Beyond Jargon
By Marc Andraca
Director, Global Energy & Sustainability, Johnson Controls, Inc.
Of our many renewable resources, “jargon” may (unfortunately) be the one most widely used by industry. Virtually every company and market sector invents words, acronyms, model numbers and other terminology that is unique and generally comprehensible only to their particular group.
Within the Johnson Controls Global Energy and Sustainability team, we often find ourselves exploring and making sense of whole new fields of jargon. We try to engage thought leaders, organizations, companies and partners to get their perspectives on sustainability megatrends around us and the implications they could have for our business. We work with new people and organizations to understand the rapidly changing energy landscape, the possible impacts of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the opportunities and risks these trends create. To succeed, we must constantly decipher these acronyms, titles, buzzwords and symbols and translate them into concepts that are simple and make sense.
As part of this work we recently participated in a conference called “Land of Opportunity: The American Response to Climate Change.” The gathering took a solution-oriented approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, focused on buildings, appliances, power generation, and forests. Participants included the Natural Resources Defense Council, McKinsey & Company, General Electric, the World Resources Institute, Harvard University and others. Like any conference, the jargon quotient was huge. But one set of words emerged that was powerful precisely because it was about clarifying jargon: ‘Global warming’ is a misnomer….what is happening is ‘global climactic disruption.’
Warming is a nice thing. It makes folks feel good. It happens slowly and comfortably. But as presented by John Holdren, professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, what we are experiencing globally has nothing to do with what we think of as warming. Instead, he urged conference attendees to reframe their thinking, and to view what is already happening as massive, untidy, dramatic disruptions that will cause widespread and almost entirely harmful change to the natural world around us, and by implication to individuals and society. Specifically, he said we will confront large-scale, unpredictable, and painful disruptions around: The conference addressed solutions to this global climactic disruption over two long days. At the center was a focus on several issues: the crucial role of energy efficiency in buildings, the policies and programs that are needed, and the costs and benefits of different alternatives. Johnson Controls was praised for the important work we do around whole-building energy retrofits, and was recognized as a company leading the sustainability charge. And of course, business cards were exchanged; people reconnected. But the most salient concept that emerged and has ‘stuck’ is that simple idea: It’s not about warming, it’s about disruption. These disruptions will be broader, more intense, more frequent, and much, much more costly. From a scientific standpoint, Holdren stated with total certainty that we are feeling these disruptions already – droughts in China, floods around the world, forest fires in the western U.S., glaciers melting at the North and South Poles . . . In a disruption-intense planet, our corporate vision – a more comfortable, safe and sustainable world – never seemed more important. Marc Andraca is the director of the Global Energy & Sustainability business unit for Johnson Controls, Inc. He also serves on the board of the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee, Wis.
