Rethinking ESG: Balancing People, Planet, and Profits for a Sustainable Future

By Deepak Tanna

While doing ESG certification and scratching the surface of concepts & principles around ESG topics, the triple bottom line framework People Planet and profits has triggered many thoughts in my mind. I'm sharing my thoughts here with the purpose of receiving more stimulating thoughts in return :) Please do share your thoughts at deepaktanna1975@gmail.com

Planet:

Humanity has come a very long way from stone age to the current age of tremendous developments in all industries driven by advancements in Electronics, computers, information & AI technologies etc. Are we 8 billion+ like bacteria with the only goal to digest a blue molecule called planet Earth? If that is the goal, then are we ready to get to another similar molecule to digest? Obviously today answer is no, then it is imperative to take care of our only known blue molecule until we get to the next one to digest!

The climate change is the number 1 problem today humanity need to solve together. Our efforts need to be focussed around protecting the climate on this only blue molecule in the universe known to us, restore the climate as much as possible for sustainability of future developments. The businesses we have evolved need to have tectonic shift in goals from only making profits to the goals of ensuring healthy Economics of the planet. What are the withdrawals and deposits we are doing to the account of the planet that’s impacting the health of Planet Economy? Who is maintaining books to know if Planet Economy is expanding or shrinking? Economics of the planet will be taken care of by thinking about business at an individual level. At an individual level each one of us need to ask ourselves what all inputs am I taking from this blue molecule and what useful output/s am I producing/converting the inputs to, other than producing different types of wastes? If your answer is I'm producing more useful outputs than the inputs I'm consuming then Congratulations you are on a path to successful and profitable business that’s helping Planet Economics! Continue on the journey to minimize waste and produce more useful output while taking least possible inputs from this only blue molecule we have!

People:

The story from the stone age till date is that we have created and evolved sophisticated systems in the process of taking care of “me”, each one of us are already in the business of taking care of others all the time by serving and producing one or more things for others. In the process of competition to produce better & best for others, who is accounting for the cost of competition to the health of Planet Economy? The systems need to evolve further from mere competition to cooperation to form strong bonds similar to the way we see different bonds of elements in the nature. 8 billion+ of us need to be bonded well together (extremely important for good sustainable Governance) in a way to produce new outputs that are aligned to the laws of nature. Converting input energy into something newly meaningful things yet to be discovered/invented and reversing the entropy, probably are the only reasons humanity continues to evolve on this beautiful blue molecule in the universe

About the Author:

He is a highly experienced senior technology leader and management professional with an impressive career spanning over two decades in the semiconductor industry. He has worked with renowned multinational corporations, gaining expertise in various aspects of silicon architecture, micro-architecture development, RTL logic design, post-silicon debugging, project management and team leadership for semiconductor IPs and SoCs. Currently, he is designated as Principal Engineer, On-chip Fabrics and Bridges Architect and Soft IP Product Owner at Intel India Pvt. Ltd., whereby he is responsible for delivering high-quality soft IP protocol bridge specifications and mentoring design and validation teams to meet the requirements of internal SoC customers.