The worldwide spread of the Covid-19 infection has no precedent in the modern world as a health crisis that calls upon the extraordinary and immediate unity of all constituents of our society. Often seen as a utopia in contemporary society, unity must now concretely permeate our daily lives. While doubts are raised about the effectiveness…
COVID-19 is certainly a massive ecological shock to humanity, and in the most dire scenarios, it could lead to collapsing social systems in vulnerably communities and polities. How will we as organizational scholars make sense of COVID-19 scenarios and the role that organizations play in driving them? In my view, the pandemic and other looming…
If we are going to end social distancing, we will need to find a way to know who has COVID-19 and where they are. Temperature and symptom tracking, testing, and contact tracing are regularly mentioned as a part of long-term solutions.[1] This is a lot of data about individuals that will be tracked and reported…
Our lives are being rapidly and fundamentally reshaped by COVID-19. Waking up to the new normal of staying home, keeping our distance, and working and socializing almost entirely virtually takes some getting used to. But let’s not make any mistake. We are among the lucky ones. Most of the people reading this will have a…
COVID-19 has been overwhelming global health systems – filling up wards and ICUs, ripping through supplies and equipment, and testing the capabilities of health workers and front-liners. It is arguably one of the most life-altering events our world has seen in recent history. There is, however, a grimmer reality that we must face, a consequence…
What is Essential? This is a question my family and I have asked many times in recent weeks, as Covid-19 forces us to reconsider both the meaning of that word, and the values that drive different people’s answers. Collectively, as a society, asking this question has led to us facing some fairly uncomfortable truths about…
As the Covid-19 threat started to hit home in the United States, I was just preparing to begin teaching my Strategies for Sustainability course. I usually begin each class session with a broad question to prime the ensuing discussion; for that opening class I used two: (1) why do businesses need to address sustainability issues?…
As many of you know, I research resilience, that is, the capacity of individuals, organisations and communities to recover from substantial adversity. In this essay, I offer some of my own experiences and observations, and hope that they can contribute to tackling major global challenges such as the Covid-19 health emergency and climate change. I…
This note is both a call for immediate action and hopefully also inspiration for companies to act against the COVID-19/Coronavirus outbreak in the form of rapid responsible innovation — innovation developed in a short period of time in a state of emergency with the hope of protecting people and saving lives. The current global pandemic…
Coronavirus has slowed down economic activity and temporarily reduced China’s carbon emissions. However, there is a deeper implication for climate policy: decarbonization depends on global supply chains for inputs required for electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. In 2015, solar and wind contributed to about 7% of global electricity. Their salience is projected to increase…