🌍 New ranking — America's “Most Responsible Companies” 2024 (Issue #134)

Plus: Mindful pauses: “But I’m too busy.” Attribution Bias: A blind spot that ruins our judgment. Analysis of technical readiness: 32 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions.

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And, yes, that’s a new logo. 😀

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Today’s topics.

1. New ranking — America's “Most Responsible Companies” 2024.

2. Analysis of technical readiness — 32 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions.

3. Mindful pauses — “But I’m too busy.”

4. Attribution Bias — A blind spot that ruins our judgment.

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1.

New ranking — America's “Most Responsible Companies” 2024.

When we read this list, what should we think?

Option #1

“Hooray! Look at how far we’ve come in corporate sustainability.”

Indeed, today over 95% of S&P 500 companies issue a sustainability report.

Option #2

“Ho hum. The same data can tell many different stories.”

Also true.

This Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance article shows that the correlation among various ESG and sustainability company ratings ranges from -0.02 to 0.71.

Like many things we admire, corporate sustainability is hard to measure. But that doesn’t mean it’s worthless.

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2.

Analysis of technical readiness — 32 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions.

Here’s some light holiday reading — 390 pages.

You’re welcome.

The good folks at RMI have dug so deep on this report that they actually arrived in China, passing through the Earth’s molten core en route. 🔥

Break out the mimosas and choose from eight tempting chapters below.

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But you may be wondering if this Reuters article — “Is carbon removal critical to save the planet, or just hot air?” — should burst CDR’s enthusiasm balloon.

No.

True, we need most resources going to GHG emissions reduction.

But, as we say at Terraset, this is a “yes/and” situation.

We also need to invest in CDR tech today so it becomes bankable and less costly because we need billions of tons of GHGs removed from the atmosphere.

(More from the University of Oxford)

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3.

Mindful pauses — “But I’m too busy.”

One of my Buddhist teachers, Reverend WonGong, shared some insights with my climate CEO peer group at Entrepreneurs for Impact last week.

Here are three of her takeaways:

1. Meditation can make us better leaders. — Quieting the mind helps us generate new and better ideas. It’s not about levitating. 😇

2. Mindful pauses are super short. — Instead of meditating for 20-40 minutes, just close your eyes and take three deep breaths 2-3x times per day. Six seconds in. Six seconds out.

3. Mindfulness doesn't mean slow. — You can run through the airport late for a flight while being mindful of that temporary stress. “If you name it (a stressor), then you can tame it.”

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4.

Attribution Bias — A blind spot that ruins our judgment.

In social psychology, this describes errors such as these:

1. We try to protect our little snowflake of an ego. — “My successes are based on my skills. My failures are based on external factors that limited me.” (Or I’m good at some things, but need to work on others. Just like my peers.)

2. We attribute to character what can be explained by context. — “Bob’s bad attitude this morning proves that he’s an unreliable coworker.” (Or his dog just died.)

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That’s all, y’all.

Make it a great week because it’s usually a choice.

~ Chris

Dr. Chris Wedding

Founder @ Entrepreneurs for Impact

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P.S. Over 100,000 CEOs are members of CEO peer groups. Are you? Check out our community for climate tech CEOs at Entrepreneurs for Impact.

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(As these photos show, I’m an actual human writing this newsletter. Not AI. 🤖)