Host: Antoine Walter
Guest: Mina Guli | CEO & Co-Founder | Thirst Foundation
Category: 🗣️ Opinion
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[7:43] “I built Thirst as a not-for-profit focused on solving the world's water crisis. And we do that by creating large, inspirational out-of-the-box campaigns, and specifically campaigns that are focused on building ecosystems of stakeholders that we can mobilize to cure what we call water blindness, or this whole concept of just being ignorant about the nature and extent of the water crisis, to working together to put water at the top of the global agenda, and to drive really bold, groundbreaking action on water.”
[8:58] “Even worse than just running across seven deserts on seven continents in seven weeks, […] a year later, I ran 40 marathons in 40 days, down six of the world's great rivers. And then just over a year after that, I set out to run 100 marathons in 100 days all over the world, again, obviously to raise awareness about water. Now what happens is when people hear that, this is what I've done, they instantly think I'm some crazy runner that loves running ridiculously long distances in extreme locations all over the world. And the reality is far from that. I don't enjoy running, I don't like it, I'm not good at it. And I'm definitely not naturally inclined to do it. I got into running because I hurt my back very badly. Doctors told me I wouldn't be able to run again. And then I said, I'm not going to allow others to set limits or boundaries on what I can and can't do. Why should I let the goals and aspirations of others […] define my own? And I set out to prove them wrong. And I set out to prove to myself that I was capable of doing whatever I set my mind to.”
[10:14] “It's taken me on this incredible journey. […] I want to use my feet to go to places that have suffered, that are at the frontlines of the water crisis. I want to meet people and hear their stories. And I want to create a platform that allows them to lift up their voices, and share their own stories to the world. Because I think for too long, we've had business leaders, investors, corporates that exist in cities and lean countries where water flows freely from a tab. They're completely divorced from what's going on in other parts of the world, from what's going on at the bottom of their supply chains. And it's time for us to connect the dots. And it's time for us to say, do you understand that the decisions you make here today, in New York, London, Tokyo, wherever it is, the decisions you make at this boardroom table, impacts the lives deliberately or as a corollary of millions of people all over the world. And that has to change. We have to reconnect these people. We have to reconnect supply chains. And we've got to help people to understand that water is not something that can be ignored. Water is the foundation of everything we have, everything we are, and everything we trade every single day.”
[12:16] “We are all living in the water crisis. […] By 2030, there's going to be a 40% gap between the demand for water and the supply of water available. Right now 3 billion people don't have access to adequate hand washing facilities in the middle of a pandemic, which is disgraceful. Deforestation gets front page news, but our wetlands are disappearing, […] four times faster than a rainforest. These are horrifying statistics. But […] we're numb to these problems, we're numb to the images, we're numb to a lot of these statistics and they just feel like numbers on a page. We need to bring these numbers to life. And we need to help people to understand that these aren't just numbers on a page. They're real people's lives in places all over the world. And they're not someone else's problem. They’re our problem too. And that is because water goes into everything we use, we buy and we consume every single day.”
[13:53] “Just one outfit took more water to make than all the water you've drunk in your whole lifetime. That's staggering. But what's even more staggering, is that […] we all do have more than one outfit in our closet. And when you think about that, multiplied by the billions of people across the world, and you realize that we all want more, need more energy, food, clothing. And you start to realize this is not just a minor problem. This is a major issue that's getting worse every single day. And without water, the whole thing will start to crumble and fall apart around us.”
[15.45] “For too long, we've all looked at water and said, water is everything, but we treat it as if it's nothing. We use it, we abuse it, we pollute it, we use too much of it. So we set out to say if water is everything, we treat it as if it's nothing, why is that? And what needs to change in order for us to solve this problem? And how can we bring together this highly diverse group of people around the world to actually agree on a united way forward? So we started having a series of conversations, pulling knowledge and information together and said, what would happen if we looked at some of these other incredible movements for change on other big global issues around the world? We picked climate change, because it's one where we've seen over the years this kind of more rapid acceleration of change. And we said, what would happen if we actually looked at some of the lessons that we could take from something like climate change, and apply it to water? Could we actually accelerate action?”
[17:51] “The estimates from the UN and others [are] that we need to accelerate our action by four times, if we're going to reach the targets set out in SDG 6, which are targets that we need to meet by 2030. […] The only way for us to move this forward at an accelerated pace is to learn from the mistakes and the successes of others, like climate change. And in the climate space, […] it's become increasingly clear that there were a couple of really key things that helped to move things along. One was this really unifying call to action, and 1.5 degrees or net zero. […] There are a couple of major rallying cries that diverse people across the sector have been able to get behind. We are missing that in water. We're missing this mobilized force. […] And finally, we don't have this really clear path forward to commit to X. We're missing all of those things. And unless we can find a way to deliver on them, we're going to have a problem in meeting these targets.”
[24:25] “Rather than thinking about the problem, let's talk about the solutions. […] And I think we need to do three things. I think we need to mobilize a call for action worldwide. We need to step up and we need the voice of thousands of people across the entire world unified saying we want action on water. […] Second, we need to put water onto the global agenda. Enough that water is cast aside in favor of other things which might be more popular, might be easier to understand or might be easier to take action on. No. Water is the one of the biggest risks facing our communities and societies and our economies. It must be on the agenda. It must be on the agenda in boardrooms, in political environments, in parliament's, in congress across the world. […] And then third, we need to chart a clear path forward for action. That means we need to unify around saying, maybe we can't come up with the one thing that we want companies and businesses and investors to do, maybe there isn't one thing, maybe there are multiple things. But surely, we can agree on [a couple of] things that we can get companies to do […] [to] forward on water.”
[26:19] “I think we're at a really unique moment in time, which is that we have an opportunity to move from water is a major problem to saying how can we be part of the solution. And that unique moment is an opportunity in 2023, when the United Nations hosts their big conference on water, the first in almost 50 years. And we have an opportunity at that time to say enough talk, now act. And the only way that that will happen is if we spend the next 18 months moving together in a unified way to deliver on these three solutions, and to say by the time we hit the steps of that United Nations, where that conference is going to meet with world leaders and corporate leaders from across the world, by the time we get there, there must be no option but to take meaningful, serious, bold action forward on water.”
[37:43] “I think it's easy to look at a pricing mechanism and say a price is equal to value and that dictates value. But […] water has a value so much greater than the pricing. This is the year of valuing water. The Dutch government has been leading a massive piece of work, trying to get companies and others to understand that the value of water goes far beyond a pricing mechanism, and far into the impact that those water molecules have right across supply chains and businesses and organizations and lives. And I think that we need to find a way to communicate this better. I think we need to find a way to connect with people more. And to help people to understand that the easy way out is just a sticker price on water. But that price does not reflect all of the externalities that water delivers to you in so many different ways. So I think we need to get our heads out of this game of traditionalism. And we need to get our minds into thinking laterally around how do we actually solve this?”
Rating: 💧💧💧💧💧
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify
🕰️ 1 hr 1 min | 🗓️ 11/16/2021
✅ Time saved: 58 min
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