[Context: Reflections on today’s news story of government acknowledgement that Ireland’s 2030 climate targets will not be met and emerging research on governance transformation.] The stance is one of disciplined doubt. Being curious about what we know, don’t know and what we don’t know that we don’t know. There is a space outside the frame,
Last week, I facilitated a climate leadership event with a public agency. We’d spent the day working through the challenges of translating policy into action, navigating the gap between ambition and implementation. At the close of the session, one participant offered a reflection that has stayed with me. He said he felt “vexed“! He said
I attended the Simplify to Succeed: Navigating the Evolving Regulatory Landscape event presented by Matheson and Trinity College Dublin School of Law on the 11th September, 2025. The keynote was by the EU European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection, Michael McGrath, followed by three themed discussions on the regulatory
Having delivered several Climate Action Leadership programmes for public sector organisations, one thing I have consistently noticed is that attendees are fully aware of the compliance obligations to reduce organisational greenhouse gas emissions by 51% and improve energy efficiency by 50% by 2030. However, in my experience, attendees are much less aware of the broader
The Government’s 2025 Climate Action Plan is released, complete with the usual choreography of ambition, alignment, and reaffirmation. There are targets. There are warnings. There were declarations that this plan will be “at the centre of social and economic development.” And yet—for many of us working in and around governance, something familiar stirred beneath the
Last week, Bruce and I were driving back from a one-day CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) workshop that we had facilitated for a client. We used the time to reflect on how it went and eat ice-cream on a lovely spring afternoon. Our first credit went to the client. They wanted a workshop on a