Provocations, Thoughts and Big Ideas Archives

23rd January 2020

BUSINESS PURPOSE | Sustainability Issues 2020

Research shows people are losing trust in public institutions and even capitalism as it is now. What can businesses do to build trust?

13th January 2020

CLIMATE | Sustainability Issues 2020

Climate will remain perhaps the most vital sustainability issue of 2020, but the crucial question is, will attention finally convert into meaningful and proportionate action?
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change required all signatories (almost every country on earth) to avoid dangerous climate change, it also articulated the need to find equitable ways to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

13th December 2019

NATURE | Sustainability Issues 2020

Nature is slowly climbing our collective consciousness. As WWF have put it ‘the world is where we live’. We’re waking up to the fact that we can’t continue to use our land, water, air and oceans in ways that damage, disturb, pollute and degrade them. Will 2020 be the year that we turn the corner away from decline?

4th December 2019

Transforming the business case for sustainability

In a business context it’s often been necessary to justify why sustainability is important with a business case. While it gets less visibility now, it’s still common to see the symptoms of not having a good business case, or one that’s not widely implemented.

5th November 2019

Biodiversity and business is for the birds

We can often struggle to see the relevance of biodiversity to business. But even if distant, the links, risks and dependencies are vital.

This article looks at the main issues, drivers and impacts and explores the example of Garden Centres to see how biodiversity relates to business in practice.

28th June 2019

Climate change – emergency, extinction or progress?

The world seems to be finally getting its head around the idea that climate change is turning into climate emergency but is there still too great a gap between words and action?

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?