Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)

🌍2024 has been a pivotal year for CISL and the sustainability movement more widely. 🚀Today we launch our 2024 Annual Review spotlighting how we have delivered impact this year in pursuit of a sustainable economy. 🌡️2024 has been another year of extremes with global temperatures tipping 1.5 degrees, rapid biodiversity loss and international negotiations largely failing to deliver. ❓Confidence in the sustainability movement has faltered, raising big questions about where we go from here. This year CISL has asked these questions of itself, recognising that “sustainability as usual” hasn’t worked and has no realistic prospect of doing so. 📖This report includes examples of how CISL has worked with the private sector and entrepreneurs to accelerate action to design new systems, build new markets, transform whole sectors and systems, and foster innovation-driven solutions that align sustainability and competitiveness. 🔎True leadership in the year ahead will require honesty about the tough choices and the necessary changes that lie ahead, and an ambitious and clear-sighted focus on accelerating real-world change to reshape economies and markets. 💚We look forward to working with others across Cambridge and our international network to forge a cleaner, greener, fairer and more prosperous future for all. Read the full CISL Annual Review 2024 here👉 https://lnkd.in/gX958cUX

At a time when not only Draghi but also many others have called for radical thinking and bold changes, there is an opportunity to design a unique European model for a successful #CompetitiveSustainability transition. As Ursula von der Leyen prepares to launch Competitiveness Compass on 15 January 2025, the Competitive Sustainability Index (CSI) stands ready as a valuable framework. It highlights how integrating environmental, social, and governance metrics can strengthen economic resilience and redefine competitiveness. With data from 27 EU Member States and 11 international competitors, the CSI underscores that sustainability-driven policies are key to long-term prosperity. Get a preview of the report below 👇 Key Insights: 🌍 The EU’s top performers rank best-in-class across 21 out of 24 indicators, setting a powerful example for global sustainability standards. 🔧 While some EU Member States excel, others trail behind global competitors. Greater policy cohesion is essential to unlocking the EU’s full potential. 💸 Ranking third in cleantech VC funding and closing in on China, the EU could become the world’s top cleantech hub by scaling innovation. 🏗️ The EU leads in sustainable sectors like energy and buildings but needs to strengthen its mobility and digital ecosystems. 🔄 The EU’s edge in material efficiency and circular economy technologies creates vast market potential in a resource-conscious world. 🌿 Incorporating natural capital into its economic models gives the EU a first-mover advantage in biodiversity-driven markets. 🏛️ Strong institutions and effective policymaking correlate with higher GDP per capita, reinforcing the role of governance in sustainable growth. We call for policymakers to design a bold, future-proof European model centred on competitive sustainability. Read the full report for more insights and explore the interactive tool here: https://lnkd.in/e5Efy8ng

2024 has been quite the year. And so, we're looking back at the work CISL has achieved to advance thinking and accelerate action to address sustainability challenges in these turbulent times. Take a read of some of our highlights (#CISLWrapped, if you will) 👇 Next year needs to see momentum build at even greater speed to transform markets and economies to deliver for people, nature and climate. We're looking forward to collaborating with stakeholders, startups, businesses, global state and non-state actors, our growing Network and many more to create a cleaner, fairer, and more prosperous future for all in 2025 and beyond. 👉Read our full Annual Review here: https://lnkd.in/gX958cUX

💡Our self-paced #OnlineCourse, #SustainableFinance Foundations: Banking, Investment, and Insurance is for learners looking to develop foundational knowledge of the risks of the global sustainability crisis and opportunities for a #SustainableTransition in the finance sector. You will gain actionable insights to help you embed impact and sustainability risk mitigation into your practice.    Book your place here 👉 https://ow.ly/lNWt50RY4p9  🎤Lindsay Hooper, CISL’s CEO, shares who the course is relevant for. 👇  #SustainableFinance #SustainableTransition #OnlineCourse

💡 CISL’s new self-paced #OnlineCourse, Renewable Energy Foundations for Business is now open for bookings! This course has been designed to provide critical introductory knowledge, rooted in systems thinking, of the transition to #RenewableEnergy and its opportunities. You leave with the knowledge, skills and confidence to proactively contribute to it and change the system. To book your place visit the course page. 👉https://ow.ly/CZfC50UtfPZ 🎤Dr Jan Rosenow, course lead and energy analyst and scholar, explains why this course is important. #EnergyTransition #RenewableEnergy #OnlineCourse

⏰ The Green Growth Summit is starting soon!   🍃 The Green Growth Summit will bring together Ministers and State Secretaries of the Green Growth Group and high-level representatives from the EU institutions and businesses.   📰 Our event has also been announced in POLITICO Europe's Brussels Playbook newsletter! 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐬: Moderator: Jacki Davis Ursula Woodburn Lars Petersson Jan Dusík Carine de Boissezon Krzysztof (Chris) Bolesta Jes Munk Hansen Tore O. Sandvik  Līga Kurevska (née Sadoviča) Karen Pflug Eamon Ryan Alice K. Steenland Agnès Pannier-Runacher Uros Vajgl Gonzalo Saenz de Miera Jacki Davis The Summit will include the following sessions:   • Welcome Remarks • Fireside Chat: A vision for the EU in 2029 – Climate neutrality and prosperity • Session I: Making the case for climate action and the Green Deal to be the cornerstone of the Clean Industrial Deal • Session II: Climate targets – Implementation and ambition: Two sides of the same coin • Closing Remarks 📅 Time, 12:30 – 18.00 CET  📍 Location: Brussels and online    #GreenGrowthSummit2024 #GreenGrowthPartnership #CLGEurope #Competitiveness #2040ClimateGoals #CleanIndustrialDeal #ClimateAction

🏝️The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (#UNCCD) has just concluded its 16th meeting of parties in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (COP16). Countries gathered to address the issue of desertification and land degradation due to drought. While less well-known than the COPs on climate and biodiversity, its work is increasingly vital. As the UNCCD reported during the event, the world is getting drier and drylands now cover 40% of the earth's land. Going beyond temporary drought, this is land where the climate has become permanently drier. Drought and water scarcity have a huge economic cost (over $300bn/year according to a UN report) and soil health is one of the key indicators of the health of nature so its unsurprising that the private sector are showing an increased interest, with a greater business presence in Riyadh than any previous UNCCD COP. The three UN conventions – biodiversity, climate change and desertification – were all agreed at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Described by some as the 'Land COP', the desertification COP is an essential third part of the global environmental discussion - with desertification and land degradation being driven by climate change and having an impact on biodiversity and ecosystems. However there is a clear need for more alignment between the three conventions. But after this year’s biodiversity summit ended without a formal conclusion and the climate one with minimal progress, any hope for further progress at this COP is of great with interest. Global efforts to address the climate and nature crisis are currently falling far short. Despite this, the convention ended without an agreement from countries to respond to drought, with a new regime expected to be discussed at #COP17 in Mongolia in 2 years time. CISL’s new nature-positive campaign argues that we need to put nature at the heart of the economy to address the causes of nature degradation, climate change and desertification. Without more progress to change the way our markets and economies are organised we will fail to make progress. Find out more about our work to shift the dial on nature 👉https://lnkd.in/e3Gayk-j #NaturePositive #RestoringNature #ReimaginingGrowth #LandCOP

Excited to spend a day in Brussels with Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) at the Green Growth Summit 2024 In order for Europe to be more competitive and not miss the transition train we need: - Find ways to electrify faster and cheaper. Europe has more chances to compete on heat pumps, electric boilers and ovens, induction heating or plasma torch than in PV manufacturing. Focus on achieving that electrification with the maximum efficiency is key. - Accelerate circularity. One example from my sector: secondary aluminium requires 95% less energy than primary aluminium. Another one: Europe is leading (and exporting) on circular technologies such as Return Vending Machines, Sorting centre (MRFs) technologies. #GreenGrowthSummit2024 #GreenGrowthPartnership #CLGEurope #Competitiveness #2040ClimateGoals #CleanIndustrialDeal #ClimateAction

Join our panel of sustainability experts as they introduce our upcoming Leadership Lab: Systems Thinking for Complex Sustainability Challenges. Our faculty will go over what delegates can expect by attending this two-day short course including highly interactive sessions with group discussions, practical exercises, reflection, and insights from thought leaders from business and academia. To find out more details about the lab from dates and fees to its faculty and contributors, please visit our website here: https://lnkd.in/eyeMkW-C

💥We are delighted to announce that CISL’s new self-paced #OnlineCourse, Sustainability Innovation Strategy for Businesses and Entrepreneurs is now open for bookings through University of Cambridge Online! 💡This course has been designed with the team behind the Canopy (CISL) , our international community of sustainability innovators and entrepreneurs, to provide skills to enable businesses, entrepreneurs and investors to integrate sustainability into their innovation strategy. 👩🏻💻 The course takes 6-8 hours to complete. You can start studying at any time and have access for 12 months. 🎤 Hear from James Cole, Chief Innovation Officer, CISL to understand why this course is important. To book your place visit the course page. 👉https://ow.ly/iMUi50UqwHH Sam Laakkonen Jie Zhou Viola Jardon Håkan Nordkvist