The recent ‘shock of net zero’ has newly alerted the private sector to the scale and pace of transformative change now required to avert not just climate change, but broader ecological disaster. This shock has shone a harsh light on current efforts, prompting rising scepticism about the sufficiency of ESG, and the thinking that underlies it.
Systems thinking suggests alternatives. Systems thinking is powerfully in the ascendancy across multiple disciplines, though only just now reaching the fields of economics and finance. In revealing the innate limitations of our current efforts, systems thinking shows a way forward – sustainability may well be difficult but is not impossible. Much depends on the willingness and ability of individuals in business to cultivate a systems awareness that will position business to become a critical agent of change.
Over five sessions, the series evaluates the progress we are making as a global society to become sustainable, explore the deeper solutions to which systems thinking points, and reflect on the actions business and finance might take to promote systems solutions to build a sustainable economy and culture.
About the speaker
Duncan Austin has a degree in Economics and an MSc in Environmental Economics, and has worked as a sustainability researcher and writer since 2019. He was senior economist at World Resources Institute where he completed environmental economics research for both policy and private sector audiences. From 2004-2018 Duncan was investment partner at Generation Investment Management; working as a private equity analyst for Global Equity Fund and being involved with selected private equity deals.
Duncan’s latest paper, Market-led sustainability is a fix that fails…but it may have been the necessary ‘defence at first depth’ , explains why voluntary market led strategies are insufficient. Instead, we must apply systems thinking to deliver deeper forms of change.
Related reading
Investment insight: Beyond ESG | system solutions for sustainability
Event and slides: The Beyond ESG series
2022 research agenda
The Power of Culture study
Session 1 | Taking stock: ESG and the risk of ‘greenwish’
‘Greenwish’ is undermining sustainable business ambition. In part 1 of this 4-lecture series, Duncan Austin takes stock of where we are in 2022 and evaluates our progress towards building a sustainable economy.
Session 2 | Systems thinking can rescue the situation
With deep adaptations, the complex economic, social and environmental system can find ‘fixes that stick’.
Session 3 | The unintended trap of externality-denying capitalism
Economists venerate the market’s ‘invisible hand’ but ignore the consequences of its ‘unmentionable foot’.
Session 4 | Building the economy of a sustainable culture
Systems thinking asks us to think about business strategies and opportunities differently. The sustainability challenge requires a deeper response – the development of a sustainable culture that has a functioning, thriving economy as part of it.
Session 5 | The big “so what”
While sessions one to four presented a systems perspective of our sustainability challenge and responses to date, session five explores the implications for asset owners and asset managers and options for action. We have reached a pivotal moment in that an initially beneficial ‘win-win’ phase of sustainability shows signs of exhaustion in being unable to deliver more sustainable behaviour fast enough.