imagine that this is your view for five
weeks with no Wi-Fi what would you do so
my company sent me down to the Antarctic
to get better acquainted with our
fishing operations in the Antarctic we
fish for krill which is high in omega-3s
EPA & DHA which is vital for our human
health but it’s important that we
harvest it without compromising the
health of the planet but being there for
five weeks I can tell you I had a lot of
time on my hands no appointments no
friends to have dinner with no social
media no notifications no need to go for
grocery shopping or cooking no nothing
so in the middle of sort of banging my
head against the wall I gave myself a
challenge I said there’s one thing that
I really don’t get yet but I’m really
failing at in my life and I’ve been
researching and studying sustainable
business models for five years and I’ve
understood what it takes to actually
succeed at sustainability but I was
really failing on the personal side of
things
I was trying I was like I’m going all-in
I’m gonna make my own toothpaste I’m
gonna only use reusable containers and
you know going really all-in but only
lasting for two weeks going back and I
was like drinking smoothies from plastic
and feeling bad about myself
so I decided that I had to hack this
they say that it takes three weeks to
build a habit and I had five so I was
good on time but I knew it would be a
tremendous challenge to come back into
my daily life and keep the habits that I
cultivated on that boat but I was
willing to give it a try and through my
career I’ve been looking for the sweet
spots of business where sustainability
was profitable
I had to look at the sweet spots in our
everyday lives where a choice is good
for our health
for our well-being and for our wallet
but it happens to save the planet at the
same time not the easiest task but it’s
impossible and I found a couple of good
ways to go around it so I was there in
the enteric researching this guy the
krill a small crew tonight’s more tons
of krill in the ocean than humans on
land it is one of the most sustainable
reduction Fisheries in the world and one
of the strong is regulated so this
industry has been at the front of
sustainability because basically it
didn’t have any choice to begin with
before deploying fishing nets ten years
ago they went to dialogue with WWF to
make sure that they did it the right way
and there’s three things with the way we
do sustainability in my company but also
some of the correctors is I see with
people who succeed with sustainability
and that is that they have a reason for
being they tackle global challenges they
have a set of values that they allow to
guide their actions and they keep
themselves accountable what really
struck me when I got to know our company
was that they had managed to make
sustainability the default choice it was
in the backbone whenever you met a
crossroad you went with a sustainable
solution and from my perspective I was
like yeah but what if it’s not
profitable and they’re like yeah but we
know it’s the right thing to do because
they were so high right highly regulated
and they really believed in the cost and
now we see the returns
it’s a highly profitable company they
have changed the view of the planet to
not only see a plate but to see a home
so I look to the sustainable development
goals and I said okay I need a direction
like a company sets a strategic
direction I as a person also need to
find my direction and I did out of the
17 sustainable development goals of the
UN
I chose gold number 12 which is
responsible production and consumption
that’s why I’m talking about this to you
today okay so I had the global challenge
I wanted to get at and the next point
was setting my values and I was like
this is easy I know what’s my what my
values are but I didn’t I knew I valued
sustainability but it was too fluffy to
guide my everyday actions so I had to
really go inside myself and look at how
my values compared to my actions and I
felt the inconsistency
I couldn’t pinpoint it but I knew that I
had bad conscience in my everyday life
and I said okay so what what are my
values I valued the earth because I
enjoy hikes and nature and species and
the diversity that we that surrounds
every day and I want that to last and
prosper I value deep work really
prioritizing quality over quantity doing
meaning meaningful stuff instead of busy
work and this is the one that surprised
me because I figure out I value good
health and by articulating that it made
it easier for me to choose the healthy
option when going to the store it makes
it it made it easier to prioritize time
in my schedule to go to the gym and I
worked as an Arabic instructor I lived
at the gym for some time of my life but
now it was easier to prioritize it
because I knew it was acting in
accordance with my values and that felt
good last bit is to keep yourself
accountable so I write in a journal
every night and I did that on the boat
and I still do it
to sort of do a feeling of the day did I
act in accordance to my value yes no
maybe could have been better and what’s
what’s true strikes me is that when I
look at my day and I feel that I really
made it I feel good about myself I have
a clear conscience everything is great
but when I’ve had a day where I failed
at it
I still feel good about myself because I
knew what I was failing at and what I
could do to improve it it was tangible
being exceptional is not about being
flawless it’s about knowing where your
flaws are and how you can change them
how you can evolve as a human being and
this was the part that actually gave me
the most value my solution became this
trying to design new defaults so they
would be easier for me to make the right
decision for myself and the planet when
going to the store but at the same time
I know that to convince all of you guys
to do this I can’t put on a strict
regime saying you have to do this all
the time these defaults are what’s what
counts so I added in some flexibility
this means that we get a bit of wiggle
room right and I’m going to give you
three examples of how I’m using that
they wiggle room in three of the habits
that I did keep because I can tell you I
tried building 10 habits and I now have
three but I do value them and I brought
them with my life back on shore in my
hectic everyday life why because they
drastically improved the quality of my
life one I’m a default vegetarian if I
have a choice I eat vegetarian I eat
some fish we need omega-3s but if I come
to a dinner party with my friends I and
I forgotten them to tell them that I
don’t eat red meat in their serving red
meat I’ll have red meat I don’t want my
lifestyle to make me impolite in social
settings and if I won’t bake in a day
I’ll leave bacon I think our minds work
in the way that if we prohibit ourselves
something we end up wanting it more so
by allowing us to be free and flexible
but knowing what our values are we feel
better at the end of the day no matter
what we’ve been doing
secondly I say no to plastics
I have reusable reusable cups with me
doesn’t take up a lot of space and it’s
easy I save a lot of money don’t have to
buy everything all the time I plan ahead
and it’s important because only 10% of
the plastic we produce we recycle and
we’ve all seen the pictures of the
turtles getting caught in our wastes and
I think this is one of the most
important things we can do in our
everyday life is to say no to plastics
the third one and this is my favorite it
is prioritizing quality over quantity
and to me it means prioritizing to do
the first and foremost important task at
the very beginning of the day
it means buying timeless quality pieces
of quality for my closet and not hunting
the fast fashion but most of all a
meaning it means having time for long
dinners with conversations that matter
with the people I care about so wrapping
it up all up it means like business to
be business word to have a reason to do
business it means setting a direction
for ourself articulating our values and
holding ourselves accountable I truly
believe that we can have more from
having less more time better health and
well-being while spending less owning
less and wasting less and I challenge
you to do to start that journey by
finding your direction
take letting your values and holding
yourself accountable thank you [Applause]