On 14th July, IEMA Fellows and Full members participated in the first online Sustainability Leaders Forum. For this summer edition of the bi-annual high-level session, members were joined by the “Godfather of Sustainability” John Elkington, who shared insights from his latest book Green Swans, a manifesto for system change designed to serve people, the planet and prosperity.

During the session, John Elkington presented his views and recommendations on the leadership challenges for sustainability professionals, noting how they must expand their horizons from responsibility through resilience and onto regeneration. Noting a growing need for regeneration and the necessity to “Build Back Exponentially Better”, he noted how the pace of change increasingly demands profound reinvention. He stressed “the 2020s will be the Exponential Decade”, requiring that we all “step up – or get out of the way”.

During the second part of the session, Policy Lead Nick Blyth shared IEMA’s perspectives on Corporate Sustainability noting that the ambition for businesses and governments should be to resolve rather than to balance or trade off the sustainability challenge, underscoring that IEMA’s ambition is to innovate, collaborate and resolve our future development – to transform to sustainability.

IEMA Chief Executive Sarah Mukherjee then moderated an interactive Q&A discussion between him and IEMA members.

Presentations

IEMA Sustainability Leaders Forum - Understanding the needs of a post 2020 sustainable future slides- M Jourdan, IEMA - CLICK HERE

Green Swans: #BuildBackExponentiallyBetter - J Elkington - CLICK HERE

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