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It looks like Silicon Valley tycoon Peter Thiel can't keep on the good side of the press. Last year the billionaire Trump supporter and Facebook board member bankrolled a lawsuit that put his nemesis Gawker Media out of business. Now BuzzFeed News has stepped in to fill the breach. BuzzFeed is known for a heady brew of clickbait, gossip and meticulously researched, hard-hitting news. This week it unleashed a bombshell in the news category with a report on Thiel's scathing criticism of the President in private conversations.

The news exposes Thiel to Trump's notorious temper. But while Thiel jabs the commander in chief, he's cashing in bigly on the president's xenophobia through his company Palantir.

Palantir is the "secret" data mining company co-founded by Thiel in 2004. It is heavily invested in federal contracts across multiple agencies including the US Army. Industry observers have been noting that it could have a big hand in enforcing the Trump administration's immigration policies.

Thiel's position as a Trump advisor has given a huge edge to Palantir as Trump's "Extreme Vetting" policy gains force, and the company could also benefit from Thiel's inside track on defense policy.

On August 7, Raw Story reported that there was a high level interest surrounding a Homeland Security industry event aimed at exploring the development of "automated software" to enable Trump's Extreme Vetting Initiative. The event took place on July 18 and 19.

Raw Story further notes that winning contractors need to show that they can mine data from a variety of sources including the FALCON database created by Palantir. Palantir has made big bucks providing data to law enforcement and cross referencing the databases of the FBI, CIA and DOD -- work that has privacy advocates shaking in their boots. Unfortunately it looks like this privately-held company will continue to profit from gray data collection practices.

The Homeland Security event was first reported by The Intercept, which obtained copies of the sign-in sheets. Names on the list include IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, LexisNexis, SAS and Deloitte, "along with a litany of smaller firms."

Cashing in through government contracts is nothing new. But Palantir's data collection capabilities make it well suited to take advantage of any Extreme Vetting that needs to be done. Whoever wins the contract, Palantir will benefit since their databases will be in use.

So if Thiel is looking to cash in big, why take on the president? Given how much Thiel stands to lose, a better question may be: who wants Thiel out of the inner circle.

Everybody's buzzing about BuzzFeed

The BuzzFeed story appeared under the headline "Peter Thiel Has Been Hedging His Bet On Donald Trump." Here's a key snippet:

In half a dozen private conversations with friends that were described to BuzzFeed News dating from spring 2016 to as recently as May, Thiel, who served on the Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee, has criticized Trump and his administration and developed increasingly pessimistic feelings about the president.

The piece pulls together numerous threads about Thiel's activities in support of Trump dating back to the spring of 2016, including his emergence as a Trump delegate in May, his nominating speech at the Republican Convention in July, and his op-eds supporting the Trump campaign.

The authors also detail how Thiel, in his role as the President's technology advisor, has stocked the Trump administration with several close associates:

Thiel’s former chief of staff Michael Kratsios was named as deputy chief technology officer, while another former colleague, Kevin Harrington, joined the National Security Council as deputy assistant to the president. Justin Mikolay, an evangelist for Palantir — the Thiel-founded data-analysis company — was given a role in the Defense Department.

So, who has it in for Peter Thiel?

The BuzzFeed article leaves this one key detail out: their source. If you go back and read the comments attributed to Thiel, they are old (the most recent occurred in May), and they really don't amount to all that much more than idle dinner chatter.

On the other hand, idle gossip is precisely the kind of trigger that could touch off a Trump explosion.

With all the palace intrigues simmering around the White House, any number of Trump insiders would like to see Thiel lose his influence over the President.

Thiel's numerous competitors in Silicon Valley would probably also not lose any sleep if his star wanes in the White House. So who leaked? And how do they stand to gain from Thiel's star diminishing?

Image: Photo: Luc Van Braekel via flickr.com, creative commons license.

Scientists are worried about this year's climate report. And it isn't just because it confirms, with copious data, that global warming is real.

They're worried because they are afraid the Trump administration will attempt to suppress or ignore the message it sends: climate change is real, and it's man-made.

The New York Times released a draft version of the report on Monday after researchers called attention to the fact that it had been uploaded on to the Internet Archive last January, but had yet to receive any public acknowledgement.

The report is a special section of the Climate Assessment report that the U.S. is required to issue every four years. Because it has not yet been signed off on by the federal government, it is still considered to be in draft form. But the National Academy of Sciences has approved it, joining academies from around the world in recognizing the scientific and human implications of a rapidly warming climate.

The report is critical because it provides the scientific foundation for the Climate Assessment's true focus: determining the economic and political implications of a shifting and in some cases, worsening climate for the United States. That's why it's important for the the federal administration to acknowledge the findings. Federal policies that determine the use of Federal Emergency Management funding and the laws that are set regarding industries with high carbon emissions will no doubt be affect by the position the Trump administration takes regarding climate change.

And while some closest to the president say there's been no indication that the administration would try to suppress or alter the conclusions of the report, there have been troubling signs within the executive branch that policies are being set to reword or at least soften the interpretation of worsening climate events.

Earlier this week the Guardian Newspaper reported that it had received evidence that an agency within the US Department of Agriculture had been instructed to replace the expression "climate change" with "weather extremes. when talking to the public or other agencies.

According to an email by the head of soil health, Bianca Moebius-Clune, (a sub-section of the Natural Resources Conservation Service), there are certain terms that federal employees are now supposed to replace with other, more, well, nebulous terms.

Avoided terms include expressions like "climate change adaption," which the department is now urging staff to replace with "resilience to weather extremes."

And "greenhouse gasses" gets the tongue-twister, "build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency."

The policies, which were announced in February on the heels of Donald Trump's inauguration, also dovetailed with a memo by the head of NRCS James Bramblett to his staff acknowledging that the priorities of the former president, wasn't in sync with that of the Trump administration's views on whether climate change existed.

"Please visit with your staff and make them aware of this shift in perspective within the executive branch," Bramblett wrote.

For President Trump however, dealing with climate change may take more than simply inventing nuanced, politically correct  language. The latest report holds little back.

"Evidence of a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans," scientists write, who also note that "[many] lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change."

That is going to be a difficult concept to wrestle with politically for a president that was largely elected for his denouncement of Obama-era policies.

"The impending release of a key government report on climate change will force President Trump to choose between accepting the conclusions of his administration’s scientists and the demands of his conservative supporters, who remain deeply unconvinced that humans are the cause of the planet’s warming," writes Washington Post writers Michael D. Shear and Brad Plumer.

Hopefully, it will encourage the president to realize that cities and counties across the country actually need to know potential implications of climate change in their own back yards, and that the dangers of global warming, irrespective of what we call it, are here to stay.

Image: Flickr/Bob Dass

 

Earlier this week, the Sierra Club announced that the Orlando City Commission unanimously approved a resolution mandating that the central Florida city run 100 percent on renewables by 2050.

Orlando joins other “smart cities” that have enacted similar pledges, including Columbia, South Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; and San Diego, California.

The Sierra Club welcomed Tuesday’s news, noting that Orlando is the 40th city to join its “Ready for 100%” renewables campaign.

As Orlando joins the roster of municipalities and states that say they will do what they can to transition to a clean energy economy, many civic leaders remind citizens that more than 80 percent of all Americans live in towns and cities. With the Trump White House’s exit from the Paris climate agreement, it behooves the private sector and other governments to take the lead on finding ways to mitigate climate change risks.

Nevertheless, while these commitments sound impressive, are they backed up by action? TriplePundit reached out to the Sierra Club, and their answer was an overall “yes.”

“As more and more cities commit to transition to 100% clean energy, local leaders have the potential to reshape not only how they power their communities,” wrote a Sierra Club spokesperson in an email to 3p, “but how energy is generated on a state and even regional level.”

One example to which the Sierra Club pointed was Georgetown, Texas. In 2012, the city of 67,000, located 30 miles north of Austin, locked in contracts to purchase solar and wind power from across Texas at a fixed negotiated rate for over 20 years. City officials claim the shift to 100 percent renewables has been more reliable energy costs for both local residents and businesses.

Cities much larger than Georgetown may have more complicated bureaucracies in the way and more stakeholders to placate, but that Texas city’s success still provides ideas for a template from which other municipalities can learn as they shift away from fossil fuels. Of course, drafting such a commitment starts with putting the kibosh on fossil fuels in the first place. In Portland, Oregon, plans had been on the drawing board to build two natural gas power generation plants. But in the meantime, the City of Portland and Multnomah County committed to a 100 percent renewables pledge by 2050; the local utility eventually backed off those plans as the city and county both made it clear that such projects were a roadblock to their future clean energy goals.

Portland has joined other cities such as Salt Lake City, Utah, which are mapping out their long-term plans towards powering their cities with renewables. Therefore, as far as actually staff developing strategies to meet these ambitious goals, the Sierra Club can technically say that yes, these plans are backed up by brains.

But what about funding?

Yes, renewables are become cheaper while scaling up fast, but plenty of investment is still required to power cities by renewables instead of using coal or natural gas. The question of funding, however, depends on the city. In St. Petersburg, Florida, another city with a 100 percent renewables goal, officials are using $250,000 of a $1 million settlement from the BP oil spill to craft an “integrated sustainability action plan.” Other funds will go towards an energy efficiency audit and a “vulnerability assessment” modeling program to gauge potential risks from hurricanes and sea level rise. Left unanswered is how St. Petersburg will actually fund the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

Meanwhile, on the west coast, San Diego developed a legally binding commitment to run on 100 percent renewables over the next two decades, a plan the Sierra Club describes as one of the bolder clean energy plans in the country. The city is evaluating several options to achieve that goal. So far, the city appears to be leaning toward the adoption of a community choice aggregation plan, by which San Diego would operate as a utility, as it purchases wholesale power directly from producers. A recent report issued earlier this summer concluded community choice aggregation could assist San Diego achieve its clean energy goals while reducing utility costs for businesses and consumers in the future.

Concrete plans or fuzzy math? The next several months should give us more answers as cities fight the headwinds to move towards a low-carbon economy despite the agenda currently touted in Washington, DC.

Image credit: Joe Shlabotnik/Flickr

According to a recent United Nations report, the global aviation sector could consume as much as 27 percent of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. Even within the most optimistic scenario, airplanes will still be responsible for 12 percent of the world’s carbon emissions mid-century if the world will be able to limit climate change to 1.5°C.

The report comes as global aviation and travel organizations, including the International Air Transport Association (IATA), have pledged to cap emissions from projected 2020 figures. The IATA says it has pushed its members to contribute to the organization’s goals of improving overall fuel efficiency 1.5 percent annually through the end of this decade; by 2050, IATA says it aims to lower carbon dioxide emissions 50 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels.

But the UN’s International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) says such efforts may not be enough.

A large part of the problem is that the number of people worldwide who will fly overseas is expected to surge. Even today, flying is still a relative luxury for most of the world’s citizens, with recent estimates suggesting 18 percent of people have ever flown on an airplane. But the globe’s middle class is growing, more discounted carriers are emerging, and as a result, flying long distances has become relatively affordable.

As The Guardian has concluded, international travel has boomed the past few decades as the end of the Cold War opened up more of the world to tourism. Twenty years ago, 536 million trips were made abroad; that figure topped 1 billion in 2012. Meanwhile, tourism has become entrenched in the global economy: a 2016 report concluded that worldwide, one in 11 people worked in the tourism sector.

Advances in aviation will most likely fuel this boom, even while the aviation sector promises to do what it can to become more sustainable. The ICAO report mentions the potential to reintroduce jets traveling at supersonic speeds – without the “sonic boom,” expense and technical problems that bedeviled the Concorde until it completed its final flight in 2003.

One massive challenge is that the airlines lack scalable options for fuel. Indeed, several carriers such as KLM and United have tinkered with biofuel blends for their aircraft. Other companies, such as Virgin Atlantic, have explored the possibility of using emissions from carbon-heavy facilities such as steel mills. But establishing a reliable source of fuels derived from algae, waste or other alternative feedstocks has resulted in many press-worthy ribbon-cutting events, but little technological advancement. While its round-the-world solar-powered flight was impressive, do not expect Solar Impulse to inspire any new developments: that project was more about showcasing the overall potential of clean technology rather than transforming how planes can circumvent the globe.

Other initiatives have helped chip away at aviation’s massive footprint. Discount carriers, appearing to be more mindful of their operations’ impact on the global environment, have done what they can to become leaner. EasyJet and Southwest are amongst the examples. The modernization of air traffic control systems, including a recent proposal floated by the Trump White House, can help chip away at the industry’s emissions. Other programs achieve very little: carbon offsets, as in the program operated by IATA, provide little help in resolving airlines’ pesky emissions challenges.

As a result, the ICAO report concedes that despite all these incremental improvements, there could be a shortfall of 1.039 billion metric tons of carbon emissions in 2050. That gap represents what is technologically possible and what is actually needed for the industry to limit emissions to 2020 levels. “The uncertainty associated with future aviation demand is notably larger than the range of contributions from technology and operational improvements,” conclude the report’s authors.

Some analysts believe the only way to solve the aviation sector’s emissions riddle is to curb its relentless growth. If nations adhere to their climate change mitigation plans, economics may drive those answers. Last year, an assessment of the cost of a new runway at London’s Heathrow Airport revealed that its costs behind ensuring the United Kingdom stayed compliant with legally binding climate change goals meant discount carriers would no longer be able to fly from that airport. Meanwhile, citizens in cities such as Barcelona and Venice have begun to push back against unchecked tourism, posing a difficult question for local politicians: can governments limit the number of people coming to their cities and countries in the name of sustainable development?

Image credit: Tony Hisgett/Flickr

It may seem counter-intuitive, but recent research suggests the occasional forest fire may actually be the bee’s knees. A two-year study concluded that moderate-to-severe forest fires could lead to conditions resulting in greater diversity and numbers of various bee species.

According to an Oregon State University study, this research is important as the early stages of forest development, often called seral forests, have occurred less frequently over the past centuries. Environmental groups say these emerging forests are critical in local ecosystems’ recoveries after events such as fires.

“This research adds to the evidence that there is high biodiversity in early seral forests relative to older stands, and moving forward, this could have an impact on services like pollination in the landscape overall,” said Sara M. Galbraith, a researcher in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, in an interview with Oregon State’s press office. “Without this fundamental information, we can’t be sure of the best management actions to conserve pollinator populations within managed forests.”

Oregon is home to more than 500 species of native bees, which are important pollinators of both wild plants and crops. The study concludes that fires may actually promote bee populations that in turn can help boost farming productivity and overall plant and flower diversity. The study could also help researchers find clues to ensure bee populations remain stable, as they are an important part of food companies’ supply chains.

Last year, Oregon State researchers began trapping bees at various sites in forests lost to the 2013 Douglas Complex fire near Grants Pass, a short drive north of the California border and 250 miles south of Portland. The sites ranged from places where the fire severity was low and had failed to reach the tree canopy to areas where the fire severity was moderate or even high. The researchers also logged the characteristics of each site, noting the types of plants, the amount of forest cover and whether any logging had occurred after the fire.

The Oregon State study arrives as various reports have concluded that after several years of concern over colony collapse disorder, bees’ populations are on the rebound. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had tracked honeybee populations since 1986, but modified its approach last year over concerns the loss of these pollinators could have on farms and of course, the wider economy. Now it appears various actions taken by environmentalists, policy makers and the private sector are making a difference.

Concerns over the mysterious loss of bee populations led some businesses, including the personal care company Burt’s Bees, to take action and educate consumers on potential risks. Fears that some chemicals were linked to declining bee populations led to lawsuits that sought a ban on certain pesticides.

But according to a recent USDA report, bee colonies stand at a total of 2.89 million, a 3 percent increase from the previous year. However, larger bee colonies, as in those with five or more hives, have been hit by a slight decline. Hence Oregon State’s study can serve as one piece of the puzzle in determining how society can not only sustain bee populations, but prevent them from cratering again in the first place.

Image credit: Oregon State University/Flickr

By Liz Bardetti

With recent political changes and new leadership, many are left wondering how this leaves today’s top challenges affecting not only our people, but the planet. It’s up to businesses to rise to the occasion, tackling issues such as environmental sustainability and global poverty. So how exactly can this be done?

The Environment: Climate change has been a growing issue over the years and it’s not going away. In the 2016 Global Shapers Survey, 45.2 percent of Millennials said climate change and destruction of natural resources was their number one concern when asked about top world issues. There are a variety of different avenues businesses can take to support the environment:

• Anti-deforestation: This is where environmentally responsible products and processes become necessary. Raw materials have become more difficult to procure, so it only makes sense for companies to make the shift to using more conscious materials. If you work for a company that uses resources from trees, try to shoot for half of your supply of goods to be from FSC-certified sources. Using goods (such as wood and paper) from FSC-certified sources helps protect forests and all of the life that thrives in them.


• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions: Your company can reduce these harmful emissions AND save money, a win-win! Companies that commit to cutting their carbon emission by 3 percent annually through 2020 can potentially reap as much as $190 billion due to reduced energy bills and increased productivity. Reducing energy use is one of the most common routes in achieving this goal. The building industry has more energy efficiency certifications than ever, and the standards help set measurable and achievable goals. Get your current building, or new construction, LEED Certified or use the handy Energy Star Target Finder to be on your way to reducing greenhouse emissions.

Poverty: Globally, 767 million people (10.7 percent) live on less than $1.90 a day. From poverty stem a multitude of other problems, including lack of necessary food, thirst, illness and no educational resources. So how exactly can businesses help take lead on each of these issues within poverty?

• Eliminating hunger: Throughout 2014-2016 it was estimated 1 in 9 people suffered from chronic undernourishment. That totals out to be 795 million people who don’t have access to a reliable food source. A simple, yet impactful, method that companies can take to help end world hunger is to organize a food drive. Ideally, it would be best to be able to get everyone and every country at a point of self-sustainability, but it is not something that can happen overnight. Food donations become important because it’s an effective way to lend a helping hand to those who are trying to get food in a sustainable way. Donate food or cash - anything helps!


• Supporting global education: The 2016 Global Education Monitoring Report stated, “a lack of adequate and equitable finance was a key reason why the world fell short of achieving the Education for all goals between 2000 and 2015.” Considering there are 775 million people in the world who are illiterate, this becomes a pressing issue for businesses and corporations that have the capability to help. To help with this problem, there is not only donating cash to charities like the Global Education Fund but also setting up programs to give a personal touch from your business. For example, start up a tutoring/mentoring program where kids can shadow or work with employees and gain valuable knowledge on the workforce.

While these are just a few of the many problems that we face in our world today, it’s a starting point for your company to be able to give back. Whether you want to give back internationally, or on a local level, use some of these tactics to help better our planet and the people living on it.

Liz Bardetti is a seasoned advertising and marketing professional with 15+ years experience, including work for Gatorade, Welch’s and most recently, CyberGrants. 

Image credit: Flickr / Ashlynn Pai

According to a recent report on Reuters, there has been a tiny yet noticeable blip in trademark requests sent to the federal government to register racists words and slogans for products.

The sudden drive to file paperwork to trademark some racial slurs comes in the wake of a June Supreme Court decision, Matal v. Tam. In that case, the Court unanimously ruled that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) cannot withhold legal protections for any trademarks viewed as disparaging. The case was filed by The Slants, an Asian American dance music band for which the PTO denied a trademark in 2013.

In the past, the PTO had rejected similar trademark applications with the logic that they were disparaging or offensive. But in this landmark case, The Slants and their legal team argued that denying patent protection was a free speech violation. The Supreme Court agreed. “Contrary to the Government’s contention, trademarks are private” wrote Justice Samuel Alito in explaining the Court’s opinion.

The band believed they had the right to embrace a name long used as a pejorative term and therefore, simply own it. “We believe in the deliberate disarmament of toxic language and symbols,” the band wrote in a blog post celebrating their legal victory.

At issue was section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, which for over 70 years has been the primary legislation governing trademark law in the U.S. Lawmakers wrote that section of the law to avoid the chance that any product name or slogan “disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.” And in a legal brief, the Trump Administration argued that the Supreme Court should keep that provision, arguing that if it were dismissed, the door would be opento white supremacists and racists trademarking any offensive term.

But as Reuters’ Andrew Chung has pointed out, the opposite has actually been occurring within the halls and email boxes of the PTO.

Chung interviewed a Northern Virginia branding consultant who has filed applications for one client who aims to use a racial slur on clothing and alcoholic beverages in order to transform that offensive word into a brand. The argument, according to Charles Maynard, is to flood the market with this and similar terms, hence diminishing their racist and hateful connotations.

Matal v. Tam was widely seen as a victory for the professional football team Washington Redskins, the nickname of which is viewed by some critics as a racist slur directed at Native Americans. The team has been in the midst of controversy for years, and the PTO yanked its trademark in 2014 – currently, that litigation is pending in a federal appeals court. The likelihood that the Redskins will prevail in court was one reason why some citizens are worried about the trademarks the PTO may be forced to register in the coming years and months. “It seems this decision will indeed open the floodgates to applications for all sorts of potentially offensive and hateful marks,” said Lisa Simpson, a New York-based intellectual property lawyer, in a June interview with the Washington Post.

For The Slants, any such risk is outweighed by the fact that its members felt it was not up to one attorney to make a decision affecting self-expression. “There will always be villainous characters in a free society,” said the band’s founder, Simon Tam, “but we cannot be so blinded in our desire to punish them that we are willing to bear the cost of that cost on the backs of the marginalized.”

Do not look for too many companies wading anywhere near this controversy, as frank discussions about racial and ethnic identity has proven to be a scalding experience in the past. Two years ago, Starbucks waded into the “black lives matter” discussion by launching a “Race Together” initiative. Many observers felt the coffee giant’s attempt to spark racial dialogue ended in an epic failure.

Image credit: The Slants

By Shannon Houde

Last year, the World Economic Forum produced a report on the ‘Future of Jobs’, in which they outlined the 10 skills we’ll all be needing by 2020. I was revisiting this report recently for an executive coaching project I’m working on, and got to thinking about what their projections mean for the sustainability jobs market. How can sustainability professionals be 2020-ready? How can organizations future-proof their hiring strategies? 

It’s clear that the trends the report identifies are being felt already: cloud computing, mobile internet and big data are changing the way we do our jobs. By 2020, it predicts that the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ will be here, with robotics, artificial intelligence and automation making some roles obsolete. Admin, manufacturing and construction jobs will sink, while business, financial operations and management will rise. And the work itself will change as geopolitics, consumer ethics, climate change and access to scarce natural resources become increasingly material to corporate strategies.  

These technological and socio-economic contexts present significant staffing challenges for CEOs. As Susan Winterberg at BSR says, “business leaders … must tackle how to take advantage of the productivity and innovation opportunities presented by automation technologies while also ensuring a smooth workforce transition.” The successful jobseekers of the future will be the ones who anticipate these trends, and the successful businesses of the future will be the ones that are hiring and upskilling in line with them. 

In such a dynamic business environment, it goes without saying that the sustainability sector will have to adapt and evolve in tandem. Those of us working in the field need to prepare now to ensure our careers are 2020-ready, and boards and HR teams need to get their house in order to guarantee their edge in the fight for talent. Here are five of the most important skills for future that we all need to take note of now, with a sustainability lens:

Complex problem solving 

This is probably the most important skill to have on your CV by 2020. Designing solutions to meet complex challenges will be the Number 1 activity of the future sustainability professional, even more so than it is now. Problems will occur across multiple business-critical areas, sometimes out of nowhere, and companies will need people who are ready, willing and able to respond effectively. Start thinking about how you can hone your problem solving abilities in your current position and look for ways to evidence them on your CV for your next role.   Best not to call it “problem solving” on your CV as that is vague.  But show the reader with an accomplishment statement of what you did and how.

Critical thinking (and innovation)

This connects to problem solving above, but it’s distinct, in that it describes the ability to ask the right questions from a variety of different perspectives and to really interrogate the options. It also implies a solid understanding of the business landscape, as well as the trends in technology, science and socio-economics.  Bringing that macro-level view down to the micro-level of decision-making and picking apart the assumptions and biases will add serious value to your offer as a sustainability professional. Again prove this to the reader in a solid accomplishment statement or two that shows how you have challenged the status quo and can think with an innovation lens on. 

Creativity (and adaptability) 

This is something no machine can do. Creativity is crucial in telling and selling sustainability stories, both internally and externally, which you need to do if you want to inspire people and have them follow on the journey. The best sustainability professionals take a creative approach to their work and understand its role in translating complex messages for diverse audiences (I talk about sustainability communications in greater depth in this post). But there’s more to it than simply storytelling. It’s about the way you respond to change too, how adaptable you are, as Alex Grey at WEF points out: “With the avalanche of new products, new technologies and new ways of working, workers are going to have to become more creative in order to benefit from these changes.” 

Negotiation (and influencing) 

This one isn’t new, but it is more crucial than ever. How do you expect to broker change if you can’t negotiate effectively? Being able to strike difficult compromises with internal and external stakeholders requires a robust rationale and a titanium-strong evidence base, as well as influence. Some people are born with an innate ability to negotiate, and lucky them! For the rest of us, it’s something we learn in the heat of the fire. If you are yet to develop this side of your professional practice then look out for a senior mentor who you can shadow at meetings. Great negotiation skills can really set you apart in the jobs market, so commit to enhancing yours. 

Emotional intelligence 

Emotional intelligence, or EQ, has been on the radar of the corporate talent agenda for many years since 1995 when Daniel Goleman wrote a book by the same.  Just look at all the mindfulness courses and CPD modules that major companies like Google are offering their employees (I wrote a post on this recently). They understand the importance of being able to keep your ego in check and empathize with other people, especially when things are fraught and solutions seem hard to find. EQ is also connected to the ability to coordinate with others and manage teams of people, which are crucial skills when moving towards a common goal. Evidencing these more subtle qualities on a CV can be tricky, so look for tangible proof points to highlight in your personal achievement statements. 

If you’d like some bespoke help getting your CV 2020-ready, check out my website www.walkoflifeconsulting.com. I also work with organizations to future-proof their HR strategies and upskill teams – find my executive coaching services here www.walkoflifeleaders.com. 

Shannon Houde is an ICF certified executive and career coach who founded, Walk of Life Consulting, the first international professional development advisory business focused solely on the social impact, environmental and sustainable business fields.

Image Credit: EvgeniT via Pixabay