4 important things Jack Ma said about the climate problem

In case you hadn’t heard, our environment here on planet earth is kind of a disaster. Global temperatures are rising at rates that fall somewhere on the spectrum between “concerning” and “terrifying.” Many of Asia’s most populous cities are full of smog, millions of species have died out or are currently in the process of doing that, etc. It’s a serious problem.

And it was just that problem that American President Barack Obama put to Alibaba founder Jack Ma at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Manila. On a panel that also featured Filipina entrepreneur Aisa Mijeno, Ma got a chance to talk about the way he views the environmental issues facing us and how they should be solved. Here’s what he said:

“It’s not a passion, it’s a concern and worry.”

That was Jack Ma’s response to President Obama’s first question, which concerned pollution climate change. Ma said the issue was personal for him: “When I was 12 years old, I went to swim in a lake, and I almost died in that lake because the water was too deep […] But five years ago I went to that lake again and the whole lake was dry.”

Ma said he was also concerned about cancer-causing pollutants, and pointed out that a healthy environment is important for everyone – it doesn’t matter how much money you have if you have to spend your life in a hospital. If the environment is destroyed, that’ll be the end of all businesses, no matter how big and successful they are. Alibaba, Ma said, has committed 0.3 percent of its revenue to “encouraging young people to find creative ways of solving the problem.”

“It’s too late to complain about whose fault it is.”

Ma says that China’s business leaders are mostly on the same page when it comes to environmental concerns: it’s a serious problem. Anyone who’s breathed the air in Beijing knows that. But he stressed that now is the time to work on solving these problems, rather than debate about who caused them.

Scientists, business leaders, the government, and the media need to work together to solve the issue, Ma said. “We have to join together,” he stressed. But that should be seen as a good thing, because…

“The opportunity always lies in the place where people worry.”

Ma says he’s interested in solving the problems people are really worried about. That, he says, is where the opportunity is. “If you solve the ‘worry’ problem, that’s the greatest opportunity you’ll have,” said Ma.

So although Jack definitely seems climate change as a serious concern, to him that also means it’s a serious opportunity for businesses.

Innovation is always outside of [big companies].”

Ma told President Obama that he sees his company as a force that can empower others. Directly, of course, it does this by giving small businesses a platform to sell on. But Ma also characterized his company’s investments as part of this goal. When a company gets as big as Alibaba, he said, it’s inevitable that a lot of the really cool innovation is going to be happening outside of the company, at little startups here or there with good ideas. So what should the big company do?

“When we see [meaningful and promising startups], we’re excited, we put money into them, we use our technology [to help them],” Ma said. “And we also promote them on our platform if they’re environmentally friendly.”