I’m not ageist, but…
Last week I had a very pleasant coffee and chat with a senior executive with a strong interest in Sustainability. He mentioned in passing that he found employees under the age of 40 tended to come with Sustainability pre-programmed into their outlook, those older than 50 tended to…, er, let’s say need a bit more persuading. I’ve come across similar anecdotal evidence before, so, when I got back to the ranch, I did a bit of googling for some statistics on the subject.
The published evidence appears to back the anecdotes. Here’s just one example of what I found, an interesting analysis of US voters by Gallup:
That’s quite a distinctive gap in attitudes – although if 30% of under 29s are not concerned about climate change, it’s certainly not a case of ‘job done’. But as key decision makers in larger organisations tend to be middle-aged, it is clear that, if roughly half of that age group are sceptical, our best engagement efforts are still required unlock progress.
The good news is that it should get easier!