Sustainability LIVE Chicago Q&A: Saleh ElHattab, Gravity CEO
Saleh ElHattab is the Founder & CEO of Gravity, a business focussed on the automation of sustainability reporting and energy efficiency improvements to drive business improvements.
At Sustainability LIVE Chicago, co-located with Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE Chicago, he took part in the Global Decarbonisation Strategies panel.
After leaving the stage, Saleh shared his thoughts with Sustainability Magazine.
What were the key points of the Global Decarbonisation Strategies panel?
I think the overarching tone was how we identify the challenges to taking action.
What we focused on, particularly from the Gravity voice, was the cognitive challenge because I think it's mostly perceived and not actual.
Not to play down the difficulty of taking action in this space, but I think there's both a perception of labour costs as well as a perception of fiscal costs when it comes to energy management.
On the labour side, it's first of all identifying it, measuring your missions and everything else, where I think a lot of people have been sold a promise of automation that unfortunately has lost its power. A lot of people no longer trust that.
We want to make the power of technology streamline measurement so you don't have to waste a lot of time on the labour side.
From a fiscal cost perspective, we like to talk about the US$2tn elephant in the room.
Specifically in the US, there's US$2tn in inefficient energy spend. The projects to reduce that are cost negative. They're things your CFO is excited about.
What we really want to do is talk about the benefits of decarbonisation instead of the cost.
What is on people’s minds at this event?
I think there's strangely a cathartic sigh of relief given the postponement of some regulatory disclosure.
It doesn't translate into inaction. It actually translates into those calories going to the areas we're excited about.
I've found that historically, a lot of people have used the buzzword of value creation in a very generic sense.
A lot of our conversations have actually started from the tail end of narratives that used to be measure, disclose, act. We might as well act for a second as we have the opportunity, which I find to be incredible.
Those win stories are the ones that make all the other things worth it. The tone is generally is a lot more optimistic than I think people would perceive.
Why is it important to bring together executives from different areas?
I don't have to tell this audience too much about Scope 3, but supply chains are the behemoth that people are often phobic of when it comes to taking action on carbon.
Outside of that, so often the procurement team is one that's a dollars and cents based team, and they truly make decisions based off of the pragmatic results that they have for their business.
I want that mind melt to happen. I want sustainability leaders to come to this problem with that same thought path.
If this becomes rational and evergreen aligned political oscillations, economic oscillations won't matter. This will just be the pragmatic thing to do.
Bringing those minds together is fantastic.
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