Meet the Speakers: Debbie O’Byrne

Debbie O'Byrne | Author, Speaker, Future Thinker, Co-Founder of Planet Price

Session: Day 1 | Measuring What Matters: Tools for Purpose & Planet

How would you describe your relationship to purpose?

Purpose drives everything I do and more importantly what I won't do.

For those who don't know your organisation, can you give us the elevator pitch?

Planet Price aims to quantify the impacts of business activities across all 9 planetary boundaries, making sense of the spaghetti soup of sustainability metrics and putting them into a metric the market is familiar with and understands - pricing (the externalities that business create but don't currently pay for). It's a very good indicator of where not just future risk but future value can lie.

What’s the biggest purpose/sustainability myth that needs busting?

You can't have endless growth on a finite planet (and that includes narratives around green growth).

If you could sit down with one global leader to discuss the state of the world, who would it be and why?

Xi Jinping. If any nation had the scale and history to lead the planet toward sustainability, it was China. Instead, it surrendered to the Western capitalist fallacy of infinite growth on a finite planet, becoming the world’s factory floor at the cost of environment and people. Now it's the engine of the consumption machine, pumping out emissions, cheap goods. They are a very proud people and I'd be keen to chat to him about a different legacy for China.

What is Aotearoa's purpose/sustainability superpower?

Its deep indigenous wisdom and the concept of Mokopuna or decision-making.

What is a purpose/sustainability trend/word you love or hate right now?

Hate - compliance reporting.

Love - the growing interest in bioregionning.

You're speaking at The Value of Purpose in May. Can you give us a sneak peek of what you'll be talking about?

Metrics matter. I'll be sharing a tool we've developed that enables analysis of new projects at the design stage across key planetary boundary and lifecycle stages - and sharing a case study of how we're doing that with one of our clients.

What are you most excited about for this conference?

Hearing what cool stuff others are up to that I can learn from and give me hope in these chaotic times.