Climate change discourse vs practice

Whose Integration? We need to rethink the politics of knowledge in climate change discourse. Integrating local and scientific knowledge in climate discourse is prevalent, encompassing policy frameworks, donor reports, and academic workshops. It sounds inclusive, progressive, even empowering. But we must ask: Whose integration is this? Who defines it, who controls it, and who benefits from it? After working closely with pastoralist and agropastoralist communities in the Horn of Africa, I’ve seen how problematic the language of “integration” can be when left unexamined. Here’s why:  1. Integration often happens on unequal terms. Too often, “local knowledge” is invited into spaces it didn’t design, evaluated using standards it didn’t agree to, and reduced to a handful of indicators that fit institutional frameworks. Local voices are consulted, but rarely shape the agenda. Integration becomes assimilation, not collaboration.  2. Communities already blend knowledge systems in their own ways. Pastoralists in dryland Kenya are not waiting for validation from institutions. They combine ecological cues, intergenerational wisdom, and mobile phone forecasts to anticipate droughts. They do so selectively, based on trust, accessibility, and cultural relevance, not on abstract co-production models. So, the real work isn’t to teach communities how to integrate knowledge. it’s to understand how they already do, and what conditions enable or constrain that process.  3. Not all knowledge is equally valued. Even in “participatory” projects, scientific knowledge often remains dominant. It's seen as objective, scalable, and fundable, while local knowledge is framed as anecdotal or backwards. This imbalance reflects broader power dynamics rooted in colonial history, institutional authority, and funding structures.  4. Integration without shifting power is performative. It’s not enough to include local indicators in early warning systems. Real transformation means addressing who holds decision-making power, who has access to resources, and whose knowledge is seen as legitimate. Without that, integration risks becoming a form of extractivism dressed as inclusion. So what if we moved the conversation from integration to recognition and redistribution? What if institutions didn’t just extract knowledge from communities but supported community-led action, on their terms, with their priorities, and in their languages? We don’t need more frameworks that seek to integrate. We need relationships built on trust, humility, and cognitive justice. The solutions are not “out there” waiting to be scaled. They’re already here embedded in the everyday practices of communities on the frontlines of climate disruption.

Publicly, many Brazilian business leaders embrace the climate agenda. Privately, their portfolios fund fossil expansion, deforestation, and pollution. This contradiction isn’t just hypocritical—it’s financially reckless in a world shifting toward climate accountability. In "Green Rhetoric, Grey Portfolio", long-time impact investor Fabio Alperowitch dissects this growing gap between sustainability discourse and capital allocation, and challenges peers to align capital with conviction, not for charity, but for strategic coherence. A must-read for institutional investors seeking real climate alignment in emerging markets.

ARE WE TRULY LEARNING? Decarbonisation, the Third Sector, and the Reflective Blind Spot The journey to decarbonisation is our most critical undertaking, and the third sector is an indispensable force. Yet, there's a concerning possibility emerging: a lack of genuine reflective practice when it comes to their own strategies and energy recommendations. 👉 What is Reflective Practice? At its heart, reflective practice means critically evaluating one's actions to improve. It's about looking back, understanding why, and using those insights to inform future decisions. Its roots trace to John Dewey's educational theories, emphasizing learning by doing and reflecting on it, later developed by Donald Schön. Essentially, it's moving beyond simply doing to truly understanding and improving. 👉 Walls, Not Reflection My recent experiences suggest this vital process might be alarmingly absent in crucial areas of the decarbonisation discourse, particularly within the third sector. When I've offered critical feedback – not to attack, but to genuinely challenge and improve – the response has often been a disheartening raising of "walls" rather than an open invitation to reflect. Take a recent interaction with a prominent think tank. After tagging them in a LinkedIn post offering constructive critique of their energy position, I received a direct message demanding "permission" to tag them. This felt like a knee-jerk reaction to control the narrative, not an engagement with the substance. Similarly, with the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, when I suggested insufficient evidence for one of their key recommendations, the reaction wasn't inquiry. Instead, it felt like immediate dismissal, a protective stance against an external challenge. 👉 Why This Matters for Decarbonisation In the urgent race to decarbonise, resisting critical examination can have profound, costly consequences: ➡️ Ineffective Policies: Without reflection, initiatives might be based on assumptions, wasting resources and slowing progress. ➡️ Missed Opportunities: A lack of adaptation can prevent organisations from embracing new data or technologies, missing more effective pathways. ➡️ Erosion of Trust: When feedback is met with defensiveness, it can erode trust among stakeholders, hindering crucial collaborative efforts for systemic change. 🙏 A Call for Courageous Reflection The third sector, along with government bodies and committees scrutinising the energy department, must embrace the profound importance of reflective practice. This isn't about finger-pointing; it's about collective improvement. We need environments where constructive criticism is welcomed, evidence-based reasoning triumphs, and learning from setbacks is seen as a strength. Our planet's future demands the humility to reflect, adapt, and continually improve. Let's dismantle those walls and build bridges of genuine inquiry and collective learning. P.S. some in the third sector get this #learning

PhD thesis submitted! My work explored how the pharmaceutical industry can play its part in addressing climate change. Pharmaceuticals are estimated to account for up to 55% of national health systems’ greenhouse gas emissions. There is little research about how pharmaceutical companies are navigating their climate impact, or what shapes their approach to reducing it. I analysed company documents from multinational pharmaceutical companies and conducted in-depth interviews with people working in pharmaceutical companies, industry groups, and health systems. Using a method called argumentative discourse analysis, I examined how people talked about climate action and how these ways of talking influenced real-world practices. What I found: 1. Climate action was often framed as secondary to patient wellbeing, with some viewing climate action as a potential risk to care. This framing was often in the absence of evidence of patient harm from climate action and reflected a narrow understanding of patient wellbeing – one underpinned by reactive, pharmaceutical-dependent modes of care rather than proactive and preventive approaches to health. Some recognised this, and framed climate action as essential for protecting health. 2. Many saw climate action as dependent on financial viability. This was challenged by those arguing that climate action should not hinge on profitability. My findings showed that it is becoming increasingly more financially advantageous to engage with climate action – from a regulatory, market advantage, operational resilience, and reputational perspective. 3. Carbon footprint quantification, disclosure, and data were presented as key steps to climate action, but measuring and reporting this data often became an end in itself rather than a means to an end, reinforced by regulatory and procurement demands for data rather than reductions. Some warned this focus risked delaying actual reductions. 4. Collaboration was widely called for – across supply chains, with regulators and policymakers, and wider health system actors – but was often left vague, aspirational, or used to shift responsibility elsewhere. These narratives can unintentionally slow progress towards net zero. However, alternative narratives already exist. By reframing climate action as integral to patient care, recognising and reinforcing the business case for climate action, focusing on reduction over quantification and reporting, and surfacing and navigating tensions to drive productive collaboration, the pharmaceutical industry and wider health systems can take a more decisive role in tackling climate change. Climate action in health care is not just a scientific challenge, but also a social, organisational, economic, and political one. Changing the stories we tell about climate change and action may be just as important to drive progress towards net zero. (P.S. this is a very basic summary of 272 pages of work! More publications - and Viva - to follow!)

Alastair Marsh's recent article (https://lnkd.in/gbcjVJV3) on tensions at the FSB is a timely window into a much deeper confusion in climate finance discourse: the conflation of climate changes' planetary, economic and financial risks. This confusion has profound and perverse consequences. Many blame climate inaction on financial institutions’ failure to appreciate "systemic" financial risk. But that is not the core issue. The real issue is that the distinction among planetary, economic, and financial risks is not understood, including how they critically differ in scope, timeline, and institutional relevance. Planetary risk refers to degradation of ecosystems; economic risk arises when that degradation affects livelihoods, assets, or macroeconomic stability; and financial risk emerges when economic disruptions are felt by the financial sector. These are cascading but distinct, and conflating them has had perverse outcomes. https://lnkd.in/gd-63jQf As Carney warned, by the time there is systemic financial risk, it will be too late. And yet, planetary impacts are already here & escalating, with increasing and uneven economic impacts across countries, sectors, and communities. Expecting the financial sector to drive decarbonization misunderstands its role, interests, and capabilities to drive multi-actor transformations. Insisting on systemic risk will not change that reality. NBIM—one of the world’s most climate aware investors—just acknowledged climate change’s significant impact on its portfolio and still insisted it does not have the mandate to more aggressively support mitigation: https://lnkd.in/gj6dp-5H The heated exchange at the FSB reflects this deep, pervasive confusion. The US' position that climate change is not an imminent risk to financial system stability (the sole concern of the FSB) is not entirely unreasonable; climate change claims a growing number of lives and species, with cascading consequences and billions of dollars of economic losses, yet minimal effects of financial markets. The European countries are right to sound the climate alarm—but channeling that urgency through the FSB is misdirected. The officials rightly emphasize the mounting economic costs (only a subset of the even larger planetary impacts!), but the FSB is not responsible for decarbonization or macroeconomic stability. A new climate risk is the risk of misdirected effort. We are expecting risk managers to do the job of risk mitigators. To reverse the mounting climate threats/costs (which will destabilize financial systems only when it’s too late), we need to focus less on risk assessments & disclosures and FAR more on actual decarbonization. Understand what systemic transformations involve across different sectors and regions, what the challenges & solutions are, and the imperative of multi-actor coordination. Emphatically pushing on ineffective levers has become part of the climate problem.

There is an old parable about a donkey that is equally hungry and thirsty. Placed between a pile of hay and a bucket of water, it cannot choose. Each option is essential. Each equally distant. Paralyzed by indecision, the donkey dies. This is no longer just a thought experiment. It is the lived reality of thousands of textile suppliers caught between rising compliance pressure and growing financial strain. On one side, regulators and sustainability coalitions lay down demands. Digital product passports. Recycled content. Chemical traceability. Emission targets. Every quarter introduces a new audit scheme. All in the name of transformation. On the other side, trade wars, tariffs, and geopolitical tensions are placing intense financial stress on the same suppliers. Costs are rising. Contracts are unstable. Financing is limited. A single season of lost orders or currency shifts can erase a year’s profit. Stuck in between is the supplier. And too often, the only message they hear is: do more. Invest in wastewater treatment. Switch to renewable energy. Prove labor standards. Digitize inputs. Track carbon. And do it now. What is striking is not the ambition. It is the absence of risk-sharing. The loudest voices demanding compliance rarely carry the burden of implementation. They sit in comfortable rooms drafting toolkits. They track dashboards. They trade results for reports. But they do not lose contracts if margins collapse. They do not lay off workers when power bills spike. They do not balance payroll against a new monitoring unit. This is the asymmetry in today’s sustainability discourse. Compliance has become a one-way street. Suppliers are expected to transform, but the cost is theirs. There is little discussion of who pays. Only what must be done. And in this climate, indecision becomes structural. Factories wait. Should they upgrade now or hold off? Should they shift processes when audit rules may shift again? Should they invest in traceability when buyers have not finalized requirements? The longer this uncertainty lasts, the more dangerous it becomes. Not from resistance. But from quiet erosion. Sustainability teams shrink. Programs lapse. Good practices lose ground. Not from apathy, but from survival. This is for all the stakeholders in my network who have no skin in the game and yet ask for sweeping, ambitious change. A request: run the numbers on what you are asking. Sit with a supplier. Talk to them. Understand the baseline. Then advocate for policies. Because if the path to sustainability is not sustainable in itself, then we are not on a path to sustainability at all. Brands and advocates must ask less and fund more. Regulations must be paired with transitional support. The industry must decide whether it truly wants transformation or just the optics of motion. Because the donkey in the middle is real. And it is running out of time.

Discourses of Climate Delay 🌎 Discourses of climate delay subtly undermine urgent climate action by framing it as either unnecessary, too disruptive, or impossible to achieve. These narratives don't deny climate change but instead promote inaction through complex messaging, effectively slowing progress toward meaningful environmental goals. One common approach is to redirect responsibility. This discourse suggests that the burden of action lies primarily with individuals or other entities, rather than addressing the systemic changes required from industries and governments. By focusing on personal responsibility alone, broader, impactful initiatives can be sidelined. Another tactic is to emphasize the downsides of change, portraying climate action as a source of economic hardship or social disruption. This discourages support for essential policies by highlighting potential challenges rather than long-term benefits, impeding collective progress. The push for non-transformative solutions is also prevalent. This narrative often suggests superficial fixes, like minor fossil fuel improvements, as adequate steps. By promoting incremental changes rather than systemic transformation, these approaches can delay necessary shifts in energy and resource management. Finally, surrender narratives frame climate change as an unsolvable problem, encouraging resignation rather than action. This viewpoint implies that adaptation is the only feasible response, discouraging mitigation efforts. Addressing these delay discourses requires a clear focus on accountability, transformative solutions, and sustained commitment. Recognizing these tactics is critical to advancing genuine progress in climate action. #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange #climateaction