(AGENPARL) – SEATTLE (WASHINGTON) gio 23 giugno 2022

Sustainable and inclusive growth: Briefing note #1, June 23, 2022

For over two years, this compendium of McKinsey’s latest research focused on COVID-19’s implications for business. While our pandemic-related insights will continue, we are pivoting our summary of the week’s publishing to a new topic of similar urgency and complexity: how to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth (SIG). This regular briefing, curated by McKinsey Global Publishing editors, will highlight our most recent perspectives on how companies, organizations, and society can view growth and societal benefits not as conflicting goals but as equal imperatives for holistic impact.

We are launching the “SIG briefing note” on the heels of McKinsey’s 2021 ESG Report, which provides a multifaceted view of our approach to environmental, social, and governance imperatives. Before we ask other organizations to examine themselves for ways to improve, we must ask the same of ourselves. In this report, we share our decarbonization efforts, progress on diversity and inclusion, sustainable procurement, and other cornerstones of ESG. Case studies highlight companies that have successfully merged growth with what in another era might have been considered “social missions.” The report explains why it is no longer helpful to look at social missions as separate from traditional corporate growth and profitability goals; instead, a SIG mindset sees addressing a broader array of stakeholders’ needs as part and parcel of growth.

Getting to net zero will depend on building green businesses to produce the technologies, materials, and systems the transition requires. Like the digital leaders of our time, successful green business builders have been adept at creating and shaping markets rather than spectating and waiting for the markets to appear, and they have embraced the notion of accelerated scaling. Senior partners Rob Bland and Tomas Nauclér and partner Anna Granskog highlight promising innovations and
best practices.

Car manufacturers should look beyond the tailpipe to deliver greener cars. Industry players can capture carbon and cost savings by scrutinizing the end-to-end manufacturing value chain. More environmentally friendly cars at a lower per-unit cost will depend on moves including redesigning components, implementing circularity to decrease waste, and making design shifts to reduce the amount of raw material required. Collaboration with suppliers and R&D are key enablers of both the commercial and technical aspects of the implementation strategy.

Nearly all European flat-steel players have announced plans to gradually decarbonize production processes for the sheets and plates used by the automotive, machinery, and construction industries. For many of the newly built plants, the initial intention was to use natural gas for parts of the process. Now, rising natural-gas and electricity prices, as well as potential limitations on the natural-gas supply, are forcing reconsideration. McKinsey’s analysis of how to safeguard the green-steel industry suggests four scenarios for how the situation may play out, two of which represent the most viable courses of action.

Strengthening Black-owned businesses can accelerate inclusive growth. Twenty percent of Black Americans start businesses, but only 4 percent of these businesses survive the start-up stage. On the Future of America podcast, McKinsey senior partner Tiffany Burns and associate partner Tyler Harris discuss challenges Black entrepreneurs face. One key sticking point: a lack of contacts, mentors, and a network that can be crucial for building beyond the “great idea” phase.

Here are other key findings from our research this week:

• Edtech start-ups raised record amounts of venture capital in 2020 and 2021, and market valuations for bigger players soared. To learn how edtech is being adopted in higher education, McKinsey surveyed over 1,400 students, faculty, and experts at US public and private nonprofit colleges and universities. Senior partner Varun Marya and his coauthors share which learning tools have the highest uptake, how students and educators view them, the barriers to higher adoption, and the notable impacts on learning.
• Organizations can prepare for compliance with new US cybersecurity regulations by following a three-step approach for readiness, response, and remediation.
• The McKinsey Quarterly interviewed entrepreneur Marc Andreessen about Silicon Valley’s past and future. He advises companies to identify their smartest technologists—and make them the leaders.
• Three new factors have emerged as critical to capturing value from digital transformations. They include the development of proprietary assets, the use of digital tech to achieve strategic differentiation on customer engagement, and a focus on attracting and developing tech-savvy executives.

Our latest edition of Author Talks features Daniel Coyle discussing his new book, The Culture Playbook: 60 Highly Effective Actions to Help Your Group Succeed (Bantam Books, May 2022). Coyle, an adviser to Google, Microsoft, and the Navy SEALs, shares methods that allow teams to connect over goals and a common purpose. Companies should not rely on people being “a good culture fit,” which can lead to homogeneity, but instead should look for ways employees can bond, including by sharing their vulnerabilities.

Also in Author Talks, Julien and Kiersten Saunders, creators of the blog rich & REGULAR, discuss their new book, Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away (Portfolio, June 2022). The authors say the FIRE movement—which stands for “financial independence/retire early”—is lesser known in communities of color, where there may be fewer role models of people who have successfully “cashed out.” Learning to eschew lifestyle inflation, to save, and to invest are key to financial independence.

This briefing note, based on our latest published insights, was prepared by Katy McLaughlin, a senior editor in McKinsey’s Southern California office.

Fonte/Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/sustainable-inclusive-growth/sustainable-and-inclusive-growth-briefing-note