The final agreement of COP28 shows us how petrostates can accept the declaration of intentions to initiate a transition away from fossil fuels, but in no case do they agree to reduce their use, let alone eliminate them. This should not surprise us since, as long as a product, even if polluting, remains legal, has high demand, and is profitable, there will always be someone willing to produce it. This is a problem we face daily in different sectors and scales.

There is no shortage of reasons, but there is a lack of incentives to stop producing and consuming as we are doing. To get back on the path to 1.5°C or to make Earth Overshoot Day—the day of the year when humanity’s demand for resources and services exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate them—December 31 instead of August 3, a systemic change is needed. It’s not about producing and consuming less while doing the same or slightly better.

Nor is it about doing it only in some parts of the planet. It’s about realizing that the model of extraction, production, and consumption of resources supported by the use of cheap fossil energy has reached the end of the road, and we need an economy that generates value while conserving resources instead of destroying them.

The positive news is that this change is possible. We have the knowledge, technology, and resources to make it happen. The negative news is that it is very unlikely that this transition will happen in an orderly manner, minimizing costs. The transformation and adaptation to change, especially if it needs to be rapid, are not within the reach of all public and private organizations.

I mentioned that we have reached the end of one road. However, only a few will have the capacity to reinvent themselves to take the next one, which must necessarily be circular and decarbonized. Most organizations, unable or powerless, offer and will offer great resistance to change. By prolonging their agony, they increase the costs of this transformation for everyone. Some leading organizations are working on designing their transition. But if moving a single company is already a monumental challenge, and not without contradictions—as demonstrated by Emmanuel Faber’s removal as CEO of Danone in 2021—changing an economy of 8 billion people cannot be done without a long period of crisis that forces progressive adaptations and/or closures of businesses that are no longer viable in the new reality.

Inèdit should not be a neutral or observer agent in this historic moment. On the contrary, it must be an agent in the service of those organizations seeking help to design this transition. It will not be a matter of doing one or two projects, a sectoral guide, or a decarbonization plan. It will be years of changes—regulatory, economic, fiscal, social, values, political—that will need to be accompanied so that this systemic change is as fast, orderly, and with the least economic and social costs as possible.

On the other hand, we will increasingly encounter interlocutors with growing cognitive dissonance. People who will suffer from the inconsistency between what they think or believe and their daily actions or experiences. Therefore, we will always have to offer alternatives that do not corner them and lead them to blockage but help them understand the complexity of the challenge and find paths for their relocation in the new model that turn them into allies and not brakes on change.

Design, empathy, data, proximity, innovation, yes. But also firmness where necessary because not everything is allowed. It is not correct to put a petrostate in charge of eliminating fossil fuels. It is not correct to misinform—greenwashing, carbon neutral, etc. It is not correct to dilute issues to avoid facing the most urgent ones —this is one of the risks commonly identified in the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) approach. It is not correct to take refuge behind purpose or mere statements of good intentions because doing so later is too late.

We want facts; we want actions. We need them. And at Inèdit, we work every day to make it a reality.