With everyone talking about the coronavirus, climate change has seemingly faded into the background. Even though COVID-19 seems more urgent, we cannot put climate on the back burner: to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, we can only afford 0.5 degrees of warming. This article shows ways how agile coaches can take responsibility and use their skills and contacts to benefit the climate.
Long-term thinking and agility - a contradiction?
In his book, "The Age of Agile," agile management thought leader Steve Denning describes the orientation of a company away from the internal hierarchy toward the external customer as a paradigm shift. In my view, addressing the climate crisis and other sustainability issues requires another paradigm shift: the external view must be expanded from customers to entire social, political, and ecological systems.
We need to think long-term again. In agile planning, we propagate short cycles so that we get feedback from customers and users as soon as possible. Very often, planning is limited to the short period of a Sprint of two weeks, or maybe to an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), which is planned every three to six months. The time periods to consider for climate effects are not weeks or months, but decades and centuries and millennia, because climate changes are primarily determined by inertial components like oceans and the biosphere.
These are periods of time that not only clearly exceed the radius of action of our democratically elected politicians. Our human brain, which is optimized for recognizing short causal chains, generally has its problems with this. Reducing our electricity consumption today would have a relatively rapid effect on the CO2 content in the atmosphere - but only much later on the level of the sea. Fortunately, there are models that can reliably predict these relationships. This makes it possible to find indicators of the impact of our actions over short time frames. We don't have a problem with knowledge, we have a problem with implementation - and a problem with repression, coupled with feelings of being overwhelmed and powerless. Powerlessness can be countered by breaking down actions into small, tangible steps. For me, sustainable agility means: thinking long-term - acting short-term.
Specifically, we can:
- As leaders and employees in a company, develop a sustainable corporate strategy and adapt corporate culture and working practices accordingly.
- As product managers, take the climate goals of our products just as seriously as business goals.
- As (agile) coaches and individuals, reduce our own carbon footprint, be informed, create awareness, exert influence.
What we can do...
...as a company
Many companies contribute to environmental problems because of their business practices, but they also have the power and opportunity to turn things around. The pressure for such change is growing due to the increased environmental awareness of individual executives, customers, employees and society, and investors, as well as tighter regulations. New opportunities are emerging that, according to a survey by the London-based non-profit organization Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), are estimated at $2.1 trillion, twice as high as the risks. Yet Deloitte notes in a study1 that, “the majority of action to date seems reactive and focused on short-term rewards and quick wins. A longer-term, strategic perspective on the risks and opportunities of climate change is rarely undertaken."
Like an agile transition, this change is primarily a matter of culture and mindset. John Elkington, thought leader on corporate responsibility and sustainable capitalism, writes2, "Fundamentally, we have a hard-wired cultural problem in business, finance and markets.
Whereas CEOs, CFOs, and other corporate leaders move heaven and earth to ensure that they hit their profit targets, the same is very rarely true of their people and planet targets. "We need systems change that can be led and executed according to agile principles:
- Aligning the company's purpose and vision with sustainability. For many employees, this is an important factor for their identification with their company and thus for their motivation to get involved.
- Defining emission targets and the strategy to achieve them. The targets are derived from an assessment of climate-related risks (e.g. supply chain disruption) and opportunities (e.g. cost reduction through improved energy efficiency).
- Installing a backlog of actions evaluated for their impact on CO2 emissions.
- Creating an environment for motivation, enablement, and empowerment for cross-functional teams working to implement the backlog.
- Establishing metrics to measure and manage climate impact and make them transparent, e.g. in the form of a sustainability report or more lightweight (e.g. ClimatePartner).
One example is the Berlin-based company Ecosia3, which won the German Sustainability Award 2021. Ecosia is an ecological search engine that uses its advertising revenue to plant trees. Like other search engines, Ecosia displays advertisements by searching for certain terms. With every click on these ads, the company earns money, which allows a tree to be planted every 0.8 seconds. The current number can be checked on the website at any time.
Right now, it is 118.679.561, and by the time you read this article, quite a few more will have been added. "We're a normal company, but we're not there to make shareholders rich," says Christian Kroll, Ecosia's founder. Kroll also says he doesn't get the highest salary in the company, "I'm not even in the top third." But they try to pay market salaries, he says, even though Google employees in Berlin surely get three times as much. "We want to have good people who are on fire for what Ecosia does," he says.
... as product managers
In an ethical agile product development, goals are defined not only for customer satisfaction and business success, but also for sustainability. This includes the entire lifecycle of the product, such as reduced electricity consumption in manufacturing, packaging, transportation, operation and recycling.
If you think primarily of physical products you might be as flabbergasted as I am by the following facts:
- The ICT (Information and Communications Technology) industry could consume 20% of all electricity and emit up to 5.5% of global carbon emissions by 2025. That would be more than any country except the U.S., China and India4.
- Internet use in Germany produces as much CO2 each year as air travel. And the amount could double in the next ten years. Worldwide, IT devices and applications produce 800 million tons of CO2 per year - roughly equivalent to Germany's total greenhouse gas emissions.
- Playing YouTube videos consumes about as much electricity annually as Glasgow, Scotland, a city of 600,000 people5.
- According to a study by MacAfee, the 62 trillion spam emails sent in 2008 consumed 33 billion kWh of electricity. That's as much as 2.1 million households use per year6.
- The entire Bitcoin network now consumes more energy than Austria or Colombia7.
Digitization is not the solution to the climate problem and can even make it worse. Since a large part of agile product development is related to digitization, there is a need and an opportunity to consider sustainability aspects like other non-functional requirements (for example, via user stories or a Definition of Done).
... as an agile coach
As coaches, we have access to leaders and product owners, teams. Our self-conception prohibits imposing an issue like climate change on our clients if they don't have it on their agenda themselves. But, like digitalization, it is part of the future viability to deal with it – and we can, and should, use opportunities to bring it in, for example, during contract clarification, or during conversations about values.
Climate change is a complex problem. As agile coaches, part of our role is to address complexity and uncertainty with systems thinking, interdisciplinary teams, and adaptive planning. We are well-versed in methods and practices for transitions and change - and can leverage them for climate-smart change. We can extend our own knowledge to not only challenge and ask questions, but to bring in ideas. Climate change is an emotional topic, a roller coaster between anger, helplessness, uncertainty and hope. As leaders without power, we inspire people through our own emotions. Ultimately, we decide how we work with our clients - and who we work with.
A role model for me is agile coach and Certified Scrum Trainer® Henrik Kniberg, who you might know through his videos (Spotify Engineering Culture, Product Owner in a Nutshell). Henrik is also the co-founder of GoClimateNeutral8. This organization lets interested parties determine their current carbon footprint and pay a monthly fee based on the result. This money is invested in climate protection measures that have been verified by independent organizations.
... as an individual
I feel responsible as a mother. The "Fridays for Future" generation rightly asks why our generation is just watching as we blithely head for disaster. In Germany, we have so far been able to push aside the climate induced problems, but on my (ecologically incorrect) travels I have seen the littered beaches in Vietnam, breathed in the polluted air in Chinese cities and mourned the melting glaciers in New Zealand. I want my sons to have a livable future.
I can only change one person - myself. Before I preach to others about what they should change, I sweep in front of my own door. I've been participating in GoClimateNeutral for 16 months, and together with the 6500 other members, we've compensated 472,000 tons of CO2 emissions. I have renewed my heating system, disposed of my freezer, installed modern energy-saving light bulbs, used Ecosia as a search engine, eliminated meat from my diet as far as possible, and even before COVID-19, I no longer made business trips by plane.
Small, relatively easy steps reduce complexity and are the best way to create new habits. There's a lot more I can do. So my Good Resolution for 2021 is:
- Learn more about climate change;
- Go public and network;
- Become a coach for sustainable agility.
Are you in?
[1] DI_Feeling-the-heat-sustainability.pdf (deloitte.com)
[2] 25 Years Ago I Coined the Phrase “Triple Bottom Line.” Here’s Why It’s Time to Rethink It. (hbr.org)
[3] www.ecosia.org
[4] ‘Tsunami of data’ could consume one fifth of global electricity by 2025 | Environment | The Guardian
[5] May: Rethinking digital service design | News and features | University of Bristol
[6] Spam 'uses as much power as 2.1m homes' | Spam | The Guardian
[7] Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index - Digiconomist
[8] GoClimate - Every action counts
About the Author:
From developing software to developing people: My career started as an electrical, system and software engineer. In 2004, I was enlightened by my CSM training, given by Ken Schwaber. This was the way I wanted to work! I became one of the first German Certified Scrum Trainers in 2008 (still the only female one) and a Certified Enterprise Coach in 2011. I have been the “Agile Mindsetter” as internal trainer and coach for Siemens and Allianz, working with many individuals and teams in business, IT, product development, and management. Now I am working for improuv GmbH where I found my agile home.
I want to infect people with my enthusiasm for personal growths that leads to joyful work experience. My wish is that people feel better after working with me than before. My customers appreciate especially my pragmatism in combination with my enthusiasm for agile values and principles - and my good sense of humour.
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