- 3 months ago
As climate regulations tighten and eco-savvy consumers demand more, addressing environmental risk is no longer optional—it’s a business imperative. In this panel, business leaders will explain how to make sustainability initiatives part of everyday operations—not just to help the planet, but to save money, meet regulations, and improve workflow. From cutting energy use in buildings to expanding electric vehicle fleets and finding cleaner manufacturing solutions, we’ll address what’s working, what’s not, and whether going green can lead to big payoffs. We’ll also discuss the importance of sharing corporate climate commitments and why transparency is key to building lasting trust in an era of growing greenhushing.
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TechTranscript
00:00Good afternoon, everyone. I'd love to bring us all together to have this conversation.
00:06I'm Matthew Bishop. I'm a veteran journalist now and currently doing a bit of writing for
00:12The Observer and helping Fortune with this event. And I've also been more involved on the action
00:20side as well, most recently as a senior non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute,
00:26Centre for Global Development, where I've been involved in launching something called
00:3117 Rooms, which has been a partnership between the Rockefeller Foundation and Brookings to sort
00:37of bring together experts around accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals,
00:42so very relevant to what we're going to discuss today, which is the business case for going
00:48green and the value and urgency of sustainable strategy. And we're just going to introduce
00:55the discussants in a moment, but this is meant to be a group discussion, and I'm going to
01:01want to incorporate as many of you as I can in the conversation as we go forward, but we'll
01:05start with maybe about 25 minutes of discussion with the panel. We do have a mic runner, so
01:12when we come to questions, wait for the mic to come to you. And an important reminder is
01:17that this is an on-the-record session, so make sure all your comments are newsworthy so we
01:23can broadcast them to the world. So I want to meet our discussion leaders. To my immediate
01:32left is Mohammed El Zarqani, who's the UN Resident Coordinator in Saudi Arabia, which is a role
01:39that pulls together all the different aspects of the UN here in the kingdom. Next to him is
01:45Faisal Sultan, who is President of Lucid Motors in the Middle East, which is a company that is
01:52backed by PIF, the sovereign fund here, which is a big deal. Next to him is Jose La Loggia,
02:00who is Group President of the EMEA region for train technologies, which I think, among other
02:06things, is responsible for us not sweating profusely here because they produce the air conditioning
02:11that is used in much of this region and around the world. And last but by no means least, Kunal
02:19Patawari, who is Chief Executive Officer at the Gemini Corporation and very involved in driving the
02:25circular economy. So I'm going to frame this conversation and give each of them about five
02:31minutes to get going and kick us off. It feels like the agenda around green strategies and sustainability,
02:42you know, has hit a bump in the road to some extent, at least sitting in the West. That's how it looks
02:50in the last year or so. And I guess I want to ask each of them, each of our panelists, how they're seeing
02:57the agenda. How much of a bump in the road is this? Is it how we perceive it in the West? And what do we
03:05actually need to do? What are the two or three things we should be focusing on to really get this
03:11move to a post-carbon green economy moving forward at the kind of speed it needs to move? And I'll start
03:19here with the view from the United Nations, which is about to convene people in Brazil for the latest
03:27COP, but has obviously been a big force in all this. How is it looking to you?
03:32Thank you. Thank you very much, Matthew. And you know, first of all, it's the first time I do this
03:38lunch session, so I wasn't really aware if we're going to be speaking and watching everyone eat or
03:43they're going to allow us to eat before, but I'm glad it was the former.
03:52So I want to thank the organizers for bringing us together for this important conversation. It's not
03:57just timely. It's really essential. When we talk about environment risks, let's be honest, this isn't
04:03a green issue anymore. It's a business issue. Around the world, land degradation, a drought,
04:10and desertification are costing the global economy nearly 900 billion dollars every year. That's not
04:17abstract. That's factories shutting down because of water shortages. That's shipping routes being
04:22disrupted. That's food prices spiking and supply chains breaking under stress. And I want to bring
04:30this discussion a little bit to Saudi Arabia because this is, again, the geographical area that I'm
04:36responsible for. And I think there is a really very important story to tell here.
04:40I think in Saudi, we're seeing the story one that is turning climate risk into resilience. Through
04:52initiatives like the Saudi Green Initiative, where more than 100 million trees have been planted and
04:57over 118,000 hectares of land restored, that means literally cleaner air, stronger water systems,
05:06more stable soils, more stable soils, and ultimately a more predictable environment for businesses to
05:11operate in. The numbers speak for themselves. UN data show that for every one dollar invested in land
05:19restoration, the world gets between seven to thirty dollars in economic returns. Better soil, cleaner water,
05:27healthier communities, all of which support long-term economic growth. That's what green growth really means.
05:33It saves resources and makes solid business sense at the same time. I want to mention a little bit,
05:40and I don't want us to forget, that climate impacts are also not gender neutral. Yeah? Women, especially
05:47in rural areas, are often the first to feel the impact of water scarcity, soil degradation, and food
05:54insecurity. But they're also key agents of change, leading local adaptation efforts, managing resources,
06:01and driving innovation when they're empowered and included. And then just to kind of end my
06:09this intervention, I want to talk about how transparency plays a huge role here, right?
06:15So when companies disclose their environmental performance, they're not just ticking ESG boxes,
06:21right? They're signaling to investors and customers that they understand where the world is heading,
06:26towards accountability, smarter risk management, and sustainable growth. Environmental risk is
06:33business risk. Companies that invest in nature and disclose their performance are in doing charity.
06:39They're future-proofing their business. Transparency builds trust, and trust attracts capital. Thank you.
06:46Great. I'm going to go to the far end, and Kunal, you talk a lot about the circular economy. Where is,
06:51and that was a phrase that really caught on, I guess, over the last five or six years. But how does
06:57that look now? And how do we, what does it mean in today's world? And how do we get it moving
07:02round and round again? Well, firstly, you caught me off guard, because I thought I had some time to
07:07remember the last one. So as far as circular economy or circularity is concerned, it's caught the king's
07:14fancy, King Charles, his majesty. So we have a circularity task force as part of the SMI,
07:20Sustainable Markets Initiative. And I'm the chair of that. So as a topic, like you said,
07:26it has really come to the top. Another statistic, which is a bit old but might be interesting, is
07:31between COP27 and COP28, in the COP27 program, this word circular economy was referred to seven times
07:39out of 700 official program events. And in COP28, it was referred to 77 times. So we had a 10x growth.
07:46So definitely, the word has become mainstream. What it means for me, personally, is firstly,
07:53to thank Fortune for having me here. And to thank all of you who chose this session, because you had
07:59a few other options to choose to go to. I come from a family that's been working in circular economy for
08:06close to 40 years. So it wasn't too long ago when the Fortune 500 considered as a threat, and would not
08:12want us present in these kind of rooms, because they're part of the linear economy, largely.
08:18And every sort of business we would do is potentially taking away from them. That narrative
08:24conversation changed about five, six years ago, where the Fortune 500 and beyond really embraced
08:30sustainability, circularity, and all those things. So from the back room and outside, we're suddenly
08:38front and center. So it was a bit too much all at once. So now this sort of rationalization of the
08:44conversation, at least we really welcome, because we're really tired of being out there over the last
08:48few years. And it was a lot of hyperbole and a lot of commitments and a lot of people jumping onto the,
08:56or businesses jumping onto the trend and governments jumping onto the trend without necessarily the
09:00follow-through. Now I think the ones that actually see something to come out of it in the long term are
09:11the ones who are going to stay the course. So you get a little bit of the stakeholders that got onto the
09:20story for the sake of a trend. You see a pullback, which is helpful, because when you have too much trend,
09:25it leads to things, you know, being a little disproportionate and irrational, and you can't
09:33make long-term decisions in that kind of framework when you're competing with, you know, not necessarily
09:40long-term committed stakeholders.
09:44Great. We'll come back and dig into that a bit further. Why don't we come to Faisal? I mean, talk a
09:49bit about electric vehicles, but also, you know, set that in the broader context of how this green agenda
09:58in the business world is being perceived at the moment.
10:00I definitely think, you know, it's a bump that is going to go away. It's a temporary thing. I think,
10:09look, you know, EVs, I'll take an example of EVs. Of course, four or five years ago, you know, you go
10:15back and you look at the forecast ramps, ramp up. Everybody was talking, hey, by 2030, you know,
10:2150 percent of the vehicles in the world are going to become EVs. But I think it was a very optimistic
10:27forecast. And things like that were happening, not just for EVs, but for, you know, renewable
10:35energies. You know, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, there's going to be this much
10:39investment. And quite honestly, for that to happen, you have to have policies driving that. And those
10:46policies have to be long-term. And we've just seen what is happening in US and some of the other
10:52countries, there's back and forth, you know, the political picture changes. And all of a sudden,
10:58you go from left to right, right to left, right. And that doesn't help with these forecasts. So you
11:04will get the slowdowns. EVs are definitely growing, but they are going to grow at a much practical,
11:12with the infrastructure coming in, with the EV ranges now catching up with the battery technologies
11:18becoming, you know, much advanced. You know, for example, Lucidair being the most, you know,
11:25longest range vehicle in the world with 521 miles on a single charge, you know, some of the
11:31infrastructure related dependencies will go away. And so those technologies will help the adoption of
11:39EVs. But I definitely agree with what is just said, I think we need policies that are going to be
11:45long-term policies, because environment and the climate change is definitely changing this world.
11:52There's floods happening, tornadoes coming to states in the United States, where they were never,
11:58never there, you know, you had the tornado belt, but the belt is becoming wide, and it's becoming,
12:03going towards the north. So, you know, pretty soon, you're going to have tornadoes in Canada,
12:08if we don't change our-
12:09I've had them in Brooklyn recently.
12:11Exactly. And then, you know, that's unheard of. Like, you know, you had the Arkansas and the Texas
12:16and the Oklahomas, but, and then the flooding that just happened in Southeast Asia, it is a reminder
12:23to all of us that, look, we have to make it a business decision. And there's really a win-win
12:28situation if it's done properly. As you said, the investors love this idea. Most of our board members,
12:36I can definitely say, are on board with this type of thinking, you can have a sustainable business
12:44and then make these decisions that will help your consumer in the long run, your financial returns
12:50on the long run. So, I think we need to concentrate on that and refocus, come together as a world,
12:58because one thing that we need to agree on is the climate, because the world has to exist. You know,
13:04there are people who think we can be on Mars, but I think we shouldn't give up on our Earth so, so fast.
13:11So, Jose, how do you, how do you see this?
13:13Yeah, I obviously agree with all that's being said today, but also we should be a bit positive that
13:20some of the times there are new technologies that exist today that are very scalable,
13:25and the reason they're not scaling is that I think people are used to doing things in a certain way.
13:31And traditionally, when you think about new technologies, they're better than the old
13:35technology and they have better paybacks and better ROI. And we really should focus on why
13:42and when we target legislation or, you know, regulation that we really target that we stop doing
13:50things the wrong way and we do things the new way. Because there's always the question,
13:54and I think when it comes to this bump in the road and the green agenda, it's been driven by,
13:59I would say, a myth around that if we continue to do things in a green way, it's going to be
14:04more expensive for the economy and it's going to, you know, cause people to lose their jobs,
14:09so on and so forth. But if I give some examples from our business, we came with technologies to
14:15make heating and cooling buildings better, for example. So, traditionally, heating and cooling of
14:21buildings was done in a siloed way. You'd have cooling plants and heating plants that were separate.
14:27And a lot of the time, you have absurd type situation where the heating plant is burning a
14:33fossil fuel to create heat, while the cooling plant is rejecting heat out of the building.
14:39So, and what we decided to do as a company was say, well, let's combine those two processes,
14:45let's break the silo between heating and cooling. And because there's a lot of overlapping heating
14:50and cooling loads in most commercial buildings, industrial buildings, then we can recover a lot
14:56of that heat. And that really brings the energy used at the building level down dramatically. And we've
15:02seen 400% increases in efficiency. So, you can imagine if you have a 400% increase in efficiency,
15:09there is a very short payback to this kind of system compared to the old type of system. However,
15:16there is the inertia that the industry has grown over the last, let's say, 100 years at looking at the
15:23systems in a separate way. So, design engineers design heating plants and cooling plants instead of
15:29designing thermal plants or combined heating and cooling plants. So, it really becomes a question that the
15:35ROI is there, but we need to change the behavior of the whole value chain in the industry. And it
15:41first of all starts with the awareness, this, you know, awareness of people like in this room that
15:47there is no need to burn a fuel and then burn electricity to do cooling. It's better to do it in
15:53a combined way all electrically. Then that awareness, and that's cheaper than doing it in the traditional
15:59way. And it's got nothing to do with green, obviously, it's a much greener solution, but
16:02it's cheaper and better and better for everyone. And then it's about starting to, you know, go into
16:10the ecosystem of that industry to say, okay, we're going to work in a different way. And this is more
16:16traditions that need to be changed. And I think the hardest thing is to change the traditions. And I
16:20think that's probably why this green, let's say, agenda has hit this speed bump, because we're really
16:27starting a lot of the, you know, people who are involved in this are trying to change industries,
16:33right? Our company has a saying that we are trying to change an industry. And if we can change an
16:38industry, we can change the world, right? And I think that's happening in a lot of companies. But
16:42change is, you know, we shouldn't be, let's say, negligent to the thought that, you know, people don't
16:50like change, right? And we really have to work for that. And like your example of the electric car,
16:55we all know electric car is better than a fossil fuel powered car. And in some time, in some places,
17:01these cars are becoming cheaper, or at cost parity with the fuel powered cars, but people still buy
17:08fuel powered cars, it makes no sense that we have to build. So there's, it's more to it than just the
17:14the money it's going to cost or the investments or the regulations. I think there has to be a human
17:19element to it as well, right? About how we get people to see this as a positive and not a negative.
17:25Yeah, I think that's a very interesting point. I will come back to you, Kanaan, on this. But I mean,
17:30there's a sense, and I've seen some research about this, that the narratives,
17:34particularly in the West around climate and so forth, have been very negative and judgmental and so
17:41forth, and rather than giving people something positive to buy in into. And I wonder, you know,
17:47a circular economy has a relatively unthreatening sound to it. But what narratives, you know, companies
17:54now green hushing, because they're afraid to be seen as too green. How do you see the narrative needs
18:00to evolve so that it feels good to be a businessman that is a woman that is proud to be involved in this
18:08green strategy? Okay. Well, in terms of what needs to happen, that could take us well into the
18:16remainder of the day. But let's say, let me say about what is happening and what we are seeing
18:21things evolve into. What Jose said about the human element, I think, you know, we have a lot of
18:27discussion about automation, modernization, digitalization. In my world, world of circular economy,
18:34to succeed, we need to be in the manual world. It's largely the complexity of the problems we're
18:42solving need human creativity and human collaboration. We're very excited about AI and technology,
18:49but they're just complementary. The answers are not there. So any way to bring humans together, human
18:57minds, human ingenuity together is really, so attracting and retaining talent has been a huge
19:04challenge for us, continues to remain, and that's what we want to be excited about. So the circular
19:10economy as a sector for all forms of human capital to want to be a part of, for financial capital to be
19:18a one to participate in, is a huge thing which we look forward to. How is the conversation evolving?
19:25I think five, six, ten years ago, the business world and the political world jumped into
19:31sustainability headfirst with, you know, without really knowing what it is and just, you know,
19:38that really helped advance the renewable energy conversation. I think the renewable energy
19:44industries have really gotten into a momentum which can't be stopped.
19:51Now, circularity, so with the green hushing or the little bit of a pullback, what I feel is in
19:58sustainability, but we are seeing that together with the rise of circularity. And why? With sustainability,
20:05it's quite a broad concept and it allows a lot of things to get categorized under that topic.
20:14And, you know, in many ways, more simple to catch it and run with it and make whatever you'd like with it.
20:22Circularity is a tighter concept and it's a business concept. So for us, circularity is business activities,
20:28sharing, leasing, renting, product servitization. So it's product as a service, reuse, repair,
20:35remanufacture, repurpose, recycling. And what we are seeing is that the conversation around circularity
20:42is very business oriented. It's very strategic and it has returns, value creation. The connection
20:51is much tighter than when it is with sustainability. So we are seeing very engaging conversations happening
20:58at shareholder, board and CEO levels. And having been on the ride of the sustainability conversations,
21:07I could never really, being someone from that world, I couldn't relate to the conversation. The
21:11circularity conversation is very inclusive and allows all industries, all sectors, all even
21:20political stakeholders to participate in the conversation in a meaningful way. That's why
21:26it's building up in a very strong way. We were talking at the table a bit about the tire industry,
21:30which you're in. Can you just illustrate your point with that example? Well, so a little bit about
21:38our business. We are a circular economy platform. We enable the collection and recycling of one in every
21:43six tires in the world, among other businesses. We do this in about 500 towns and villages and cities
21:49around the world in 75 countries. So when we talk about the tire industry, we estimate the tire
21:57industry to be worth about 500 billion dollars in valuation as well as in about revenues. And this
22:03includes the servicing of actually putting on and taking off the tire and everything that goes along with
22:08it. We estimate about 200 to 250 billion dollars of value, whether that's profit, EBITDA out of this 500
22:17billion. Now, in the circular economy of tires, we estimate that to be worth about 15 billion,
22:2515 to 20 billion dollars. Why that's important is there is a concept of producer responsibility in
22:31tires. So for the tire industry to continue to make 500 billion dollars, they need to sell and service
22:39tires to consumers. And producer responsibility means for every one tire that they put into the world,
22:45they need to take out one discarded tire. So it's a one-to-one matching. And this is largely implemented in
22:53most of the world already over the last 20-30 years. So there's about a 15 billion dollar industry,
22:59which is supporting a 500 billion dollar industry. And why the gap is so high is mainly down to a
23:07fragmented value chain and uncoordinated activities, localized activities between the stakeholders who
23:15make this happen. So that's the opportunity. Great. Faisal, back to this narrative point,
23:23there was this period, as you say, I mean, I guess Elon in particular was the face of the of the
23:28electronic vehicle, electric vehicle, but even the Detroit companies were coming in and being
23:35excited about it. And now that's gone into a bit of reverse. How do you get that narrative moving
23:41forward again? I think, look, you know, you can't take anything for granted, right? So I think that's
23:47what happened with the EV industry. The EV industry also didn't advance in technology. And when I mean in
23:55technology, things that are really, you know, concerning to the consumer, right? So when you
24:03were driving a luxury car, let's say a Mercedes or a BMW, and then you go into a Tesla, it is a downgrade.
24:09You know, let's let's just face it, right? So I think technology was there, but it was not relating
24:17into the offerings that the consumer wants. So Lucid bought a vehicle that won three years in a row,
24:24luxury car of the year, beating the Mercedes and the BMWs and the Audis. So we wanted to give not just
24:31the technology side, the world's most efficient vehicle, the world's most fastest charging vehicle,
24:36the world's most longest range vehicle, but we want to give them everything else that they really want,
24:42the design, the luxury, the interiors, right? So efficiency has to be there, but it has to be
24:49complemented with what drives a consumer into a vehicle. For example, you know, we are, as I said,
24:59the longest range vehicle because we give you the smallest battery. So we don't utilize the materials
25:04of the world. We have an 87 kilowatt battery that will give you 400 plus miles, where our competitors
25:10will have 112 kilowatt battery. So they are, and they will give you 350 miles. So, you know, that's
25:18something that goes with sustainability. But, you know, we can market that. But if we only market that,
25:25the consumer is going to probably say that I will stick with my luxury vehicle. So we have to then,
25:31on top of it, say that, look, this is also a world's luxury car of the year car. So you're not,
25:37so I think you have to be smart when the offerings, you can get a little bit premium.
25:42I think the cost parity, as you said, was one of the biggest things for people not jumping. The cost
25:48parity used to be 30, 40% between electric vehicles and an internal combustion engine. It has gone down
25:54to 5%, 7% now. So a consumer will definitely jump into an electric vehicle. The adoption will happen
26:01very fast. If we can market the message, the awareness that you're contributing towards
26:07sustainability and climate change, but at the same time, you're not compromise,
26:12you're not compromising anything. And that's the message Lucid is trying to, our slogan is compromise
26:18nothing. You know, you're jumping into an electric vehicle, but we don't want you to give up anything.
26:25So I think we have to be smart in our messaging and we have to raise the awareness.
26:31And Jose, I mean, I've been following an interesting debate amongst economists about
26:38European attitudes to air conditioning versus American attitudes, where in America, a lot of
26:44the country became viable to live in and so forth because of air conditioning and buildings. And in
26:50Europe, it's still seen as something we're proud about, that we sort of sit in these hot rooms in
26:56the summer and endure, and we're not destroying the environment with lots of high energy consumption.
27:03Have you, is there a positive narrative that you're evolving on, perhaps built on that
27:10combination of heating and cooling? How do you chart the path forward?
27:15I think, you know, for sure, in the European context, there's less, in terms of comfort cooling,
27:22there's less of it than in the American context, and especially in the residential space, but also in
27:29commercial buildings. But what happened in Europe, though, what is very big, and it's actually the biggest
27:36consumer, energy consumer in the world, in that point of view, is heating. Heating markets are huge in
27:42Europe, and you'll find you may be hot in the summer in a commercial building or in your house,
27:49but you'll definitely not be cold in the winter because every building, every house has, you know,
27:54some sort of fossil-fueled heating system. But what we need to do is we need to turn the narrative that
28:00cooling should be seen as a byproduct of heating in Europe. So, and as we replace these fossil-fueled
28:08heating systems, the new systems can do heating in a much more efficient way, as I described before,
28:14but the byproduct of that heating is cooling. So we're going to see, as the world transitions to
28:20more electrified heating systems, that cooling comes for free. And I want to really touch on
28:24another point that here is that, on the whole green thing, is that sometimes people don't realize that,
28:31you know, after the meter, we waste a lot of energy as a species, right? It's over 25% of electricity
28:39that's produced, or even energy that's produced is wasted, because we're just doing things
28:45inefficiently. And I think there's a huge opportunity to increase, and when you think about the data
28:51center boom that's happening, right? Everyone's afraid of, especially in Europe, it's very difficult to
28:56get permits for new data centers. And they're afraid to give the permits because they see them as even
29:03as big energy consumers. But the data center boom is being driven by AI, and AI can really help us in
29:10reducing this 25% waste that is happening after the meter. So in our company specifically, we have a
29:17business called Brainbox AI, which is the first AI for HVAC. So I'm sure all of you in your own personal
29:25life, you adjust the thermostat in your house, and you're, you know, adjusting it up or down. But you
29:29can imagine a building like this, it has thousands and thousands of set points. And it's very, and from
29:35day one, those set points starts to move away from the optimum point. So what AI can help us do,
29:43the beauty of AI or the power of AI is that it can just absorb information from every sensor in this
29:49building, it can look at weather data, historical data, and then it can start to formulate the best
29:54control strategy for a building. And we've seen that when we connect buildings to Brainbox AI,
30:01we can save minimum 25%, sometimes 40% of the energy. So it's, and this is, again, another
30:07story around a narrative, right? Most people see AI as, oh, we're going to build all these data
30:11centers, it's bad for the climate, I'm going to lose my job, and all these sorts of things. Whereas AI
30:17is going to help us create the energy that's going to help it help run it. And it's going to make
30:22our jobs, you know, instead of having people that have to go and like adjust set points in
30:27a building, those people can do more valuable jobs. So I think sometimes, you know, people see
30:33the solution to the problem is seen as a problem where it's not a problem, right? It's an opportunity.
30:39So we just need to really, I think at a very high level, we need to all accept that we have to stop
30:45wasting energy. And the way to really stop wasting energy is to do things in the newer, better way,
30:51which is being parceled around this green agenda. And it's somehow got a negative connotation now.
30:57But the stop, stop wasting energy means doing things in the better way, which is the green way.
31:05And those things have are actually cheaper to do and can bring value, which then allows for even
31:11more investment and more investment means more jobs and everything else.
31:14I mean, the business community has been involved in the COP process pretty much from Paris onwards,
31:24but more and more overtly involved in the process. The UN has also been, as well as continuing the
31:32climate COP, has got the biodiversity COP and also the oceans work. Is the narrative,
31:40is there a lot of thinking about narrative change and how to settle this agenda better within the UN?
31:46So one of the very important approaches is also to change the narrative. We need to make it very
31:54science-based. We need the academic institutions to really back what we're talking about.
32:00And this is where there's a lot more investment. I mean, when I mentioned about land degradation and the
32:06cost of investing in land earlier before it's degraded, these are academic institutions that are
32:15making the business case for it. So the more that we invest in that, the more that we have an opportunity.
32:21But I want to bring back the discussion as well into the human part, right? I mean, and because
32:29sometimes you can put all the evidence right there, but you still don't get it.
32:32But the blip that we're going through now, or the views that we're seeing now and the voices are
32:39becoming a lot louder than they used to be, are not particularly coming from the youth. And this is
32:45something that is very important to also bring this about. The global population we're talking about, 60%
32:51is our youth. So when we describe this as a blip, it is a blip. Because at a certain point,
33:00the narrative will eventually change even if nothing changes today from how we're engaging with
33:04this subject. And that's something to keep in mind. I want to just add a point about
33:10how we still talk about sustainability as if it's a cost so many times. And it's something you have to
33:21do because the regulations say so, or because it looks good in a report. But in reality, sustainability
33:28is also an efficiency strategy. It cuts costs, improves the reliability, and creates value.
33:35And I want to end it with a very concrete example from here in Saudi. If you look at water,
33:42for example, Saudi Arabia is one of the driest countries in the world. Yet, through different
33:49partnerships, including with the UN, the Ministry of Environmental Water and Agriculture, the country
33:53now is the largest producer of desalinated water, increasingly powered by solar energy. That means
34:00lower operating costs, stable resource availability, and reduced vulnerability to climate shocks.
34:06So the examples are there, right? Exactly. And it's just about also making sure that these
34:12examples are shared more widely. Brilliant. Well, let's throw it open to the room and bring some
34:18questions or comments in. If you keep your remarks pretty tight. But please, someone jump in.
34:24Right at the back there. There's a mic. We'll come to you now. And if you say who you are, that would be great.
34:36So Peter Lacey, the chairman of Drift Energy, representing in that capacity. First of all,
34:43very pleased to hear the conversation about circular economy. The book hasn't been translated. We've done
34:491.2 million copies since the waste of wealth in 2015 and the circular advantage, but it's not in
34:55Arabic. If anyone wants to sponsor that, I think that'd be great. It's great to hear that it's a
34:59narrative that's emerging. But I wanted to actually, on a serious note, three things. I think one,
35:06actually, this difficulty of the business case, I think, around sustainability that's emerged in the
35:11West, which I think is real. But I think it is something that has happened multiple times before,
35:16and it's about narratives and words and labels. And you have to separate signal versus noise.
35:22You know, from Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, to the Brent Spa and CSR, to sustainability to the
35:29cops. I don't think it actually is that difficult to make the case for sustainability in business,
35:34for all the reasons you guys have explained. If you focus on something that's relevant to business,
35:39like circularity, you focus on efficiency, effectiveness, customer, new markets, new products,
35:45etc. So I think you kind of just have to kind of dispel the anti-green thing from what's really
35:51going on where it's serious. I think that's the first thing. The second thing, I think, is that
35:57the really interesting thing for me is the extraordinary convergence between technology and
36:06sustainability. For example, we heard this morning all about AI. And I think with AI applied to planetary
36:13boundaries applied to circularity actually has the enormous potential to unlock a totally different
36:20wave. And you mentioned this in terms of buildings efficiency and effectiveness and so on. I think
36:26the other thing that hasn't been explored, though, is the other side of that coin. Sam Altman, who's the
36:31CEO of OpenMind last about two weeks ago, testified to Congress that actually the AI issue will become
36:39that AI's development and its price will converge with energy, because we're currently seeing 14% of
36:47data center globally capacity being used by LLMs and AI. That should go to 50% by 2030, at least, if not before.
36:56And we cannot produce enough power or enough materials, the circular economy part, in order to
37:03actually allow AI to proceed at the pace it needs to proceed without it. So there's going to be a
37:09symbiosis and a relationship between sustainability, clean energy, circular materials that's incredibly
37:16powerful. And the very final thing, I think, is the biggest question, I think, isn't the green question.
37:24I think it is, how do we move from the prediction of singularity of a human and machine intelligence
37:32to one which is about human nature and machine? Because that, I think, is the real singularity.
37:39And that's the one that isn't quite there, I would say, and we need to think more about.
37:44Do you want to pick up on any of that? Well, I think, Peter, right? Well, I was just feeling
37:51maybe it's time to retire these words, sustainability and green. And then, because this gives
37:59power to topics like green hushing. So if there's no usage of green or sustainability, and then we
38:06focus on the actual implementable concepts like efficiency, circularity, it's time to retire the
38:14terminology. Yeah. Yeah, I think efficiency is the key word, because I think it's all about efficiency.
38:20At the end of the day. And I think all these technologies that are coming, whether it's EV,
38:25whether it's, you know, regenerative, you know, cases, it is always driving an efficiency for a
38:33business, a management, a board, you know, they are looking at that. And when you present to our board
38:40and our investors in that way, the business case goes through. So I think we need to take that
38:45message, spice it up, as I said, with what the consumer wants are. And if we can mix that together,
38:53I think we have a winning formula. And, you know, for, for example, I was telling someone,
39:00I was in a forum about two weeks ago, and they says, well, Saudi Arabia is highly subsidized for
39:05petrol. Why should I go EV? And I said, look, maybe it's our fault that we're not translating the message,
39:13you know, enough to you. It is an efficient car, first of all. But secondly, let's talk about your
39:19numbers. You spend for 800 kilometers of driving a Mercedes S-Class or a BMW 7 Series,
39:27and that costs you about 300 rails. With the current price energy cost at your home,
39:33you spend 34 rails to do the 800 kilometers on an electric vehicle like Lucy. So I think the
39:39messaging and the awareness really need to, they were amazed that, you know, the, the perceptions
39:44are there. We need to take those perceptions off the table and, and get the awareness of the consumer
39:50up. They're not losing anything. Any more comments or questions?
39:54I think the consumer lens is very interesting because sustainability is not, or green is not
40:02something the consumer can engage with, but efficiency is something they can engage with.
40:07Exactly. Yes. And it's not just the consumer. It's businesses generally. I think it's,
40:11what you said is so true that, and even in this example of the luxury cars, right, where people,
40:17probably the cost is not so important to them, but it's, the, the thing is that as a planet,
40:22we need to do things in a more efficient way, because if we want to do the AI thing that you
40:27were describing, Peter, we, it cannot be done the old way, right? There's just not enough energy
40:32being produced to do that. So we have to stop wasting the energy. We have to use it in a, in a
40:36better way, and then we can achieve all those things. So, and it, and it's got nothing to do with
40:41green or as you say, I think it's, it's just a better way to do it. And I think starting your example
40:47at the, at what it costs is I think the important thing that these newer technologies are cheaper.
40:54It's a better allocation of capital, right? And business is all about allocating capital
40:58in the most efficient way. Yeah. I think the driver is not, you know, save the climate.
41:04It should be that, you know, you are saving the climate, but the first of all, you are actually
41:09getting a better product, more efficient product, and therefore you're keeping a lot more money in
41:14your pocket, you know. Which you can use for other things. For other things. Go and take a vacation
41:19to seashells or Maldives, you know. And it's the same for the businesses, right? But business is
41:23exactly the same philosophy. Exactly. And do you think this message works both in the,
41:28the West and in the emerging markets? I think it works way more in the emerging markets. Because
41:33at the basic level, everyone wants to do better, you know. The darker elements of society are very far
41:41and few in between. But you know, people as individuals need to be given the opportunity
41:48to make the better choice. If it's overly inconvenient, it's too much to ask. So as businesses
41:58and as governments, if we can make the option available to consumers, individuals, even in businesses,
42:06the decision maker is an individual at every level, the better choice will be made. I have that faith
42:12in humanity. So we're pretty much out of time. And so I wanted to ask each of you just to wrap up with,
42:18you know, you're absolutely, so that if you, if you've got a room, as you may well have, full of
42:23business people, what's the one thing they should be asking themselves now as they think about this,
42:28this agenda? I'll start with you. I want to say, bring those business cases to the cops, right? I mean,
42:35it has been for the longest time, they've been driven by government, civil society, and so on.
42:40The businesses need to have a bigger voice there. You have the business case that totally transforms
42:45this discussion. And this is something that we would like to see a lot more of, yeah?
42:49Yeah, I completely agree. I think, you know, we were driving it from a policy side,
42:57fear factor, you know, I think we need to go away from that. Because I think good things will happen
43:03when you talk about efficiency and betterment of your individual household, or your business,
43:10or your segment in the industry, because that will really drive the entrepreneurs. And let innovation
43:18play its role, because it's all about innovative ways. With AI, which was not even there, if you talk
43:25about four years ago, you know, we were not talking about AI that much. There was a little bit AI
43:30discussions, but now it has taken over. And some of the great examples, you know, you gave on,
43:36I was actually on the elevator side, and I was looking at elevators, buttons been pushing in the
43:43PIF building, which is, you know, so tall, and, you know, empty elevators going up and down. And I was
43:50like, I told the guy, I said, if you put an AI agent on this, with some cameras, it will make sure that 60%
43:56of the elevators are going to be filled. And they're not going to come if someone has already
44:02taken an elevator. So he says, yeah, that's actually true. And I said, it's let innovation
44:08take over. You know, don't be fearful, you know, about jobs, that someone's job is going to be
44:14lost. There's going to be more jobs created when efficiency takes over.
44:18Joseph? I think the most, you know, what I'd like to say to finish off here, first of all,
44:22it's a great event. And I really thank the organizers for the invitation. But I think we all need to
44:28collaborate together, right? And I think coming together is the beginning of the change that we
44:32have to drive. So when we think about organizations like yours, or the World Economic Forum, or the,
44:37you know, UN Climate Compact, and, you know, events like this one, we all have to come together and
44:42listen to each other and listen to the stories, and then take those stories out and spread it out,
44:47because this is a positive thing. It's not a bad thing. And it can only happen when we're all together,
44:53and, and we tell the story, and we really have to tell the story. And last word to you. Yeah,
45:00thank you. Well, jobs, I've got loads available, and circular economy is in shortage of people. So,
45:10you know, I'm not in the world of optimization or incremental gains. I'm from a world of multiplication,
45:16and multiplier effect and those kind of returns. So I also don't like giving people work. So I'm not
45:25going to give you work. But I will give you a question, which could result in all of you giving
45:29me more work. So the thought that I would like to leave you with is, if you could please ask yourself,
45:35how can I help Kunal make the circular choice more available? Thank you very much. Great. Well,
45:43thank you to the panel for a very optimistic conversation. Thank you. Thank you.
45:49Just to say in wrapping up, it was a great discussion. I'm surprised. I'm feeling quite
45:54optimistic myself now, having heard what they've had to say. I'd like to thank all of you for joining us,
45:59and remind you that the main stage reopens at two o'clock. It's just in a few minutes time. So please
46:09chat to the panelists and then head down and join the next session. Thank you very much.
46:13Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you.
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