- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady gauges CEOs’ reaction to Trump’s rollback of a bedrock scientific finding that underpins climate regulation.
- The big leadership story: Ford CEO Jim Farley continues the automaker’s EV pivot.
- The markets: Mostly down as another AI scare trade triggered a selloff on Thursday.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. Here’s a secret: Most CEOs believe climate change is real. They need to deal with it to stay profitable, create resilient operations, and remain relevant to their customers and employees. Texas leads the country in the production of both fossil fuels and renewable energy, in part because everyone knows the state’s power grid needs all the help it can get. Every time there’s a development that could reverse corporate action on climate change, from the Supreme Court’s 2024 reversal of the Chevron doctrine to the U.S. Department of Energy’s stunning report last year that downplayed global warming, I check in with leaders to see if they’re changing their strategy. The answer is they’re not.
That fact was reinforced yesterday when I called around for reaction to the Trump administration’s termination of the 2009 “endangerment” finding that gives the Environmental Protection Agency a legal duty to regulate six greenhouse gases that threaten human health. “This is a pattern we’ve seen swing back and forth in Washington,” one manufacturing leader told me. “We can’t plan around election cycles.”
This person and others did express concern that a Supreme Court challenge could permanently damage the EPA, creating an uneven playing field while reducing incentives to curb greenhouse gases at a critical time for the planet. Energy reporter Jordan Blum noted that it could extend the lives of existing coal plants but also found the overall impact on business is likely to be limited. What’s different is that, in this political climate, a lot of leaders don’t want to talk on the record about what they’re doing.
So let’s hear from Saleh ElHattab, the CEO of Gravity, a software platform that helps companies measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions while cutting energy costs. Business is booming for reasons other than regulation. “Industrial buyers have the most razor-thin margins in the world,” he told me yesterday. “If you have an HVAC system that can be optimized, or we’ve detected some antiquated assets or opportunities for financing to get something that’s 90% more energy efficient, that’s good for business.”
A growing number of states and local governments also regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. But a lot of the action is also coming from the private sector. Large players like Apple, Walmart and Amazon have taken the lead in pushing vendors to disclose their own carbon footprints, which has created self-reinforcing ecosystems that aren’t about to unwind. Companies also routinely disclose their carbon emissions because of investor pressure, consumer demand and initiatives like the Carbon Disclosure Project.
And now there’s AI. While there’s legitimate concern about the energy needs and impact of data centers, AI can also be a catalyst in reducing pollutants. I recently spoke with Samsara CEO Sanjit Biswas, whose platform helps customers run their fleets, factories and other physical operations more sustainably by connecting hardware in the field to the cloud. “Many execs don’t know what’s possible,” Biswas told me, noting that digitized operations mean even small changes can cascade to make a significant dent in emissions, safety and the bottom line. “It’s becoming table stakes.”
Amid the blows to science and regulation—and there have been many—the business case for sustainability remains strong.
CEO Daily is off on Monday for Presidents’ Day. We’ll be back in your inboxes on Tuesday.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
Ford pivots from expensive EVs
During Ford’s earnings call this week, CEO Jim Farley announced a $4.8 billion operating loss, with more to come this year, on the company’s Model E electric vehicle unit after federal tax credits for buying EVs were repealed. The company is now pivoting to significantly cheaper EVs, which Farley says “have continued to thrive in America.”
How the CEO of Capgemini views AI
In his latest Letter from London, Europe Executive Editorial Director Kamal Ahmed spoke with Capgemini CEO Aidan Ezzat about what CEOs get wrong about AI, starting with setting their sights too low. “It’s really about transforming the business. It cannot just be used to keep the house running,” he said, emphasizing the need to focus more on those who use it. "The agent can trust the human, but the human doesn’t really trust the agent.”
Marriott CEO: Americans are prioritizing travel
Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano told Yahoo! Finance that Americans have undergone “a fundamentally permanent shift” to prioritizing travel spending over buying physical goods. “We continue to see extraordinary demand for travel and experiences,” Capuano said, even among lower-income consumers who are being squeezed by a K-shaped economy.
The markets
S&P 500 futures were down 0.05% this morning. The last session closed down 1.57%. STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.04% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.09% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.21%. China’s CSI 300 was down 1.25%. The South Korea KOSPI was down 0.28%. India’s NIFTY 50 was down 1.30%. Bitcoin sunk to $67K.
Around the watercooler
Instagram boss reveals he’s paid $900K per year plus stock worth ‘tens of millions of dollars’ as he denies ‘addiction’ claims by Jacqueline Munis
One of Wall Street’s most feared hedge fund managers on the decline of the dollar: Gold is ‘becoming the reserve asset’ by Jake Angelo
OpenClaw is the bad boy of AI agents. Here’s why security experts say you should beware by Sharon Goldman
The affordability crisis is driving unprecedented price cuts in the housing market, Realtor.com says by Sydney Lake
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams, Claire Zillman and Lee Clifford.
