“If you’d asked me back in March, I would have said on the one hand and on the other hand a bit unsure,” confessed the former governor of the Bank of England. But with firms reconsidering their strategy in light of Covid-19 amid public clamouring for more resilience and sustainability, he now believes that the business world will come out ahead on sustainability.
As Covid-19 descended, there were some worries that the pandemic would derail efforts to combat climate change. While carbon emissions were limited by a sharp reduction in travel, some feared that firms and governments would be so concerned with the subsequent recovery that they would turn a blind eye to pursuing sustainability in the process. Businesses, after all, have traditionally considered sustainability as an obstacle to growth.
But Mark Carney, United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance, believes that sustainability will be a key pillar of “build back better”.
