The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits , a seminal piece by Milton Friedman was published on September 13, 1970. As the title suggests, it argued vehemently for businesses to focus on maximising profits for their shareholders. The article in today’s time would have been viral due it Mr. Friedman’s several twit-worthy retorts against ‘the social responsibility of business’.   But to be fair to Mr. Friedman, he has several nuances and assumed a perfect functioning market.

“What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities.”- Milton Friedman

Half a century later,  it can be safely said that imperfect markets, greed, and our inability to price critical natural resources have made this planet unsustainable and almost uninhabitable for the underprivileged. And, businesses are now espousing a new commitment to environmental and social concerns.

We are at a juncture where almost every business is talking about its environmental, social and governance (ESG) responsibilities.  In less than 5 years, we are seeing terms such as ESG reporting, ESG investing, ESG Frameworks and Sustainability Reporting become part of mainstream business discourse. For some emergence of ESG is a new business opportunity; for some, it is the solution that will transform corporates into a benevolent, sustainability driving engine; and for some it is just a new fad. However, for a majority, this is one of the most confusing three-letter words that has occupied our mind-space.

What is ESG?

First thing first, the three letters E (Environment), S (Social) and G (Governance) are one of the most brutal simplifications of a complex set of variables that constitute these three dimensions. The table below gives what is generally represented by these three letters.

• Environment: Issues related to the quality and functioning of the natural ecosystem and environment.Example: Carbon/GHG emissions, energy efficiency, biodiversity, air and water pollution, impact on natural resources, waste management.
  • Social: Issues related to the well-being of communities, employees or people in general.Example: Impact on local communities, a wide range of employee and labour issues (health and safety, gender diversity, pay gaps), corruption and anti-social activities etc. at company or contractors premises.
  • Governance: Issues related to management and corporate governance.Example: Ownership structure and transparency, shareholder’s protection, executive pay etc.

Once we look at the broad category of variables that come under the ESG, it is obvious that many of these have been covered under corporate, governance and sustainability best practices, and in many countries, a number of these variables are already under different legal and regulatory frameworks. In India, we already have The Forest Conservation Act, Environmental Protection Act, Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act to just name a few. So what is so different about this ESG concept?

ESG : the Genesis, Rationale and Drivers

ESG appeared probably for the first time in the Global Compact’s report “Who Cares Win: Connecting Financial markets to a Changing World”. This endorsed by more than 20 leading global financial institutions highlighted that “in a more globalised, interconnected and competitive world the way that environmental, social and corporate governance issues are managed is a part of companies overall management quality needed to compete successfully.”

This report was significant as it change the discourse from business should care for society and the environment as good practices to being part of the business strategy and risk management. The report provided very succinct recommendations to investors, regulators, stock exchanges, financial institutions and companies on building a resilient investment market and contributing to the sustainable development goals. This report was just the beginning of the new discourse.

Since then gradually, Governments, investors/business shareholders and civil society have started demanding adherence to ESG reporting and compliance to the best practices. These stakeholders have different primary motives but align on the importance of ESG.

While investors and shareholders see ESG as a strategy for long-term risk mitigation and/or value creation, civil society and governments have been using this to make businesses more responsible and amenable to sustainable development goals. This has resulted in three broad areas and quite a diverse set of activities that we do which are driven by core ESG focus.

ESG Reporting: Today business stakeholders, investors and regulators are demanding that companies provide an assessment or report on how their businesses are operating in the context of ESG dimensions. There are principles, frameworks and standards that are guiding the ESG reporting. A majority of these reporting requirements are voluntary as of now but we are seeing several regulators coming up with their own standards and frameworks and making ESG reporting mandatory. Some of the guiding frameworks for ESG reporting are:

• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
  • Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
  • Task Force on Climate -related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
  • SASB Standards
  • International Integrated Reporting Framework
  • International Sustainability Standard Board (ISSB)

The above are just some frameworks that are globally in practice but depending on stakeholders and reporting format prescribed by regulators you have more than 100 ESG reporting formats. India has introduced its own Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) framework that is mandatory for top 1000 companies. These multiple frameworks have created a lot of confusions among companies about ESG reporting. To address this, there is a demand for universal sustainability accounting standards and already we can see some traction with the establishment of ISSB. The recent standards are also trying to address this challenge by integrating key framework recommendations in their reporting format. BRSR has aligned its reporting requirement to TCFD, GRI, CDP and SASB.

ESG Investing: Investors see companies that are scoring high on the ESG dimensions as long-term value creator and more resilient in dealing with risks originating from an increased focus on sustainable development and community welfare. ESG Investors believe that investing in these companies gives better economic results as it minimises long-term risks, however, this is not universally accepted. Very similar to ESG reporting, ESG Investing is also riddled with many challenges. A majority of fund managers rely on some type of ratings for exclusions or inclusion of companies for investment but these are very subjective and difficult to compare (Tesla was kicked out from Dow Jones ESG Indices and Philip Morris International – the leading cigarette manufacturer scored quite a decent ESG score!).

ESG Strategy and Implementation: This is the real crux of ESG focus. How to achieve ESG outcomes? And, this is an unsurprisingly complicated and herculean task for corporates. As we have seen with the wide range of issues being covered under the ESG frameworks, companies are suddenly looking for expertise and understanding of the topics that are not their forte. A mining company finding a way to do mining without causing biodiversity loss; a consumer goods company selling a zillion things in small plastic packets looking for reducing their plastic footprints or a fossil fuel company trying to achieve net zero emissions.. all of these are examples of ESG strategy and implementation focus. While ’S’ and ‘G’ are relatively easier to achieve; ‘E’ is quite complex and requires innovation in the way we do business and produce things and a deep understanding of a multitude of ‘E’ dimensions.

ESG is a step in the right direction but still, it is a work in progress.

While ESG focus is rapidly engulfing corporate and sustainability champions, we must acknowledge that it is not ‘the’ solution for sustainability challenges in the current form. ESG is too simplistic and it misses out on some of the key concepts that are core to sustainability discussion. Most of the ESG reporting frameworks and parameters do not focus on ‘contextualization’. In simple words, a fashion house can report or commit to reduced use of water for its jeans brand but to understand the real environmental impact of a pair of jeans you need to factor in where the water is being consumed and what is the ‘local ecological carrying capacity.

Similarly, many activities that are part of the usual business practices are now being ‘termed’ as ESG practices and yield no additional benefits.

To conclude, ESG as of now is a step in the right direction but it is a work in progress and would require a strong commitment to building on these existing initiatives to achieve the goals of social and environmental sustainability.

Some Recommended Reads for ESG Enthusiasts

Understanding Sustainability

• The Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows
• Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows
• The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace Wells
• The Future of Nature and Business

ESG Reporting Frameworks

• IFC ESG Guidebook (A very good resource to understand how IFC -one the leading development finance institutions – integrates ESG in its investment decisions). You can also look at the Asian Development Bank’s ESG integration here.
• Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (Guidance on Metrics, Targets and Transition Plans)
• Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
• GRI Standards, SEBI Standards, SASB Standards
• Thresholds of Transformations (UNRISD Working Paper) – Highly recommended read for understanding the nuances and discourse on sustainable development performance indicators.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a big setback to one of the most ambitious goals humanity has ever set for itself: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to a recent study by UNDP, even in a non-Covid scenario, the global community would be struggling to achieve the SDGs by their 2030 deadline. The long-term impact of the pandemic has moved us further away from achieving these goals. There is a need to push and accelerate our efforts to an unmatched level to achieve the SDGs by 2030. This will not be possible without bringing in disruptive and innovative technologies, adopting more inclusive business models, and nurturing entrepreneurship to achieve these inter-connected and cross-cutting goals.

Achieving SDGs has the potential to create a new market opportunity of USD 12 trillion while making the world more sustainable, equitable, and prosperous. Local entrepreneurs and small enterprises will be critical in this journey, as they can harness technologies and innovations to develop solutions that address the challenges faced by communities at the ground level since they are also most in touch with the needs of these communities.

India, with pioneering progress in building the ecosystem for innovations and entrepreneurship, is poised to become one of the leaders in achieving the SDGs. According to the Economic Survey 2021, India had 41,061 startups in 2020. Currently, India has over 75 start-ups classified as unicorns, each with an estimated valuation of more than USD one billion or more. This has also led to increased investments coming into India to fuel these startups and their innovative solutions. While a majority of the unicorns are in the e-commerce and fintech space (such as Slice, Upstox, Grofers, Bharatpe etc.), we now have the experience and ecosystem required to create impact unicorns that could provide universal quality healthcare, address challenges in the provision of education, address climate-related issues and transform our agriculture sector, both in terms of economic contribution as well as making it more resilient to climate impacts.

The “impact unicorns” are going to happen sooner than later. India has almost achieved universal access to power (99.99% of households having access to electricity), addressed major challenges in financial inclusion (through government programs such as Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile, in order to ensure access to finance for last-mile customers), and probably also hosts the world’s most advanced digital inclusion framework (by building IndiaStack, a unified digital platform to conduct financial transactions and provide government services at scale). Access to power, access to finance, and data and digital technologies are the ingredients that will help us scale and develop the solutions that are needed for many of the SDGs.

While these foundational blocks are being put in place, the enormity of the challenges and the complexity of the development goals also require us to put consistent emphasis on addressing some of the gaps in our current innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Ecosystem for Empowering and Enabling Women

The first and foremost priority should be to focus on empowering and enabling Indian women to leverage innovation and entrepreneurship. A recent RBI survey found that only 5.9% of Indian startups have all-women founders. Gender segregated data further shows the harsh divide, especially in rural India. Only 25% of the women in rural areas use the Internet compared to 48% of rural men. Around 64% of the population in India still relies on solid fuels for its cooking needs, and women are disproportionately exposed to dangerous air-pollution. Our entrepreneur and investor ecosystems continue to be male-dominated and biased towards men. Within the agriculture sector, women are still struggling to get their land rights, and while they account for nearly one-third of the agricultural labour force in the country, they hold only 12.8% of operational land holdings. They are also among the most impacted by the adverse effects of unsustainable agriculture practices.

We need to make the innovation and entrepreneur ecosystem more gender-just as we can never achieve the SDG goals if women continue to remain at the fringes of the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem.

Investing in Research and Development

There must be concerted efforts to increase investment in R&D and labs that will help create proofs of concept and streamline funding to undertake pilots to scale and commercialise operations for startups. We are significantly behind in terms of per capita spending on R&D compared to other regional leaders. Korea leads in terms of R&D spending, at USD 1995 per capita, followed by Israel (USD 1991). Other countries’ spendings include China (USD 1127), Brazil (USD 719), and South Africa (USD 520). India’s per capita R&D spending stands at USD 464.

Dedicated Focus on Scaling up Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry

Entrepreneurship, technologies, and innovative business and financing models can provide us a great opportunity to transform the lives of small-farmers and forest-dwelling communities.

India has to alter its path in order to achieve SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) while ensuring SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production). To reach a sustainable stage of food security, India needs to emphasise and promote sustainable farming practices and support innovative solution providers in agriculture and livestock that help reduce hunger and risks of nutrient deficiencies. The development of innovative solutions across the agriculture value chain can address multiple SDG goals.

In addition to large agricultural land coverage, India also has vast forest lands which impacts SDG 15 (life on land) and several others, as forests can act as carbon sinks and create great value for the environment. As per a 2019 assessment, India had a total forest cover of 7,12, 249 sq. km., accounting for 21.67% of its total geographic area. Our goals to increase the forest cover and improve the quality of our forests can be expedited with the use of technologies and new business models (such as global carbon markets and payment for ecosystem services).

Incubators and Accelerators for Climate Tech

India is gradually emerging as the hub in the global south for incubation and acceleration but we need more deep-science climate tech incubators and accelerators. These are essential for developing a pipeline of climate tech startups focusing on achieving SDGs.There is a massive upsurge in climate tech investment globally but only a fraction of that is coming to the global south. In the first half of 2021, about 250 deals were made in climate tech ventures worth about USD 16 billion. In terms of regions, North America has the most climate tech venture funds coming in, followed by China and Europe.

Globally, India ranks ninth with the country’s climate tech start-ups receiving USD 1 billion in venture capital funding between 2016 and 2021. Over this time, 120 Indian climate tech startups raised more than 200 funding rounds from 272 unique investors. Indian climate tech investment activity has been growing in terms of the amount invested as well as the number of deals – it has grown from 18 deals in 2016 (USD 102 million) to 58 deals in 2019 (58 deals; USD 506 million). This number decreased slightly in 2020 owing to the pandemic, with 48 deals (USD 236 million). The majority of the climate tech investment in India flows to the sectors of energy and sustainable mobility. The sectors gradually gaining traction in the market are climate-smart agriculture, circular economy and waste management, and natural resources and the environment.

Though there has been significant growth in recent years, the climate tech entrepreneurial ecosystem in India is still at a nascent stage. Investments in climate tech account for less than 10% of the funds that are flowing into impact sectors in the country. Some of the challenges impeding the growth of climate tech start-ups include limited early-stage and long-term financing, lack of business support services covering mentorship, strategic advisory and talent management, and low customer willingness to pay a premium for green products and services.

There is a need to enhance the ecosystem for climate investment by setting up climate-focused incubators/accelerators, designing innovative financing options (such as blended finance) to encourage private sector investment, and developing policies to promote green products and services.

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Recently, a number of friends reached out to me to know more about ‘Carbon Credits’; knowing well that their interest in climate change and carbon credits was very limited, it was slightly surprising for me to have their keen queries on carbon credits. It did not take much time to figure out that their interest was piqued by recent coverage of a firm that turned into a unicorn. This firm deals in carbon credit supply and carbon project development.

The other word that is a buzzword these days with anyone who is following the global development discourse, is Net Zero. With COP26 global coverage and our Prime Minister announcing a Net Zero target for 2070; ‘Net Zero’ and ‘Carbon Credit’ are becoming a part of mainstream discussions. While the words ‘Carbon Credit’ and ‘Net Zero’ are becoming a more prominent discourse in mainstream media and business press, these are not yet properly understood by many.

What is “Net Zero” and why does it matter?

In the simplest terms, an entity (corporate, institution, country, planet) achieves Net Zero when its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are balanced by removal of the greenhouse gases (in terms of CO2 equivalent) from the atmosphere. So, if a corporate emits one million tonnes of CO2 equivalent from its activities (direct or indirect emissions from the use of coal powered electricity and other activities, technically classified into Scope 1, 2 and 3) and removes one million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, it is said to have achieved a Net Zero status.

If you are wondering why there’s a need for this, (I would be disappointed if you do not know that Climate Change is an existential crisis and we need to spend some time understanding it) the short answer is that we need to achieve Net Zero by 2050 to have a realistic chance of limiting global warming within 1.5 degree celsius. If we fail to do so, our kids would inherit a disastrous future to say the least. More than 200 countries are committed to achieve this goal and are taking actions towards decarbonization of the economy. Further, close to 400 of the 2,000 largest publicly traded companies in the world have already proposed or set Net Zero goals for themselves.

Understanding Net Zero Commitments of Countries and Corporates and the role of Carbon Credits

In the last five years, there are two major shifts that have happened globally. Firstly, countries as part of their commitment to reduce GHG emissions are introducing different carbon pricing mechanisms (such as emission trading systems or carbon taxes) that put a cap on how much emission is allowed for a company within their jurisdiction. In this scenario, if a company exceeds its emission cap, there is an additional cost that it has to bear for each tonne of additional CO2 equivalent emission. They either pay to those companies whose emissions are below the assigned caps or buy carbon emission reduction certificates from others to offset their additional emissions. Secondly, corporates/companies as a part of their net zero goals are procuring carbon credits to offset their residual emissions.

These new developments have suddenly driven demand for carbon credits to an unprecedented height. In 2021, the voluntary carbon market hit a record value of $1 billion worth of carbon credits mainly driven by net zero commitments or other emission reduction goals/targets of companies. Along with the sudden jump in demand, many industries operating in ‘energy intensive and hard to abate sectors’ such as steel, petrochemicals, cement etc., have realized that they will need to offset a huge amount (in 2021 global energy related CO2 emission were approximately 36.3 billion tonnes mainly due to industrial processes from these hard to abate sectors) of carbon emissions. These sectors have limited scope for emission reduction in their own operations (approximately 60–70% emission reduction feasible through energy efficiency, resource efficiency measures and deep decarbonization technologies). Hence, they would need to rely on offsetting their emissions by either directly investing into carbon sequestration initiatives or purchasing carbon credits generated from other sectors. This realization has led to a sudden rush for obtaining carbon credits before the prices rise.

Several projections and estimates suggest that carbon prices need to reach around USD 40–120 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent to meet the 2 degree celsius temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. The prices are already moving in this direction.

While it might seem that there is a lot happening in the carbon market, this is currently a very nascent phase of ‘Carbon Market 2.0’. The next two years look very promising for the carbon market as we look to gain more clarity on different dimensions of carbon markets.

Two decade back I had never imagined how important (and how frustrating) email was going to be. Today, when I look at my most commonly used personal email id (yes, its a gmail id) it is a nightmarish mess of spam, alerts, notifications, family mails, transactions receipts and key documents. But this is only one part of the problem. The other problem is that Google uses or mail content to send targeted ads that appear almost everywhere wherever I have my online footprint. Gmail has access to all my data and content of my mailbox. Anyway, I was not lucky or fast enough to get myname@gmail.com so I decided to get a new email id with my own domain and make it my primary personal id. And, this started the search for the best email service provider for my custom domain.

I was looking for the three key attributes, apart from the usual things (reliability, ease of use etc) that you expect from a mail service provider:

• End to end encryption with zero knowledge of your content. In simple words, the mail provider should not be able to read it or decrypt it even if they want to.
• Provides me offline access to emails both on my desktop and my mobile devices.
• The server is based in Europe as Europe has the best privacy and data protection laws.

I did my search and found 5 providers who met the first criteria and were recommended for their secure and ad free mail service. Unfortunately, none of them met all the three criteria that I mentioned above.

• Tutanota
• ProtonMail
• Mailfence
• Startmail
• Hushmail

ProtonMail is my choice.

The most popular among these, Protonmail comes closest to what I was looking for and I finally subscribed to it. Offline mail access on mobile is still a challenge but there is a workaround. They provide imap access to emails on the desktop but with a workaround. We have to install ProtonBridge that enables our mail clients to connect to Protonmail.

Tutanota : I am waiting for the offline access.

Tutanota has promised to launch offline access but its timeline is not given. Considering their track record I would only trust once they have launched it. But I was sold on to Tutanota for their privacy features. They are the only mail service provider who are not tracking any kind of meta-data from your mails. It is possible to open an account with very limited information and they do not ask for any phone or email id. You mail content, mail subject everything is encrypted. This is missing in all openPGP encryption based mail services; they only encrypt the mail content and not the mail subject and other details. Tutanota is quite economical as well (Starting Euro 1 per month vs Euro 5 per month for ProtonMail) so I am quite eager to see when it is going to launch its offline access to mail.

For those who are looking to get secure email address, both Protonmail and Tutanota have free plans with limited features (500mb to 1gb mailbox space) but you can try them.

Non-fiction

This year I consumed more reports on climate change and carbon market than books. COP26 was a landmark event for everyone whether working on climate change or not and it produced a lot of decisions and debates, resulting in hundreds of reports and opinion pieces. Before the COP26, we also had a launch of IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report which automatically found a place in my reading list. Probably I should prepare a separate list of all the key reports that came out last year and helped us get more understanding and updates on how we are planning to tackle climate change.

Yet all these reading of reports on topics that I work professionally did not stop me from picking a couple of books on climate change and related topics. Both of these books, How to Avoid Climate Disaster and Dirt to Soil deserve to be read. The first one is good starting point for anyone to get acquainted with the climate change (although it has limitations, for someone interested in more comprehensive and easy to understand treatise on climate change, I recommend Climate Change – What Everyone Needs to Know by Joseph Romm). Bill Gates surely made more people to read about climate change with this book. The second book is an immensely readable journey of a farmer who moved from industrial agriculture to regenerative agriculture (in simple words: a form of agriculture that is more environment friendly and focuses on restoring degraded soil).

The other theme that dominated my reading last year was behaviour change, and things that influence our decision making. I came across the work done by Jonah Berger and picked all the three books he has written. Think Again and The Reality Bubble are the other two books that provided great insights in our biases, blindspots and need for revisiting our thinking process. Surely worth a read for anyone interested in these topics or just looking to get some entertaining facts (The Reality Bubble is full of entertaining examples and facts!).

I have been working on my note taking system, especially learning from the Zettlekasten method of Niklas Luhmann and How to Take Smart Notes is one of the best books that explains the whole process of Niklas Luhmann in simple words. But now I see a number of YouTube videos that have condensed the learnings in 10-15 minutes so you can learn the key principles without going through the book.

But the best non-fiction that I read this year, or probably in last 5-6 years is The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J Sander. This changed the way I look at the success, achievement and the role of society in our lives. His dissection of meritocratic hubris is hard-hitting and deserve attention of everyone. Those who argue for meritocracy must read it. In case you do not have time to read that you can watch this TED talk here https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_tyranny_of_merit.

Non-fiction books that I read last year

• The Catalyst – How to change anyone’s mind by Jonah Berger
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
• How to Avoid Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
• The People Vs Tech by Jamie Bartlett
• Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown
• The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J. Sandel
• How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens
• Contagious by Jonah Berger
• Think Again by Adam Grant
• The Reality Bubble by Ziya Tong
• Ek Desh Sarah Duniya by Shirish Khare
• Awara Mashiha by Vishnu Prabhakar

Fiction

My fiction picks were my comfort reading and guilty pleasures. I liked Anthony Horowitz’s style of murder mysteries and read a number of them. Best Served Cold found a place in my reading list as I was looking for some new Indian writers in this genre and Bhaskar Chattopadhyay was better than I expected. Jo Nesbo’s The Kingdom was a deviation from his usual stuff but was an engaging read for character building and different treatment that what I had expected from his previous books. The most overhyped book was The Last Thing He Told Me. I had seen thousands of great ratings of this book on Goodreads but it was disappointing. Keigo Higashino’s latest book The Silent Parade had flashes of brilliance that we experienced in The Devotion of Suspect X and Salvation of A Saint but I was expecting more from him.

Apart from the books I finished, I left Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Probably I will finish Pachinko in sometime but Shuggie Bain did not entice me enough.

• Prodigal Son by Gregg Hurwitz
• Best Served Cold by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay
• The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
• The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz
• Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
• A Gambling Man by David Baldacci
• Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi
• The Kingdom by Jo Nesbo
• The Black Book by James Patterson and David Ellis
• The Red Book by James Patterson and David Ellis
• The Thirst by Jo Nesbo
• Mercy by David Baldacci
• A Gambling Man by David Baldacci
• The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
• Fair Warning by Michael Connelly
• Silent Parade by Keigo Highashino

I can pose #instagood #travel #auroville #puducherry #fujix100f #portrait
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXYsQePJUBz/?utm_medium=tumblr

If you have been reading about the success of solar energy and how renewable energy is going to replace coal, then the recent news of the coal shortage and the impending global energy crisis might baffle you. For the last 2-3 weeks the newspapers have been highlighting how we are running out of coal and gas for our power plants and there might be blackouts. And, this is not an Indian problem only, right now the energy crisis is global. Post-pandemic the economy is getting back on its normal track and the energy demand is up and so are the prices of gas (the European gas prices are up by 600%)and coal.

You have a look at the global energy mix and you will know that renewable energy is nowhere close to being the main source of our energy. More than 60% of electricity still comes from fossil fuels and more than 83% of our primary energy need is met by fossil fuel sources (Statistical Review of World Energy, 2021). In India, 70% of our electricity still comes from coal power plants. A renewable energy-powered world is still a distant dream.

Over the last decade, the technical and commercial feasibility of renewable energy has changed exponentially. There is also an overwhelming commitment from the governments and corporates to move toward renewable and clean power. Yet, these commitments are not translating into the required investments for these transitions. If we are going to meet our Paris Agreement 1.5 degree scenario, overall we are looking at USD 131 trillion investment by 2050 in energy transition, which includes USD 34 trillion in renewable energy (World Energy Transition Outlook 2021).

If we look at the current status of investment in renewable energy we have a lot of catch-up to do. In 2020, we had USD 524 billion investment in renewable energy and we anticipate around USD 750 billion in 2021.

I hope that with these blackouts and energy crisis, the policy makers are getting a reminder that their commitment need to be backed up enabling policy environment and significant push on the investment in the renewables. In absence of proper planning and investment roadmap in renewable energy ecosystem, the energy transition can be a painful experience.

The IPCC Assessment Report 6– The physical sciences bases is full of bad news for humanity and a lot of science highlighting and supporting why we need to take this bad news seriously. It gives us more and more evidences (as if we did not already have enough!) that the global warming is caused by humans and every tonne of CO2 emission contributes to global warming. 

These are not new things, even the first IPCC report had highlighted this. What is new is that our understanding of the science behind the climate change causes and impact has evolved. What is new that this report now adds the word ‘unequivocally’ and this is agreed by more than 190 countries who are part of IPCC. We now have more data and studies (report findings are based on more than 14000 studies!) confirming what scientists have been saying for more than three decades. If these cannot make you believe this obvious thing then nothing will.

The other thing that scientists have established that global warming beyond 2 degree (compared to the pre-industrial era) is apocalyptic. So we all are trying to keep the global warming below 2 degrees and desirably below 1.5 degree if we can. In 2015, 195 countries adopted a legally binding international treaty on climate change, known as ‘the Paris Agreement’ (https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement), to limit the global warming below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. 

The bad news is that there is a very little hope that we would be able to meet the 1.5 degree scenario (in simple words- the possibility that we would reduce the emission to such a level that global warming would not be more than 1.5 degree from pre-industrial era). As per the updated estimates of the report, we only have a carbon budget (the amount of CO2 we can afford to emit) of 460 bn tonnes to keep the global warming below 1.5 degree (well to be exact we have only 50 per cent chance of keeping the global warming below 1.5 degree if we can emit below the 460 bn tonnes. You will note that unlike the climate change deniers and anti-climate change lobbyists who talk in absolute certainties, scientists talk in probabilities and with evidences). This is around 11-12 years of carbon emission at the existing rate of carbon emission (in 2020 we emitted 34 bn tonnes of CO2) every year (unless we drastically change this!).

The following table in the report makes it clear that there is only on scenario SSP1-1.9. (SSP1-1.9, SSP stands for Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. SSP1 is the scenario and 1.9 indicates the Radiative Forcing. There are five SSPs, with SSP1 being the best case scenario where we adopt the a growth trajectory that has very low challenges to mitigation and adaption and focuses on sustainable development and SSP5 is the pessimistic scenario where we have fossil fuel led development and high challenges to mitigation and adaption.)

(Source: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

Once we go beyond the 1.5 degree, at 2-degree itself, we are going to witness increased frequency of extreme temperature events, intense rainfalls (heavy precipitation) and agriculture and ecological droughts. And, these are going to further increase the intensity and complexity of many manifestations of climate change impacts. 

(Source: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

You always have choices and will be known for what you chose.

A company in Australia https://thankyou.co/categories realized that it had a silly product in its portfolio. Packaged Drinking Water- a major source of plastic pollution. It stopped producing it. No justification, no convoluted statements.

On the other side, you will find corporates ad-washing their sins by mushy PR campaigns, headline-grabbing sustainability announcement wherein the money committed to sustainability returns more PR value and does nothing to the actual cause.

When you see an emotional ad that connects with you as it portrays the story of compassion, sustainability and reminds you to be more humane and less evil, do ask a question: do they believe in it?

Or they are using us to sell more products .. or to make their ads viral .. to grab more views.. to achieve more sales.. to establish their brand image by absolving themselves of their past sins..

Most of these companies used our inferiority complex to sell more products. Now, we have become more aware.. more conscious.. so they use our compassion and humanity to sell more products.

Times are changing.. I am waiting for all of us to be more critical, more questioning, and less forgiving when our core values and the future of our kids are in question.

I have been an Evernote user since 2008. Every time, I need to find a report, a document, receipts I search in my Evernote and it is there. Once I drag anything into Evernote I know that it is going to be there. The optical character reader (OCR) feature makes life so much easier. I can drag a PDF report in Evernote and can easily search the content of this PDF. This is an immensely valuable feature when your job requires going through numerous pdfs scouting for information. So for me Evernote is not a note taking tool but a repositories of my documents.

Evernote excels at what it is supposed to do and you can trust it to be there when you need it: online, offline, on mobile, on web, on Mac, On Windows.. It is everywhere.
But a lot of things changed in last 12 years. We saw a number of apps coming and threatening Evernote and often excelled at one or another thing that Evernote does. Bear gave a brilliant writing interface; NimbusNote got some style and a few more bells and whistle than Evernote and then came Notion: the lego box that can be a note-taking app, a project management tool, a personal wiki.. the list goes on.

Now, the #RoamCult is taking over. RoamResearch is taking the note-taking to the next level. With its bi-directional linking and networked thoughts, this is something that is not Note-Taking but a learning and knowledge management tool that makes you think and collect knowledge bits without any kind of typology and structures. This is immensely helpful for the content creators and researchers. I work extensively on climate change and different development challenges and often putting a files into a particular structure or folder is very difficult. RoamResearch allows me to do that very well. But RoamResearch is not great for dumping all kind of content like we do in Evernote or for creating beautiful structured personal wiki as Notion.

But Evernote, RoamResearch and Notion together create a perfect knowledge management work-flow and system. My three step workflow is the following:
Step 1: Everything goes into Evernote. Online articles, pdfs, my purchase receipts, critical documents. First landing place for any content. It is reliable, safe and available everywhere. And, the mobile app of Evernote is lightyears ahead of Notion and RoamResearch (in fact RoamResearch does not have a mobile app yet.).

Step 2: Synthesis of compiled content happens in RoamResearch. I review notes in Evernote, highlight them and bring the highlights and notes that I want to further use into RoamResearch. Here I process my notes to create a short summary in my own words. This also turns up into my CRM and ToDo list as it is quite intuitive. I can insert ToDo list and reference to different people easily in Roam.

Step 3: All the finalized content that I create goes into Notion in form of a personal wiki.

So far I am quite good with this flow. But I am looking forward to getting rid of one or other applications if they evolve further become one stop solution for my personal knowledge management.

Keigo Higashino is referred as ‘the Japanese Stieg Larsson’ on the cover of this book. I think this is a very bizarre comparison if I consider the plot and writing style of these two authors. The comparison can only be justified if we consider a) both write crime fiction, and b) both have been bestsellers in their respective countries. Anyway, I am happy if this comparison brings more people to read to this master storyteller’s work.
Malice, written in 1996, is the third book by Higashino to be translated in to English from Japanese. The other two books “The Devotion of Suspect X” and “Salvation of a Saint” are among the best murder mysteries that I read in last five years. In both these books, readers were aware of who committed the crime but the mystery was how the murders were committed. In Malice, we know who committed the murder but the mystery was why the murder was committed.
Kunihiko Hidaka, a bestselling author, was found dead by his wife Rie and friend Nonoguchi just before he was to move to a new country. Detective Kaga, ex-colleague of Nonoguchi, gets the responsibility of the case and soon he discovers major flaws in Nonoguchi’s alibi. Nonoguchi, a writer himself and aspiring to be a bestseller author like Hidaka, confesses his crime but there were many missing pieces in his confession about the motive of the crime.
Higashino narrates the story through Nonoguchi’s and Kaga’s written accounts of the event during the investigation. The two main characters of Malice are writers and there is a lot of discussion of meeting timeline and writing styles, yet Higashino’s prose is bereft of any literary-ostentatiousness. Higashino is easy on his readers.
Malice is another gem from Higashino. I am eagerly waiting for his other works to be translated in English.

The coming of the age, almost autobiographical, story of Vietnamese migrant Little Dog’s journey from war torn Vietnam to Hartford in USA, is a long poem in the guise of a novel. And thank god that this is done by Vuong and not by others. Not many would have produced something as endearing as this novel. Not every author is Ocean Vuong. This might be his debut novel but he is already a celebrated poet and a recipient of numerous awards including MacArthur Genius grant for his poetry/writing.

Little Dog might sound as a strange name but once I read the story behind his name, there was a tender familiarity that seeped through. Little Dog was named so to save him from bad things happening to him; making him undesirable so that death which prefers to take away the precious things ignores him. This is the practice which even I saw in many parts of our hinterland. Parents named their kid, after losing a few kids untimely, with names such as Fekan, Bechan, Lallu.. the most coveted kids had the most unwanted names.

The novel is in the form of a long letter written by Little Dog to his manicurist mother, who could not read. Little Dog and his mother both fought for dignity and self-esteem in an ‘English’ world with very little English in their kitty. But Little Dog grew up and he had a bellyful of English. And, this novel surely suggests the bellyful of English was also the beautiful English.

"In this nail salon, sorry is a tool one uses to pander until the word itself becomes currency. It no longer merely apologies but insists, reminds: I am here, right here, beneath you. It is the lowering of oneself so that client fells right, superior and charitable. In the nail salon, one’s definition of sorry is deranged into a new word entirely, one that’s charged and reused as both power and defacement at once. Being sorry pays, being sorry even, or especially, when one has no fault, is worth every self-deprecating syllable the mouth allows. Because the mouth must eat." - From On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Little Dog’s fitful account of his life, memories, his sexuality and his rumination on his relationship with his mother and grand-mother is visceral. It is gorgeous not briefly but perennially. Ocean Vuong has poured his yearnings into a book that will be remembered for its sheer power to evoke unique and indescribable mix of emotions.

• I did not get much time to read non-fiction. For me, non-fiction is serious reading and I do dedicate some time in my day for that but last year was a test for my time-management skills. While I completed only three books in the non-fiction category, I have a number of them unfinished. Last year, we had gone to Ramana Maharishi's ashram and picked up a bagful of books. Ramana Maharishi is probably the only modern time sage who attracts me and evokes respect. So I spent good amount of time reading his books and his life story. The other theme that I read a lot (does not indicate in the list of books here as many of those books did not get completed) was climate change and air-pollution: these are not only my personal interest areas but also professional needs. But again, out of 10-15 books that I had planned to read last year on this topic, I could finish only three.
• In the fiction category, there has been a conscious effort to read more Hindi books. And, I managed to read four books, including the epic-length Mujhe Chand Chahiye. I also risked picking up a book by young Hindi writers or Nayi Hindi authors and was quite surprised by Aughad.
• Majority of fiction that I read this year were my flight reads or bedtime reading and I tried to finish some of the series that I was following, including a great series that turned into a disappointment by Dean Koontz. I also attempted an Indian crime fiction/whodunit by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay and it was good. Nine Perfect Strangers was a big disappointment and so was Blue Moon and The Silent Patient.
• The two standout books of this year for me were Laburnum for My Head,  a collection of short stories by Temsula Ao and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Eleanor Oliphant has been a rage last year so it got on my reading list but Temsula Ao was a finding from some random search and glad that I got this.

• The Silent Patient By Alex Michaelides
• Blue Moon By Lee Child
• Laburnum for My Head By Temsula Ao
• Mujhe Chand Chahiye (Hindi) By Surendra Varma
• Tell No One By Harlan Coben
• Rehan Par Raghu(Hindi) By Kashinath Singh
• The Arsonist By Kiran Nagarkar
• The Girl Who Lived Twice By David Lagercrantz
• Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine By Gail Honeyman
• Penumbra By Bhaskar Chattopadhyay
• Aughad (Hindi) By Nilotpal Mrinal
• The Night Window By Dean Koontz
• Mayapuri (Hindi)By Shivani
• The Lost Man By Jane Harper
• Debris Line By Matthew Fitzsimmons
• Nine Perfect Strangers By Liane Moriarty
• Newcomer By Keigo Higashino
• Out of Dark By Gregg Hurwitz

• The Great Derangement By Amitav Ghosh
• The Collected Works of Ramana Mahirishi
• Looking Within Life Lessons From Lal Ded

Peaceful death is really an essential human right, more essential perhaps even than the right to vote or the right to justice; it is a right on which, all religious traditions tell us, a great deal depends for the well-being and spiritual future of the dying person.

Non-fiction

• Connect by John Browne
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
• What I talk about when I talk about running by Haruki Murakami
• Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg
• Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
• Hooked by Nir Eyal
• Saving Capitalism by Robert B Reich
• The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman

Fiction

• Birdman by Mo Hayder
• Stranger by Dean Koontz
• Memory Man by David Baldacci
• Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
• The Last Mile by Michael Connelly
• The Short Drop by Mathew Fitzsimmons
• Instruments of Night by Thomas H Cook
• Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz
• Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
• The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
• Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama
• Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
• A Midsummer’s Equation by Keigo Higashino
• The Absent One by Jussi Adler Olsen
•  The Guise Of Another by Allen Eskens
• Make Me by Lee Child

Social media is increasingly influencing policy makers, politicians and bureaucrats in visualizing and shaping some of the key decisions that have a very comprehensive impact on all citizens. Mass media too these days is factoring social media reactions heavily in their analysis and in building their viewpoint on many issues. If we go by social media indicators, Trump was losing heavily, BJP was going to win a majority in Bihar and Delhi elections, and demonetization was to have some minor inconveniences to most of the people.

Social media has limited capacity to assess the impact or reaction of mass when you consider that it only represents a fraction of overall population. Only 36.5% people in India have access to internet (just to keep in mind that in majority of internet access surveys define internet users as those who have accessed Internet once, the percentage of regular users is very small). And, 71% of the internet users are male, and majority resides in urban and peri-urban areas.

Furthermore, the distinctly urban, male-dominated, educated and privileged profile of social media does not only result in opinions and views that only reflect beliefs and interests of dominant segments but also discourages others who do not have similar opinions from sharing their opinions, a phenomenon known as spiral of silence.

Another very interesting aspect of social media platform is how an idea or opinion is judged. It is all about likes, retweet and shares. And, everyone’s likes, retweets and shares carry the same weight; approval or disapproval is just a mouse click away. This is relevant and logical when we are talking about topics such as who is more popular Shahrukh Khan or Akshay Kumar, or whether you like a Mac or PC.But it takes a very interesting turn when we are assessing evaluating technical topics based on social media reaction.

Some topics, such as whether we should be going for genetically modified crops, we should set up nuclear power-plants, or what should be our approach to managing environment and forest, require far more technical understanding and expertise for discussion and cannot be judged on the basis of likes, dislikes or retweets. But on social media opinion (read approval/disapproval in form of a click) of an environmental expert is same as that of any other person. 1000 retweets and shares of a viewpoint/opinion do not make that valid if the opinion/viewpoint is technically flawed or invalid.

Our Prime Minister’s call to double the farmers’s income¹ by 2022 is an opportune call as the growth in farmers’ income has stagnated and it caused significant distress to farmers. Doubling the farmers’ income by 2020, if it is achieved, would be a remarkable achievement as it had not been achieved in last 3 decades. The challenge is more steep when it comes to doubling the income of farmers who have less than 10 acres of agricultural land².

Most of our small and marginal farmers are predominantly engaged in the cultivation of food grains. Almost 38 percent of the total cropped area is used for cultivating rice and wheat. Unfortunately, our per hectare yield for these two crops is quite low. Our rice yield is 3721 kgs/ha and wheat yield is 3177 kgs/ha. China has rice yield of 6775 kgs/ha and wheat yield 4987 kgs/ha. The practice of cultivating food grains using traditional methods in small land holdings is often one of the main reasons of low farm income.

NITI Aayog has listed many interventions and given a strategic direction at macro level to transform agriculture sector and reach the goal of doubling the farmers’ income. However, interventions at micro-level with community/farmers participation need to be promoted to achieve this goal for small and marginal farmers.

A couple of weeks back, a visit to a tribal village in Jharkhand showcased us brilliant examples of community engagement, micro-planning and dedicated focus that achieved the goal of doubling the farmers’ income in less 3 years. Tata Trusts in partnership with local NGO partners has transformed the agriculture practices of many tribal villages in Jharkhand.

The villages, we visited were 15-20 kms from Khunti, some yet to get functional road connectivity, electricity and proper mobile network coverage. Villagers (almost all from Munda tribe) have been engaged in the their traditional agriculture and lac cultivation for their livelihood, and had very low income from their fields. The per household income ranged from INR 20-40K per year. But in last 2-3 years, most of the households in these villages have doubled their income by changing their agriculture practices and establishing market linkages to get better value for the crop.

Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CINI), a Tata Trust supported initiative, worked extensively on understanding the cropping pattern, village resources, agriculture practices and the overall infrastructural challenges of each village/cluster.The intervention design and strategy leveraged the local knowledge, and practices and community leaders. The key feature of these interventions that worked as per my understanding are the following and provide some good learning for similar projects.

a) Income Diversification- Providing at least three sources of income to each households-Apart from agriculture, lac cultivation or sericulture, and rearing of pigs were promoted for additional sources of income.

b) Transition from diverse low value crops to selected high value crops-Making a large number of farmers to switch from their traditional crop to a particular high value crop is not easy. But to achieve a viable scale and marketable volume it is essential. In Khunti cluster, the selected crop is a high yielding variety of tomatoes which has a ready market in Jharkhand and Bihar. The intense community mobilization make it possible that a large number of farmers agreed to adopt a particular crop and suggested agriculture techniques.

c) Providing market linkages by aggregating farmers' produce- Aggregation of produce and planned harvesting ensured that intermediaries and vendors started procuring from these villages for the first time.

d) Community Engagement and Participation- Local resource persons, recruited from village, were given responsibility to ensure that all farmers are following the prescribed schedule for agriculture operations. All key activities, milestones were recorded. Local resource persons and the community leader made it sure that interventions implemented as per their design.

1. Here the assumption is to double the farmers’ real income (adjusted using the Consumer Price Index) and not the nominal income. ?
2. Chand, Ramesh, Raka Saxena, and Simmi Rana. "Estimates and Analysis of Farm Income in India, 1983-84 to 2011-12." Economic and Political Weekly 50.22 (2015): 139-145.APA ?

One of the most annoying thing in the pre-cable/satellite television era was Doordarashan mourning demise of political leaders or other eminent personalities. It meant that there is no music, movies or anything related to entertainment on our television. As a kid, we did not like the forced mourning on us. The other thing that we did not like was the news for hearing impaired.

Once the cable TV made its entry in our home, we completely forgot the forced national mourning and the news for hearing impaired. In fact, we forgot Doordarshan.

Sometime back, on Pune airport, waiting for my delayed flight I looked at the television set placed overhead in the waiting area. It was tuned to Doordarshan. And, it was time for the news for hearing impaired. The news, apart from nostalgia, left me thinking that why does only Doordarshan broadcasts this news? Why not any other channel?

The answer was obvious and a bit uncomfortable one. Broadcasting news for hearing impaired is not a profitable business. It is not viable. And in the era of market based solutions, the market for this news is not attractive. Providing solutions for those who do not constitute ‘a viable market’ is not the priority of the market. The economics does not make somebody enter this segment. And, it is 'Economics', not empathy, that drives the market.