Good morning. From searing heat waves to regulatory rollbacks, sustainability is a tough topic for global leaders. When asked, every CEO I talk to says that climate change is real. They acknowledge the need to address the societal and climate impacts of AI, draw on diverse pools of talent, build resilient supply chains, pay attractive wages and seek a higher purpose than just generating profits. Many don’t want to talk about it, and may be quietly relieved that the SEC has proposed rescinding 2024 climate-related disclosure rules as “overly burdensome” for companies.
But CEOs should pay attention to the conversations and research coming out at the Aspen Business & Society Summit this week. Many of the attendees here are leading sustainability efforts inside America’s largest companies, trying to tackle tough problems like climate change, income inequality, and the impact of AI. They are reframing their mission from moral imperatives to business imperatives like resilience, risk, recruitment and reinvention. Conversations here last year resulted in a shared effort among more than 20 attendees to create a framework for demonstrating the value of sustainability investments that was just published in HBR. A key takeaway: CSOs and CEOs need to speak the same language. Shift the sustainability conversation from compliance and carbon targets to capital allocation and cash flow, building a business case around cost, risk, revenue targets and potential profits.
Because the conversations here are under the Chatham House rule, I can share this year’s takeaways but not quotes or names. While there’s deep concern over how the AI era is unfolding —dominated by a few tech players who are amassing great wealth and able to donate vast sums to politicians who keep regulation light—several attendees told me they feel less panicked about the outcomes for workers amid efforts to redesign jobs and reskill people. As with geopolitics, they’re getting used to navigating a new reality, more pragmatic than optimistic. Some said greenhushing and other efforts to downplay sustainability have left them with less agency, budget or buy-in from C-suite colleagues to get things done. Few report directly to the CEO.
That said, I also saw signs of action. I spoke with several board directors who are seeking to understand and ask more questions about corporate AI strategies. I landed in Aspen to the scent of smoke from the seventh-largest fire in Colorado history, burning 160 miles away, and headed to rooms where I heard about investments in clean energy, circular supply chains and creative uses of AI or other tech to address climate change. (McKinsey notes that climate planning has prioritized flooding even as heat demands as much attention.) And nobody can ignore the breakdown in trust. Leaders see Gen Z’s pessimism about their future, Millennials’ desire to work for companies that share their values, and consumers’ demand for authenticity and proof that a company is walking the walk. If they don’t buy it, they won’t buy the products. Money talks.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
Labor force participation hits a record low
U.S. labor force participation fell to 61.5% in June, the lowest outside the pandemic since 1976, as 720,000 people left the workforce in a single month. Economists say the bigger story is structural: retiring baby boomers and declining immigration are projected to shrink the workforce by 5.9 million by 2032, regardless of what AI does.
Amazon’s disappointing bond sale
Amazon had to offer extra yield to get its surprise $25 billion bond sale done this Tuesday, with orders coming in at just 2.5 times the amount on offer, down from 3.2 times in March. Bank of America called it the weakest performance for any hyperscaler since Meta’s $30 billion sale last October, a warning sign that markets may be struggling to absorb the AI debt load.z
The ‘craziest IPO in the history of man’
Famed investor Jeremy Grantham told The Long View podcast that SpaceX’s prospectus will be quoted for laughs in 50 years. He added it would be “amazing” if the company doesn’t collapse, since delivering on its promises would require AI advances so vast that “our entire lives are totally different.”
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 0.25% this morning. The last session closed down 0.28%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.38% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.58% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.38%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 0.62%. China’s CSI 300 was up 2.54%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.70%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.67%. Bitcoin was up to $63K.
Around the watercooler
Kevin Warsh buried an unusual, unhedged promise in his first Fed minutes—and one economist says it’s the strongest signal in the document by Catherina Gioino
Bezos’s Blue Origin is raising outside capital for the first time to compete for NASA contracts as rival SpaceX’s stock falters by Mia Osmonbekov
Cathie Wood just bought the SpaceX dip again—and dumped Alibaba to do it by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
The billionaires’ ‘summer camp’ that media moguls built is now run by the tech titans trying to replace them by Sydney Lake
Mining CEO worth $24 billion nearly drowned and had to break his own leg in a freak hiking accident—he used the recovery time to go back to school by Eleanor Pringle
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.
