A crisis like the one the world is at the moment changes political, economic and business thinking. Long-strategy understandably gives way to survival thinking…. “How can we get through this?”

So, longer (but not that long) issues such as climate change become very much a ‘future nice-to-consider’ rather than an impending issue.

Individual firms (and especially small firms) just have to do what they need to survive the next few months (perhaps, unfortunately, the next few years) and short-term cost savings are more important than considered and balanced thinking.

However, governments have a responsibility to think in the longer-term.  They need to be thinking NOW about the measures they need to take to raise productivity and innovation after the pandemic to raise the revenue to pay off the loans they have taken to pay for their current palliative measures.