ClimateVoices Featuring Auden Schendler

In this issue, I’m pleased to be interviewing Auden Schendler about his new book Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul. Auden has run Sustainability programs at Aspen One for 25 years, and his work has always focused on scale solutions to climate change, including clean-energy development, policy, advocacy, and activism. He publishes widely and is known for his candid critiques of the environmental movement. Auden was named a “climate innovator” by TIME magazine and a “climate saver” by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . 

In the book you criticize companies for “carbon navel-gazing,” which is a great term. Can you describe what that means and why it’s such a big problem?

Let’s look at the corporate approach to solving climate change. It’s this kind of thing: corporate social responsibility, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting, sustainable supply chain management and compliance, environmental accounting. I literally cut that from a corporate sustainability bio online. None of those things solve climate. And then, maybe you try harder: you set carbon targets and you try to cut emissions. Maybe you succeed wildly, and cut 30%. Man, you’d be a superhero. But then nobody, and I mean literally nobody in corporate America asks: “Hey, one question for you. Is that stuff going to solve climate change, and aren’t you describing your ‘climate plan here?’” Well, of course that stuff can’t possibly stop climate change, because it’s too small; it’s one company; it’s all voluntary, and, oh, by the way: it hasn’t worked after 30 years of trying! So somehow we’ve given all these corporations a pass when they roll out climate plans that don’t solve climate change. How is that possible? I argue in my book that it has to be intentional complicity with the fossil fuel economy, because business doesn’t actually want to fix the problem. 

I was very pleased you described the longstanding climate obstruction by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Why don’t self-proclaimed “green companies" see the hypocrisy of continuing to be members of the Chamber?

Because Bill, you don’t just take your ball and go home! You work from within. This is the answer I have gotten repeatedly, both in my own industry and when I question those in Fortune 500 companies. And it’s delivered as if I am a little boy, a fool, or stupid. There’s this notion of being a “team player,” and as we all know, corporations don’t like boat-rockers. But the reason these businesses can do this is that there is no accountability. The media, except for a very few reporters (Hey, Ben Elgin !) haven’t called business out. And business is so damn powerful, they can say one thing and do another, admit to it, and suffer no consequences. That has to change. And the employees–if not the media–are going to have to lead that charge. I am not cluelessly optimistic. I don’t think this is likely to happen. But I think business is too powerful an entity for us to give up on it as a lever in the climate fight. And I also think that if one business leads on climate in a legitimate way, the benefits (brand, customer and employee loyalty, mission) are going to be so huge that others will follow. I’ve been proven wrong on that so far, of course, but then again, no publicly traded company has yet led in any meaningful way. 

Complicity is a major theme in your work and you argue that sustainability initiatives often reinforce the status quo fossil fuel economy. How can employees hold their companies accountable for this climate complicity?

As I explained above, the suite of actions that fall under “corporate sustainability” also could be the suite of activities the fossil fuel industry would prescribe for corporations to undertake so that they appeared to be diligently working on the climate problem, but would never in any way get in the way of their ability to monetize all remaining fossil reserves. So I think you can rename the field of corporate sustainability: call it “business management.” Because everything in that category is just good business. It’s PR, it’s saving money. The real field of sustainability is government affairs. That, as you have so well laid out, is where the change happens. Now, I’m not optimistic about our prospects to solve climate change, but one thing makes me hopeful. And it’s the huge number of youngish business people I talk to, either in corporations or in MBA programs, and the bulk of them are sick of corporate duplicity. So I think there’s the potential for a movement within corporations. And we have to remember that these corporations are made up of people, and the people in there are changing. They aren’t the death star old white guys anymore. There’s a new generation. What can they do? Albert Hirschman talks about your options: Loyalty, Voice, Exit. They can politely, but consistently, hammer away at the business from inside. They can use their voices and choices–ie, choosing to work only for businesses that are serious. They can keep pushing on executives. And then they can also leave. And we’re seeing this happening now: Microsoft has seen some very skilled young leaders leave and start to complain publicly. And the media can play a role, but that requires whistleblowers, and a more aggressive investigative journalism. Nobody, for example, could look at The Coca-Cola Company and how it approaches plastic and recycling–basically promulgating a lie that that’s a solution–and not be disgusted. Who, with any conscience, would work for that company? When I came up, we didn’t study any of these things. But a new generation has. And they have power in numbers. So I urge employees to think creatively–I don’t have all the answers, but my book lays out some ways one guy within a business thought about this, and how I sometimes moved the ball. 

In Big Tech, they call me a “shit stirrer” – and I love that nickname. What’s your moniker? 

Is “Shit stirrer” taken? OK: “Bomb thrower.” But you know, the comment I get most often is “Oh, he’s not a team player.” And that brings up the question of exactly what team we’re on. And historically, in business, the team you’re on is the one that makes money and doesn’t really try to rock the boat too much in any direction. I’ve always seen myself to be on the climate team, the humanity team. And unless told otherwise, that was what I was hired to do. There’s an ideological emptiness I’ve encountered in the corporate world, where people don’t seem to care about anything. But we’re a nation of ostensibly religious–and therefore, in theory, moral–people. There is 2000 years of human philosophy, pretty good stuff, that says we should treat people well, that we are measured by how we treat the least of us, that we have certain moral obligations. I’m baffled that the corporation-man could be a way to live one’s life, only caring about the advancement of yourself or the company, but many people do. Of course, many people also lead lives of quiet desperation. I want to point out that there’s a negative connotation to those descriptors–shit stirrer, bomb thrower– but in reality, aren’t these always the best people, the truth tellers, the people pointing out inconvenient things that you actually ought to know? Ben Franklin said our critics are our friends, because they show us our faults. But most people don’t see it that way. There’s an Arabic saying: “He who tells the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup.” And yet, these are the people I look for at conferences or cocktail parties. Life is too short to hang out with the corporate bots–I’m looking for the people with the glint in their eyes. And they’re the ones who will get us out of this mess. 

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The opinions and views expressed in this interview are solely those of the individual(s) being interviewed. They may not reflect the views, policies, or positions of ClimateVoice, the employer(s) of the individual(s) being interviewed, nor of any other organizations with which the individual(s) being interviewed are affiliated. This interview is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as an endorsement or official statement on behalf of such employer(s) or organization(s).