Business ethics for the transition to Net-Zero | Grigor McClelland series | Original Thinking Podcast

Businesses are central in enabling global transitions to Net-Zero carbon energy and land-use systems. Business firms will need to innovate and scale new technologies, goods and services, business models and markets that make this new, more sustainable world become a reality. In the process, business incentives, accountabilities, and legitimacy will also be transformed. Institutions matter and they evolve.

To meet the Net-Zero challenge, business organisations themselves are needing to change. In this lecture, Frans will review how the scope of business accountability has changed, what this means for notions of performance, how this influences practices of reporting and transparency, and how this feeds through to access to key resources, including capital and talent. Using some examples, Frans will conclude with some suggestions about how these linked business trends related to scope, performance, transparency and resources may unfold in future.

This annual Grigor McClelland lecture will be given by Professor Frans Berkhout, Professor of Environment, Society and Climate at King’s College London.

Frans’ presentation will be followed by a panel discussion. Joining Frans will be Professor Frank Geels, Professor Carly McLachlan, Director of Tyndall Manchester and Nkem Marian Igwe, Full-Time MBA Candidate. The discussion will be facilitated by Professor Andy McMeekin, Professor of Innovation at the Sustainable Consumption Institute.

This lecture series was introduced in our 50th Anniversary year in 2015 in honour of the School’s founding Director, Professor Grigor McClelland. During his twelve years as Director and Professor of Business Administration at Manchester Business School, Grigor shaped management and education for the next generation. He was a strong advocate of the principle that business cannot be divorced from society and that managers should be ethical and socially responsible.

Our previous guest speakers for this lecture series, include Co-op Group’s CEO Steve Murrells; Sir George Bain, former Chair of the Low Pay Commission which introduced the Minimum Wage in 1998; Craig Bennett, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth; Torsten Bell, Director of the Resolution Foundation, Anna Dixon, Chief Executive of Ageing Better, Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times and Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. All have based the core themes of their lectures on this principle.