Sustainable Leadership

In today’s edition of Breakthrough Leadership I share insights and learnings from a Sustainability Leadership programme I’ve participated in over the past few months.

The programme was run by Estu Global in partnership with Hertfordshire Futures for leaders in local businesses in Hertfordshire, London and the S.E. There are more programmes you can apply to join if you are interested in increasing your knowledge, skills and capabilities to better lead positive environmental change. I’d highly recommend it and you can find out more here: Skills Bootcamps — Estu (estuglobal.com)

I will cover 9 key topics which I hope motivate you to want to:

• better understand the sustainability and net zero landscape.

• lead change which supports sustainability and net zero ambitions in your organisation.

• enhance your communication skills to increase your impact.

Reversing climate change and creating a sustainable global ecosystem is probably one of the biggest challenges societies, organisations, leaders and individuals need to address urgently in the next decade.

(1) Getting Started 

Like anything in business and life if you want to drive change you need to understand the current situation and circumstances. There is lots of compelling data and science now available on the environment which clarifies exactly what is happening to our planet. It is also possible to track your organisation’s environmental footprint to better understand where you can take positive action.

Grasping the situation and understanding what is happening is the first important step to then build a clear sustainability strategy.  International and domestic strategies need to come together to create narratives which resonate with the public and inspire change.

Finally all of this understanding and planning needs to be backed up with real action.

Creating a sustainable global environment is a long term project, which requires all countries to collaborate and contribute. It also requires as many people as possible to feel inspired and want to take positive action, no matter how small the initial steps are.

(2)   The Science and climate change fundamentals

The scientific climate facts are now well substantiated and can be summarised as:

• Our climate is warming and we are causing it!

• The science backs this up and the consequences are not good!

• We do have the opportunity to fix it!

Our climate is warming and we are causing it:

There is increasing evidence that global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years.

• In 2023  we experience global temperatures that were 1.48 °C warmer than the pre-industrial average and 86 of those days were recorded with temperatures over 1.5°C.

• In 2024 sea and land surface temperatures exceeded previous records by a huge margin with extreme weather becoming increasingly disruptive.

• 77% of climate scientists now expect a rise of at least 2.5 °C above pre-industrial levels between now and 2100.

Show your Stripes image:

During my Sustainability Leadership programme we happened to be together on “Show your Stripes day” in June 2024. As you can see this image is a powerful representation of global temperature changes over the years. Created by climate scientist Professor Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading, each stripe represents one year, with colours transitioning from cool blues to warm reds to represent the increases in temperature seen throughout the past 150 years or more

Burning fossil fuels is the biggest contributor to rising temperatures, which correlate directly with the release of greenhouse gases.

CO2 emissions have increased rapidly over the past 50 years, with emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributing the majority. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere is directly linked to the average global temperature on Earth. Both have been rising steadily since the time of the Industrial Revolution.  The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today far exceeds the natural range seen over the last 650,000 years.

The science backs it up and the consequences are not good:

There really shouldn’t be any more debate on this. The facts and the evidence are clear cut. 99% of scientists agree that climate change is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.

The impact of climate change can now be seen regularly from significant anomalies and events that have taken place in 2024. Many locations around the world recorded their hottest monthly land and sea temperatures, highest levels of rain, extreme weather, and lowest levels of snow cover.

The implications of climate change and increasing temperatures has both physical and economic impacts. Physically we are likely to experience higher sea levels, more frequent rainfall, increases in wildfires, people facing extreme heatwaves, and more land becoming inhospitable or vulnerable to diseases like malaria. Economically global GDP declines, assets become stranded and food supply suffers from significant yield loss whilst demand increases.

We do have the opportunity to fix it:

The most well-known Paris Agreement in 2015 (COP 21) was adopted by 196 countries to engage technology, finance and capacity building to keep global temperature increases to below 1.5 °C.  In the same year all UN members adopted 17 universal UN Sustainable Development goals which must be achieved by 2030.

In 2020 worldwide governments released climate action plans in a united effort to limit global warming and become carbon neutral by 2050-60 if possible.

At COP 28 (Dubai) in  2023 it was agreed that “The Paris Agreement in 2015 catalysed global climate action with positive progress towards achieving its objectives. However, we are still off track. There is an urgent need for a paradigm shift, taking a holistic approach to successfully address climate change that accelerates ambition, action and support across the agenda.

Question: What you do you believe about the science and action required?

(3)    UK Progress towards Net Zero

In the UK the climate change act was passed in 2008 setting out emission reduction targets the UK must comply with legally. It represented the first global legally binding climate change migration target set by a country. In 2019 the UK made it’s Net Zero target more ambitious by committing to 2050 – the first major economy to commit to a net zero target.

The climate change committee is an independent UK body which was also established in 2008 to advise the UK governments on emissions targets. The latest climate change committee’s UK progress report was published on 18th July.

It highlighted that only one third of emissions reductions required to achieve the country’s 2030 target are currently covered by credible plans and put forward 10 priority recommendations for the new government .

Top among these are to make electricity cheaper, reverse recent policy rollbacks, and ramp up rates of tree planting and peatland restoration. Much of the low carbon technology needed is already available, however they need to be significantly ramped up:

• Annual offshore wind installations must increase by at least three times, onshore wind installations will need to double and solar installations must increase by five times.

• c.10% of existing homes in the UK will need to be heated by a heat pump, compared to only approximately 1% today.

• The market share of new electric cars needs to increase from 16.5% in 2023 to nearly 100%.

Question: How engaged & aligned is your organisation with the changes required in the UK?

(4)    Carbon Accounting & Net Zero planning 

Reporting on and tracking the carbon emissions and usage of your organisation is the first fundamental step towards creating a plan and strategy for reducing your environmental impact.

The science tells us we need to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 to achieve Net Zero. Net Zero means emissions have reduced by a minimum of 90% with the remaining 10% being offset.

To measure your emissions there are three levels (scopes) organisations need to consider.

• Scope 1: These emissions come from the fossil fuels, like gas, that we burn, including company transport, and are typically c.10% of our emissions.

• Scope 2: These emissions come from the Energy, typically Electricity, that we buy from the grid and typically make up to c.10% of our emissions.

• Scope 3: The emissions are a consequence of everything an organisation buys and everything they sell. These emissions reflect the end to end lifecycle (upstream and downstream) of products and services and typically make up to c.80% of our emissions.

There are a number of different measurement tools and organisations that can help you with your reporting including several local businesses which supported this programmes. I can highly recommend David Hawes from Net Zero International and Fran Ellington from TBLA Ltd - both of whom's insights and experience I was fortunate to benefit from during the programme .

Carbon accounting and reporting is becoming more important particularly as more organisations including government institutions require suppliers to do this if they want to do business with them. Start with getting your scope 1 and 2 reporting in place, create a benchmark reporting year, and start to find out about your suppliers (upstream) and

If you are planning to create a Net Zero Strategy and start reporting remember to:

• Keep it simple - go one step at a time

• Start by Starting  - doing something is better than doing nothing.

• Educate and involve your teams – proactively create a dialogue.

• Allow your team to own initiatives – harness the power of your employees

• Create targets and commitments – consider accreditations e.g. B-Corp.

•  The momentum will take care of itself – connect & grow with like-minded business

Personally I will be looking to measure my business emissions and putting a plan in place. A good place to start if you are a small UK business is the SME climate HUB (https://smeclimatehub.org/) and business Carbon Footprint limited provide a free tool for 1 or 2 person micro businesses.

Question: How are you reporting your emissions & what action has this inspired you to take?

(5)    Greenwashing and misleading claims

Greenwashing exists when organisations try to get unfair advantage by doing or saying things that make people believe they are protecting the environment more than they are.

The increase in companies making unsubstantiated environmental claims resulted in the Green Claims code being launched in the UK in Sept 2021. The competition and markets authority (CMA) reviews claims based on factors like truthfulness, accuracy, fairness, clarity, level of substantiation, full life cycle and greenhushing (omitting critical facts). The Advertising Standards Authority broadly follows the same guidelines as the CMA for the Green Claims code.

A recent case in the UK with Budweiser is a great example of the complexity around environmental statements and organisations needing to substantiate and back up all claims.

“Budweiser is brewed with 100% renewable energy”.

AB InBev the multinational drinks company that owns Budweiser had to substantiate the statement. It was able to make the "100% renewable" claim as it buys certificates known as renewable energy guarantees of origin (REGO). The certificates pay for renewable energy produced elsewhere and are designed to encourage renewable energy production. The actual electricity used to brew Budweiser is not from 100% renewable sources, but Budweiser ensures that an equivalent amount of energy is generated under green energy agreements to offset the amount of non-renewable energy used from the National Grid to power our brewing processes.

Lufthansa had to remove and advert that stated “Connecting the world, protecting the future”, because consumers would likely understand Lufthansa's claim as an absolute green claim given the specific wording and imagery used.

Question: How are you communicating your Green credentials & can you substantiate them?

(6)    Leadership Skills to drive change

Having better understood your position on sustainability and the actions you want to take it's important to put the right leadership skills into practice. Here are a few of the highlights from the programme - thank you Kevin Dowson for sharing your insights, experience and energy on this topic. Again for me it was a great refresher on these topics and how to relate them to sustainability.

Vision, Mission and Purpose: 

These phrases are banded about a lot in business and within organisations. Often they aren’t well thought through or understood. When driving significant organisational change like Net Zero and Sustainability they need to be fully aligned and well understood. A mission (or Purpose)  statement describes clearly what the point of an organisation is now – why does it exist, who are you helping and how – and where does sustainability fit in if this is important to your organisation. A vision statement describes the desired future of your organisation which is intended to inspire and provide a trajectory for future action – this might include Net Zero ambitions or achieving B-Corp status.

Values: 

These provide the beliefs and principles that provide direction and guide the way in which the people in your organisation think and behave.  Typical values that you will see defined in organisations are integrity, collaboration, teamwork, passion and innovation. Organisations that are committed to sustainability are likely to demonstrate high levels of “altruism” and recognise the wider eco-system they operate in.

Question: What mission, vision and values have you defined for your business and are they inspiring the right behaviours in your business?

Leadership styles: 

There have been lots of studies into different styles of management and leadership over the years. Early studies go back to the 1930s when Lewin defined 3 core styles of management – Authoritarian (autocratic) , Participative (democratic), and Delegative (Laissez-faire). More recent models include that of Daniel Goleman that identified that modern managers and leaders need to be adapt their style to fit with different situations rather like a chameleon changes colour. He identified 6 styles.

1. coercive leader – instant compliance of others is demanded.

2. authoritative leader – marshals others towards their vision

3. affiliative leader – creates emotional connections and seeks harmony

4. democratic leader – seeks consensus achieved through participation

5. pacesetting leader – expects excellence from others; encouraging self-direction

6. coaching leader –  seeks to develop and equip others for the future

Perhaps you need to take an authoritative and democratic approach to sustainability in your organisation where you seek the views of your teams, but ultimately need to make some tough decisions and drive your team towards your vision.

Question: What styles of leadership do you need to drive change in your organisation?

Culture: 

The culture you create is demonstrated by the actions of your employees and leaders. The Vision, Purpose, Values and Styles of leadership will provide the framework to guide the behaviours of your team. Power based cultures tend to have just a few leaders who are responsible for making major decisions (e.g. flat structures). Task based cultures tend to empower specific specialists to make decisions and complete specific projects (e.g. creative projects) . Individual focused cultures exist where there are high levels of independent specialist work and little management structure (e.g. lawyers). Role based cultures have clearly defined job roles, responsibilities and structures often found in larger organisations to help manage the complexity of scale.

Question: How your culture is impacting your employees willingness to take action and support your sustainability plans.

Knowledge and Skills of a Leader: 

The knowledge your teams have relates to their understanding of different types of information. It comes about from the cognitive process of acquiring information, gaining intelligence and make better decisions. Skills are the practical application of knowledge often through actually doing something and experiencing it in real life.

Question: What critical knowledge and skills do your employees need to help your organisation thrive and grow?

Maybe its transversal skills that apply across different roles. Interpersonal skills of presenting, communicating, organising and teamwork are critical to get teams performing at their best. Intrapersonal skills of self-motivation, discipline, enthusiasm are common in those that are driven to succeed and often required to drive change. Critical thinking, innovation and digital literacy are also cited as important skills required to create breakthrough moments.

Question: How equipped are your leaders with their knowledge and skills to lead change in your organisation, particularly related to sustainability?

Behaviours: 

Stephen Covey has written a book on “The 7 habits of highly Effective People” where he defined the most common behaviours that provide the fundamentals for success. Think about what behaviours you need to see and demonstrate in your organisation if you want to succeed building a sustainability strategy and driving positive effective action. These 7 all apply:

1. Be Proactive: Be responsible and take your own initiative.

2. Begin with the End in Mind: Write the press releases for the key steps to your Vision.

3. Put First Things First: Prioritise and be practical about your plans – one step at a time.

4. Think Win-Win: Be co-operative not competitive – seek mutual benefits.

5. Seek First to Understand, then be Understood: Listen with the intent to understand, not reply.

6. Synergise: Create open communication across the team and foster unity.

7. Sharpen the Saw: Never stop trying, failing, learning and growing. 

Question: Which of these behaviours are you seeing regularly in your teams and how effective are they?

Leading Change: 

Finally I’d like to highlight a simple change model which is useful to check when you are building teams for any major transformation whether that’s a sustainability strategy and plan or other programmes to build a business.

1. Forming: This is when a group of individuals are first brought together. The objectives might be unclear, there might be confusion, low morale and lack of commitment.

2. Storming: This is when the group start working together, understanding each-other, arguing about the structure, struggling for status -  conflict and lack of cohesion exist.

3. Norming: The group establish ways of working and rules about how to achieve their goal. The create approaches to communication that will either drive progress or hinder it.

4. Performing: The group find high performance routines and step up to support each other no matter when required to ensure the goals are achieved.

(7)    Communication Styles and Skills

Communication styles and skills have a direct impact on your personal effectiveness. What you think (your mind) and how you deliver (your body) directly impact your communication skills and how your messages land with your audience.

Communication Styles and Preferences

As a practitioner of Emergenetics UK & Ireland I tend to focus on this scientifically validated assessment and tool which can be used with individuals and teams to better understand their thinking and behavioural preferences which directly impact how they communicate. Not only can you increase your self-awareness  but also your awareness of your team’s preferences, thus creating foundations for improved communication and engagement.

There are 4 thinking attributes where individuals tend to:

1. Analytical: think clearly, logically problem solve and be rational.

2. Structural: be practical thinkers, like guidelines and predicable plans.

3. Social: be socially aware, relational and intuitive about people.

4. Conceptual: be imaginative, visionary, intuitive about big ideas.

There are 3 behavioural attributes where individuals tend to display different levels of:

1. Expressiveness: emotions outwardly towards others

2. Assertiveness: style and pace whilst advancing thoughts and feelings.

3. Flexibility: willingness to accommodate change brought about by others actions.

Question: What are the preferences of your team and how does this impact the dynamic, engagement and communication across your team?

If you’d like to better understand your team’s preferences and run a workshop to enhance engagement and improve communication please contact me directly.

Communication Skills

There are many communication skills out there and I’m sure you’ve got a few that work well for you. I thought I’d summarise a few techniques shared on the Estu sustainability bootcamp. Thank you Alasdair Craig for the reminders.

These techniques were a great reminder for me personally, as I run a number of leadership programmes which include how to communicate with impact. 

• 3 Arrows technique: simply speaking this is about hitting the target with effective messaging. Practice refining 3 concise statements and physically firing these at a target.

• Listening and Questioning:  Establishing rapport by using listening, questioning, reflecting and paraphrasing techniques which demonstrate that you are genuinely interested and tuned into other people.

• Flexing and deploying non-verbal communication: Authentically matching what (words) you say with how (voice and body language) you say it to optimise your impact.

• The impact and ingredients of a Story: Boost your communication skills by practicing storytelling. Think about the beginning, middle and end, the characters, the detail, the senses, the scenes, the names and places, the images, the suspense and have a go at including a hook, image or quote to grab people’s attention. Barbara Minto’s pyramid principle using a prologue and  5 acts is a good place to start. Shakespeare did this pretty effectively.

•  A Pocket Pitch: What do you say if you only have a short window of opportunity to get your message across. This 3 stage approach includes 1) A Hook for your Audience – a quote, statement, question or surprising fact 2) Building Blocks – a personal story or anecdote, 3) A clear call to action – what do they need to know, do or change?

• Confidence Toolkit: Rehearse & Practice; Breathing techniques to relax; A mindset of service & curiosity; Selfcare with sleep, exercise, hydration, space to recover;  Consciously work on non-verbal communication; Collect and practice storytelling; Record or film yourself and ask for feedback from a trusted colleague.

• Non-Violent Communication: The purpose of this is to help manage conflict or difficult conversations where you need to keep people in dialogue using non-judgemental language, being empathetic whilst trying to remove barriers to progress.

Question: What techniques could your team use more of to become even more effective communicators?

(8) What happens if you don't communicate change effectively.

 Naturally, people tend to resist and kick up a fuss making the change more difficult.

Here's a great example I thought I'd share, which you may have already spotted. If you hadn’t already noticed tethered screw tops are suddenly everywhere.

• Screw lids are now firmly attached to bottles, which means it’s really annoying when you try and swig from a bottle.

• These new caps have been introduced as a result of a new EU law - directive 2019/904.

• People across the UK and Europe are getting frustrated and annoyed, despite the good intention of the change.

The problem is that the communication around the change has been poor. The drinks manufacturers and law makers haven’t really said much about it.

• It’s a real shame because the world produces nearly 600 billion plastic bottles a year. Each one has a cap.

• These caps are the 5th most common debris in the oceans around the world - more common than the bottles themselves - and often kill turtles or seabirds who mistake them for food.

• Also because the lids are so small it makes them extremely difficult to recycle - they get lost in the sorting process end up in the environment or landfill.

Tethering the lids to the bottles actually makes it much easier to recycle them and protects the environment.

💯 When you are next struggling to swig a drink from a bottle remember plastic waste is a huge problem and the cap is attached for a reason.

💯 When you next make changes in your organisation regularly communicate why you are making them and get your team onboard.

(9) Creating waves and building momentum

As I've said reversing climate change and creating a sustainable global ecosystem is probably one of the biggest challenges societies, organisations, leaders and individuals need to address urgently in the next decade.

It's been an absolute pleasure being part of Estu Global's Green Skills bootcamps over the past 2 months and engaging with such a wonderful cohort of like-minded passionate leaders and learning so much from each other. I look forward to staying in touch and pushing the sustainability agenda and taking action through the leadership programmes I run in future.

Jennie Davide chris penny Vura Julius-orage Marcus S. Alison Stirton-Croft Gary Brown Kris Karslake Steve Clarke FCMI MBA (He / Him) Andreea Tudor Hana Morel Stu Higgins Emma Galley James Lees Simon Cohen Emma Punchard Aimee Easter Kristen Filice Matthew Miller Natalie Beecroft Charlotte May Rebecca Heaps Elena Evryviades Hazel Lee Nick Barnaby Adrian Low George Tsafandakis Kerry Trevett

As mentioned before I’d highly recommend this programme and you can find out more here: Skills Bootcamps — Estu (estuglobal.com)

Finally,

🙏 Thank you for reading this edition of Breakthrough Leadership which focused on Sustainability.

💯 I hope you are able to take some insights which will inspire you to lead change in this important area.

💯 If you'd like to know more about the bespoke leadership development programmes I run for individuals and teams to boost their impact and energy please get into touch:

email: mark@headsupandfreer.com

mobile: +44 7843 510858

website: www.headsupandfreer.com

Breakthrough Moments Podcast: www.headsupandfreer.com/podcast-breakthroughmoment

Book a Leadership Call: www.calendly.com/headsupandfreer