Board meetings. Air traffic control. Copyright law. Carbon markets.
⏩ The Future Normal: Fast Forward #24
This week's stories offer us a reminder that for all of the sexy, visible signals of innovation, there is a whole regulatory ecosystem that shapes how we end up engaging with new products and services. Understanding these dynamics, or indeed innovating within them (as Faith In Nature did), is usually just as important as discovering a breakthrough new technology.
So, could any of the stories below help inform and inspire your next move?
Faith In Nature Legally appoints 'Nature' to its Board of Directors
🔮 Future Normal // Scottish beauty brand Faith In Nature has become the world's first company to officially appoint 'Nature' to its Board of Directors. Brontie Ansell, Director and Co-Founder of Lawyers for Nature, will be the first human to step into the role – with a remit to speak and vote on behalf of the natural world, "much like a guardian acts on behalf of a child in the courts of law".
💡 So what? // Patagonia's Purpose Trust last week, Faith In Nature's directorship this week. Now that every business talks about their 'purpose', pioneers are taking steps to differentiate themselves and prove that they are committed to their pledges. Expect to see corporate legal structures become the new frontier of corporate purpose.
Boeing & Wisk release a plan for uncrewed passenger-carrying urban air mobility operations
🔮 Future Normal // It's hard not to get excited when a sci-fi staple starts to come to reality. This week Boeing and Wisk released their 'Concept of Operations' for autonomous urban air mobility – essentially a roadmap outlining how to deploy flying taxis in our cities.
💡 So what? // The automobile shaped our cities and indeed our culture – creating malls, suburbia and 20th century mass consumer culture. But whether autonomous zero-emission air taxis does the same will depend on their accessibility. Will this simply be a dystopian way for rich people to avoid traffic and further cut themselves off from wider society? Or could this usher in a new era of mobility? Also, what will the haters do when they can no longer ask "where are our flying cars?"
Easyjet to stop offsetting CO2 emissions
🔮 Future Normal // Also, in aviation...After 3 years of paying a reported £25 million a year to offset the emissions from its flights, Easyjet has announced it will focus that investment on developing new technologies, such as hydrogen-powered jet engines and carbon capture, that will enable it to operate at Net Zero by 2050.
💡 So what? // Offsets are a crucial, if controversial, part of most businesses' Net Zero plans, and cynics will suggest that Easyjet's move is a way of avoiding criticism about whether its offsets were genuine. But our real goal has to be to reduce emissions related to ongoing operations. If (and it's a big if!) Easyjet's investment spurs important breakthroughs in sustainable aviation then this move could see many other businesses making similar moves.
Planning for 2023? Let’s talk!
Bringing in an outside perspective into your strategy and planning sessions will help you to spot emerging opportunities and avoid disruption.
I’ve given 100+ presentations and workshops to global leadership teams at brands such as Calvin Klein, Mastercard, J&J and many more. Can I help expand your team’s view of what’s next?
Uber has a new tool to help companies clean up their transportation carbon footprint
🔮 Future Normal // Uber is rolling out a new dashboard for its business customers that will include information on how many low-emissions rides their employees have taken, as well as the company’s total emissions across all rides and the average grams of carbon dioxide emitted per mile.
💡 So what? // Eco-transparency is upon us. It will become increasingly untenable for businesses to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to their emissions. So if you're not already working to gather this data (or work with suppliers that can), that should be your first step. Then comes the bigger question – what will you do with this data? Are offsets part of your plan (if so, check out Salesforce's upcoming Net Zero Marketplace)? Or will you follow Easyjet's example above, and focus all your efforts on reducing your CO2 at source?
Getty Images bans AI-generated content over fears of legal challenges
🔮 Future Normal // We're on the cusp of a revolution in creativity – where human output is increasingly augmented by machine-generated text, images and even video. Just check out this mind-blowing Twitter thread. This will throw up many questions (Who is the creator behind these pieces? Who owns them?). Now Getty Images has taken its stance – banning AI-generated images from its platform, citing “unaddressed rights issues”.
💡 So what? // Many artists fear that these AIs have ingested their work (as training data), and are now about to destroy their industry. In response, Emad Mostaque, the founder of Stable Diffusion, observed that Excel hasn't put accountants out of a job. Indeed, I'd add quite the opposite – it massively expanded the volume of financial planning and analysis. The bigger question is whether the AI will be any good? Great creatives will be those who know how to best prompt and harness the algorithms, rather than just those with the best technical skills.
The Future Normal is an exploration of how we will live, work and thrive in the coming decade. But nothing is pre-determined.
We must work to build a cleaner, fairer, better future – so please do share this with anyone you know that can run with these weak signals!
Thanks for reading,
Henry