“No great change happens when people just analyse information. It happens when people decide what they want, within the realm of the plausible, and then start taking concrete action to deal with it. If we just take the world as it is and assume that we have to adjust to it or adapt to it, then we end up with a very impoverished set of solutions.” — Aaron Maniam
It is said that business leaders need to hold three time horizons in mind:
immediate, medium and long term. But in the face of looming and momentous
climate, biodiversity and social challenges, this traditional approach is now
not enough. Today’s business leaders will need even greater mental agility to
hold three vital perspectives.
The first is energising alarm at the need to do more — to set ambitious,
visionary goals that meet the scale of these complex challenges. The second is
to drive delivery pathways that avoid silos, and instead work with the
synergy between different goals. The third need is a positive embrace of just
how much we need to change — for the better — despite the turbulence it
implies.
After 25 years of sustainability, we’re not where we need to be
In our latest Future of Sustainability campaign,
Forum for the Future has been looking back at the last 25 years of
sustainability to frame what we need to go forward. We’ve engaged long-standing
members of the movement, but also newcomers challenging the status quo. Two
months since engaging these wide-ranging voices and gathering unique insights,
we’re sadly concluding that, so far, we have fallen
short
on all three of these needs.
For sure, many businesses are “stepping up.” But if we measure performance by
what went before, or by comparison to peers, we generate a warm feeling but a
burnt-out planet. As climate scientist Johan
Rockstrom
told us:
“The question is not whether we’ll be able to decarbonise the world economy, and come back within a safe operating space. The question is only will we do it in time? Will we be too late?”
The philosophy of science-based
targets
(SBTs) is a welcome shift to benchmark ‘what is needed’ rather than ‘what is
better than before’; but it is not problem-free, as SBTs assume everyone else
will adopt their ‘fair share.’ Given they won’t, we cannot keep warming under
1.5°C unless ‘leaders’ exceed their SBTs and move faster than the current SBTi
approval process. Even meeting SBTs only gives us a percentage chance of staying
within 1.5°C or even 2°C of warming.
At Forum, we have therefore set our sights well beyond SBTs: What we need to aim
for is not the current system with less carbon, but a future that is just and
regenerative
— one that truly builds the capacity of living systems to thrive.
3 principles for transformative business leadership
1. Push your ambition and vision
It’s clear that getting an ‘A’ for effort is not enough. As bleak news of
tipping points, extinctions and oppression continue, leaders need to retain
their capacity to be truly shocked, but turn this alarm into energy, vision and
mobilisation.
2. Avoid silos
Just in the past week, I’ve seen several lovely diagrams of sustainability
strategies from leading companies. Climate on the left, human rights on the
right, a bit of nature in the middle pillar. Pillars help with establishing
targets and accountability, but they are dangerous for three reasons:
-
We are missing synergistic opportunities to solve for climate, people and
nature at the same time. For example, once we recognise climate as a
health
crisis,
multiple solutions open up that solve for both — around clean air, mobility,
nutrition
and mental
health.
-
If we address the net-zero transition without addressing inequality, we
will have wasted the greatest opportunity to reset our economy and will fail
in the face of avoidable suffering and warranted opposition. In Demystifying the ‘just transition’,
Forum's Associate Director for India, Anna Biswas, outlines how the rush
for renewable energy in India is cutting corners on social standards. If the
industry is to thrive as part of our sustainable future, it needs solid
foundations from now.
-
Interconnections are reality. It’s time to stop thinking in linear
causality and discovering ‘unexpected’ consequences. This is the route to
‘fixes that fail’ as
Duncan Austin has so
pungently illustrated.
Fortunately, there are some clear opportunities to drive integrated
solutions.
Food is a great example. At 30 percent of GHG emissions (and rising), the way we
produce, distribute and eat has to
transform.
It’s already clear that it
can
— but on our current trajectory might
not
— be done in ways that enable food producers to diversify livelihoods and best
use their wisdom in managing their land, forests and coast. Regenerative
agriculture is already proving a strategy for soil health as well as for
farmer livelihoods from the United
States
to
India.
An urgent challenge is to explore how this food transition can
be affordable
for those who are facing malnutrition and food poverty.
Nestlé
is looking at how to manage development costs affecting affordability of
alternative proteins, EIT
Food
involves low-income women in innovation, and
Hubbub
found that community fridges unlock a dynamic shift in food cooking, sharing and
eating.
3. Embrace turbulence and huge change
Convention says that investors and businesses dislike risk and uncertainty.
But the successful leader in sustainability has to embrace just how much change
is
coming
and, to be frank, how much change we need to create a better future. John
Elkington
of Volans describes this eloquently as ‘decomposition’: "There is a sense that there is something deeply broken in the current system, and therefore it’s only a matter of time before it decomposes in front of our eyes."
I hope today’s
leaders share John’s emotional reaction: "As the system starts to break up
around us, we have to ask ‘now what’? What are we now trying to build? I find
that both exciting and terrifying probably in equal measure."
Rockstom calls out what he sees:
“World leaders have understood that we have a problem; but at the same time still think that somehow we can muddle through along incremental, linear pathways that don’t in any way rock the boat of our current wealth-creation models.”
The current economic system is a creation, not a given. Alternative models tend
to exist in the margins, but
there
are several today
that challenge economic assumptions
head-on;
and my question is: Which of these will hit the mainstream?
Turbulence is scary, but our first two perspectives will actually help with
this. Shocks are inevitable; but as we regenerate the capacity of systems to
adapt and thrive, we build resilience. Forum’s Compass for Just and
Regenerative
Business
looks at how to reset the guiding star and look for synergy by asking questions
such as:
Within our grasp
To create a better future, we must first imagine it, and believe that it is
possible. While 25 years of sustainability have not got us where we need to be,
there has been undeniable progress that should give us all hope. Humans are
capable of amazing innovation; and our goal must now be nothing short of a just
and regenerative future. It’s within our grasp — and embracing these three vital
perspectives will help us seize it.
Find out more about the Future of Sustainability: Looking Back to Go Forward.
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Director of Global System Change Programmes
Forum for the Future
Caroline Ashley is Forum for the Future’s Director of Global System Change Programmes, focused on accelerating the transition to a just and sustainable future. Straddling Europe, US, South Asia and APAC offices, Forum’s programmes catalyse system change to make food systems and value chains sustainable, and limit global heating within 1.5°C.
Published Feb 10, 2022 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET