5 Nov 2021
These days it feels like many consultancies say they do “digital transformation”. Partly this is a marketing thing - it has been a useful label that signals that you do more than just build websites etc. And partly it is a doing thing. Digital transformation has been going a few years: slow (and sometimes fast) waves of digital approaches and technology refitting, remaking and reinventing industries, the work done by many in-house and external consultants. Eventually the digital transformation work is everywhere, and may then recede into the background.
In some industries, Covid accelerated the process, forcing companies to do 5 years of digital transformation in 5 months. In that moment, digital change went from a nice-to-have to a must-have. Visible, tangible and essential.
The next big accelerant is climate change. If you thought digital transformation was spiky and disruptive, wait til you see carbon transformation. It is going to feel like the sudden reinvention of many things we take as given today - jobs, education, housing, energy, industry, agriculture, infrastructure, finance, cities, society, the world. They need reinventing because we built them for a world that no longer exists. They need to be remade for the “entropocene”, an era of heightened change that’ll demand more resilience and adaptability, better use of materials and energy, and fairer outcomes for all.
We have to work so hard and so fast at it. We have no choice. If the last decade was about digital transformation, the next few decades are going to be about climate.
Carbon transformation.
(I want more work in this area. I can help you with words - get in touch.)