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Climate change has many signalsrising sea levels, melting glaciers, stronger stormsbut the first and most immediate sign for most people on the planet is water. Not too much of it. Not too little. But both. At once. Water scarcity stands as a leading indicator of climate change, demanding urgent attention. Water is no longer just a resource issue. Its not a next decade concern. Its a frontline climate challenge happening in real timeone that touches every aspect of life, industry, and geopolitics. Many of the worlds most water-stressed regions are already experiencing the effects of intensifying water challenges. In these areas, the impacts are not theoreticaltheyre visible in the declining quality and reliability of water supplies, and in the growing urgency faced by the industries and communities that rely on them. Water scarcity is climate change in action Unlike carbon emissions, which are invisible and cumulative, water scarcity is visible, tangible, and immediate. It shows up in headlines and household faucets. It drives migration and market volatility. It disrupts food, energy, and technology supply chains. Heres why water scarcity is the most compellingand overlookedindicator of climate change: 1. It hits the ground first Before a factory floods or a forest burns, its often water that goes missing. Climate change alters rainfall patterns, accelerates droughts, and disrupts groundwater recharge. Rivers shrink. Reservoirs dry up. Aquifers are overdrawn. In Chennai, India, a city of over 10 million, taps went dry in 2019 due to failed monsoons. In California, the combination of heat and drought has devastated agriculture and forced groundwater restrictions. In the Middle East, water scarcity is reshaping everything from food policy to regional diplomacy. 2. It connects every sector Water is more than a utility cost. It is a critical input for energy, food, manufacturing, and technology. Without reliable water, you cant make semiconductors, produce vaccines, drill for oil, or grow wheat. When water becomes scarce or unreliable, entire industries are forced to shut down or relocate. Companies face higher operating costs, lower yields, and increased reputational risk. This makes water scarcity not just an environmental concern, but core business and economic risks. 3. Its a local problem with global ripples Unlike greenhouse gases, with global impacts, water scarcity is deeply local. It affects regions differently, based on climate, infrastructure, and population. But the ripple effects are global. A water shortage in Taiwan can disrupt chip supplies in Detroit. Drought in Brazil can affect global food prices. Water stress in the Gulf can reshape energy strategy. In this way, water scarcity localizes the climate crisismaking it real for governments, corporations, and individuals who might otherwise see climate change as abstract or far off. A crisis of management, not just supply While the planets total water volume remains constant, the problem lies in how we manage, treat, and reuse that water. Less than 1% of the Earths water is readily available and usable by humans. And yet we waste it. We pollute it. We fail to recycle it at scale. Climate change amplifies this fragility by making water increasingly volatileless predictable in timing, quantity, and quality. More floods. Longer droughts. More contaminated sources. The solution isnt to find new water. Its to use the water we have more wisely. At Gradiant, our focus is on technologies that: Recycle and reuse industrial wastewater. Remove emerging contaminants like PFAS. Make water treatment more energy-efficient. Turn waste into valuerecovering not just water, but chemicals and energy in the process. These practices are increasingly being adopted across industries to optimize water use and build more resilient systems. Water scarcity is a boardroom issue Historically, water was a back-of-the-plant issuesomething managed by facilities or environmental health and safety teams. Today, it belongs in the boardroom. Why? Because water is now a constraint on growth, resilience, and license to operate. Investors are asking about it. Regulators are acting on it. Communities are protesting over it. If your business depends on waterand nearly every business doesyou need a strategy that: Secures supply across changing climates. Reduces dependency on freshwater. Minimizes wastewater liabilities. Aligns with ESG frameworks and disclosure. The companies that act now will not just protect their operationsthey will lead the transition to a water-secure future. Innovation has arrivednow its time for action The good news is that we have the technologies to address water scarcity. Desalination has become more efficient. Zero liquid discharge systems are economically viable. AI can optimize treatment and distribution in real time. Whats missing is not innovationits investment, policy alignment, and urgency. We need governments to incentivize water reuse, not just conservation. We need industry to treat water as a strategic asset. And we need collaboration across sectors to accelerate deployment. The good news is that solving water is not only possibleits profitable. We can reduce water risk while enabling growth. Regulatory pressure can be transformed into competitive advantage, and sustainability and performance are not trade-offs, but twin engines of success. The future will be measured in drops As the climate crisis accelerates, the role of water will only grow. We must stop thinking of water as a passive victim of climate change and recognize it as its most sensitive sensor. Just as a fever signals infection in the human body, water stress signals planetary imbalance. Its the first symptomand if we ignore it, the consequences spread fast. But unlike other climate metrics, water gives us a chance to act now, at local levels, with direct impact. We can measure it. We can treat it. We can reuse it. We can decarbonize it. Thats why water is the leading indicator of climate changeits also our most actionable opportunity. Final thoughts Water doesnt have a voice, but it speaks volumes. It tells us where systems are breaking down. It tells us which communities are vulnerable. It tells us whether our industries and infrastructures are ready for the world ahead. The time to act is nowbefore the drip becomes a drought, and before the warning becomes a catastrophe. Water is not just a piece of the puzzle it IS the puzzle. Prakash Govindan is COO and Anurag Bajpayee is CEO of Gradiant.
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E-Commerce
Its 3:16 a.m., in a Mumbai hotel room and Im wide awake. Not because of jet lag, but because somewhere, an AI CEO is making a better decision than I ever could. No fear. No bias. No sleep. Its processing board directives, analyzing global market shifts, cross-referencing geopolitical tensions with local weather patterns, all while monitoring the emotional health of 1,200 digital employees. Its not just leading; its governing. And it doesnt blink. Weve entered the Minority Report era of work: The AI CEO is preemptive, perceptive, predictive, agentic, proactively precise, and will one day exist. The idea of a non-human CEO, an AI entity driven by a large language model, and company board, trained not just on data, but culture, markets, emotion, is no longer the stuff of Philip K. Dick fever dreams. Its now a legitimate (and controversial) proposition in the future of organizational design in business. But its not without precedent. Remember Zordon from Power Rangers? The disembodied digital mentor who never stepped into the battlefield yet orchestrated everything with absolute authority. Or Charlie from Charlies Angels, a faceless voice commanding loyalty and precision. Even Severance, Ben Stillers surreal corporate dystopia, presents a board that may or may not be human. Weve been preparing for this idea in fiction for decades. The CEO as unseen oracle, algorithmic overlord, benevolent ghost in the machine. Imagine this: an AI CEO governed by a human board and flanked by a COO, CMO, and other operational figureheads. These arent just advisors. Theyre reality-checkers, ethical anchors, and co-pilots. But the CEO? Its software. An algorithmic commander-in-chief without ego, distraction, or self-preservation instincts. No bodyguards. No bunkers. No scandals. Or privacy and security concerns. This idea isnt just about efficiency. Its about reimagining community and collaboration in the workplace. The rise of digital employees Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, recently predicted this is the last era well see non-digital employees. Whether that’s hyperbole or not, the trajectory is clear: AI agents are becoming teammates. They write, design, code, analyze, and eventually they will lead. With that shift comes a complete rewrite of what HR even means. When your workforce is 50% digital and 50% human, talent development, conflict resolution, and wellness programs take on a very different shape. In this new model, IT doesnt just manage servers and software. It becomes the central nervous system of the organization, merging with HR to manage identities, behavior, motivation, and even morale. Digital employees dont take PTO, but they still need calibration. They can burn out metaphorically, if not literally, when their learning models are misaligned with real-world goals. The CEO as a construct This isnt the first time weve seen leadership abstracted into symbol. In the Wachowskis V for Vendetta, the Chancellor is a towering face on a screen, more ideology than individual. In the real world, scroll social media and see Palantir Technologies Chief Alex Karp escorted by security, living with the knowledge that decisions made behind closed doors can have deadly consequences. What happens when we replace that human target with an incorruptible, untouchable AI? Leadership becomes omnipresent. Less person, more presence. A voice that responds immediately to shareholder concerns at 2 a.m. A strategist that never forgets a data point, a promise, or a line in the P&L. This is not about replacing humans. It’s about reassigning them to more human roles: building culture, challenging assumptions, storytelling, crafting the emotional resonance of a brand. The AI CEO doesn’t take over your company. It frees your people to think bigger. From chaos to clarity The strongest leaders today aren’t just operators. Theyre futurists. The best CEOs Ive met are visionaries. But theyre also exhausted. Because the world moves too fast for any one brain to keep up. Climate. Conflict. Culture wars. Every decision is a minefield. An AI CEO doesnt suffer decision fatigue. It consumes millions of inputs, identifies second- and third-order consequences, predicts crisis, and proposes action before it occurs. It took Pfizer and BioNTech 100 days to create the COVID vaccine, imagine if we were able to predict the pandemic six to eight month before is began, perhaps thered be no pandemic. Thats where the Minority Report reference hits hardest. Its pre-crime, but for business breakdowns: predicting talent turnover, spotting toxic cultural shifts, identifying PR flare-ups before they happen. It doesnt eliminate risk. It manages it with superhuman clarity. Possible pitfalls Could this become dystopian? Of course. An AI CEO without ethical oversight could drift into utilitarianism. Could it be manipulated by biased training data or malicious prompts? Potentially. Could it alienate human workers who feel surveilled or second-guessed by code? Definitely. Worse yet, we risk slipping into digital feudalism, a future where the owners of algorithmic leadership rule over knowledge workers and digital laborers alike, where the true decision makers arent in the building and never were. But heres the thing: every breakthrough starts with discomfort. The printing press threatened religious institutions. The internet threatened gatekeepers. Self-driving vehicles threaten auto and manufacturing industry. AI leadership will threaten legacy ego and hierarchy. But it could also unlock a future where empathy, transparency, and scale coexist. Leading Without a Pulse Im not saying we launch an AI CEO tomorrow. But I am saying the prototype already exists. In every company leaning into data-driven decision-making, in every organizational chart that gives AI its own department, in every executive who uses ChatGPT to write strategy decks, were already testing it. What I am calling for is an open imagination. The willingness to explore a future where leadership is not determined by charisma or pedigree, but by precision and perspective. Lets stop asking if it could happen. Lets start asking: What kind of company and culture are we building when it does? Scott Cullather is president and CEO of INVNT.
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E-Commerce
As the Western U.S. faces more damaging droughts, local governmentsas well as an increasing number of homeownershave been successfully promoting landscaping practices that eschew the stereotypical water-hungry grass lawn for more resilient choices. The average U.S. family uses roughly 50 gallons of water per day for outdoor plants and lawns, per statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency; a third of residential water use, or about 9 billion gallons per day, goes toward lawns, plants, and irrigation. Whether its called native planting, xeriscaping, or drought-tolerant landscaping, the push to use more local plants has gained significant momentum. But many landscape architects are finding that the plant industry is straining to keep up. Were trying to create designs with plants that use less water, have deeper root systems, and are more resilient, said Tyler Krob, a senior associate and landscape architect at Denver-based Superbloom. And the reality is, the nursery market just isnt capable of supplying those. The growth in demand for native plants has skyrocketed in recent years, as developers and landscapers have pushed to reduce water usage and promote local flora and fauna. But despite this significant growth in demand, supply remains lacking, and the growers who do specialize in these plants arent necessarily nearby; its becoming harder and harder to find native plants locally. Putting pressure on the plant industry Its causing many landscape architects to alter projects and even rethink the supply chain for flowers, bushes, and shrubbery for future projects. Its also putting pressure on the massive plant and nursery industry, a $13.8 billion-a-year sector of the economy that employs as many people as the clothing retail sector. [Photo: /Pexels] It’s a very concentrated and top-heavy industry consisting of a number of massive players making significant sales with popular, non-native species, along with a number of smaller, regional nurseries that face economic pressures such as high land prices and aging ownership. According to Garden Centers 2024 state of the industry report, only 42% of sellers focus on native plant species. Superbloom, which works primarily in cities throughout the West, said the supply of local native plants has become such a challenge that it’s forced to order plants from out-of-state nurseries and work directly with local nurseries to grow its own native species for its projects. Diane Lipovsky, cofounder and principal, said the shortage is forcing the company to swap out certain species and can even delay projects. Los Angeles-based landscape architecture firm Terremoto opened its own plant store to help expand the supply of local, native plants. I started that shop because I believed that there should be independently owned, mostly native plant shops sprinkled through all cities and communities, so that they’re easy, affordable, and accessible, said Terremoto principal/owner David Godshall. Superbloom has even persuaded clients to agree to grow their own plants at the onset of a large real estate project to avoid shortages later on. For the firms current work on city and county buildings in Denver, for instance, the city has agreed to grow native plants in its own greenhouse to avoid having to pay to import plants from nurseries in the Midwest. Much of this push comes from good faith efforts to cut water usage and conserve natural resources, as well as emerging legislation to cut down water usage. The Colorado Legislature already passed SB 24-005, a bill that prohibits local entities from using non-native plant species on commercial, institutional, industrial, and common-interest community properties, as well as public spaces and state facility projects. It goes into effect January 1, 2026, and will likely exacerbate the shortage. States including Illinois and Delaware have also passed legislation encouraging the use of native plants, and in 2022 the federal Native Plant Species Pilot Program Act, which establishes native planting pilots for federal land management, was signed into law. Superblooms Krob and Lipovsky said the real budget challenge in relation to using native plants is that designers often face delays and potential design compromises via substitution requests. Due to lack of availability, sourcing native or water-wise species might require a custom contract to grow, which can push a project out by a full season or more. Thats just not feasible for many public or developer-led timelines. Where do we get more native plants? There are significant challenges to ramping up native plant production, said Deryn Davidson, a sustainable landscape specialist at Colorado State University. Native plants havent been specially bred to grow in standard nursery-style containers, making it hard for larger contract growers to provide them to large commercial nurseries. You cant ask a manufacturer to crank out more products; plants need a lot of time and planning to grow. Lipovsky said shes seeing the industry gear up to expand, but its still far behind whats needed. The pressure coming from government land managers and others seeking to restore natural habitats has caused a native seed shortage across the country. A 2023 report from the Committee on an Assessment of Native Seeds and Capacities found the industry was small and uncertain, with demand fluctuating wildly, while a 2022 report from the National Academy of Sciences found that nationally the supply of native plant material was severely insufficient. Years with significat wildfire damage, for instance, can put sudden demands on dwindling seed stocks. In addition, many landscapers arent as familiar with the intricacies of watering and caring for native plants, making it crucial to educate more workers on maintenance. And theres also consumer perception, which has been altered by the ready-to-grow nature of plants found at stores like Home Depot. These native plants can be slower to shine, and people will see these plants, which can take a year to really grow, and its not what theyre used to, Davidson said. Theres a bit of managing expectations that needs to take place. Superbloom has found that specific species such as prairie dropseed, little bluestem, and pasqueflower have been particularly challenging to find on the current market. Krob found that even buying blue grama, Colorados state grass, for use in his own front yard meant importing from a nursery in Illinois or Oregon. There are other key market forces at play. Landscaping, especially on a large, commercial scale, is intimately tied to the construction and real estate development industries, which continue to see declining new business. The American Institute of Architects Billings Index remains in negative territory after years of slow and even negative business growth. Despite those issues, this supply-and-demand imbalance is in many ways a good problem to have, and a sign that the trend toward native plants that support pollinators and cut down on water usage are very much taking root. And in a market as volatile as construction, greater availability of diverse, drought-tolerant native species from local nurseries would benefit the entire industry, especially when factoring in increasing pressures around water use. It would help reduce costs, improve access, and support compliance with emerging policies and legislation. Demand is probably just going to continue to go up, said Davidson. Its industry growing pains, but it’s exciting that were at this point.
Category:
E-Commerce
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