The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) has today published Making Markets Fit for the Future, a major new report arguing that long-term prosperity, competitiveness and resilience will depend on leaders' ability to shape the markets in which they operate, not simply respond to them.
Markets influence where capital flows, which business models succeed, how innovation spreads and which forms of value are recognised or ignored. Yet many markets remain organised around assumptions and incentives that fail to reward the outcomes on which long-term prosperity depends.
The report explores the prospects and challenges to accelerate change in four key systems: energy; built environment; food, land and agriculture; and materials and manufacturing.
It comes at a time when businesses, governments and investors are navigating growing economic, technological, environmental and geopolitical disruption. It argues that resilience, resource security, health, environmental restoration and broader economic opportunity are increasingly central to long-term value creation, but are not consistently recognised or rewarded by today's market systems.
Rather than focusing solely on individual organisations, technologies or projects, the report calls for greater attention to the wider conditions that shape economic outcomes. Policy, finance, technology, public priorities and environmental pressures all influence how markets evolve and whether new forms of value can emerge and scale.
Lindsay Hooper, CEO of CISL, said:
“The job ahead is sleeves-rolled-up, market-shaping work to make better options easy to buy, finance, insure, permit, install and trust.”
For CISL, the publication also marks a sharper articulation of the Institute's role as a market-shaping institution. Building on more than three decades of work across business, finance, government and academia, the report sets out how leadership development, evidence and insight, policy engagement, innovation support and collaboration can work together to create the conditions for change at scale.
Eliot Whittington, Chief Systems Change Officer at CISL and lead author of the report, said:
“Markets do not evolve in isolation. They are shaped by policy, finance, technology, institutions and public priorities. If we want economies that are more resilient, competitive and sustainable, we need to focus on the conditions that determine what succeeds, not just the solutions themselves.”
The report concludes that organisations that help shape the conditions for future markets can unlock new sources of value, strengthen resilience and build competitive advantage. At the same time, markets that reward long-term value can help deliver stronger economies, healthier communities, greater resource security and restored natural systems.
James Cole, Chief Innovation Officer said:
"Solutions to sustainability challenges abound - from new bio-based materials to circular business models and better buildings - but the status quo holds them back. Product-market fit assumes the market is fit for purpose. But it is often not. This report is about changing what markets reward, so that better solutions can be financed, specified and bought at scale."
As the report argues, the next phase of leadership is not simply about adapting to change, but helping create the conditions in which better economic outcomes can emerge.
Nigel Topping, Chair of the UK Climate Committee, said:
“I welcome this report and the efforts of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and its leadership network to orchestrate market-level changes we need to see if we are to harness the power of markets to find solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges.”
Read the report: Making Markets Fit for the Future: The new agenda for leadership and innovation.