A call to action: an interview with Sebastian Copeland

Explorer, author, lecturer, and environmental activist warns that we are speeding up to a nodal point of conflict

In 2017, Sebastian Copeland was named one of the world’s 25 greatest adventurers of the last 25 years by Men’s Journal. He is a specialist in climatology and committed environmentalist who has repurposed his commercial photography roots to art photography. Since 2000, he has focused on the polar regions and undertaken extreme expeditions to the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland. His photographs document and highlight the effects of climate change.

You’re an inspiration to many people with how you’ve illuminated the urgency of climate change through photography and your work as a climate researcher. How much trouble are we in?

Well, how much trouble are we in is a relative question, because there’s a convergence of so many systems that are speeding up to a nodal point of conflict. These are socio-economic, socio-political, geo-political, environmental, and technological, so you know, we’re coming to a place of reckoning and new media communication is facilitating our ability to understand what is going on around us. We’re in full recognition of the breakdown of the biodiversity around us.

We understand the threat of economic systems, in ways that were simply not possible before because of globalisation, because of communications et cetera. So, what level of risk are we at?

Well we’re certainly at a great level of risk. But it’s also a very fertile ground for opportunity.

And it just requires a shift in sensibilities and promoting a way of forward-thinking, which hasn’t happened yet. It’s beginning, we’re seeing some promising signs but we’re not there yet.

What role do you think large corporations play in shaping the future?

Well, I think that what is global and universal to all businesses whether they’re corporate entities or simply individuals is to recognise the infallibility of nature relative to our development and our well-being. So, to operate in a finite system, with the concept of infinite growth, that is not sustainable relative to the ecosystem it’s growing in — is a suicide mission.

And, I think that’s ultimately what we’re starting to realise and there’s a movement that is more sensitive to the future and it’s driven not surprisingly by a young constituency, and that’s quite promising because needless to say they are the voters of the future. But they’re also the custodians of our universal future. So, I think that’s good.

But I think that corporations need to face and recognise the urgent necessity for sustainable business models to move towards a sustainable economy.

How do you think green technology can play a role in reducing corporations’ impact on the environment?

It is not just interesting from a technological standpoint and an innovation standpoint, it’s a job creator. The obvious result is the reduction to our carbon footprint, which given that demographic growth and the access to quality of life that a lot of that population growth is demanding, it is absolutely necessary. So I think that the green industry needs to receive the same level of subsidised help and support from both governments and private institutions.

Green technologies are the most promising opportunity that we have to save or at least to turn this ship around.

If you could ask CEOs from industries like energy, construction, healthcare to make one change, What would it be?

Well, we’ve been on a collision course between profits and nature. Hovering on the same topic, because ultimately with all the greatest technology in the world and the best tools to improve your life and the world, if these are not aligned with a natural balance. You know, it is that American Indian proverb: ‘when to breathe the air is sickening’. So, I think it’s critical to that thinking is an accelerator in the executive responsibility in corporations to invest in both, company culture and new technologies that reduce their (carbon) footprint.

And we’re seeing quite a bit of that. It’s an exciting time to be around. it’s 10 or 15 years too late and it’s moving at 30 percent slower than it should be moving, but at least that’s forward momentum and the hardest thing is to go from zero to ten. From ten to 100 tends to be a little easier. So, I would say forward-thinking risk, understanding the philosophical existential contemplations and responsibility of whatever your business model is. And I think it’s also shaming the industries that are not doing it.

It’s the year twenty one hundred in Europe. What has changed? Are we in better shape or have things gotten worse with the environment?

Yes. so, in the public courtroom of the future we will be faced with one or two realisations. The obvious one, and what seems to be the course that we’re on presently, is that we will have failed our mandate to coexist within a system of eight point seven million other species. And, in that process, we will have devastated a high percentage of those species and that percentage point will invariably at some point apply to us as well as humans. So, that’s one scenario.

The other scenario is that we will have excelled at fulfilling our potential as a human species with our ingenuity and creativity, empathy and compassion; with our ability to predict the future and to care for one another. These are philosophical concepts that need to be aligned with corporate and financial ones.

The Fightback Movement is about bringing entrepreneurs, together with senior executives, investors and policy-makers to try and solve some of the biggest problems. That’s what the Fightback Movement is about. What does it mean to you?

I think it reflects the need for a transformation in our sensibilities and in the marketplace. The three agents of change are governments, corporate entities, business leadership at least, and then people or the media. All three of them are chained at the ankle and you can only move as fast as the slowest one. So in order to somehow create a faster movement, we need an accelerator on all three of these things. Bearing in mind that governments tend to reflect the demands of their constituency and that business leaders tend to reflect the demand of the people. And, they’ll supply whatever is demanded.

So, the responsibility falls on individuals as well and we’re seeing quite a big uptick in these movements with the youth movement in Britain, of course, but also all over Europe even driven by a young 16 year-old girl from Scandinavia. I mean all that’s pretty exciting. I just hope It’s just the beginning of an upward curve and not just another non-linear up and down that we’ve experienced over the last decade.

Why do you think it is so important that we have this diverse group of people coming together, including entrepreneurs, investors, corporates and politicians?

I think the business sector represents the innovation and technology of the future. I think that if one thing has defined the problems that we’re in presently is an inability to think systemically, to be siloed into one business model. I think that if the outcry of society and the destabilisation of governments and democracies around the world is telling us one thing, it is that something needs to shift. And I think that responsibility falls on three different sectors: governments, corporate entities or at least business leadership, and individuals. But businesses need to have a forward-thinking vision. To bring products to market that can usher in, you know, the future of the market and create ahead of the curve a demand for more sustainable products.

And in order to drive this change what do you think has to change within the company: Is it the mindset or what is it that we have to tackle to drive this change?

The leitmotif of our world at the moment is fear. Everybody is afraid. People are afraid to lose their jobs, their culture, their identity. Corporate entities are afraid to get their lunches eaten by other nations — China, US or India depending on where you are. And politicians are afraid to lose their grasp on their constituency. So, I think that one thing that we recognise is that fear is not a positive force and that at the corporate level or the startup level and of course at the startup level you have a little bit less of that because it tends to be more forward thinking.

But we need to encourage risk taking, vision, and we need to encourage collaboration as well. I think that if we can reflect those different value systems, then we may have the ability to quickly address the problems that we have in transportation, in power generation and in product delivery as well. All of these high carbon footprint entities that are supporting our world.

What do you think connects all of these people?

I think everyone has come today to Fightback Summit is driven by the same desire to be part of the change. I think that there is an impetus of energy in trying to drive market transformation towards a sustainable world. You’d have to live under a rock if you’re not aware of the breakdown of our ecosystem and the biodiversity and what an existential threat this represents to humanity within the next century or two or three. So if you believe Stephen Hawking, we don’t have a thousand years left on that planet.

At the current rate, I think 15 years ago, when he said that he was very optimistic, because at current rates I think humanity will be replaced either by algorithms or wiped out altogether within 300 years or so. So, it’s within us to recognise the opportunity that we presently have, to turn this around and to remember what is human about humanity: That is vision, empathy, and ingenuity.

These are philosophical concepts that need to be aligned with corporate and financial ones.