Provocations, Thoughts and Big Ideas Archives

28th November 2018

Sustainable business culture – how do you nurture it?

Any change in organisational priority implies a change in organisational approach and capacity. Successful sustainability must be approached as a change issue, in the norms, values systems and structures of an organisation as much as the specific ambition, goals and performance commitments of a sustainability strategy.

31st October 2018

UK Budget 2018 – any finance for a sustainable future?

The budget indicates the government’s funding priorities. We cut through the noise and look at what’s important for the environment and sustainability.

28th September 2018

Sustainable Business: cost or value?

Why you should look at sustainable business as a source of business value rather than a simply a cost of business.

29th June 2018

Cost or value? Why is sustainability strategically undervalued?

The business case for sustainability is (shockingly) still either not recognised strategically (i.e. it is understood as an additive factor for operational efficiency or marketing/PR but not as a strategic value creation/destruction factor), or in many cases it is little understood at all.

25th May 2018

Act now for sustainability! Should companies be activists?

Sustainability is a transformative agenda. It requires companies to not only develop new priorities, but also to become corporate activists – to act to affect the wider system within which they operate.

30th April 2018

Sustainability Managers: key challenges to best practice

Sustainability management has in many ways entered the mainstream, but practitioners are often hampered by resistance, apathy and misunderstanding. There are many examples of excellence in specific areas, but few companies are pursuing a transformative agenda at significant scale.

28th March 2018

Mind the massive (gender pay) gap!

All UK companies with more than 250 staff must report their gender pay gap by 4th April 2018. The relatively small proportion who have reported are revealing a hugely asymmetric gender pay gap.

28th February 2018

The sustainability of profit – stop looking back

Why isn’t profit useful for measuring sustainability, or even for telling us much about economic viability? Because profit is a lagging indicator and sustainability is inherently about long-termism. Assessing and delivering sustainability requires forward-looking indicators.

31st January 2018

Sustainable Finance – workshop report

In September 2017, we ran a Towards 9 Billion workshop on sustainable finance, to explore how the finance sector could build a sustainable future. To get the workshop report contact us.

23rd November 2017

Autumn Budget 2017 – funding a sustainable future?

What did the 2017 budget mean for sustainability? A concise overview of what it means.

31st October 2017

Decoupling Population and Consumption

Population growth is routinely blamed for many sustainability issues – this video explodes the myth

27th September 2017

How might the financial system build a sustainable future?

A sustainable financial system requires both rethinking the very nature of value, as well as creativity in how we would project that value over time.

31st August 2017

Population & consumption: where’s the problem?

Alongside the challenges to sustainability we already face, there is growing concern about how these might accelerate in the future. One key issue is population growth and its impacts, but should the scale of humanity be seen as a threat or as an opportunity?

31st July 2017

Build a sustainable business – on strategic resilience

VIDEO – Building strategic resilience through sustainable business practice starts with understanding the risks and dependencies of the business within the context of a changing world.

30th June 2017

Sustainability context – exploring and managing in a complex world

Sustainability is a strategic issue but might require a longer-term perspective than is normally taken. How can you navigate your sustainability context?

25th May 2017

Something stinks here – why is there a die in diesel?

Diesel air pollution contributes to 40,000 annual deaths in the UK. Weak regulation and ‘cheating’ have contributed towards a health crisis that affects us all.

26th April 2017

Sustainable energy systems – what are they and how do we achieve them?

Effort is going into into exploring how we might develop sustainable energy systems – what are the issues and dimensions to consider?

31st March 2017

It’s the end of the world…but I don’t care

All that environmentalists are trying to do is ensure that the value that we get from the planet is reflected in the priorities and decisions that are made by politicians, economics and markets, so that we might continue to have freedom of choice. Even if the choice of some of us is to treat the planet with disdain or ignorance.

27th February 2017

Sustainability & freedom: the politics of existence

Associating sustainability with a political viewpoint is an eternally frustrating issue that threatens our chances of achieving a sustainable future, why is it so common?

15th November 2016

Air pollution matters. Why shoot ourselves in the lung?

Earlier this month law firm Client Earth won its air pollution case against the UK Government in the High Court over illegal levels of air quality across the country. So why is it that a law firm has stepped in to achieve something that would appear to be in everyone’s best interest?