28 June 2024 - This week (25-27 June 2024), CISL CEO Lindsay Hooper and Jie Zhou, Head of International Engagement, Accelerator and Canopy, attended WEF’s annual meeting in Dailan, People’s Republic of China.
Lindsay challenged participants to support structural changes to markets to drive action at scale – and to not rely only on voluntary action by leading businesses. She focused her inputs on how we scale up and accelerate transformative action to tackle the nature crisis, speaking at events exploring the leadership needed now to deliver against global agreements; the role of business and finance in transitioning to a nature-positive economy, and how we move beyond current economic indicators to mainstream natural capital in decision making.
She addressed three sessions, as moderator, panellist and chief discussant on roundtables, alongside distinguished attendees Prof. Naoko Ishi, Director, Center for Global Commons, University of Tokyo, Japan; H. E. Ms Sade Fritschi, Minister of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of Ecuador; Mr. Satvinder Singh, Deputy Secretary-General for the ASEAN Economic Community, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations); Gim Huay Neo, Managing Director of the Centre for Nature and Climate, World Economic Forum; Hua Jingdong, Vice-Chair, International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), Canada; Liu Shijin, Chinese Chief Advisor, China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) and many more.
Following the annual meeting, Lindsay has outlined her key takeaways that arose from the debates:
“We need to tackle the nature and climate crises as one and to address the shared root causes: the unintended consequences of current approaches to economic activity and growth. This means bringing climate and nature into discussions on growth, productivity and innovation, not treating them as parallel tracks.”
“We need innovation at scale to develop clean, green solutions. But innovation alone is not enough and some innovations such as AI are a double-edged sword – there’s huge potential to help us find pathways through complexity, but they will also significantly drive up our energy needs. We have seen remarkable roll out of renewables, but consumption levels continue to grow and so too does our use of fossil fuels. If we are going to reduce emissions, we need to not only focus on the 'carrots' of win-wins and opportunities, we also need hard discussions about ‘sticks' and what we will stop doing.”
“We need market-based solutions, but markets aren't currently driving enough progress - in fact they all too often punish companies that disrupt short term commerciality. There is good progress in developing and consolidating standards, but we now need policy action to ensure that money moves as a result of assessments and disclosures.”
“Although sustainability and health were two themes that cropped up across multiple discussions and the intersection between them, in a week in which we are seeing devastating losses of human life caused by extreme heatwaves - there is still too little sense of urgency. While international fora are critical for building the foundations for necessary international collaboration, we are not yet collectively rolling up our sleeves to get serious about the change that is needed. We are already in an era that will require significant adaptation not just mitigation, but we could still choose to halt and reverse the damage if we choose to do so. We haven't yet made that choice.”
“We need leadership, and that starts with all of us. As one speaker said, we are focusing all of our time perfecting the vision of the metaphorical car we want to build in future, and paying insufficient attention to the driver who has to step on the pedal.”
Discover more about CISL’s involvement at the WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions.
Watch Lindsay's interview with WEF about the sustainable leadership we need to see:
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