Executive primer
Sustainability Targets and Environmental Limits
A two-hour briefing for executives and board members on what a sustainability target can and cannot show about whether the company operates within environmental limits.
This briefing is intended for senior decision-makers who sign off sustainability targets and need a reference framework to critically evaluate how effective those targets are. A target set against a company's baseline records progress. It cannot show whether the company is operating within the limits the target exists to respect, and a board that signs it off cannot confidently answer the "so what?" question. The session gives directors and executives a way to test any target against environmental limits: the planetary boundaries and the net zero pathways in the scientific literature.
The session draws on the IPCC latest assessment report, the planetary boundaries research, public goods theory, and the latest standards used within industry.
Outcomes
- Distinguish a relative target, set against a baseline or a peer group, from a target set against a fixed environmental limit derived from the planetary boundaries framework.
- Use systems thinking and public goods theory to explain how a target can be met while the system it is meant to protect keeps degrading, and what to do instead.
- Identify which assumptions in your strategy depend on the wider socio-economic system remaining resilient.
- Reframe the role of the firm within the socio-economic system to establish a path to legitimacy and positive value generation.
Other modules
Nature- and Climate-Related Financial Risk
Finance, enterprise risk, strategy, sustainability and investor relations teams. Groups up to 20.
Sustainability Frameworks and Standards in Practice
Sustainability, reporting, data and assurance teams. Groups up to 20.
Sustainable Business Model Design
C-suite, strategy, new venture and business-model teams, and founders. Groups up to 20, working in teams of three or four.
Does your strategy have a future within planetary boundaries?
Sound business strategies disrupt the status quo. Tell us your situation and let's equip you with the necessary capabilities to build lasting value.
Enquire about a board briefing