Rising from the ashes of COVID-19

To most countries and economies alike, the impact and aftermath of the current pandemic comes as uncharted territory. Even so, one may ponder how several economies and businesses have no plans in place to deal with possible future pandemics. What is to be considered by every household, business and economy is whether there is undeniable evidence that COVID-19 is the last pandemic the world will face? The question is of course rhetoric – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

• Beyond the new normal preparing for what tomorrow brings

Social and economic activity premised on congregation of consumers, movement of crowds; gathering of the likeminded within sectors that embody all type of close contact is already rethinking ways to seek a balance between reviving battered businesses and preventing harm to public health. Sooner than later we would be looking to follow guided templates for what is expected of a post COVID-19 pandemic world. 

To most countries and economies alike, the impact and aftermath of the current pandemic comes as uncharted territory. Even so, one may ponder how several economies and businesses have no plans in place to deal with possible future pandemics. What is to be considered by every household, business and economy is whether there is undeniable evidence that COVID-19 is the last pandemic the world will face? The question is of course rhetoric. 

What then must a world in waiting do to avoid or better prepare for a fate, what some may even say was brought about by a coagulated set of factors including abuse of natural resources, animal farming, poor sanitation and a plethora of environmental abuses. Needless to say, to mitigate human and financial losses as a result of future global pandemic the planning time is now within a shortening time span with what seems to be a closing window of opportunity from a point of no return. 

It is a tipping point of sorts that Sir David Attenborough, the English broadcaster and natural historian refers to in a recent interview with the BBC as a “one way door”. Essentially a one way door is the cusp of the very last opportunity to avoid the increase the global temperature. If we get into a situation where, in fact, the ice caps melts that will bring about such huge changes that is almost impossible to predict says he. An interview of a few minutes freely available on social media titled “this is the last chance” is certainly worth viewing. 

The celebrated Nathan Wolfe, author of ‘The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age,’ writes “COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic in our deeply interconnected world, and sadly it won’t be the worst. Two profoundly different possible futures are available to us: one in which we stick our heads in the sand as we have consistently done, and one where humanity takes the hard, necessary steps to protect itself”

There surfaces several authorities on rethinking how we as a race run the world. The authorities may well have existed, and our attention now forcibly drawn to it. A world now brought to its knees forcing us to reckon with issues and challenges we would otherwise have been quick to demote as subservient priorities to consumerism. Views are many. 

The best way to avoid future pandemics is to protect the natural world says the World Economic Report. The World Health Organization strongly recommends that all countries establish multidisciplinary national pandemic planning committees, responsible for developing strategies appropriate for their countries in advance of the next pandemic. Wolfe himself advocates that universally eliminating the wild-animal trade will stop many epidemics from occurring in the first place. 

Should there be any good reason that these topics of discussion resulting in decisive action should not enter our agendas and priorities on a domestic or organisational front? Should the role of compliance be broader to include steps to safeguard workforces from infectious decease? 

Should CSR show a global commitment to adopt the rescue of breeding grounds of pandemics that can spread easily among slums? Should the role and capacity of public health be more robust? Should scientists and public health experts be consulted on national policy created to safeguard the health of a nation cascading to every strata of society? 

Should sustainability play a more dedicated role in correcting the imbalance we’ve caused to nature with our ferocious industrialisation not as voluntary but be mandatory? What is clear is the need for affirmative action in the wake of a realisation that the last of global pandemics is yet to be seen. 

We should not be striving for business as usual; here’s why

When queried on what the new normal means to a workforce dynamic, Clarkslegal LLP employment lawyer Georgia Roberts had this to say: “COVID-19 has single-handedly paralysed the way we live and how we operate. Concerns about the future should not be seen as merely warnings of worse to come than the already torrid period we are living through now. They are more about what the future looks like and how we may thrive in it.”

Freedom of movement is gone and economic activity curtailed on an unprecedented scale. Currently all focus is concentrated on how we combat the virus and minimise deaths. This is vital of course and rightly takes priority. But momentum needs to gather on shaping the world we want to live in when the current pandemic is over. The International Labour Organisation estimates that 195 million workers will lose their jobs due to COVID-19 in Q2 of this year.  According to their estimates, 1.25 billion workers, (roughly 38% of the global workforce) are employed in sectors experiencing severe declines in output and are therefore at a high risk of workforce displacement.  

With mass unemployment and crumbling economies, the desire to return to normal as quickly as possible is mammoth. But “business as usual” should be resisted; “normal” wasn’t working. The way we operated was not sustainable. We over consumed and have dwindled our most precious resources like fresh water and arable land. Our air is saturated with harmful pollutants, we over farm, exploit livestock, burn fossil fuels, excessively fly, operate complex supply chains and exploit the workers that facilitate them.

We have been pushing the planet and ourselves to self-destruction and we knew we were doing it. Perhaps it has taken a pandemic for us to decide to act on it. And act we must. You may have seen the headlines; villagers in India and Pakistan seeing the Himalayas, up to 200km away for the first time in 30 years, canals in Venice running clear, wildlife returning to previously abandoned habitats whilst 81% of the global population is under some form of lockdown. 

At the time of writing, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 315,822 people and the severity and tragedy of this cannot be downplayed. However, this begs the question of why we haven’t taken the same unified, pragmatic response to the climate emergency, when, according to estimates by the World Health Organisation, air pollution accounts for over 7 million deaths each year worldwide, just as an example. 

With COVID-19 overhauling the way we operate we have a chance to re-think the way things are done. Many businesses will not survive the pandemic and so it is our responsibility to rise from their ashes. But we cannot return the same, we must be better. The key in this will be in balancing the need for economic recovery with building a more regenerative and sustainable economic infrastructure for the future.

COVID-19 has presented an opportunity for businesses to diversify and build resilience already, out of the necessity to survive. The businesses which harness these changes; such as shortening their supply chains, increasing their use of technology and online functionality, decreasing business travel, streamlining manufacturing processes and championing remote and flexible working will be the ones still standing when the smoke clears and will thrive in the new world. 

This is bigger than the private sector. Governments all over the world are developing economic stimulus packages to combat the impact of COVID-19. These packages must go further than trying to maintain the status quo. Packages should be supporting economies to come back green with funding for sustainable businesses, creating jobs, focusing on workers wellbeing with a total move away from fossil fuels to renewables.

Before the pandemic, many countries set targets to achieve net zero GHG emissions, yet global emissions were continuing to rise. Despite initial reports showing that COVID-19 was massively reducing global missions, scientists predict that the desire to recover the economy at speed will be so great, that we may only see an overall decrease in carbon emissions by 5% at the end of the year. This is a decrease nonetheless and importantly, COVID-19 has broken the upward trend. We must seize this opportunity and change our practices to ensure GHG emissions continue to diminish. We have been given a head start. 

It is the responsibility of governments now to provide certainty and stimulate climate focused investing. The businesses which survive and thrive in future will be those whose strategies are consistent with net-zero targets, limiting global warming as much as possible, that create new jobs on a sustainable basis, and who best mitigate risk in their business models. 

The world needs to recognise that the way in which we conduct business is too often at the detriment of huge numbers of people and the environment. There needs to be fresh impetus now to ethical trade practices. We must do better than “corporate social responsibility”, shifting the focus to regenerative practices.

This means not just operating sustainably but operating positively, in a way that gives back, undoing damage rather than creating none. This will be the way to reflect our common humanity which has been so starkly revealed by shared suffering during this pandemic. COVID-19 has stopped the world in its tracks and presented the opportunity to rewrite our modus operandi.

Humans will overcome the current pandemic. We will not overcome the planetary climate crisis if things remain as they were. Combining our pandemic recovery with climate action is therefore not just an ideal but a necessity.

  

Views by a global business transformer, an expert in crisis management and critical responses

With the insights by Roberts, I then interviewed LLP Clarkslegal Chairman Mr. Michael Sippitt, and director of Forbury People, Global HR consultancy. Mr. Sippitt is inter alia an expert in crisis management and contingency planning with a practical yet optimistic view of the dynamics of a changing world and workforce. 

He starts with: “It is as though the world is saying to us all: what do you want to be when you grow up?” Sippitt explains “…the way society is already split between the comfortable and those with no apparent hope of financial security is likely to be compounded by the Pandemic aftereffects. That goes for countries as well as individuals, separating those who prosper from those left out. The way that global institutions and multinationals deal with this now is crucially important, as well as how national policies are developed to increase prospects for those whose futures currently look bleak. There is no better way to build a secure future than investing to support businesses to employ people in meaningful work.

There has long been difficulty for early stage businesses to get finance, and investors are rightly wary of start-ups that have a good chance of collapsing. However, does this have to continue or are there ways to accelerate business growth of young companies to generate good jobs? There can be much greater effort to help early stage businesses.

Currently across the world vast numbers are without work, especially young adults, and this will become a bigger problem because of increasing automation and now the Pandemic. The International Labour Organisation World Employment Trends 2020 report, prior to the Pandemic, identified that 188 million are unemployed globally. Including people with some but inadequate work the number is around 470 million.

Further, it was reported that 267 million young people aged 15-24 worldwide are not in employment, education or training. These are huge numbers. There can be few things more important than helping people sustain themselves with properly rewarded work. That needs a totally collaborative effort between institutions, governments and businesses to combine know how and resources to help bring about a sustainable future based on diversified economies.

In practical terms, and looking beyond COVID-19, the required collaboration will be greater access to funding from a mix of public and private sources, plus a suitable ecosystem to support young businesses with advice, mentoring, and collaboration where at all possible with helpful multinationals, who can do more to effectively sponsor start-ups to help them gain external investment and learn good management.

Training the leaders of new smaller businesses is essential as good ideas are never on their own enough. Experienced coaching and mentoring are needed to reinforce leaders of smaller businesses to be capable of attracting support and investment. Investors must see good plans and impressive teams. Large corporates can use their experience to steer realistic and reliable business planning.

A progressive approach to developing technology clusters, geographic or virtual, can be applied in many countries to build the necessary supportive ecosystems nationally as well as facilitating global collaboration.

When compared to the vast expected spend worldwide on infrastructure over the coming decade or so, some $90 trillion, much of which may well be negative to climate and other environmental objectives, the cost of helping build new sustainable companies that will provide good work is modest. Which matters more? 

Infrastructure projects also of course create jobs and may in many situations enable better local business growth, but those tend to be side benefits of such projects and not the main objective. This means sustainable business growth and job creation may not be enough of a focus. The UK Government plans to launch a boost to start-ups through the Future Fund. It shows that the need for something like this is recognised, which is good, but the Future Fund does not look a good solution to the scale of need. 

Many businesses will not benefit, terms are not as friendly as they need to be, it seems incompatible with other investment incentives like S/EIS, and it looks most suited to venture funds who tend to be risk averse rather than helping innovation. The objective needs to be a truly worked out way to tackle this huge and growing problem of immense unemployment and the poverty that goes with it. National and global resources are vital. Looking beyond COVID-19 is hard to do, but we all need to see, and offer the young, a much more hopeful vision of a better life.

Towards a resilient future 

The call to action is to look beyond first aid responses to rush an urgency to resume the hive of activity and instead stabilise both domestic and organisational fronts in such a manner that prepares for a sustainable future. This might have well been the much needed breather for a distracted world to take stock of the direction it was speeding towards and interject a steep trajectory to doom. 

(The author is an Attorney-at-Law, a graduate of the Charted Institute of Marketing, UK and can be reached at [email protected].)