Thrive – My word for 2022

The word ‘thrive’ gained a new meaning for me when I was reading Bill Gates’ latest book. He uses it to explain how climate change will progressively start to affect our lives. As our planet warms, even with the use of new technology and innovation of house building, the heat and the effect on our climate will begin to make it more and more difficult for the human race to thrive as we do today. I want my son to be able to thrive in the future, as my generation has. This has put me in mind, as it should all of us, of what I can personally do to help reverse or reduce the harm we have done to the planet.

It also made me realize that we all want to thrive: hardly anyone we ask would say they don’t. We all too often use the word ’growth’: we need to ‘grow’ our economy, we need to ‘grow’ our tax base, we need to ‘grow’ our communities. As soon as you use the growth adjective, the barriers are raised, as nobody who moved into a community wants to see it grow out of the vision they originally bought into. Yet if their pubs, shops, woodlands, parks, schools, libraries, and health services cannot thrive, they will become hollow communities that nobody wants to live in.

So, in 2022, I want to campaign for us to ‘thrive’. If Cratus thrives, our clients can enjoy the best work from our employees, who are encouraged to thrive in health and professional development, and also invest in their own lifestyles to get the best out of themselves. We want to help communities thrive, so they can be economically sustainable and keep the services and amenities that they enjoy, which is an increasing challenge, albeit an achievable one.

Cratus has new things to focus on in 2022. We have new ambitions and new team members joining us to enhance our work and give more support to our clients and each other. My team continues to amaze and delight me as they deliver excellent support to our clients, which in turn enables our clients to make a difference to our local world.

I think that 2022 will be no less challenging than last year. New challenges will push us and shape us, but we remain determined to do more in respect to climate change, seek to be better than ever at what we do, and promote the idea that we all want to thrive in every aspect of our lives, working together to make our own local worlds better for everyone.

I wish you all a happy 2022, a year where we can all Thrive!