Talk about climate change tends to be future-focused. These will be the impacts. If we don’t do this by 2030, we will struggle. I challenge myself to center the conversation in the present day, however, as climate change is very much an active thing in 2025. We have been seeing the effects of too many greenhouse gas emissions for years now. Though the future is undoubtedly needing some work to prevent things from worsening, we are living in a changed climate right now. This brings up the conversation of mitigation and adaption.

Mitigation is the effort to stop/reduce climate change. This is the space where you see decarbonization and the efforts of organizations like Project Drawdown. Adaption is the shift of infrastructure, culture, and other parts of society to prepare for life in a changed climate. Sometimes, these things overlap. If you build a passive house that retains cool air in the summer and hot air in the winter, you are both better equipped for the extreme weather that climate change brings and you are reducing emissions by not needing energy to cool or heat said house. However, they can also contradict each other. That same house might have air conditioning, which can be critical during heat waves but is also an increased huge of energy. Particularly as more and more of the society moves to adapt, we have to be careful to not worsen our circumstances by worsening the very problem we are trying to respond to.

We do not operate with unlimited resources. This is true on a planetary level as well as an organizational one. As a business, you have to decide where to put your labor, money, time, etc. to produce the most value. (In this case, I am referring to systemic value, not just profit.) So when those contradictions between mitigation and adaption exist, or when you can only focus on one of the two, then there is a major debate to be had on the best course of action.

Recently, there has been a push to focus exclusively or nearly so on the adaption angle. This comes from several reasons. Firstly, there is a genuine need to adapt to the impacts that are already here. We cannot put off acting on adaption because those actions are life-saving. Even if we were to mitigate everything tomorrow, we will still need to adapt to those changes. The second reason is more depressing: mitigation hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen, so we may as well accept our fate of a changed climate and focus on adaption.

I understand the emotions behind the focus on adaption, but I disagree with the end statement. Mitigation is absolutely essential. As the impacts grow more extreme, then greater adaption measures will be required, capturing resources that could be spent elsewhere. Furthermore, there comes a point at which even the best adaption will be unable to fully account for the changed climate. Adaption faces both hard and soft limits. A soft limit, such as financial difficulties, can be navigated, even though it may be difficult. A hard limit, however, means that the capacity for adaption has been reached. Many natural systems have reached their capacity to adapt to the changing climate, such as specific freshwater sources, polar areas, and coastal wetlands. We need to mitigate emissions so that the planet remains hospitable to human and other than human life.

Emissions have continued to rise even as public awareness and concern over climate change has grown and the effects of climate change worsen. This has to stop and reverse, which requires systemic change and participation from all stakeholders, including business. Decarbonization is an essential activity. I do not deny that it is challenging, but it is possible. If you have a minute, check out the En-Roads Climate Simulator to see the different ways we could address climate change: https://www.climateinteractive.org/en-roads/ and then head over to Project Drawdown: https://drawdown.org/ to examine the solutions that could actually make that happen. The Future Fit Foundation gives you the framework to imagine a world where this works while books like Reimagining Capitalism, This Changes Everything, and Half Earth Socialism can provoke ideas for the future.

The challenge of sustainable thinking is the ability to work in systems and with wicked problems. There is so much to wrap your arms around. Often, the breaking concepts and actions down into smaller pieces is necessary to take action, but full effectiveness and understanding are lost. Mitigation and adaptation get separated out and put in competition with each other when this needs to be a ‘both/and’ scenario. Climate change is such a massive threat that every road must be taken. In your business, examine where mitigation and adaption overlap. No action can exist in isolation. You will be most successful from both a financial and systemic point of view when you engage with sustainability as a strategy.