Carbon Trust - Accelerate to Net Zero Business Summit

So much great inspiration and knowledge shared in one day. I’ve done my best to capture what I thought were the juiciest bits here.  I'm only sorry I couldn’t clone myself to make it to the other 4 afternoon workshops which were running in parallel. Can anyone fill in the blanks if you were there?

In a nutshell (forgive me this is a big nutshell!):

• The urgency and science of the climate crisis remain undeniable yet, despite efforts, the targets are slipping further away from us. Thank you Sean Kidney & Tom Delay CBE for your powerful messaging, balancing the hard hitting ‘doomsday’ facts with the pragmatic opportunities we still have and must embrace.
• Radical collaboration was the theme I heard loudest throughout the day. This isn’t a mindset shift that business finds easy, with a natural drive for USPs and competitive advantage, but collaboration will be essential to game change the systemic challenges faced in all sectors by multiple businesses.  A great example of collaboration from the BBC and media industry with the COP26 Climate Content Pledge collaboration. Céline Gilart from Twinings also talked about their participation in the Ethical Tea Partnership as a critical cross sector collaboration.
• Recognition that businesses have moved on Net Zero targeting. More than twice as many Forbes 200 businesses have Net Zero targets compared to this time 2 yrs ago. BUT we have a long way to go in terms of the action to match the narrative and true transition plans. In a new Survey from the The Carbon Trust Net Zero Intelligence Unit: 2/3rds of UK businesses have a SBTI validated Net Zero target but just 12% feel confident in their plans to deliver it.
• Unwavering agreement from the experts and pioneers that this is really hard! Great humility from the key note speakers and panellists who shared openly that this cannot be about perfection but a mindset of getting stuck in, iterating and improving on the journey. “Better an imperfect footprint than no footprint at all,” Pietro R. of The Carbon Trust . 
• Whilst it makes sense to start by optimising the business you have, fundamental transformation is required and this needs to be acknowledged and planned for NOW.
• Transparency, disclosure & honesty: “Disclose the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s an evolving process. Disclose honestly and fully as far as you can. Make sure your Net Zero is sincere and true so you can hold it up to all your stakeholders.” Tom Delay CBE
• For the dire predicament we now face, we must build physical and social resilience. We must work on the mitigation and resilience agendas together.
• Regulation plays a fundamental role.
• Leadership is key. Net Zero must come top down to happen fast enough. Eg Natura & Co’s ‘Commitment to Life: 2030 Vision’. Leading businesses are building traction in ESG by targeting their Execs on ESG KPIs. A top down trickle effect.
• Engage your business in the journey. People = power.  Paul Irwin-Rhodes -from Greggs brought this to life beautifully with the plethora of channels and events they use to engage their business of 30,000 colleagues in their journey to Net Zero, building a ‘constant drum beat on sustainability’, with their recent first piece of carbon e-learning mandatory for every colleague, onboarding new colleagues to include Gregg’s Pledge on Net Zero, covering sustainability at every Board meeting and bringing an Al Gore climate activist in to the senior execs on the board in the early days to get everyone on the Board on board.  Enda Buckley from the Carbery Group also talked about the importance of Green Teams on their sites, ‘the foot soldiers of sustainability’. Also Avon ’s Planet Hackathon with 1,000 employees ideating together for solutions.
• By taking on some of the tough battles early, we can pave the way for those following. Inspo from Professor Emily Shuckburgh from Cambridge Zero with their hard fought and ultimately successful campaign to get solar panels (not visible from the ground) onto the roof of the renowned historic Kings Chapel in Cambridge.
• Don’t under-estimate the power of competition to drive action, beautifully summed up by Danielle Mulder from the BBC on pressing ‘the Sky button’ in meetings.
• Do the Maths!  Danielle Mulder created a clear business case for the BBC . “Let’s have the money conversation. What’s it going to cost? £36.4m to get to half Net Zero by 2030 but with a £55.8m pay back. We pay upfront but get a recurring benefit by 2030. It pays back.”
• Finding USP opportunities. For the BBC this means low carbon productions at a low or competitive price, delivering for other businesses on their Scope 3. Win, win.
• Think of Net Zero solutions in 2 buckets: those of your business operations (Scopes 1 & 2) and those of the broader industry (Scope 3).

And some of my favourite quotes for Inspo:

“This is our extraordinary privilege to address this species' defined problem. Most people don’t have a chance to work on this. We do. We need to push our clients and our constituents. People need help but at least we know what to do.”  Sean Kidney

“We have lost the fight for 1.5 degrees. We will have to get temperatures back down. By 2027/28 we will reach 1.5. We have been doing not very well. We have failed dramatically and drastically despite the work we have been doing. The challenge now is even sharper and more extraordinary. It is not a target but a minimum requirement to hit -55% emissions by 2030 (IPCC). We are going to see large scale loss of life in this decade. Humans have not lived at the levels we are projecting…. We are at that flux point in history. We could still pull it off but it is a very close call. We have a very short window. The test is whether we follow the IPCC prescription, not advice, the doctors order.” Sean Kidney

“It doesn’t need to be perfect, just get started. Start measuring. Start showing you can improve it. Is it messy and we would like not to do it, yes! But there’s no way round it so get on with it. No-one expects you to be perfect from the beginning but you need to be on the journey and show data or how do you know?”  Tanja Gihr

“These are systemic problems but ultimately that’s made up of people. People aren’t pushing back any more. There is power in people and they can be empowered to make good decisions.” Edward Vaughan Dixon

“This is a no brainer, a business opportunity for the BBC and the future.” Danielle Mulder

“COP26 Climate Content Pledge collaboration: Meeting competitors on an industry breakthrough strategy. It doesn’t make sense to do it on our own because we all share the same supply chain. We need a Net Zero media industry not a Net Zero BBC or Net Zero Sky. It’s also helping the smaller independent players who don’t have the budgets or resources so that it’s not just another demand being put on the smaller players.” Danielle Mulder

“Net Zero is a change management exercise. We need supply chain, finance, procurement. We need lots of buy-in and support. Engagement is critical,” Mark Reynolds

Finally, a couple of interesting snippets.

5 enabling conditions for Net Zero summarised by The Carbon Trust Net Zero Intelligence Unit:

1. Awareness and ambition
2. Governance
3. Finance - public and private
4. Technology and innovation
5. A just transition

Top 5 barriers to Net Zero progress from a recent The Carbon Trust survey with 400+ senior sustainability decision makers:

1. 31% difficulty aligning Net Zero with other organisational priorities
2. 29% concern about the ability of the company to grow while progressing towards Net Zero
3. 26% concern about getting it right and external scrutiny of progress
4. 26% difficulty decarbonising Scope 3 (and cost the greatest barrier in there, as well as measuring Scope 3, with suppliers and partners)
5. 26% difficulty securing organisation wide buy-in