Marielle Remillard

Do we have what it takes to reach net zero?

I don't mean this in a philosophical way.

Does humanity have sufficient grit and creativity?

Do we have the political will?

I mean, quite literally, do we have enough stuff, cement, steel, glass, nuts, bolts, needed to achieve net zero?

because this is no small undertaking.

Over the next 30 years, we're going to need to build 42 billion solar panels, 1.3 million wind turbines, 476 nuclear reactors, establish a hydrogen economy, overhaul our electrical grid and transform our transportation networks.

This is a lot of money and a lot of labor, yes, but it's also just a lot of stuff.

So as governments set increasingly ambitious policy targets and businesses overhaul their operations, whether by carrots or sticks, we can't forget a fundamental question.

Is it even feasible?

I've been working on climate and sustainability topics my entire career.

I started as a policy advocate and activist, lobbying for stronger policy interventions, and later as a scientist and an engineer, only to come to the conclusion that those industries, while very important, move so slowly.

I'm not a very patient person, and climate change demands urgent action.

So I made my switch to the business sector, where we have both the resources and the agility to affect climate change on the necessary timescales.

Among the highlights of my career has been working at the BCG Henderson Institute, BCG's think tank.

There, our research team studies how to increase the speed and scale of the energy transition by looking at the transition economy as a system.

Underpinning our research is this idea that it's not just one sector that's going to need to transform,

but all of them.

You know, it's not just wind or automotive industries.

These sectors are transforming in parallel, and we need to look at this holistically.