Posts Categorized: Insights

Picture banner with the heading Sustainability Capabilities for Business Leaders

Sustainability Capabilities for Business Leaders and Events

Complex or wicked problems like climate change need to be addressed by “search consortia” with broad stakeholder representation. This seems to be the kind of leadership that the Climate Ready Academy is calling for. But I don’t think leaders are in the zone where they might give this serious thought…..yet.
Traditional competitive dynamics around advantage are too embedded in our norms and processes. How would such groupings be convened? Who is inside and who is outside the consortium? How would incentives be aligned? Who would be the sponsor? And there are many more questions….

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Visual mapping of the Share Socio-economic pathways

Are Scenarios Blinkering Leadership in a Climate Crisis?

So what do we do? I think we need to be much more honest, humble, experimental and attuned to reality. From local to global our governance systems need a radical overhaul – to become more real-time, more responsive and more caring of who we really are. It is beyond my humble imagination to picture it but it feels radical. I believe we urgently need to lean into it. Just take the first step and let the work teach us…

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Adult to child saying your planet, your problem

Leading in a Climate Crisis is Challenging

Leading in the context of a climate crisis is challenging. First, leaders are trapped (as we all are) within an ideology. Ideology was defined by Louis Althusser as an imaginary relationship to real conditions. Ideologies are housed within structures that facilitate the reproduction of the ideology. When we start looking, ideologies are everywhere! Capitalism and

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Climate Leadership Workshop with Executive Board

Future Leadership Skills in a Climate Emergency

The Public Sector Climate Action Mandate requires public bodies to reduce their energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030. This poses an unprecedented leadership challenge! Having facilitated climate leadership workshops in several public and private sector board rooms, I have not encountered any objection to the target. There is consensus that climate change is

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Nuffield Ireland Conference discusses greenwashing in agriculture

Moving Away Beyond Greenwashing – Developing Solutions for a Net Positive Agriculture

And yet we know that an organisation, a community or a sector that wants to learn and find new solutions has to be willing to look at the information that disconfirms its past beliefs and practices. Communities, organisations or sectors that want to stay vital must search out surprise, look for what is startling, uncomfortable and possibly even shocking.

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Policymakers panel at the National Stakeholder Forum for Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals

Ireland’s Progress in Implementing Agenda 2030

This conflict was reflected in the Forum’s call for more collaboration and more whole-of-society engagement. The conflicting perspectives and values need to be rebalanced or integrated. Focusing on rebalancing requires a shift in power dynamics – and feels like a battle. Focusing on integration requires better thinking and the capacity to see more comprehensively. And that requires hard work! However, integration is the sustainable way forward.

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