On 25th June I attended Reset Connect as part of London Climate Week at the London Excel. It wasn’t without irony that I listened to the keynote speech of ‘Why we need nature at the heart of decision making’ on one of the hottest days of the year so far in the UK, and heard the constant drumbeat of the message throughout the day of: we are not doing enough and nature is disappearing fast.
Another key message that came through in all the talks I sat in, was one of collaboration and a growing sense that resilience is critical. Organisations, leaders, teams and individuals all need to pull together and share a common goal, or as Andrew Lever at the Carbon Trust put it “we all need to be part of the Acceleration, Collaboration and Innovation that needs to take place for societal change to occur. Fast”. In terms of how leaders have a part to play in this, who sits on the Boards of organisations came up often as well. There was a call for more scientific brains to sit on Boards, and for more youth to sit on Boards to drive sustainability and nature further up the agenda, be that in for-profit sustainability teams or non-profit organisations.
A much-discussed topic in several panels was the part that AI has to play in this, with Adam Elman from Google stating that ‘AI is a key part of this transformation”, although Karen Pflug from the Ikea group was quick to counter that “Technology & AI is indeed part of the solution, but is not a silver bullet”. Pushing sustainability up the agenda was something unsurprisingly agreed upon by all, and having spokespeople or key figures within organisations championing that was agreed by all as being a good tool to do so. Ikea cited an example where they made all their Country Managers CSO’s as well, which has helped them transform their narrative & take ownership for this critical stream of work.
Jeremy Mathieu of ITV, commented that “the skills & competencies of sustainability leaders have changed a lot in the last couple of years” and that these leaders “are probably the only people in the business thinking about 2050, which is why it is key they are at the table and heard when it comes to an organisations strategy development”. He went on to comment that “the more you embed (them) in the culture & strategy of a business, the less pressure there is on any one person and the more successful your sustainability initiatives will be.”
My overall takeout from day one of Reset was one of positive action, togetherness and a shared goal, regardless of competition – this call to regenerate nature is bigger than that. A spokesperson from Danone left the last panel of the day with the sentiment of ‘be braver, but have integrity and be humble’ which struck me as something we can all strive to take forward, as leaders, organisations and individuals, as we try to take measurable action towards the climate crisis we are facing.
