 of CISL, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and I'm really pleased to welcome you on behalf of the UK Business Group Alliance for Net Zero. So today we're going to be exploring the challenges and opportunities of shifting the whole of the economy to meet the UK's Net Zero target by 2050 and also how are we going to achieve the 2030 NDC emissions reduction target. A big priority for us in this discussion is to look beyond carbon in the narrow sense and to think about the connected lens on people, nature and climate. We have to acknowledge incredible progress already made by the UK over 50% of the FTSE 100 are now in the race to zero and the majority via the science-based targets initiative business ambition for the 1.5 degree campaign. So today is going to be a great debate. We're joined by the five leaders of the UK's top business networks. This event is going to be live streamed and we really encourage you to participate. Feel free to wave your hands because I'm dazzled by these bright lights. But before we get cracking on our debate I am really pleased to welcome our first speaker, Andrew Griffith, who's been leading the way this year in engaging UK businesses, personally meeting with many of the largest UK businesses to engage them in the actions they can take. So I'm going to step down and give Andrew the floor to give you some highlights of UK action. Andrew, thank you. Thank you. Thank you Claire and thank you for the work of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership. It's a brilliant combination of the science technology, the application and giving us all the data that we need in this emerging area. One of the big ways that we're going to tackle this crisis is through new data, new techniques, new ways of measuring. If we can measure it then we can take action to solve it. It's so good to be here with the five leading UK business organisations. All of them have been incredibly generous with their time, their support, helping to motivate and rally their members in this 12 month run up to what has now arrived. It's still a little bit pinched myself that we're actually here. The last 12 months have gone incredibly quickly and despite the backdrop of a unprecedented global pandemic, in many ways a headwind but in some other ways an accelerant, an accelerant of the change and the opportunity that we all want to see to build back better. Someone was saying to me, I think Beverly who's a veteran of these events is that the business presence at this climate summit is greater than ever before and that is not an accident from the partner organisations to the agenda to the design layout of the venue. One of the objectives of the UK presidency has been to harness what I call the ferocious problem-solving power of business because once these pavilions recyclable, as I hope they are, have all been struck in 13 days time, the hard work begins and that's the hard work of bringing forward new techniques, cascading them at scale and solving the planet's crisis. In the UK, because this is a UK audience we're talking about, the UK business organisations has an incredible responsibility, not just because the UK government has soft power but also UK businesses exude soft power, it sits in their very supply chains, it sits in their boardrooms which are the most diverse of any business community on the planet. It's in our lingua frankla of England, it's in our mastery of many of the domains of measurement, whether it's the English legal system, the work that's been done by accounting bodies in the past. So we have a great responsibility but much more so an opportunity now to harness what we are doing and I say not entirely ingest but almost irrespective of what our leaders produce and we do need them to produce some clear goals and ambitions now. The quiet job of businesses with their tentacle supply chain spreading around the world, helping to pioneer the decarbonisation revolution is going to happen no matter what and as Claire said we've already got half of the very biggest companies in the UK committed to rigorous science-based targets, that's more than any other global index, again showing the ability of the UK to really marshal these efforts. So I'm going to, I'm going to vacate your lovely, quite warm stage, I feel globally warmed but I'm going to vacate the stage with a huge thank you and an acknowledgement, it has been a joy, my role for these last 12 months would not have been possible without all of the business organisations, without of course the businesses and my plea which I'm sure will fall on receptive ears because it always has is that those of us who are running the biggest organisations and the biggest federations must make sure that it's a just and equal journey and in the business context that means bringing along our very smallest suppliers, it means being open to entrepreneurs and innovators as well as moving with established suppliers, we've got to make it an opportunity for everybody and every part of the ledger but thank you very much for having me, please any of you who haven't had the chance come along and see the UK pavilion alongside so many other brilliant organisations who've been working in this. You're there. I was counting them all out and counting them all in just to make sure I'd lost nobody in there in this dark room. So our panellists know each other well but you may not know them, you may not really know exactly what each of their networks do so we're going to start by inviting them just to very briefly introduce themselves what their network is for and if they've got one provocation or take away from COP26 so far they're welcome to share it, all that in about two minutes, three minutes each. I'm going to start with John Geldart who is the director general of the Institute of Directors. John. Thanks for it's a pleasure to be here today and I think as Andrew has said earlier it's been a long journey but it doesn't seem to have it does seem to pass very quickly this last 12 months so the Institute of Directors represents essentially the middle market of the United Kingdom business community so we have around about 60,000 followers on LinkedIn, we're about 20,000 members and we represent the middle market so those businesses really between two and 200 million pounds worth of turnover and our raison d'et is about the quality of directors so if the Institute of Directors read good governance and to the point that has been made already by Claire and by Andrew that knowledge of British institutionalised if you like good governance spreads around the world and I'm delighted to see quite a number of colleagues here from China because we've recently just started to open up in China to support some of the Chinese leadership around thinking about good governance so just a couple of points to be provocative if I may a survey just coming out this morning which we've placed in the media on our website so iod.com we just a survey of our membership about their preparedness for net zero interestingly 28% are actually measuring their carbon outputs now you might think that's quite small I think that's very good at 27% of a plan to move to net zero and 16% to have a date so a specific date by which they will achieve net zero now just talking about this issue in terms of supply chain I think that's a pretty good start and yet a lot of a way to go but imagine that's the supply chain that I know Karen and others will be talking about so in that supply chain a lot of people are already focused on that zero and that plan maybe not enough because 51% say they'd like to see more government guidelines on what they can do many of them don't actually know what to do although many are planning brilliant thank you John now I am going to bring you in look Karen Bellamoria who's the president of the confederation of British industry Karen over to you thank you very much Karen delighted that you're in the position that you are at Cambridge and I chaired the business school for five years and I'm disappointed that our tenures didn't overlap but look forward to working with you at the CBI we've really tried our best to get all our members and again to reinforce a point that Andrew made that the impression is the CBI is the the big business organization speaks for the FTSE 100 FTSE 2 well we do but we also speak for 190,000 businesses and most of them are SMEs so I think it's an important point that we have all business going the challenge is there and I think that we need to put in context so the Prime Minister said when he was mayor he went to Beijing soon after become mayor and at that time 40% of our energy was using coal today in less than 15 years is 1% so it's doable we can make change and the point that you made is only a few months ago I said one-third of our largest companies had committed to net zero market cap of about 650 billion by 2015 now it's half so the business of walking talk I just want to quote from the gold thirteen platform we surveyed businesses and here's the reality six things one drivers of change 79% of businesses now view climate as a mega trend and this is the big change talking to people who've been at cops Andrew spoke about this who've been a cops they've said this year we've noticed businesses presence more than ever multi fold so here's one proof of that secondly setting targets and you know what gets measured gets done and again 89% of companies in this survey have at least one climate related target the next is organizations 64% it's the leaders a company leaders the next is climate initiatives they've actually got specific initiatives these companies the next is barriers they're aware of the barriers are involved and what to do about them and the next is lessons building momentum collaborating communication so it's there now happening and I'm looking forward to great discussion thank you fantastic now I want to bring in Siobhan Haverland who is the director general of the British chambers of commerce and I think we should clap her because she was on BBC Radio 4 at 6.15 this morning and clap me because I was awake to hear her it's already been a long day it's delightful to hear Claire thank you very much yes they no small subject this morning at 6.15 green finance and carbon taxes so thank you for having me the British Chamber of Commerce represents the 53 accredited chambers of the UK which spread from the tip of Scotland to the bottom of Cornwall from Northern Ireland across the Felix Do but our best kept secret is that we also represent 76 and counting international chambers from all over the world as members so truly unique global network most of about 80% of our members are SMEs but 20% are effectively the largest employers of the 53 chambers so from EDF to Drax to Amazon to that west so we really speak across across the board in terms of SMEs I mean it really is a challenge Claire and I'll talk a bit more about that they're coming out of fragile recovery cash flows tight net zero is important but they're not really quite sure what to do about it so I'll talk a little bit more later about the two sides of that coin net zero which of course is very important but actually more progressively how do we drive green innovation thank you. Thanks Siobhan and last and certainly not least Stephen Phippson who is the CEO of Make UK which he will explain to you in its full glory. Thank you, thank you Claire, thank you for having me. It's really good to be here. Yes, so Make UK so we've been around 125 years engineering employers federations it was for 120 years of that. We represent about a million employees out of the 2.7 million employees in the manufacturing sector in the UK so we go across all the different sectors all the automotive companies all the steel makers all the foundation industries all the energy intensive users and thousands and thousands of smaller manufacturers across the whole of the country and I've got a small team of 400 people that look after them all basically in Make UK and for us a really important event in COP26 and great to be here there's a lot of excitement around we can see a lot of excitement at the top end with the large manufacturers a lot of commitments going on there and of course we do have some large challenges particularly around our foundation industries but I'm struck by the innovation I see there and really some of the plans for achieving their objectives going forwards which is really important but the task is that supply chain the task is those smaller companies and I completely agree with what Andrew said about making this a just transition. We must do that and we must bring thousands of those smaller companies with us and one of those challenges alongside financing and all the other things that have been spoken about so far is around green skills and perhaps this is an opportunity to unpack a little bit by what we mean by green skills because certainly for the manufacturing sector that's going to be one of the keys to achieving these objectives going forwards thank you. Fantastic so we're already hearing some very important connecting themes here but also some in effect some calls to action skills the SME piece and so on so I'm going to chuck a few questions at our speakers but please be thinking of your own questions and I'd love to have some of you jump in but as I say you will have to wave your hands because you look like Harry Potter shadows to me silhouetted against the against the light so first as you can see in the title we've talked about the whole economy and we know that there'll be first movers laggards more prominent less visible sectors so John why is it critical that all parts of the economy take action and our help to take action? I think it's um as Stephen has said it's about the supply chain so everything affects everything else and without everybody taking a view every committing all the way down the supply chain when it falls apart at one part in a chain and we know it falls apart the weakest link then the whole thing falls apart so it's really incumbent on us as business organisations but also in the in the framework that government sets for us to be able to encourage everybody in the supply chain to have a net zero target to be on target for that target and have a plan and we love planning and business have a plan as to how they're going to achieve it because as Lord Bellamoria has said already that without a plan nothing happens so it's super important and it's the whole integrated approach is to why everybody is to get involved can I can I take forward on that question because you talked about governance before and that importance of really thinking about the quality of governance to be able to deliver against that do you want us to share a reflection on the governance aspect of that? No it's very helpful and in the press release that's just come out today one of the things we're asking for not just from government but generally is a commitment from business to look at how they bring ESG into the boardroom and that's not about having a separate committee on ESG that's not what it's about it's about having a whole board approach to ESG and what we're seeing increasingly is that is starting to shape now I would also say that it's about the supply chain in the in the fullness of the whole thing but also without good governance without knowing what you're measuring without framing it in an appropriate way without challenging the boardroom a lot of things won't happen a lot of things won't get measured and that's really super important now we're introducing that in terms of all our training that we're doing we about a third of our businesses around training directors and we talk about better directors for a better world and that is the core of what the IOD is about really since we set up in 1903 we got our royal charter in 1906 it has been improving the quality of directors through good governance and government yes has a part to play but we're calling for really is a code of conduct that includes ESG for all directors to sign up to and we hope that will form a part of the debate going forward and I want to say one final thing which is to note it is also about the capital markets so thinking about the way the capital markets are going to look at this is also super important and I would encourage people to go to a website which is called rewired.earth I'll be speaking about that next week at an event we're holding here and that really is about the whole economy of demand side not just the side in terms of business so if we had the consumers being able to define what they care about that will make a big difference for pension funds and their investments into net zero. Well that resonates with CISL because we have two foundational pieces of research rewiring the economy and rewiring leadership again with this systems approach so underpinning what you said John was purpose leadership and transition journey I'd like to bring you in at this point I've heard you say that the journey to net zero is not a zero sum game can you talk a little bit about that and how the CBI is supporting its business members to show this leadership and purpose. Absolutely it was a prime minister when I had the privilege of chairing the B7 before the G7 this was in May and when he addressed us he said that he said the road to net zero is not a zero sum game and of course in true Boris style he said green is good so but the reality is it is good I was speaking at an event with Indonesia yesterday here and a figure just really stood out to me every megawatt of solar generates 7.4 jobs every megawatt of coal generates one job so solar power since the 1990s the cost has gone down by 15 per cent per year so these new technologies and we haven't even started with hydrogen if you look at the potential of something like hydrogen if you look at heat I chaired the heat commission one third of greenhouse gas emissions comes from heat half of that comes from buildings and of the 29 million houses in this country only 20 only one million are up to the standard if we're going to reach net zero by 2050 so 28 million houses have to be retrofitted insulated heat pumps community heating hydrogen and the jobs it's jobs jobs jobs it's going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and the investment and the delivery of it then we've there's a national centre for the decarbonisation of heat in the midlands to actually deliver that so there's huge potential and I think the cost benefits of this is not only more environmental but actually the economic costs are going to be off the charts and then we should talk about biodiversity later as well because part of our scope of Cambridge the fantastic report he's written on the economics of biodiversity well but I want to come back on the question of leadership because you know rightly or wrongly we've we know many cases when there's brilliant evidence the case for action is incontrovertible and we still don't get the action quickly enough or at scale so can you go into how the cebi is galvanising that leadership and so what we're doing is and again the Duke of Wellington his motto is fortune favours the bold fortune favours the brave and how much braver can you get at the beginning of this year one of our members EY Ernst and Young in the middle of a pandemic said we're going to go carbon negative in 2021 we thought come on I mean that's a great statement they've done it they've already done it now in October so that's walking the talk and that's what we're encouraging our businesses yes set the targets but actually lead from the front and that's why this is a great opportunity to showcase business leadership globally that we can all learn from great thank you so Siobhan when I was listening to you on the radio early this morning you picked up on a really important disconnect which was the numbers of your members that had their net zero plans and the percentage of the public and consumers demanding more can you just talk a bit about that and how concretely you can help narrow that gap and indeed reverse it so that business is ahead of the consumers yeah absolutely so our research earlier this year showed that about 11% of our members had a net zero plan or had measured their carbon footprint but the same time they also said 50% of them said it was the most important thing for their consumers or their customers so that is the disconnect that Claire is talking about the reason for that is mainly concern over cost so over 30% said it was upfront costs and another 30% said it was access to finance I give you a quick example one of our members is an AI business and they really want to move to energy efficient servers to become carbon neutral he said to me it's going to cost me 170 thousand pounds to change my servers I mean how am I going to do that so we are concretely helping them do a number of things on the net zero side we're helping them measure their net zero footprint through our net zero hub for example and also signposting them to sort of financial options as well as you know the thing we normally do around networking and and policy development but actually you know what we also like to say is net zero is important but actually the other side of the coin the more exciting side is green innovation and that's where I think we can really make a difference so if I give you an example of our East Lancashire Chamber for example they have low carbon chamber they call it and they have not just people helping you measure your your carbon footprint but actually what are you going to do next what are you going to do next here's the plan for you because SMEs just don't have the people to do it here's the plan here's what it's going to cost and here we will find that financing with you and for you so already in the last year they have bought new lab jobs through a company that uses bacteria to tackle pollution don't ask me any more details and they have 10 times the production of heat pumps in their county and by the way that the company using bacteria to to combat pollution had been offered space and acceleration acceleration space in both Oxford and Cambridge has chosen Lancaster we need to spread the wealth across the country absolutely leveling up yeah and our Lancashire business is also now just won a multimillion pound contract for EV battery technology so we really see those sort of hubs of exciting green innovation and of course it comes back to Steven's point about jobs because we need to move you know clearly away from one to the other so three things really asking government to put the right policy framework in place so that businesses have that confidence and certainty help and communicate to them what to do and then access to finance they need to do it brilliant well that segues me beautifully to Steven so at this conference we're hearing finally far more about scope three emissions and I want you to talk a bit about how businesses and manufacturing are engaging with the supply chain with that focus on SMEs and entrepreneurs in particular and then if you can take us a bit further into your own thinking on the jobs of tomorrow too sure okay let's do that um let's start thinking about SMEs and start looking at through the SME lens I think for many of the companies and actually in manufacturing in this country there's about 220,000 manufacturers and most of those are SMEs around 95 percent to many of them this looks like a cost issue this looks like something that's going to cost a lot of money it looks like something we have to have a plan for an investment plan for the financing for and and there again you end up with a traditional reluctance then to actually commit to it and that's always been one of the one of the issues what we've been finding in our regions and actually working closely in clusters and place is important I'll come back to that is that you end up with actually showing them by peer review really what other companies have done in a cost effective way to implement net zero process improvements in their plants which is important but the other side of the equation is equally important the one that Siobhan just touched on and that is the opportunity for new product development with these companies absolutely fantastic opportunity has been touched on but I see I'm very fortunate this job I see hundreds of companies involved in hydrogen fuel cell technology development ammonia cracking new methods of doing that what we're doing in the carbon capture usage and storage supply chain lots of innovation going on there that's where the government has rightly put some focus on to that but in terms of you know if you look at the level three emissions and where we are going with that there's also another opportunity around on-shoring and this is a really significant opportunity for the UK in a post EU world one of the and supply chain issues that we're seeing at the moment on the on the top of many board agendas is how do we build supply chain resilience in alongside the net zero agenda and that leads many companies to think about on-shoring some of those processes that were happening on the other side of the planet that were caused with uncontrolled carbon emissions because we're not quite sure what those suppliers are doing and can we bring that much further with investment into the UK and that represents a fantastic opportunity for growth for our sector so actually once we start in these areas and we work in 11 regions around the UK and we actually have many many hundreds of companies now engaged in this in looking at what local companies have done being able to if you like learn from each other's experience and get them on the road that way you can encourage them to do it otherwise just sitting there reading the papers a lot of these small companies owners will say well looks like a lot of cost and not sure how I'm going to afford it and I'm not sure I've got all the skills to do it anyway and just to point on the skills agenda for manufacturing that's quite specific in terms of green skills one of the things that we have to get a lot better at is designing for net zero this is designing products and supply chains and processes that work in the net zero context now that sounds pretty obvious sitting here in a conference in Glasgow but if you've been making parts for trucks for the last 30 years it's not very obvious to those those SMEs how they go about doing that and in many cases this is a really big upskilling opportunity for the manufacturing sector in the UK and something we do need government support on in terms of green skills but designing the right products of the future that have net zero at the forefront of their design criteria and their supply chains and processes is absolutely vital the last thing that's really a manufacturing point is our digitisation journey a lot of you may know we're in the middle of what's called the fourth industrial revolution at the moment which is around digitisation one thing the pandemic taught the sector in the UK was how to collaborate digitally and what we found was the effect on carbon neutrality was quite significant in people being able to do design collaboration and not travel and actually start to think about things in a different way and this is absolutely vital for us the acceleration of digital adoption into the sector where we've got fairly low penetration at the moment it's great with the big manufacturers again not so prevalent further down the supply chain focusing on that will give us enormous benefits and really been able to achieve what we want in terms of net zero for manufacturing in this country so there's a few ideas in there I would say Clair that's quite a lot and it was very rich there's a question there at the back can you if you stand up and shout is there a roving mic otherwise just shout out or come and join me here no please come up come up and just uh just say your name thank you very much I'm I'm Marcus Gover from RAPP in the UK and I wanted to ask about business leadership versus government because all the governments here are talking about territorial emissions now their own countries whereas businesses are talking about products and they're talking about consumption emissions in your supply chains and the differences are huge I mean we've done some modelling looking at the materials that go into products that we use that says that in 2050 we'll probably be using 200 million tonnes of coal for the UK still how do we get the people here to focus more about consumption emissions and products and cross boundaries rather than just their own countries and as business leaders perhaps great thank you Marcus I'm going to bring Karan in on that point because you were talking to me about cross border just before we went on the platform yes I think that the point you're making is is one of the crucial points here is about business and governments collaborating go so government setting the targets is really important it's really important to set that direction it's great to have a country like India saying we're going to commit to net zero okay it's 2070 we led the way with 2050 in law and now many many countries around the world are following and making that commitment I think that's very important the commitment to deforestation that's fantastic news so these are great I think necessities but business then has to lead the way and the way I look at it is this as as somebody I created Cobra beer household name which I'm proud of when you when you're an entrepreneur you see problems but you see solutions as well and then you see a way of making it happen and making it happen quickly and that's what business can do that government cannot necessarily do as well is seeing the problem seeing the solution making it happen and acting on it and that's where business has got to lead the way and I think the commitments being made by businesses now are just fantastic and we're seeing it right here at COP and I've spoken about some of them specifically as well early on my opening months one point I do want to make is we've got to look at this in the hole this is not just about net zero it is about biodiversity as well but it's also about the circular economy yeah I mean I was in and I want to talk maybe later about clusters and regions that maybe say a few words say a few words now and then I'll bring John in yeah because it's so important also with your own individual business I went up to a region T side the other day with Ben Houchen the mayor there doing the work that he's doing and I went and visited the brewery there Camerons that makes the Cobra Malabar Blonde IPA you I walked through the whole process when you walk through a process in a brewery you see how much is recycled nothing is wasted the yeast goes to make marmite the waste from when the brewing process goes as cattle feed we try and breweries many breweries capture the carbon and reuse the carbon you know you the some breweries recycle the bottles and everything you're looking at how can I recycle how can I reuse it how can I stop waste how can I be environmentally friendly as well as the net zero and I think that is really important and when it comes to place I've seen the power of clusters I mean the best example of clusters we've got in this country is Cambridge I mean Cambridge cluster that that from that spun out ARM computers acorn and now is a life sciences cluster me talk to about the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine where is AstraZeneca headquartered in Cambridge it's part of the life sciences cluster and I think the power of clusters I've just spoken of event to do with Humberside and Hull and there you've got the leader of the council you've got the chancellor of the university you're a company like Wreck-It one of the biggest companies that invest 100 million pounds into that area you've got EY a partner of EY the only big forefirm over there and you've got the president of CBI one of the biggest business organisations all of us promoting and working on a cluster and then I'll go one step further you have universities and business and government working together and you do it cross border and when you have cross border research between two universities the field-weighted impact is usually three times higher than the university doing it on its own and you bring in a business as well it makes it even more powerful great and what we're hearing already of course is that the whole economy of our title is going way beyond the borders of the UK John I want to bring you in because you have such extensive experience in China and you also spoke about the Institute of Directors itself having these international branches and a cross border impact strategy yeah I think there are clearly the Chinese government need to speak for China and that's a matter for them my sense of it is that there's an opportunity for the UK in its presidency to be able to set some frameworks which are going to be I believe admired and followed by others and I think that COP in Glasgow which has been a city of regeneration for a number of years is one opportunity for us to do that the Institute we have either sister organisations in India in Canada in New Zealand in Australia and also as I mentioned earlier starting to work in China and in Africa so what the so what is that is a common framework and as others have said the opportunity for countries is to set a framework and that's why it's so important they agree that framework because a common framework makes business easier to do it's so much more difficult and I've worked in 60 countries around the world it is so much more difficult when you can't measure things to a common standard so one example of a measurement to common standards I used to work in the accounting profession for the first bid we see and then grant Thornton globally and essentially IFRS is a common standard for the way you measure the accounting regulations worldwide there is a need to have a common standard for the way we measure ESG and this is something I feel as you can tell by my turn of voice very passionate about I think it is incumbent on business to lead the way and for government to set the framework in which business can operate and across that framework that means it's a lot easier and I'm sure a colleague would agree for business to do the business but good asset which is making money creating jobs and creating a thriving economies for the future with the net zero focus but you touch on something very important here which underpins so much of the debate which is the question of trust and credibility you know ESG like net zero is a is a an acronym that we're hearing more and more and more but for some people it means different things to different people and there isn't that sense of a commonly recognised standard and so I think that is a that's certainly a test that we at CISL are really focusing on about what will it look like to have that kind of common standard that can then have that public trust I want to now do a pivot to what Caran and others have also already touched on which is this question of not just nature and biodiversity but also the society inclusion and equality and bring Siobhan and Stephen back in this COP has got more emphasis on people and nature on the just transition and on biodiversity than any other COP as far as I'm aware but I want to understand we know that round board tables in business the nature piece has hardly begun so I'd really like to get a a deep understanding starting with Siobhan on how we know how long it took us to go from Nick Stearn's report to where we're at now you mentioned the Dascopter review which is you know relatively hot off the presses I don't want it to take that long before it becomes a new normal what do business leaders do to push the nature agenda and the inclusive society agenda so it makes sense for business decision making and investment Siobhan thank you we are hosting a business lounge in the city of Glasgow College for these four first days of COP and yesterday morning we started our events with a panel on women in green trade so a couple of points to that about 10% of UK businesses export about 60% of chamber members export trade is very much at the heart of our global network and trade is really something that can be used to drive many of those agendas you talked about so not just gender equality but biodiversity and of course the wide-agreed agenda and we had Emily Thornbury yesterday talking about not trade plus x but actually starting with the SDGs starting from the 17 goals and working from there and by working from that common framework we can have a we can have one conversation now the issue is bringing the SDGs into your everyday business life is a challenge so actually how do we as organisations help our members use that framework to tell their story you know we know that our members are incredibly you know they are they are a force for good in their communities they have members of their local chambers they employ local young people they support local charities they improve their built environment and we need to help them tell that story because they're not doing it themselves and actually we know that their consumers want to hear about that and people want to work for businesses like that so it's a really important question about how we help them tell that story but you have a background I think in advertising at some point in your distinguished career so that are of message making I don't mean greenwashing I don't mean superficial I mean what I would call sense-making or cutting through the noise cutting through the complexity are the things you've learnt from that part of your background that can help us in the worlds of business and government to cut through the noise now there is a lot of noise I mean there's a lot of literally it has a business it's like whoa I don't know what should what should I do should I become a B core should I use the SDGs should I talk about ESG does anyone know what that means I mean how I don't know so actually we as the chambers are looking at how we can help our businesses tell that story because of course they cover all sectors in all regions and it has to be a simple clear story with a simple message and that's what we're trying to help with thinking about how we can help them do that very quickly I really want to build on what you said I've had this month at Cobra from the time I started Cobra beer that it's not just good enough to be the best in the world you've got to be the best for the world and it's not just what you do but how you do it and I think it's got to be this whole business with a purpose is now being spoken about more and more and if you think about where it's come we had PPP people planet prosperity then you had CSR corporate socialist on responsibility now you've got ESG but it's all down to having business with a purpose yes but we heard one of you and I'm sorry I forget which one somebody talked about the subset the subset of business that may be focusing or a bank or whatever on ESG and so on and I think that question of how do we go from brilliance as a subset to the new normal the mantra on our new building in Cambridge will be which is a sustainable retrofit is this is not an ordinary building but it should be and I want to know what is how do we make ESG STGs whatever thing you want to do absolutely a no brainer Steven you're nodding and I want to get you bring you in absolutely because we okay so we do see some examples but it's limited okay that's the that's the honest answer I've seen some incredible examples where large manufacturers are thinking about you know exactly the effect of their supply chain on these issues in those countries where deforestation is happening or whatever and actually going away from it and making conscious decisions about changing that supply chain as a result of that or I've seen people actually running gold mines in South America and actually investing back in the local villages and actually not using you know noxious chemicals in the process and finding innovative ways of doing it very interesting sort of approaches I think the most important thing and you've heard it I think as a common theme is about communicating this we have the best effect as business organisations when we have best practice and we can showcase it and we can bring people on the journey with us and our role part of our role is definitely around communicating those best practice ideas so not only on net zero but on the wider issue particularly around all these other issues around ESG it's around translating that into something that's real for those businesses and particularly for the smaller businesses a lot of them think it doesn't affect them but it does affect them and they can have a contribution to it so it's really up to us to help communicate that message more and move this forward I mean there's a lot I would say the take up on the net zero agenda is very rapid now it's like an exponential curve all we need to achieve is a similar exponential curve on these other items it's very important and we can do that by example I think by showing really good live case studies about how companies are doing it now yeah John just to add to that I think I'll add another passion from the IOD which is about the directors of tomorrow yeah and this is about the new generation the next generation the people as Karen was saying are coming through our universities fantastic university here in Glasgow and Strath Clyde we've got Napier in Scotland St Andrews my alma mater and others and it's so important that we see the opportunity that comes from the next generation and that is another area where certainly the business organisations can do a lot and we do a lot in that space in order to encourage that next generation with all the innovation and the hope that they have the hope that is created through places like this the hope that is created by leaders having a common framework because it's that next generation you know I'm a male pale stale you know individual unfortunately but I have great hope for my children I've got great hope for my grandchildren and I think that is going to come through the leverage that we get through the amazing work that's done in universities not just in the UK but also around the world and that comment about collaboration it's collaboration in new manufacturing styles it's collaboration in the way that we use digital it's collaboration collaboration collaboration and putting that at the heart of ESG and putting that in the boardroom is true great governance so I mean yes yes yes and yes but when we think about that that hope and that next generation it brings us back to that question of social inclusion now depending where you're sitting right now depending how COVID hit you or your business you can feel this is about the least inclusive time you've ever lived through if you're in certain countries as we know only too well there is huge divide or mistrust or weariness and so on even around the debates happening now so I'm really interested in I will call it as it is the moral compass the moral responsibility and the public voice that businesses both through their leaders and through their rising employees can show collectively in this space who wants to pick that up I saw your microphone waggle so you get the first word well I think you talked to just bring on what John said you talked to young people today and survey after survey shows that the two things are more important to them than others one they passionately care about climate change sustainability environment biodiversity they care about it the second thing is diversity and inclusion and when they're applying to a company or looking they will see does this company live those two things and and they're looking out for it so and and diversity by the way now we are getting far more diverse in this country in the UK but diversity there was a title in a Harvard business review article I remember recently diversity without inclusion is useless so you also got to have that atmosphere the mentoring the culture to create that inclusion that allows the diversity to flourish excellent so sorry and I've launched a cbi change the race ratio it's an initiative to champion ethnic minority diversity across all business and institutions and we've got a hundred of the leading institutions including universities have signed up to it fantastic so I'll pass to Stephen and then beyond and I'll invite you to also say a particular sort of priority as your sort of closing words to the panel or a call to action don't worry I'll give you a last chance Stephen I'm just going to lie clear the point about about the youngsters coming into industry particularly manufacturing we run the largest apprentice training centre in the country at Birmingham it's got 1600 young apprentices doing robotics and mechatronics it's a very diverse group they're very enthusiastic about net zero they're constantly challenging the tutors about is this really the way that the manufacturing process should have should actually occur should it be actually configured differently and the passion and enthusiasm there is is great so if ever I'm feeling a little bit under pressure I go to Aston and I sit there for a day with a focus group with the apprentices and you get totally enthused by really what we can see as the next generation coming through here so that's important but it does bring me on to the big thing for me which is green skills because what I see across the country is a real lack of understanding I see some fear about this is going to cost me a lot of money this is going to be difficult to do what I don't see a lot of apart from in pockets where I see great innovation what we do need to have is a big push and this is where government needs to help us on green skills around designing for green process re-engineering upskilling our workforces to think in this different way and that's something we could do now we could start on that process now vitally important and by the way helps us a lot with things like levelling up manufacturing companies are not in city centres they tend to be very well dispersed around the country this creates new jobs and it creates better jobs for the future so I think you know one thing we are trying to push very hard on is the green skills agenda and that would be my one big ask here and coupling the green skills agenda with the power of place that place-based resilience that you spoke about sounds like a really winning combination. Siobhan you've I've kept you silent for a little bit so feel free also to pick up on other things you've heard as you also give your closing call to action. Thank you thank you so Glasgow City College as we heard yesterday teaches 2000 courses and every single one has climate in their curriculum that is how we need to teach our young people and they of course are teaching us so when we bring young people into our organisations they are teaching us how to do it and a bit like your building having spent many years as an angel investor in social enterprises we talk a lot about how we no longer want them to be social enterprises we just want them to be enterprises yes and actually when you or me or any of our young people go and register their first company at company's house why doesn't it say to you how are you thinking about your social impact how are you thinking about your environmental impact what are you putting into your articles of association when you're thinking about those things it's such a simple thing to do so I guess my sort of final point would be you know let's do that let's do that together maybe we should let's do that together maybe this is what we should take away with this together let's work out how we can help our members tell their story tell their story of business as a force for good you heard it here but please hold on to this because I'm really interested in new initiatives and new collaborations so this is just a sort of forum to do it John I raise you shavons shavons suggested that's quite difficult to top but I think the every time somebody goes and registers at company's house they do it as a director so we have incumbent on us the responsibility to step up and demonstrate what a director should be doing and I've mentioned earlier on a call that we have and we've put it out today around the corporate governance code the section 172 of the company's act there are some specific things that can be done to improve the environment in which business can make decisions that are going to be positive for our planet in every possible dimension so I would say the IOD is here for all directors no matter where they are Cree, Colour, Keith, Ken, wherever and around the world I would say we have three things we focus on connecting directors one to another so they can learn without fear of favour not trying to sell to each other but trying to connect positively second thing we do is develop so we spend a lot of time and energy developing the skills of directors through our training courses and the work we do that is in collaboration again with other business organisations specifically we connect we develop and finally we influence and that really is what the business organisations are are there to do to if you like hold up a mirror to government of what is really important to our members and of course the one thing that is super important to our members and has been crystallising over the past few years is around climate change sustainability and as Lord Billimawry has already said around inclusion and diversity not DNA but inclusion and diversity and those are very powerful things that we can help support business to be a force for good around. Fantastic, thank you, Karen. Thank you very much, just two points to make as we conclude one is innovation I really think that we need to power ahead with innovation we under invest as a country we spend 1.7% of GDP on R&D and innovation versus Germany America 2.8 Israel 4% if we spend that 1% more that's 20 billion pounds a year more just imagine what we could do with innovation particularly when it comes to the area we're talking about in terms of net zero and climate change and finally the dusk of the review he describes nature as our most precious asset and so David Attenborough when he commented on this review he said by bringing economics and ecology face to face we can help to save the natural world and in doing so save ourselves and finally one of my great friends and most respected members of the House of Lords who sits on the crossbenchers with me Lord Martin Rees the astronomer royal who was former master of Trinity College Cambridge former president of the Royal Society and finished with this quote from him he said just now our earth is 45 million centuries old but this century is the first one when species ours can determine the biosphere's fate thank you thank you so quite impossible to sum up with all the strands we've had here but just to call out a couple of things in the title you see it the BGA is a business group alliance and it was John who talked about without fear or favour I think was your phrase my equivalent phrase is non transactional how do we think about a collaborative paradigm that goes beyond the conventional limits of what we might have been brought up to think of as competition we still go for profits for success for innovation but we look beyond it to think about those root changes that systemic change that will enable successful companies to flourish evermore to give much better conditions to their workers where and whatever part of the world and I think to think about life and life chances whether you're in a poor part of the UK or a poor part elsewhere in the world and that radical connectivity of people nature and climate seems to me a conversation that is ripe to hit the boardrooms hit the training programmes hit the business schools and so on and so the whole economy lens as you've heard is actually deeply human in the way that we actually think how it will be achieved there is an incredible opportunity now I don't want to instrumentalize COVID or say any more cliches but it has reminded us both of the new localism which you talked about the power of place you talked about the need for people to reconfigure the way they work the way they balance their lives but it also made us think much more fundamentally about both mental and physical health and so I think I I leave you with my own favourite current phrase which is about health generating what is a health generating company a health generating supply chain a health generating city a health generating business network and when we think about that you cannot dissociate human and planetary health and so that connected thinking is something that I would expect confidently to be seeing in some of the new narratives and I would like to finish by both thanking our great panelists but also by putting Siobhan in the spotlight to say I think it would be wonderful if out of these two weeks this idea of interconnecting networks with a really creative forward vision could actually be something that could capture popular imagination including from those who currently see themselves as outside opportunity because they're not in on a university track they're not in that they don't know how to access the skills that we talked about and those are the people who are absolutely fundamental if a whole economy is also to mean a sustainable society and community so with that you've been a brilliant audience I'm sorry if some of you put your hands up and I didn't see them but thank you so much for um sparing time in this insane schedule to be with us and we really appreciated this it's been live streamed and let's keep the debate going by on Twitter or whatever platform you prefer but with that will you please join me and thank you our great panelists