The sustainability train has left the station. We have a climate agreement, with or without America, and the biggest polluters around the world have realized that they need to act NOW rather than just make more political noise. We’ve reached a tipping point, and it’s a question of time more than anything.

It must be now that we take climate change seriously. It’s real and we must act immediately. If governments won’t lead, then business needs to.

Solving climate change is probably the largest business opportunity of our century. We must now ensure that nobody is left behind, and particularly people from less privileged areas see the direct benefit – so we can win them all over for the transition to a zero-carbon economy.

We have to transform businesses, and they have to provide solutions to some of the environmental issues that they have created, and to help societies and communities according to the Sustainable Development Goals to bring people out of extreme poverty. Businesses need to solve environmental problems, and this can only happen if they become part of the solution rather than continue to be the problem.

It must be now that we all take the time to witness firsthand the devastation that has already and is currently taking place in destinations and communities that don’t affect us personally. While that is often a difficult, sad experience, we learn the most from personal interactions and need to be storytellers on these communities’ behalf to ensure they cannot be ignored or forgotten.

We must stop living in the past and instead challenge all the crazy habits we have manifested that have adverse effects on the planet.