Is the true barrier to net-zero psychological rather than financial?

US$275 trillion. That is the bill for the physical asset requirement for the planet to reach net-zero by 2050, as predicted by the McKinsey Institute. To try and put it into perspective, in 2020, the total global assets were worth $1,540 trillion.

That means that it will take 18% of all the money in the world in 2020 for us to reach net zero by 2050.

Of course, this cost will be shared across almost 2 decades, costing an estimated US$9.2 trillion per year on average, but it depicts the cost of this necessary transition to a sustainable future.

Green technologies: who is going to pay for it?

During my time at university, this financial barrier seemed the most problematic for the environmental transition. The ‘green’ technologies always came at a higher price, and the disparity in price came with the accompanying question ‘who’s going to pay for it?’

In a recent Re:Cast episode, I was fortunate enough to quiz Debbie Hobbs, Group Director of Sustainable Business at ISG, about the net-zero transition in the built environment. During our conversation, Debbie shared an anecdote from her previous work that stuck with me. She said that she had been able to reduce the energy consumption of a multi-tenanted office building from 250kWh/m2 to 100kWh/m2 without spending any more money than was planned in the ongoing maintenance.