Quit your job for climate & building brands in a propaganda war
Quit worrying about AI, what if the real 'career limiting' move is failing to keep step with Net Zero culture? Clean brands are going to need a lot of help!
Let’s start the year with a statistic that fills us with hope. And one that perhaps tells a bigger story about the change people are capable of, their collective impact on business and structures that often appear implacable in the face of the changes we need to reach net zero. The number is 4.2 million. That’s how many more people now work in clean energy than work in fossil fuels - since 2019 six million workers flooded into clean energy, while one million exited fossil fuel roles leaving the total number of clean energy workers at 36.2m.
For the first time, clean energy now employs over 50% of total energy workers. And, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the clean energy sector will create 14m new jobs by 2030, with a high proportion of these being higher-skilled than in equivalent industries.
Maybe we should quit worrying about AI taking our jobs and start worrying if our jobs (and the brands we work for) aren’t headed into the tailwind of environmental social change. Certainly, net zero has people numbers behind it bigger than any single commercial or governmental force (be that Chevron, Exxon or Sunak) and that’s reason for optimism in 2024.
If you’re still in need of a New Year resolution, then, why not think about quitting your job for climate (Bloomberg has a handy guide - here).
Should the existential goal not be sufficient motivation, then consider how challenging and rewarding the work can be in the world of brands and behaviour. For those that thrive on complex challenges, look at what’s involved in selling a car these days.
Selling cars in a post truth world
Time was when beautiful TV ads were enough. Now, cars are a firm fixture of the culture wars and EV brands have to fight through propaganda and misinformation to guide consumers along the journey to purchase.
Is a politicised media agenda to blame for the confusion - one side exaggerating green innovation while the other works to discredit its claims? We know fossil fuel interests have launched attacks on EVs in the past. Bloomberg even had to challenge recent claims that EV sales are slowing with a report that passenger EVs are on pace to hit 14 million this year, up 36 per cent from 2022 (“A slowdown could still be coming, but for now, this looks much more like a winnowing down of who is competitive in the market than a general drop-off in demand,” they say.)
On January 3rd, The Guardian revealed that brands including Toyota, Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan lobbied the UK government to delay enforcement of the Zero Emission (ZEV) mandate which will introduce fines for companies that fail to hit targets for increasing EV sales.
Traditionally petrolhead publication, Car magazine, felt it necessary to run a feature promising to “bust the biggest - and ugliest - EV myths going.” It’s an essential read for anyone working in automotive, mostly because it shows how complex and unpredictable the customer journey has become and just how focussed comms needs to be in order to cross the mental barriers thrown up.
The article outlines takes on the most common myths: ‘Are EVs Really Clean?’, ‘EV Batteries Aren’t Recyclable’, ‘Do Batteries Blow Up?’, Can The UK’s National Grid Cope?’ and more. We urge anyone working in this area to read it for a street-level view of the challenge of introducing new green categories, especially where loyalty is ingrained, consideration is multi-layered and cost barriers significant.
Meet the EV Lie-busters, CAR magazine (via Apple News)
The carbon cost of AI
In a conversation with AI researcher Sasha Luccioni, Azeem Azhar touches on the climate impact of the energy used by the intensive computing that drives AI. Currently three to four percent of all electricity goes into data centres and this is growing at 30 - 40% per year due to the increasingly demanding computer tasks taking place as AI is integrated into an overwhelming number of products and services. Generative AI tasks - when we ask AI to either create text or image - are particularly energy intensive with the generation of a single HD image demanding a similar amount of electricity to charging a smartphone.
H&M is fixing the fashion supply chain at source
H&M has found a way to tackle the dirty supply chains behind the goods and labour that deliver fast fashion’s promise of frequently refreshed wardrobes. Without undertaking an exhaustive shakeup of practices in the supply chain, they are instead investing in Bangladesh’s first offshore wind project which aims to supply 40 percent of the country’s power by 2041. GreenBiz reports that “Bangladesh accounts for close to 8 percent of global clothing exports, making it the third-largest exporter of these goods after China and the European Union.”
The hope is this flagship project points the way for the entire fast fashion category, which is struggling to reduce emissions given the nature of its business model (from the baseline of 2019, H&M has so far reduced its Scope 3 emissions by just seven percent against its commitment to reach 56 percent by 2030).
“Most fashion companies have some operational footprint in Bangladesh,” said Nicole Rycroft, founder and executive director of Canopy Planet, a consultant on supply chain sustainability. "What’s important is that this helps coal power be decommissioned. It helps the grid at a larger level. This is a supply chain that is transforming in real-time."
It’s encouraging to see the positive responses to the initiative, which sees H&M and Bestseller commit up to $100 million to the installation being developed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Some of the most battle-hardened voices at the front line against fashion’s carbon excesses have voiced approval. As an industry that remains shy of telegraphing its successes for fear of greenwashing, or outright avoidant in the face of its less defensible excesses, fashion desperately needs to protect its cultural relevance.
H&M is funding offshore wind in Bangladesh to get garment factories off fossil fuels, GreenBiz
Fashion giants join hands for groundbreaking offshore wind project in Bangladesh, Apparel Resources
About 33_Zero
If you’re new here and arrived via our ‘Windows on Net Zero culture’ research report, thanks for downloading. If you’re a regular, thanks for sticking with us - we aim to be a crucial digest of the opportunities for creative business and communications as the race to net zero reshapes society and culture. By keeping our eyes on the macro forces - from clean energy and electrification to sustainable manufacture and changing diets – we front-run the big changes coming through in consumer tastes, attitudes and behaviour.
33_Zero believes the net zero challenge will reshape culture and consumer behaviour with a force brands are unprepared for. The opportunity is to move in step with these changes as they go from the margin to the mainstream.
33_Zero’s sister organisation, Earthtopia, is one of the largest eco-communities on TikTok with a far greater audience than Greenpeace or Extinction Rebellion and provides a unique window into the consumer change-makers leading the charge.
We offer brands the opportunity to research with the Earthtopia community and draw on our strategic focus on net zero culture to develop creative solutions to the biggest challenges and opportunities that face them today.
Email jamesp@33seconds.co to find out more.