What if markets rewarded sustainability? The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) wants to rewrite the rules of the global economy to make this happen.

For over three decades CISL has worked with influential leaders to help them understand this challenge and take action to address it. It now has a global network of over 40,000 leaders and innovators across business, finance and government.

Lindsay Hooper is CISL’s Interim CEO. With over 20 years’ experience at the forefront of business and sustainability, she has led CISL’s evolution into the respected international Institute it is today.

Lindsay was the first in her family to go to university, coming to Cambridge on a scholarship. In her early career, she saw how finance and energy shaped economies. She also recognised the potential of rewiring markets for the better. That’s when she heard the call of CISL and its ambitious mission.

In 1994, CISL’s founder Dame Polly Courtice received a royal commission from the now King Charles.

The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme was born: the first sustainability education programme of its kind for senior business leaders. It was designed to increase leaders’ ability to respond to environmental issues.

The programme made them face reality: you can’t do business on a dead planet, or a society in chaos. 

Since those early days, the programme has expanded. It now holds seminars across the world, and has become a global benchmark for sustainability leadership education.

Participants benefit from the insights of academics, expert practitioners and third sector leaders, leaving the programme more informed about evidence-based solutions and the policies we need to succeed.

Lindsay says: “Despite decades of scientific evidence on the urgent need for action, it remains more profitable to undermine the planet’s health than to invest in the green transition. Everything we do, whether it’s education, advocacy, developing decision-support tools or fostering innovation, is focused on changing that equation.”

CISL’s board features some of the best minds at the University – including Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero, Mike Kenny, inaugural Director of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, and Diarmuid O’Brien, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation. They work with others, such as the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, to widen the impact of Cambridge expertise, and focus the University’s presence at major events like COP29, COP16 and New York Climate Week.

“CISL’s particular strength is working with the private sector and policymakers feeding into real-world decision making. We support businesses to contribute to market shifts that will preserve our environmental systems.”

“Our educational programmes are evidence-backed and rigorous. They recognise many of the challenges we face are not technical, but social, cultural and economic.”

But Lindsay also recognises that education is not enough. 

“Businesses respond to market signals. If we want them to change, we need enabling regulation and policies. That’s why we established the Corporate Leaders Groups.”

CISL convenes groups of business leaders to encourage governments to enact progressive policy. During Tony Blair’s premiership, they played a key role in The Climate Change Act, making the UK the first country to have legally binding emissions targets. They supported the EU’s Nature Restoration Law too, helping to swing a tight vote in its favour.  

Elsewhere, CISL runs the Centre for Sustainable Finance, where leading investors, insurers and banks unite to build a more sustainable economy. These initiatives are sparking a ‘quiet revolution’ in the business world and showcase CISL’s many-sided influence.

When it comes to psychology, Lindsay agrees with Rachael Garrett, Director of the Conservation Research Institute, that profit isn’t always the key motivator for people to change their behaviour.  

Lindsay says, “Many people aren’t principally motivated by profit. Personal values, concern for their children’s future and social norms all play a role. But the markets we’ve constructed don’t recognise these values. Our economic structures incentivise businesses to optimise their short-term financial performance.

“At the moment, our rules serve us badly. We have committed, educated individuals stuck within systems we’ve created, compelling them to do the opposite of what they’d like to be doing. We need to rewrite the rules of the game.

“We need business action, but the impact of any lone business is nowhere near enough.”

As Pilita Clark’s Financial Times piece on CISL has it, businesses need to “go beyond setting targets for cutting their own carbon footprints and start lobbying for sweeping, long-term rules that reshape entire markets.”

Lindsay's urgency is infectious.

“We have the evidence required for action, like the Dasgupta Review. What we need is the political will to enact solutions. We need clear, consistent policies to incentivise innovation and action at scale. It’s time to act.”

One vision for a sustainable future is CISL’s Cambridge home, Entopia.

This award-winning ‘living lab’ is home to the The Canopy: CISL’s startup incubator and accelerator. So far, it has supported over 500 sustainability start-ups through its accelerator programmes, linking them to the Institute’s network of leaders, corporate partners and University researchers.

“It’s a space that sparks conversations and creativity. We have lots of innovators and entrepreneurs on site.”

Designed with staff wellbeing and building performance in mind, Entopia illustrates what’s possible in the built environment.

“Everyone here wants to meet society’s needs in a sustainable way. Entopia allows a network effect to take place – we can be more than the sum of our parts. 

“Cambridge’s academic strength matters. Our programmes bring in experts from geopolitics, behavioural economics, history and more, to offer a deep view of how paradigm change happens.

“What’s more, Cambridge’s entrepreneurial acumen is unashamedly brilliant. We can foster rapid innovation that transforms people’s lives.

“We’re at an inflection point. We missed our moment to redesign markets in 2008, when the financial crisis made reform possible. The post-COVID rebuild was another missed opportunity.

“Many politicians have a strong enough mandate, and the business and financial sectors are waking up too. Structural change needs to happen fast. I stand with Johan Rockström: giving up is not an option. We can do this.”

Lindsay Hooper is the Interim CEO for the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Published: 21 October 2024

Interview and words: Liam Morgan
Design: Alison Fair
Photography: Nick Saffell
Editor: Louise Walsh

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