 Hello Paul, great to see you. I'm really looking forward to today's conversation. So you've worked as an activist for global action on sustainability for many years and in many different guises including those you've been a campaigner, an entrepreneur, you're an advisor to the CEOs of major corporates, you're an author, you've been an educator and one of the many hats that were that's relevant to this conversation is that of a fellow of CISL the Institute for Sustainability Leadership here at Cambridge. The basis for this conversation is that you've produced a short and powerful paper on the Great Disruption and you've clearly been vocal about this looming Great Disruption for many years. I'm interested to know whether your views have evolved over that time or has the evidence base just strengthened and your predictions come to pass? The capacity of the market to respond and become self-reinforcing has been stronger than I would have expected. I've always argued the market was how we deliver change but once it gets moving it really has its own power and its own momentum I think has become a lot more clear. So in spite of some of those market dynamic shifts not everyone shares your judgment that climate change is such a significant systemic and urgent issue and I'm really interested to know why you think that is. There's no question. The inherent nature of western interest to protect itself means that they've been actively resisting change and slowing down change but I would say actually also one of the things is we don't think as systems thinkers in business you're rewarded for narrow thinking and that's not how the system works. To truly understand the existential economic risks that we face in this area you have to think systemically. Some of the pushback that we encounter about whether climate change is even an issue and sometimes the the response we get is yes it's an issue it's just not the biggest issue there are more pressing issues which might be about politics or cost of living how do you situate climate change in relation to that? So I think it's not just the most important issue it is sort of the underpinning issue of our of our society and our economy. It is representative of this much broader issues to a set of issues you know around sustainability by diversity loss you know the instability of our oceans and our water supply etc these are all interconnected so it's not an issue we're going to avoid you know most of the big questions in society alleviation of poverty inequality whatever you know you want to pick it's like you know they want to be better if we dealt with them right whereas climate change is not like they want to be better if we dealt with it it doesn't get a little bit unpleasant it gets catastrophic and existential very quickly and that's a different nature the different nature of this issue versus all the other issues you prefer to. We're often encountering I suppose the world views that our goal is to optimize for economic performance when everything else is just seen as a I suppose a risk or enabler of that to be managed in support of economic performance I'm interested in how you navigate that when you're engaging people at senior levels. Actually the nature of my of my new paper is to say look this is not another ecological issue right this is actually going to prevent us from managing the economy it's going to prevent us from having a stable geopolitical context in which to operate it's going to it's going to have a huge influence in terms of conflict and security right and so and people tend to think okay well climate change okay cost will go up disasters will get worse insurance will be a bit more expensive it'll have an inflationary impact but we we normally accommodate those changes and that's that's missing the idea the sustainability and climate changer underpins our economy if your objective is to optimize for efficiency or optimize for economic outcome you really better pay a lot of attention to fixing climate change otherwise you won't have any capacity to do the rest of what you do. You lay out quite a bleak picture in your paper but in spite of that you're very clear that you believe that we can choose to turn this around and you talk about that being a choice. I'm interested in practical terms who do you think needs to make that choice and how might that choice be taken how might that be catalyzed. We kind of want the big heroic figure to emerge and andella the whatever that we think is going to fix it all the reality is that it's millions of steps and decisions being made by individuals who some of them might be running gigantic corporations some of them might be taking a consumer decision whatever but that process starts to become self reinforcing and and starts to accelerate that means that everything we personally do really does count because we're working in a global interconnected system it's also every CEO every executive every employee of a company who's making decisions has that framing change but we need to get to a critical mass of those decisions before we start to see that that translate okay great so it's not a single powerful individual deciding on behalf of us all it's it's a movement it's momentum it's critical mass one of the challenges legitimate challenges is the sense of you know every little bit counts everybody doing some things is pushing some of the responsibility to consumers citizens away from some of those vested interests that you noted earlier is there a risk that we dissipate and shift the locus of where action needs to happen by having that narrative of every little helps and everyone needs to lean in yeah now absolutely it's a really it's a complicated balance between recognizing the individual acts and does matter and what people do personally does count but not to fall for the trap which you allude to but this is a consumer's problem don't blame me I just sell the oil it's not my fault if I use it and I've had that conversation in giant corp global companies not the oil industry but other industries who refer to this as being what's hard in my fault if I use my product surely I'm not responsible for the use of my product it's a consumer's choice and they're using it so that that kind of idea is really it's a bit cancerous as an idea and we have to recognize that this does require policy right it does require heavy intervention by government at this late stage and it does require corporate responses now the consumer behavior matters because it gives confidence to those corporate decision makers to make tougher bolder decisions so it's not irrelevant but never believe that the consumer decision making is going to lead to change in this area it just helps to grease the wheels a bit so I want to come to focus a little more on corporate responses to this and over recent years we've seen a huge boom in ESG activity and a whole flurry of climate sustainability commitments by most multinational corporations I'm interested in whether you see those movements of growth of ESG that target setting as important steps in the right direction or is that you know simply inadequate or was still is it actually a protection of business as usual I think the practicality of what most companies are doing is completely inadequate to the task at hand however I've also understand that that's a process of the market and companies getting comfortable right that that we are moving in the direction together very very hard for for large companies to act in isolation from the market and their competitors right so they need to leave but not too far right so that that critical mass question also applies inside the corporate sector that of course also becomes an excuse not to act but I think the fundamental issue is that we need a lot bolder action by companies and it needs to be on the market and what they're doing in a practical sense not in social responsibility reporting etc it's got to really be grounded in the in the essence of the business so in your paper you indicate that we've got everything that we need to turn this around but when we're thinking specifically about action leadership by business and financial institutions what do you think we need more or less of I think one of the the great things we need to let go of is this sort of idea that the incumbent old companies are going to be part of the solution incumbents tend to fail and be replaced rather than transform will mean go through a radical disruptive transformation right I think there's there's a lot of players in this space who have become very sophisticated in their advocacy in the area to look as though they're acting towards you know towards change where part of the solution you know the oil and gas industry I think is a good example of this that you can't do this without us right and you need us to find a solutions and there was no evidence that that's true right that it's we've been hoodwinked including myself have been hoodwinked for decades in the belief that these companies are really an important part of the solution I just don't think they are we've enabled that behaviour if you like by letting them become partners who aren't really acting with good intentions it's the market and an analyst in me that says disruptive innovation disruptive transformation of markets tends to involve new companies being built and replacing old companies who are then destroyed right and destroyed through market forces not through some activist act or through policy but just by missing the changes coming oil and gas companies for example won't be coming to companies they'll be replaced and the answer for the reason for that is that the new energy system is a different technology and a different technology means a different business ecosystem right and they don't have the culture the business skills the people who can deliver that Tesla is still a prime example of it Tesla brought the electric car to market not for not to him not to add a you know or they're all scrambling now to catch up and that's when we go from an internal combustion engine car to an electric car so if you're going from large centralized power stations right to software driven solar on roof tops that are using cars as through devices to power your house whatever that's such a different system the connections that just don't make sense you know for today's incumbent the most important thing we can do today is to recognize that we need radically new companies doing radically different things whether they're incumbents or not you know and that is what's going to change and drive the change fast enough so on that point we know that there's still a lot of capital moving into carbon intensive activity in spite of the market dynamics that you've outlined where would you intervene then where would you be advocating for a focus for change within the system yeah so I think this is something I've observed just the last five years or so really strongly is that the solution providers are so busy growing surviving getting capital etc they haven't got these the time or the capacity or sophistication to be very effective at advocating for change amongst policymakers amongst the public and so on the incumbents have got decades of experience in highly sophisticated PR and policy influence machines to resist change right so I think that's a really kind of interesting insight is that we you know we have to put a lot more and have to see a lot more energy being put into arguing for change ironically by those who are going to benefit from it commercially right so you need to have electric car companies being as good at lobbying for change as the oil and gas companies are lobbying against change right but they're actually just busy surviving most of the time throughout to do that right likewise solar solar companies and so on so that's a really important idea because governments governments don't act more strongly in this area I think because they don't believe it's good for the economy to take action they still have caught up in this sort of almost 80s and 90s mindset that ecological solutions are expensive slower don't work as well you know or slow the economy down and all the evidence is that's not true all the evidence is the opposite climate change is going to be incredibly expensive and if we don't act on a what if we don't act on a now we are going to face catastrophic changes if we don't act on it for a while we're going to face existential changes we need people to give comfort to government we want radical disruptive policy and we can now deliver that change as the companies right if you put those policies in place your paper has a really strong focus on technology and what tech can enable I'm interested to know if there are other specific changes or revolutions other than a tech revolution that you think are going to be needed in order to achieve the scale of change we need in reality if we're going to fix climate change and other issues in sustainability we're going to deliver it through the system right and we can deliver it through today's kind of companies invested in by you know today's kind of investors you know with policy made by today's kind of governments so this idea that we're going to overhaul capitalism before we get there I think is wrong so we have to work within that system but that system is actually very very well primed for this approach but it's a bit simplistic to see it when I fall for this myself to argue it's a technology revolution it's technology enabled but it's socially enormously significant in terms of its ability of empowering people so we're going to see a lot of very positive social change I think resulting from this technology and that also becomes self-reinforcing so if you get if you're a country importing large amounts of fossil fuels for example and you can reduce the energy yourself with new technologies using local resources that radically changes your balance of payments that radically alters the structure of your economy great work done by another CISL alumni that was Rethink X right doing work on the food sector and saying look we've got so much potential here for radically disruptive technology in food production if you can produce food more cheaply and more safely in country rather than rely on imports right that has a huge geopolitical security implication as well as a balance of payments type benefit as well as a social stability we tend to think too narrowly and not see the great sort of social benefits that will flow on from them as well so there I've got two reflections and one of the challenges or critiques of the current capitalist model as it's as we see in many particular western economies is the power is being uncapital being concentrated in the hands of a few it's a great machine to you know deliver things efficiently but it is leading to very unjust outcomes for society and the other is there's a perception that if one is pro-action on climate change one is anti-capitalism and that can be a barrier to engagement and communication and I'm interested in reactions to both of those points or challenges yeah the kind of related related issues in a way because the economy is the whole and subsidiary of the environment so if you go to inequality now capitalism will naturally you know drive inequality that's what Piccadilly and other people have done and researched and said unless you have heavy government policy or war right there the two big impacts that start to slow down the natural tendency of capitalism to drive inequalities now the problem with that is not just a moral question but because inequality drives instability inequality drives you know a frustration and anger in society which extremists can then build upon I think any reasonable capitalist pro-market person you know is going to look at this and say no this is I'm defending capitalism I'm defending the market I'm defending my ability to operate and for the market to be free if I support action on inequality and climate change and and what we're going to see otherwise is the opposite otherwise you know if you get climate change getting out of control you you need big government and heavy intervention and high taxes to address it right and the longer we leave it the worse that gets so I think that argument's made in the 70s and 80s but it's jobs versus environment right and that was a fatal mistake of the advocacy in this area to fall for that trick because reality is it's it's protect the environment or we're going to lose a lot of jobs so coming then to specific technologies without situating you as a good guy or a bad guy one of the technologies that you think that we're the most promised resides where you think will lead to the biggest step change if we can find ways to catalyze advocate for give space for those technologies where would you be focusing you don't need we don't need radical policy to make it happen anymore on energy I think the number one opportunity and the number one risk in our space now is actually food right if we if we don't have a stable food supply the implications will be war you know the conflict hundreds of millions if not billions of refugees so I think we need to really put a lot of energy and focus on how do we address food food production both as a source of emissions but also as a victim of emissions and the paper that I published with Pablo Salas with you at CISL methane markets and the methane and markets was all about that idea that you know methane is a hugely important question but food and agriculture has the opportunity for radically disruptive change and by the way it'd be a much better more stable food system if we pursued that. So we're having this conversation in the run up to COP28 international climate negotiation what do you see as the role of role of international climate negotiations what's the role of COPs do they even have a role. I'm really torn on this one actually if you wanted to avoid global action on climate change seeking a global treaty by consensus for a radical reduction of the economy was the most effective way of delaying change the weaker think of now so that's sort of my my negative view of that is that we've all been kind of conned into the idea underpinned by acting as a cost that we must all act together without any competitive disadvantage and and agree to that by consensus was never going to happen right so that in that sense the cops have failed dismaling on the other hand my argument is that real action only comes from individuals taking action within their world whether it's in their company their NGO their policy area whatever and in that sense cops have become this gigantic festival of climate change action right drawing connections drawing people in spreading ideas taking the temperature globally as to what's going to happen and so that symbolism connectivity networking that these events generate I think actually can it can have a really powerful global impact thank you and I suppose then elevating this even more to a global context we recognize that over the last decade we've seen really shifting geopolitics shifting power dynamics we've seen a shift in power from north to south from west to east we've also seen that as you out on in your paper the issues around climate and resources and energy become more significant for national security governments ability to drive the needs of people these issues are not just the domain of scientists but have become really core to foreign policies to trade negotiation so I'm interested in what that means for our collective ability to to make the choice that you say and to turn things around given that it is now much more politicized we are in a very messy period however we still make some really profound I think incorrect assumptions based on how we saw things 20 years ago if you take the rethink x view I referred to earlier and their work on on on agriculture energy and and technology across the board their argument is that poor countries could actually benefit the most from the change right and but we're living in a world where the rich cause that the rich won't suffer the poor will suffer the rich should pay for it now I think the rich should pay for it because they actually did cause it so that's right but that that's predicated on the idea that the that this expensive to fix that is negative for your economy to fix right whereas evidence is not that's not true right and and that actual an actual fact renewable clean energy for example is going to be cheaper easier and safer to do than the alternatives so I think that that will eventually change the politics but I think as we as we recognize that the countries that are most advanced in this area are actually the most economically successful you know we've seen this recently with China really growing dramatically in terms of electric car production and exports right and Europe and the US kind of going into panic mode about losing market share to China is electric car manufacturers it's economically beneficial to lead and I think populism being driven on the back of opposing climate action is a losing game for the populace that the evidence eventually will overwhelm them in that sense so I want to end by going from that global down to the individual as you know CISL the Institute for Sustainability Leadership we have nearly 40 000 individuals across our international network people who've engaged their leaders group who've been through our education programs who engage with us in some way most of them pretty senior within business within finance within government institutions I'm interested in what you think they should be doing in practical terms to contribute to that choice to that movement that you talked about that critical mass what should they be doing I think I really think that it's a very powerful network first of all I think it really is quite extraordinary how much diffuse influence the CISL network can have and I think one of the most critical ones is is this idea of moving you know the narrative from pain to gain we have this narrative of pain acting is expensive acting is difficult acting costs the economy acting will bring it I'd be bad for our growth clearly not true in terms of the evidence so as opposed to the argument making the argument that this is about responsibility the right thing to do critical for our future etc no this is actually it is all those things but it's actually also about opportunity for growth economic benefit or competitiveness against other companies etc I think starts to reframe that idea you know and that language getting through the business community I think is also also really crucial and also I think we need to change this idea that the the the laggards you know are are going to hold us back the laggards are going to lose right and that idea that the laggards are somehow a problem I think we should kind of argue if you like a strategy of inevitability we are going to change right and we're going to change dramatically and large companies are going to be very successful to get this right and they're going to be hopeless failures to get it wrong right and that again that mindset shift by all the you know the 40 000 whatever it is CISL you know influenced alumni etc now that's really powerful that's a really powerful group out there in society to start to change the way we think about these issues and the way we talk about them thank you so I heard a big focus on narrative shifts there on mindset shifts and harnessing the the power of that network effect just getting people together can catalyze new ideas new collaborations and so on within the network so thank you very much for your time today a lot of great challenging provocative inputs there anything else that you'd like to share before we wrap this up I think the only other thing which I really emphasise in the paper um which I'd encourage people to really internalise is that we're really accelerating now on every front the climate change is accelerating but also the market's response is accelerating going to be chaotic it's going to be messy right and it's going to be quick and so the ability to be agile and respond to move quickly and not be overwhelmed or demoralised by it you know is I think really really important to actually make that change happen as quickly as we possibly can thank you very much right thank you