Mobilising organisation change towards net zero

In a recent survey of the CBI Sustainability Community members, “Organisational Change” topped the poll as the subject most businesses would welcome help with. The fact that this ranked even higher than “tackling supply chain emissions”, which itself is a devil of a job, is not surprising to us.

In our work with a wide range of businesses, we have seen high levels of recognition amongst leadership teams that environmental concerns are shaping customer, government, and investor expectations and hence must be addressed at the top table. But the vast majority are struggling with moving into real implementation.

Business leaders are exceptionally skilled at addressing challenges, with proven approaches grounded in analytical thinking, foresight, and top-to-bottom mobilisation of resources. But here’s where the Net Zero challenge is particularly gnarly;

• When businesses are diagnosing the hot spots and setting targets, we’re still operating in a context where “counting” organisational emissions can feel more art than science, lacking consistent methodologies and highly dependent upon widely varying averages and proxies. The things we like – granularity, certainty, and trends – are all largely absent. For any “fact” we surface, we’ll find five other versions of that truth. Compared to the near-perfect sales and financial data many of us are accustomed to this is a minefield.
• When we do have some reliable numbers, business shifts into solution planning. But here again, the Net Zero challenge is complicated, with little consensus or long-term certainty about the technologies which will best carry us into the next decade. Much of it is still in trial, some not invented yet. The markets for alternative fuels and materials are exceptionally volatile, making the business case we write today out-of-date by Friday, and making financial planning borderline impossible.
• When dispersing accountability into our functions and targeting our teams to deliver, we face even more complexity. Solutions for decarbon