At this 12 months’s Local weather Week in New York Metropolis, amid the 1,000-plus occasions and 100,000 attendees crowding the streets and phases, one theme stood out: management. Not simply any management, however the form that comes from the very prime.
On our Two Steps Ahead podcast, recorded stay at Options Home, my co-host Solitaire Townsend and I sat down with Jesper Brodin, CEO of IKEA and chair of The B Group, to discover the function of company leaders in accelerating the sustainability transition. What emerged was a candid dialog about company, accountability and perception.
Preventing doom, constructing company
For many years, sustainability professionals have debated whether or not CEO buy-in is indispensable. I argued sure: leaders like Walmart’s Lee Scott in 2005, Unilever’s Paul Polman and GM’s Mary Barra set daring programs that modified each their firms and their industries.
Townsend countered that whereas CEO help is transformative, it’s not the one path. “In case your CEO isn’t on board,” she mentioned, “go and interact your friends in center administration. You may discover there’s much more energy sitting there than you suppose.”
Brodin, who has spent three many years at IKEA, took the lengthy view. “The answer on how you can resolve local weather change is an financial and technical transformation,” he mentioned. “We’d like all leaders to collaborate as a result of we’re in a rush.” However he acknowledged that perception stays the toughest nut to crack — convincing skeptics that “local weather good is useful resource good is price good.”
Proof in Apply
IKEA has tried to make that case in tangible methods. For the reason that Paris Settlement, the corporate has grown revenues by 24 % whereas chopping absolute emissions — Scopes 1, 2 and three — by greater than 30 %. Renewable vitality investments alone have saved €97 million. Spare-parts applications and secondhand platforms prolong product life cycles, turning circularity from idea into enterprise mannequin.
It’s a reminder that local weather motion isn’t charity or compliance — it’s competitiveness. But Brodin famous that half of CEOs nonetheless hesitate to talk publicly, cautious of being accused of greenwashing. The result’s a wierd paradox: dedication is robust, however confidence is shaky.
The management crucial
So, do CEOs nonetheless matter? Brodin believes they do, profoundly. “We have now lengthy handed the place sustainability belongs to the CSO,” he mentioned. “At present, all leaders want digital competence and sustainability competence. It’s now not an experience discipline.”
That shift — from area of interest to norm — often is the legacy Brodin leaves as he steps down from IKEA after 30 years. The corporate’s trajectory suggests there’s “no manner again,” as he put it. The problem for different CEOs is whether or not they’ll discover the braveness to not solely act, however to say out loud why they’re appearing.
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