Lessons from the Road: Media and transportation sector in the green transition

Has the media sector anything to learn from the transportation sector? I certainly believe so.. The other day I met with Jennie Cato, Head of Global Public Affairs and Partnership at Scania, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of heavy lorries trucks and buses. When she told me about their sustainability challenges it struck me how similar they are to ours.

“ We’re actually doing the largest transition since horse and carriage changed to combustion engine. We’re now going from combustion engine to electric drivelines”, says Jennie.

She tells how Scania has put the whole company at stake in this transition, making themselves dependent on brave politicians and long-term incentives and a policy environment that enables them to carry out this change.

“We, the industry, are driving the whole transition and dragging the politicians behind us. We are lacking an enabling environment where we can step up and do this transition fast enough.”

The situation seems very familiar. We, the media, are also dependent on brave politicians that can create an enabling environment. And to manage the digital disruption we need to put our companies at stake. Those who sit still and continue business as usual will not survive. We all need to act and find new ways of doing business and at the same time take the lead in the green transition.