Blogs

20 December 2021 - In the fourth of our quarterly blogs, Alice Spencer, Programme Director for HRH Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme (BSP), delves into the archives to explore how the conversation on business and sustainability has progressed since the first programme in 1994 and whether, as we approach a new year, there is ca…

20 December 2021 - Bronwyn Clare, Senior Programme Manager at CISL, argues that partnership between an insurer and their clients on net zero aligned underwriting is critical to a smooth net zero transition for both.In 2017 AXA warned a 4-degree rise in global temperature would make the world uninsurable. A lot has happened since then that has great…

The 10 principles for health and wellbeing for the WELL standard7 December 2021 - Wendy Bishop, Architype’s associate and lead architect for Entopia has been working on architectural and Passivhaus designs and ways to reduce embodied carbon on the project since it began. The Entopia Building, the re-invented new headquarters for Cambridge Institute…

3 December 2021 - Nick Villiers, Director of CISL’s Centre for Sustainable Finance, reflects on the role of the finance industry in taking a more active and assertive role in supporting, enabling and accelerating the transition to a more regenerative economy. Embracing a ‘beyond net zero’ strategy means we have an opportunity to protect not only cl…

15 November 2021 - Eliot Whittington, Director of the Corporate Leaders Groups, argues COP26 was not the failure some have accused it of being - but now the onus is on businesses to prove their critics wrongI don’t know if COP26 was a success, but I would argue that it wasn’t a failure. Of course, there are deep failures at the heart of the COP pr…

October 2021 - Catherine Weller, from CISL’s Centre for Business Transformation, explains that, when it comes to going ahead with nature-based solution projects, company decision-making processes need to be fit for purpose.Nature-based solutions (NbS) is a hot topic in the climate action debate. There is growing acknowledgement that the nature and …

11 October 2021 - Catherine Weller, from CISL’s Business & Nature team, explores expectations as the first part of the Kunming Nature COP gets underway and explains why business should be active in demanding clear and ambitious targets.In the preface to his recent landmark review of “The Economics of Biodiversity” Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta note…

30 September 2021 - Dame Polly Courtice, Emeritus Founder Director of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership and Clare Shine, current Director and CEO reflect on CISL’s journey so far, and what the future holds as we move to our innovative new HQ, Entopia.    Dame Polly Courtice CISL’s move to the Entopia Building in early 2022 will b…

30 September 2021 - Our new Course Director for CISL’s Master’s in Sustainability Leadership, Emre Usenmez, reflects on how the programme is preparing future leaders to tackle global challenges in a post-covid world. We, as the current custodians of our planet, are at a crossroads where we can change our grim trajectory. On 9 August 2021 the Interg…

27 September 2021 - Munish Datta is director at UK Green Building Council where he is responsible for leading the organisations membership strategy and enabling the delivery of its mission to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment. As a Fellow at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, he also emp…

27 August 2021 - In the third of our quarterly blogs, Alice Spencer, Programme Director and Global Lead for HRH The Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme (BSP), explores the significance of the international focus of our programmes to start a conversation about why now, more than ever, global action must occur.In February 2020 I a…

July 2021 - After three months as Director and CEO of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), Clare Shine shares her thoughts on what's next for the sustainability agenda, and the need for a collective focus on people, nature and climate.How do you view the next 10 years of ‘sustainability’? It’s urgent to make this a true ‘de…

29 June 2021 – Anna Barford, CISL Research Fellow, reflects on why it is critical to engage diverse young people in decision making to find successful pathways to respond to climate change. Young people are the least to blame for climate change – and the most vulnerable to its effects.Meaningful collaboration with young people on this issue is abso…

19 May 2021 – Farad.ai's vision is to enable the current electrical infrastructure to run on 100% low carbon energy. To achieve this, they are developing an AI-powered digital twin of the power system (Farad.ai Sabre) and related site selection products (Farad.ai Compass) that will support energy stakeholders in their move towards a zero-carbon fut…

5 May 2021 – Hide Biotech develops sustainable and high-quality biomaterials for the fashion industry and provides a technology platform for creating highly customisable materials for other sectors. Last year, their co-founder and CEO, Yudi Ding, joined our Innovators for sustainable fashion Accelerator. In this interview, Yudi tells us more about …