report their emissions reductions and how transparent they are with one another. This too is fundamental to beating back greenwashing.

Also, expect to see pressure for countries to come back in a year or two with better plans for reducing emissions and reports of concrete progress.

Climate finance

Underpinning progress on all issues is the question of finance.

Developing countries need help to grow green and adapt to climate change, and they are frustrated that that help has been on a slow drip feed. In 2009 and again in 2015, wealthy countries agreed to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing nations by 2020, but they haven’t reached that goal yet.

With one week to go, the U.K. revealed a climate finance plan, brokered by Germany and Canada, that would establish a process for counting and agreeing on what counts in the $100 billion, but it will take until 2023 to reach that figure.

On the one hand it is progress, but it will feel begrudging to developing countries whose costs of adaptation now must be met as the global costs of climate impacts rise, including from heat waves, wildfires, floods and intensifying hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons. Just as with the global vaccine rollout, the developing world may wonder whether they are being slow-walked into a new economic divergence, where the rich will get richer and the poor poorer.

Beyond the costs of mitigation and adaptation is the question of loss and damage – the innocuous term for the harm experienced by countries that did little to contribute to climate change in the past and the responsibility of countries that brought on the climate emergency with their historic emissions. These difficult negotiations will move closer to center stage as the losses increase.

Public climate finance provided by countries can also play another role through its potential to leverage the trillions of dollars needed to invest in transitions to clean energy and greener growth. Expect big pledges from private sources of finance – pension funds, insurance companies, banks and philanthropies – with their own net zero plans, including ending finance and investments in fossil fuel projects, and financing critical efforts to speed progress.

It’s raining pledges

A cross section of the world will be in Glasgow for the conference, and they will be talking about pathways for reducing global carbon emissions to net zero and building greater resilience.

From emissions-free shipping to aviation, from ending coal financing to green steel and cement, from platforms to reduce methane, to nature-based solutions, the two-week conference and days leading up to it will see a steady stream of commitments and new groups of countries, nongovernmental organizations and businesses working together.

Keeping track and verifying achievements toward these pledges will be critical coming away from COP26. Without that, climate activist Greta Thunberg’s “blah blah blah” speech thrown at delegates to a pre-COP meeting in Milan a few weeks ago will continue to echo around the world.

This article was updated Oct. 26 with the release of the UNEP Emissions Gap report and trajectories chart.

Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The project is being funded by Jared Isaacman, the millionaire CEO of Shift4 Payments and an accomplished pilot and commander of Inspiration4. He’ll be joined by Hayley Arceneaux, a medical assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Dr. Sian Proctor, a geoscientist, and Chris Sembroski, a data engineer and a St. Jude donor.

The Inspiration4 objective was developed by Isaacman and is being implemented as part of a larger fundraising campaign aimed at raising $200 million for the children’s hospital. The tycoon has been tight-lipped about the amount he paid SpaceX for the flight.

Interestingly, this is SpaceX’s fourth crewed trip, but the first to carry private citizens rather than professionally trained astronauts. The Inspiration4 campaign is part of a $200 million fundraising drive for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

 “I can’t express enough how appreciative we are of this amazing opportunity, we know that the four of us are about to have an experience and only about 600 or so had before us,” Isaacman told reporters Tuesday. “And we’re very focused on making sure that we give back every bit of that time that we get on-orbit for the people in the causes that matter most to us.”

Medical officer Hayley Arceneaux, a cancer survivor and physician’s assistant at St. Jude; pilot Sian Proctor, a geoscientist and scientific communicator; and mission expert Chris Sembroski, a data engineer, are among those accompanying him on the flight.

Following a successful liftoff, SpaceX plans to land the rocket’s first stage on the deck of one of its massive drone ships, named “Just Read the Instructions”. It will be assisted by one of SpaceX’s newest ships, “Doug”, which is named after retired NASA astronaut Doug Hurley, who was one of the first two humans to fly inside a Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the Demo 2 mission in May 2020.

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Yes, productivity has become one of the major metrics to discern the performances of an individual or a group, but the way we use it is quite erroneous. Productivity is not slogging all day long. It has more to do with the application of your time and energy. You can work for the entire day, but as per your strengths and work-ethic, you might still be underachieving. This is valid the other way around as well. A scenario where you work for just for a few hours and still produce a breakthrough is not unrealistic at all. It’s important to not get caught up in the cultural definition of productivity, which preaches the commitment of all the time you might have at your disposal.

One of the other crucial building blocks of a truly productive culture is to work towards developing a sustainable model of productivity. What we usually see today is people working incessantly before an eventual burnout kicks in. This is because we go into our work without viewing it through the long-term lens. You have to be almost strategic about it. If you go all in within a shorter span, your long-term objectives are more or less sacrificed. This is not an ideal route to take when you are expected to work for more than just a limited period of time. This, by no means, should imply that one must not focus on the granular level details to enhance their productivity. The right approach is where you are pulling the little strings to achieve success on the big scale.

We as a modern society often associate pushing ourselves to our limits with being productive, and that’s exactly how it shouldn’t be viewed. You can be fairly productive by structuring your methodology in a way that it helps you in getting an optimal amount of work from your skill-set. At the end, it’s an essential thing to bear in mind that productivity is just a medium to reach our goals, and we can tinker with this medium until we find the best fit for us.

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Google in its blog post says “In the past year, the world searched for the first woman more than ever before. Whether in politics, the sciences, athletics, or the arts, women have driven society forward throughout history. Over the last year, the world has looked to trailblazing women who overcame the obstacles of their time, to do what had never been done before.

As firsts, these women stand on the shoulders of countless others – women who laid the foundation but didn’t have the same opportunities to break the glass ceiling. Some firsts achieve something spectacularly new; others are receiving long-overdue recognition. Collectively, and across the globe, these firsts have created a remarkable legacy for the generations that follow”

The blog posts also highlight some of the interesting facts about gender bias faced by women in history such as Till 2020, just 23 of the 622 Nobel Prizes awarded in the sciences have gone to women and inspiring stats that sheds hope for the future such one in three businesses around the world is owned by a woman,3 and in the U.S., 21% of all women-owned businesses are owned by Black women.

Lorraine Twohill, Google CMO explains “While it is inspiring to see how far women have come, it is important to remember that there is still a long journey ahead of us. Just as we celebrate the ‘firsts’ from history, we are working to make sure that many follow in their footsteps.”

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Introduction

Regardless of your industry or product, the Internet of Things (IoT), can add value to your business. Thus, companies need to get ready to adopt and incorporate IoT in their businesses.

According to Gartner, “The IoT will continue to deliver new opportunities for digital business innovation for the next decade, many of which will be enabled by new or improved technologies…”  In this post, we would take you through 3 reasons why companies need to get ready for IoT but before that, let’s take a closer look at the meaning of IoT.

What is IoT?

IoT(Internet of Things), is simply about connecting things to the internet. “Things” could pretty much be security devices, electronic appliances like refrigerators and what have you. Wikipedia describes the Internet of things (IoT) as a “network of physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet”.

IoT Analytics

This graph from IoT analytics depicts the steady growth of IoT devices. With more devices connected to the Internet, organizations would need to explore ways to use IoT technology to optimize and innovate on their business as this can give them a competitive edge in their industry.

Some of the reasons why companies should incorporate IoT technology into their business include;

Make informed business decisions with real-time information

Logistics companies can make accurate estimates on the delivery of goods using IoT. With the use of GPS location tags, they can track consignments and get real-time information on where the goods are located in real-time. Apart from tracking, they can also get insights on available goods on the delivery vehicle or on the number of stocks at the warehouse without manually taking inventory.

For manufacturing companies, this real-time information would help in production planning, coordinating customer’s orders and ultimately managing demand effectively. During production, manufacturing companies can also detect supply chain issues in real-time and react faster. With the extensive information available during production, it is easier for manufacturing companies to plan and thus save time, costs and improve the quality of work.

For managers, supervisors or the executive team, business decisions would be a lot smoother with readily available up-to-date information to inform business decisions.

Choosing the right platform to process real-time data is an important decision companies need to make. Traditional data tools might not be able to properly process the data due to the speed at which data is being received and processed. This is where companies turn to Event Stream Processing platforms to process large volumes of data in real-time.

Optimization

With IoT optimizing manual tasks like inventory, workers can concentrate on other areas of the business to boost efficiency. Also, the extensive amount of work that can be done with the help of IoT would lead to a faster output time and improved quality of work. Ultimately, optimizing business processes can lead to a more efficient and profitable business. Logistics companies can optimize their delivery and use location tags to track products and consignments and get real-time information on where the goods are located in real-time.

The type of information gotten from IoT can help companies improve product quality, and also get more insights of product demand to help with forecasting.

Improve Customer Satisfaction

Fast and informed business decisions can lead to customer satisfaction. Providing customers accurate information on the location and time of delivery of their products or showing them the exact information on ongoing manufacturing processes, can foster trust and customer loyalty.

On the other hand, with real-time data obtained from customer behavior, businesses can respond faster to changes in customer behaviour and be the first to provide a solution. In addition, having a detailed knowledge of your customers would help you consistently develop products that would be of value to them.

Conclusion

While some industries like the manufacturing industry are quick to incorporate IoT technology in their operations, other industries like the supply chain industry, are not so fast. “Research shows 70% of retail and manufacturing businesses have already begun to transform their supply chain processes. However, when it comes to supply chain, there is far from a level playing field”.- Forbes.

A main challenge is getting started on integrating the machines and software to process this real-time data. There are a number of IoT technologies to choose from including MQTT, OPC UA among others. Companies would need to determine their use case and capacity in order to choose the best way to get started.

IoT would continue to grow especially with the high demand for data. With this in mind, it makes sense for companies to do a deep dive in their businesses and discover the areas IoT can optimize and automate and also how the availability of real-time data can add to their business.

About the author

Philipp Struss is the co-founder and CEO of Cedalo AG, the company behind Eclipse Streamsheets, a no-code application builder, and Eclipse Mosquitto, the most downloaded MQTT broker.

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Personally, I believe that most things can be understood through 3 factors, Money; Laziness; and Politics. Focusing in on the financial component below, this article is both an opinion piece to the challenges and opportunities facing ConTech (construction technology) and an invitation towards collaboration to its future. Laziness, while always a factor, we can use the assumption here that the innovations will make it easier for those in the value chain. Lastly, politics, while subjective, the main assumption here is that the digitalization of the industry will make for a more transparent value chain, thus the disconnect between end-user (building tenant), builder, all the way to the raw material suppliers and post-built world will all be forced towards productivity as their value add contributions will be clearly quantified.

An additional caveat of the times regarding Covid-19’s impact on innovation, is simply its increased focus on cash flows. As construction overall is an essential business, and the demand for structures will remain. I’ll explain why I am bullish that with this focus on cash, it is the proper platform to foster innovation in the industry, more in the context of stability (manufacturing construction products in a standardized fashion) and less a statement regarding the openness of capital to fund innovation projects, as this I believe will vary firm to firm and segment by segment.

The digitalization of the construction industry is underway and accelerating exponentially, which my oversimplified math equation below highlights several key takeaways to why this decade will be a great time for construction innovation. Breaking the equation into four main parts, Price; Bid Cost; Productivity; and Profit, we can explain how the industry is changing. This analysis is from the project level perspective to a building as a whole with the main assumption that these technological advancements are converging to create a more productive industry. With any disruptions and “savings” there are always incumbents that may lose, for example NY City taxi medallion holders when Uber entered the market.

From the top, Price, which under the conventional model was primarily based on the location, location, location valuation will soon be changing. As the housing product begins to be fully mapped out, the probability that an owner will be able to get a return on investment for choosing premium construction products will become an easier sale. 3D modeling will soon include energy usage calculations, finite analysis, sound characteristics and more. While to some extent this is already in place, like hurricane windows, the future will be holistic in focus. Envision a filter on Zillow that gives the decibel range for the bedroom. Emerging start-ups today are already utilizing block chain technology to begin to catalog and index this information. With all this, I am bullish that by the end of this decade there will be a clear quality score for a home, which will mean a new level of quality for the industry.

The second part of this equation is the Bid cost, which today is basically the tribal knowledge of the builders and those developers buying in bulk. Of course, economies of scale will still provide larger groups a clear advantage, yet the fragmentation of the industry will change with the transparency of integrated systems. Previously, many of the larger firms decided to “self-perform” certain jobs (become more vertically integrated) with divisions that were essentially stand-alone companies. In the near future, we will see this fragmentation become an advantage. With integration (i.e. standardized protocol), the bidding process will allow for more accuracy as concepts like DFMA (Design for manufacturing and assembly) start asking the constructability question much earlier in the construction process. Additionally, this clear index will allow for the adoption of new technologies that can offer partial services like for example automated robotic installations that can’t do the prep and finishing work, yet still offering the industry substantial productivity gains.

Next comes the productivity gains, this will be seen in two main ways, reduction of clerical administrative work, like the reduction of change orders caused by the current bidding process, and second from actual productivity gains as we begin to see augmented and automated solutions from a myriad of start-ups.

Lastly, and the reason everyone goes into business, profit! As universal as profit is as a desire of any business, for the purposes of the above-mentioned items, I believe it is somewhat of a moot point at the holistic level. Some will profit greatly from new technologies making construction productivity, while some incumbents may lose business if their disruption defenses are too low. At the holistic level, my sentiment here is that over the coarse of this decade we will see construction products become increasingly more quantified for their inherent value, customization will become more accessible with technologies like 3D printing, and all this transparency will yield premium products produced in efficient manners, and profit will undoubtedly follow.

Change is coming quick to an industry which has not changed much for too long, meaning it is going to get bumpy, yet I remain optimistic that with technology there is the potential for transparency and with that higher customization and productivity. Construction though is as complicated as any industry, from the mafia to silicon valley, this is an industry many have their eyes on, as profit potential and demand only continue to increase. One major open question still remains how much the industry (or outsiders) will invest in the model below of accepting theoretical savings and immense R&D/prototype costs for a future profit, yet again, I’m bullish on the transparency gains will make these investments less and less risky. Obviously, this short opinion piece does not provide the detail to the complicated and often hidden roles that many in the construction value chain provide, like distributors providing a line of credit to keep sub-contractors installing, this is a very interconnected industry, with a bright future and plenty of room for everyone to grow, so in short to the question of whether construction is ready for launch, my opinion is that we have just left the pad and starting to accelerate.

About the author

Matthew Carli, director of innovation and strategic planning at LATICRETE

Matthew has been with Laticrete since 2013, starting in a holistic development program, as a management trainee, then becoming strategic business development manager. Prior to Laticrete, Matthew was based in Dongguan, China, working as a marketing and sales liaison for an industrial cleaning equipment company.

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Have you got what it takes to be an entrepreneur, or what type of entrepreneur are you?.

Check out the info-graphic from The Founder Institute. They have analyzed more than 30000 entrepreneurs to understand the common traits and classify them accordingly into six different categories.

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According to Forbes latest annual billionaire list, there are 2153 billionaires across the globe. But the magazine notes a slight downward spiral in the list caused by the recent economic turbulence and the weak stock market.  The list, only for the second time in a decade, shrank both in the number of billionaires and their total net worth. The US and The Americas powered by Brazil are the only two regions who had more billionaires than last year. Despite the small slowdown, these super rich are poised to become ultra-rich in the coming years.

But they… including household names such as Bezos, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet How fast they made their first million? at what age did they cross the six-zero line? Slotsia, a UK based casino comparison site has the answer. They have done an extensive research with the help of information available online, and when they couldn’t establish an accurate age or time, they estimated it with the company’s milestones. Most of them (67%) are self-made and Zuckerberg is the only one in the top 10 under 50 years of age. For a deeper picture check out the infographic below.

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Perseverance

Steve Jobs once said, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the nonsuccessful ones is pure perseverance.” Dietrich did not have the luck or resources some of the modern entrepreneurs like Larry page or Zuckerberg enjoyed when they started. It took him ten years to graduate from Vienna University with a marketing degree at the age of 28. After graduation, He took up a normal 9-5 marketing job for a living. But his perseverance soon started to pay off. Dietrich began to move up the ladder quickly and worked with companies like Jacob and Unilever before becoming director of marketing at Blendax. It was during this period he started Red bull with Chaleo Yoovidhya, a Thailand entrepreneur. You can see examples of his perseverance although the growth of the company whether it is overcoming the initial struggles or trying new marketing strategies.

See beyond the ‘wall’

From strapped budget to lack of customers, entrepreneurs often ‘hit the wall at some point of their journey. But it is the ability to see beyond the ‘wall’ that separates the true ones from the crowd. Despite his enthusiasm, Redbull was not a success initially when it launched. People hated the taste as it is too sweet. Within two years the company lost over one million dollars. However, Dietrich had the vision to see beyond the current struggles. Despite not being a success in Austria He decided to expand his market to countries like UK, Germany, and Switzerland and rest is history

Bringing your identity into your business

Perhaps this is the most important lesson you can learn from him. If you have to be successful as a business leader, you have to be able to bring your unique identity into what you do. Being a lover of extreme sports, Dietrich was successful in bringing his passion for extreme sports into his product and create a world-class marketing strategy out of it. Redbull is so focused on Creating things that people care about, even selling drink comes second. Today red bull sponsors hundreds of sports events across the globe and holds many world records including Redbull stratos jump.

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“Innovation is not just developing a new idea or a new way, but also using an existing way better”

Dr. Kendra Cherry mentioned a trait “Individualized consideration” that is a subcomponent of transformational leadership. This is translated as the ability to offer support and encouragement to individual followers. How does one go about doing this effectively? And as followers, what do they need from their leaders to feel this support and encouragement?

In my world, some things that I try very hard to be consistent in are fairly straight forward – listen actively and always provide uninterrupted attention to those who I interact with. Phones are off, laptops put away and door is closed, resulting in a true face to face discussion, or I should even call it collaboration between two parties to form better thoughts and establish a better solution to the issue at hand. If not issues, then at least exchange of mutually understandable thoughts. I ask myself at times if this is my path toward becoming a transformational leader. Is it? It starts with how we engage people, right?

Your success as a leader should be based on the success of your people. Healthcare translates to people care. It is all about the people. People you work with and those people that you serve/service. There is a common question that I ask when I meet a leader: “As a leader, how do you want to be remembered by?”. It’s interesting to watch the body language as they think about this question, but even more interesting to actually hear their answers. I have heard answers that range from “successful implementation of an EMR” to “Enabling cost savings in the millions” to “establishing optimization metrics” to “just did good things for people”.

However, what really gets my ear is the story behind each answer. As an example, there always is an incredible story behind every “implementation of an EMR” – the selection process, planning, cultural formation and transformation. Behind every story there is how people were impacted, both directly & indirectly – Leaders rising up to the occasion, new relationships forming, and of course, those consequences that occur during a big, transformational change. When they are followed up with another question – “As a leader, what could have you don’t more for the people?”, you usually get a pause and also a look of regret. That look of regret coming from those things that are beyond what a

single individual can do. That grey area where there is no right or wrong answer. But why would there be regret especially if that individual believe he or she did EVERYTHING they can for the organization and their people? It’s an answer that I’m trying to discover myself.

“We lose when we try to find that perfect answer”

A mentor once told me that we lose when we try to find that perfect answer. The key lies in the effort to fix things and how much you learn from the effort so that you can apply these best practices in the future. Life is never black and white.

Collaboration is innovation. I believe healthcare can be tricky because of its dynamic nature, and the social economic and government pressures we face every day. I think one of the biggest steps we all can take is to truly collaborate with each other so that we stop reinventing the wheel. Innovation is not just developing a new idea or a way, but also using an existing way better. How do we learn from each other NOT to find an absolute answer to a problem, but to share stories to find ways to support each other that will enable us to better navigate our own waters?

With the way social networks have evolved, we have no excuse in NOT collaborating. Access to information instantly is forcing professionals in our industry to streamline our operations, and put a great premium on quality. This also translate to our patients having access to more information than ever. They are now more informed and they have more options than ever before.

So, how do we stay ahead of all this? How do we continue to meet the expectations of our customers?

One thing I do know for sure is that this will be beyond what a single individual can do.

Curt Kwak, CIO at Proliance Surgeons

Before Proliance Surgeons, He led Washington Health Benefit Exchange (Wahealthplanfinder.org), Prior to that he was regional CIO at Providence Health & Services. Outside office, Curt enjoys great NW cuisine, the Seattle Seahawks, and spending time with his family.

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