Blogs

23 June 2023 -  What happened at the Bonn Climate Change Conference? Our Senior Programme Manager, Katherine Quinn, reports back...Last week, the Bonn Climate Change Conference wrapped up after two weeks of discord and gridlock. Often called the ‘SBs’ (short for Subsidiary Bodies) or the ‘Bonn Intersessional’, the meeting takes place annually at th…

26 April 2023 - How traditional organisations can navigate the space of corporate activism, by Aileen Noonan, Dina Khalifa and Jennifer Howard-Grenville.As the world witnesses growing socio-political challenges, many organizations have expanded their societal role by taking public stances on issues such as immigration, Black Lives Matter, and anti-…

25 April 2023 - Neiad Adams-Austin is a Traffic Engineer with the London Borough of Waltham Forest and a student on the Master of Studies in Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment (IDBE). Neiad has shared his experience of the programme and has detailed what an average day looks like for him during one of the residential workshops in Ca…

5 April 2023 - Sonia Green-Browne is a Principal Engineer with Graphite Engineering Ltd and a student on the Master of Studies in Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment (IDBE). Sonia has shared her experience of the programme and has detailed what an average day looks like for her during one of the residential workshops in Cambridge, UK…

16 March 2023 - Diversity is critical for board leadership. This is a central plank of our point of view. But what sort of diversity? In this fourth in a series of blogs examining questions of board leadership and governance, Prof Richard Calland tries to get under the bonnet of a difficult and delicate subject.“Diversity” can mean different things…

16 March 2023 - Concerns about the environment have become one of the defining issues of our times, writes Eliot Whittington, Chief System Change Officer at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.Featured in headlines, helping forge new laws and government strategies, setting the agenda in boardrooms and guiding the activities of major i…

23 February 2023 - Drawing on his experience delivering executive education programmes to leaders in the finance sector, CISL Programme Director Thomas Vergunst considers perceptions of the need for systemic transformation - the extent of the change required, mechanisms for progress and the role of business in delivering transformative change.To ch…

21 February 2023 – Both decisionmakers and insurers must together find a way of addressing the climate and ecological risks that complicate adaptation and mitigation strategies. The revision of EU Solvency rules could be a key opportunity to integrate sustainability in risk management of insurers, argue Ursula Woodburn and Nina Seega.The world’s na…

26 January 2023 - In this blog, Priya Rajasekar and Elspeth Donovan, convenors of the 8-week open online course on Business and Social Justice, argue that the ‘polycrisis’ which has emerged as a buzzword at the recently concluded World Economic Forum at Davos could be addressed effectively through collaborative business leadership and action on soc…

24 January 2023 – Edmund Dickens and Elizabeth Clark from CISL's Business and Nature team unpick perceived financial barriers to investing in nature, and some methods to overturn these and unlock the opportunities of nature-based solutions.COP15 closed out 2022 with the adoption of an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This milestone ac…

25 January 2023 - Dr Tim Forman, Senior Research Associate and Deputy Director of the Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment (IDBE) postgraduate courses, described how 'shared leadership' was central to the refurbishment of Entopia, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership's (CISL) new home. A type of collaboration that is …

17 January 2023 - The Great Realignment has shown that current employees, as well as future recruits, make choices based on a company’s values. Zoë Arden, CISL Fellow and an independent leadership and stakeholder engagement specialist examines the significance of having a clear purpose for an organisation and how to bring it to life.The start of a …

16 December 2022 – Dr Tanja Collavo, Course Director for the Master’s in Sustainability Leadership, discusses the importance of lifelong learning and its relationship to the new Master’s in Sustainability Leadership Flexible Route, launching in September 2023. Knowledge - of best practice, of issues to be tackled, of their underlying root causes, a…

30 November 2022 - In her foreword to CISL’s inaugural annual review, CISL Director and CEO Clare Shine reflects on the challenges we face in this critical decade and how CISL aims to create a new sustainability narrative.As the 21st century advances, we urgently need bold and imaginative transformation. To enable all people to lead healthy, flouri…

30 November 2022 - CISL Fellow Zoë Arden introduces impact stories from our global CISL Network, celebrating individuals who are driving change in their industries and communities.This autumn we set out to celebrate our community for action by uncovering individual stories of impact and were amazed by what we discovered. These stories showcase both…