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…
Countries around the world are taking unprecedented action to stem financial collapse due to COVID-19. Governments are acting as insurers of last resort, providing liquidity to both individuals and corporations in dire straits. In these perilous times, the insurance sector itself will also be paying out claims, whether it’s to people who have experienced damage to life…
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?…
Good ol’ rugged individualism. We are in control of our own fates. Masters of our own domain. Yadayayada. Problem is, another’s rugged individualism can screw it up for all of us. Though you and I may be doing the right thing, if another unconstrained iconoclast is not, we can still be harmed. We are at…
As you may know, some of my work surrounds scenario planning. Primarily, that work surrounds strategizing for climate change, but scenario planning is a versatile strategic planning method for navigating uncertainty. Others in this forum have provided excellent suggestions about what to do now. My focus is to help organizations come out of COVID-19 with…
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…
In this short essay, I would like to explain why a behavioral perspective on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is useful in helping us understand and possibly also offer solutions for some of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and, more generally, other natural environmental disasters and stressors. Our research over the past 15+ years…