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A new year often starts with a simple question: How can we do better? For businesses, its a question that applies to almost everything, from product innovation to climate impactan area of increasing urgency for many. The goal of achieving net-zero is now a staple of most businesses annual plans, however the journey there is often challenging. It can be fraught with hidden trade-offs, making it difficult for ESG leaders to know whether they are truly backing the right solutions in pursuit of their climate goals. Take aviation, for example. As one of the world’s most difficult sectors to decarbonize, its 2.5% share of global CO2 emissions represents a major challenge for nearly every corporate climate plan. To solve this, the industry developed a solution called Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Unlike traditional jet fuel made from crude oil, SAF is produced from renewable sources like used cooking oil, agricultural waste, and other plant-based materials. Crucially, its designed to work with existing aircraft engines, allowing airlines to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint without having to build new planes. While promising a dramatic reduction in air travels carbon footprint, the well-intentioned race to scale this green fuel has created a dangerous paradox, leading companies down a path that risks undermining the goals they are trying to achieve. THE HIDDEN FLAW IN GREEN JET FUEL SAF has quickly become the poster child for sustainable flight, as it cuts an aircrafts lifecycle emissions by up to 80%. However, the way we scale SAF matters just as much as the volumes we achieve. Many of todays biofuels rely on crops grown on arable land, creating direct competition with food production and increasing the risk of deforestation and biodiversity loss. This is the hidden flaw in the first wave of green jet fuel. When the same land that could grow food or support forests is converted for use in jet fuel, claims of sustainability become less convincing. This approach risks incentivizing solutions that reduce carbon emissions on spreadsheets while increasing the social and environmental risks in reality. At the same time, no one should underestimate the scale of aviations challenge. Industry roadmaps state that to align with net-zero targets by 2050, the sector will need hundreds of millions of tons of SAF per year, compared to only a few million tons produced per year today. We must choose the right path to close that gap over the next quarter-century. The world generates an enormous amount of waste every year, from used cooking oil and animal fats to agricultural residues such as corn cobs, straw, and empty fruit bunches. Much of this material is mismanaged, leading to open burning, water contamination, and methane emissions as organic waste decomposes. Turning this waste into fuel tackles two problems at once: it avoids methane and pollution from unmanaged waste, and it displaces fossil fuels in sectors like aviation. FROM PILOT TO SCALE: PROOF IN THE REAL WORLD The key question for any sustainability solution is simple: Can it scale? For waste-based SAF, the answer is increasingly yes. At EcoCeres, our first large-scale renewable fuels plant in Jiangsu, Chinawhich launched in 2021demonstrated that industrial-scale production of SAF from 100% waste oils is commercially viable, with a capacity of around 350,000 tons per year. Now, that model is scaling. In January 2026, we officially opened our new production facility in Johor, Malaysia. With 420,000 tons of annual renewable fuel capacity, its one of the country’s first dedicated SAF facilities and it effectively doubles EcoCeres SAF production capability. The plant utilizes 100% waste-based feedstocks, supported by a strategy that secures used cooking oil and other residues across Asia. Its circular model is demonstrated by facilities certified under leading industry bodies like ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) and CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation). It has moved beyond pilots and is now delivering at industrial scale, proving the viability of truly circular SAF. SAF AS A GATEWAY TO CREDIBLE NET-ZERO FOR BUSINESS For many global companies, business travel and air freight form a substantial share of their carbon emissions. Without a scalable, credible source of SAF, corporate net-zero pledges risk becoming aspirational rather than actionable. Its clear that a more sophisticated standard for green fuel is needed. Three simple criteria can guide better decisions: Feedstock integrity: Does the fuel rely on 100% waste and residue-based feedstocks that do not compete with food or high-value ecosystems? Verified lifecycle impact: Does it achieve high lifecycle emissions reductions validated by robust, third-party certification schemes aligned with global standards? Circular and local co-benefits: Does the solution tangibly reduce local pollution and create sustainable economic opportunities in the regions where waste is collected? Applying these tests can differentiate between models that simply shift problems elsewhere and circular solutions that create compounded benefits. CLOSE THE LOOP ON GLOBAL MOBILITY The concept of a circular economy has successfully reshaped countless industries. For years, however, global aviation has remained a critical open loop. A truly circular, waste-based SAF model can help us finally close the loop on global mobility. This is not a distant dream. As weve demonstrated, the technology is already proven and operating at scale. Global studies confirm that underutilized waste streams can support the production of hundreds of millions of tons of sustainable fuel, more than enough to bridge the current supply gap. As more of the worlds waste is brought into productive use, the idea of flying on circular fuel moves from promising pilot to practical reality. For the business leaders and ESG teams asking, How can we do better? this presents a clear and actionable path. By championing a higher standard for the fuels they endorse, they can help transform one of the world’s most difficult climate challenges into a story of innovation and opportunity. If we can turn the worlds waste into the worlds jet fuel, then every business trip, shipment, and journey can be part of the solution, not the problem. Matti Lievonen is CEO of EcoCeres.
Category:
E-Commerce
Twenty years ago, as the top digital and innovation executive for Citi’s credit card business, I led the team that spent months building what looked like a brilliant partnership. We’d found a startup with a disruptive payments platformone that became the forerunner of what has become a new payment type used by millions of consumers today. The deal: strategic investment in exchange for access to the startup’s codebase as a sandbox for innovation pilots. No more waiting in the legacy systems queue. Just rapid prototyping with leading-edge developers. We built the entire partnership in a silo of supporters, treating resistance as something to avoid until absolutely necessary. Then came final deal approval day. The senior executives heading risk management, compliance, legal, finance, regulatory affairs, and profit and loss (P&L) weighed in: “The regulators won’t like this.” “Have we gotten corporate approvals?” “What’s the ROI?” “We’ve never done this kind of deal.” Deal torpedoed. Within a few years, that startup was acquired for close to $1 billion. The loss wasn’t just financial. It was a failure to recognize that resistance contains intelligence about reality that plans built-in echo chambers inevitably miss. Colleagues felt blindsidedasked to bless a final deal rather than shape an evolving strategy. The resistance wasn’t about the idea. It was about being excluded from the journey. I’ve spent the two decades since distinguishing the signal from the noiseand teaching leaders how to avoid the expensive mistakes we made. Why We Keep Making the Same Mistake Leaders faced with pushback default to a familiar playbook: build innovation in a protected silo, surround yourself with enthusiasts, keep resistors at arm’s length. The logic seems soundprotect the new thing from the “antibodies” of legacy thinking. But here’s what we discovered the hard way: unfamiliarity, fear of the unknown, turf protectionthese weren’t just emotional reactions. They were signals. Risk and compliance leaders felt threatened because no one had involved them early enough to anticipate possible regulatory concerns. P&L managers pushed back because the project diverted resources from their quarterly targets. The resistance contained intelligence about implementation realities that an enthusiast-only team couldn’t see. When 70% of change initiatives fail despite massive investment, the problem isn’t that people don’t understand the plan. It’s that the plan doesn’t account for what people understand about reality. Learning to Translate Resistance Into Intelligence The shift starts with listening differently. When someone says, “We tried this before and it didn’t work,” leaders typically hear obstruction and respond: “This time is differentwe have better technology.” But what if you asked instead: “What specifically failed last time, and how does this approach account for those lessons?” Suddenly you’re mining history for intelligence about why elegant pilots don’t scale. When a stakeholder says, “Our customers won’t understand this,” the dismissive response is “Of course they willwe have market research showing they favor this concept.” The intelligence-gathering response: “That’s an important observation. Where do you see the greatest failure points that we should account for?” Or consider: “This conflicts with our other priorities.” Many leaders hear bureaucratic gatekeeping and respond by promising to “make the case” at prioritization meetings. But that’s still trying to convince. The intelligence approach: “We have a full load of urgent priorities, you’re right. Where do you see the biggest stress points this project might create?” These aren’t just nicer ways of saying the same thing. They’re diagnostic questions that surface constraints the plan hasn’t addressed. When you ask, “Where do you see the biggest stress points?” instead of selling your solution, something shifts. You’re signaling genuine understanding, not persuasion. That act of listeningwhat former hostage negotiator Chris Voss calls “tactical empathy”builds the trust that determines whether your initiative scales or stalls. Why This Matters More Now AI experimentation is amplifying every dysfunction in how organizations handle resistance. Consider a common pattern: A team builds an AI assistant for customer service reps. The tech enthusiasts love it at pilot stageimpressive accuracy, clean demo, excited exec sponsors. But they never involved actual service reps. So, they didn’t discover until scale that the assistant couldn’t handle the 20% of calls requiring human judgment, created more work documenting exceptions than it saved, and made reps feel surveilled rather than supported. Adoption stalled. The pilot became another “AI experiment that didn’t work.” The same dynamic plays out with creative teams resisting generative AI. The pattern sounds familiar: Our brand spends millions to sound like itself. The moment we start prompting a model trained on every competitor’s campaign, we’re paying to erase what makes us different. Beneath the pushback is stewardship of hard-won brand equity, not necessarily technophobia. The intelligence-gathering response: “What if we approach AI as rough-draft only? How might we develop explicit guardrails for tone and references to preserve what makes us distinctive?” From Stakeholder Management to Coalition Building Traditional stakeholder management maps who supports and who resists, then tries to convert resistors through better communication. Coalition building does something different: it engages across the spectrum from the start to build trustthe foundation that determines whether change scales. I’ve seen this work. When innovation leaders don’t own a P&L, they face scrutiny from business unit managers who question whether “the innovation people” truly care about quarterly targets. One way through: explicitly align early experiments to P&L managers’ top prioritiesnot to convince them your idea is right, but to demonstrate you’re invested in making them successful. Shared values become the bridge when you disagree on tactics. The Questions That Change the Conversation In my workshops with senior leaders across financial services and other sectors, I consistently hear the same story. As one CTO told me: “We built our gen AI strategy with only the innovation team. Now we’re stuck because compliance wasn’t engaged early.” Here’s where to start: “What do you see that we might be missing?” Assumes intelligence in the perspective, not obstruction. “What would need to be true for this to work in your world?” Surfaces constraints before they become deal-killers. “What shared outcomes mattermost to both of us?” Finds the values bridge when tactics diverge. The fundamental shift: from “How do I overcome resistance?” to “What intelligence am I missing if I don’t engage this perspective early?” Twenty years later, companies are still building partnerships, AI pilots, and transformation initiatives in silos of supportersthe same mistake my Citi team made. Still treating resistance as friction to manage rather than intelligence to integrate: The billion-dollar missed opportunities keep piling up. What changes when you treat resistance as the intelligence it actually contains? You build coalitions instead of echo chambers. You gain insights that improve your plan and trust that enables scale. And you stop repeating the expensive mistakes we learned from the hard way.
Category:
E-Commerce
As an operative researcher for luxury retail companies, I spent my career grabbing onto one corporate contract after the next, like a tree-swinging retainer monkey. But in a tariff-distressed industry, those contract branches grew further and further apart until I was left hanging. Then a colleague experiencing a similar work gap said, Well, I guess were retired. Ive been called a lot of things in my life, but nothing prepared me for the word retired. I’m a freelancer, so no one is coming to my house with a gold watch as a reward for loyal service; I have no desire to move south; and I dont play golf. My equally self-employed friend Roland had a suggestion: Why not consider myself situationally retiredthat is, retired until the phone rings. Its funny how one word can make or break your spirit. I was crushed by retired because the concept is foreign and frightening. But adding situational made it comfortingly familiar. After all, for us freelancers every corporate contract is situational; you might even say that situational is my superpower. A friend whos spent decades in a grueling C-suite position still cant bring himself to retire, despite vested stock and a strong financial footing. Happy or not, he remains in the grip of his job, unable to let go of a role he believes defines (and so ultimately confines) him. Ive been an outside observer of corporate America long enough to understand his struggle, although it is not my own. Redirecting your energy As an independent contractor working for different companies, each with its own ecosystem, I constantly adapted my work persona to fit each unique corporate culture. Fluidity is what stabilized my career and so the loss of a fixed identity was not my retirement problem. My issue was displaced energy. Whether writing a history of plaid for a fashion CEO or helping the VP of design at a boutique hotel chain find just the right urban neighborhoods for expansion, every project required a tremendous amount of advance work. From sleuthing out relevant reference resources to searching for subject-specific experts, my research work was as fascinating as it was fun. I rarely left my desk yet built a national network of specialists and accumulated wide-ranging knowledge that often dovetailed, making every project a little easier. When the work slowedand then stoppedmy detective skills had nowhere to go. I cant remember how long I was in that uncomfortable standstill until Rolands use of the word situational got me moving. To kick off Project Retirement, I went on my usual research prowl. Every day, about 11,400 Americans turn 65the traditional retirement milestonefueling a busy and lucrative media market spanning content, publishing, and podcasts. But the most valuable operative research is not about finding the most information. It requires you to find the right informationinformation that is directional, that you can build upon, that can help steer your project to a successful conclusion. Redefining retirement For me, the initial guiding principles came from the YouTube channel Small Retired Life and Raina Vitanovs practical yet inspirational attitude. Her conversation about being rebellious enough to redefine and rebrand retirement broadened my understanding and freed me to choose my own norms and values. But the most significant contribution was her observation that in retirement, Productivity is not the conversation. Using the Roland method, I added a word and had a revelation: Transactional productivity is no longer my conversation. The time between contracts used to feel borrowed; now I own it. And all that research joie de vivre that I enjoyed over my corporate years is mine to use as I like. Sit next to me if you want to talk about the architecture of Shaker communities, art in ’80s New York, or the difference between Ivy style and preppy fashion. I also started a side gig in a small boutique where I once shopped whenever I needed to outfit myself for a rare visit into corporate America. Because Ive never had a structured straight job, I find the work to be fresh and interesting. Its also rewarding because I get to use decades of style research on real live women, many playing out their own life-shifting issues through the lens of their wardrobes. Although Im not sure I can pull off being an introvert cosplaying as an extrovert for more than my customary two workdays a week, I might give it a shot. Because now that Ive got the hang of it, situational retirement can be whatever I want it to be.
Category:
E-Commerce
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