Publications and Downloads

This report, by The Prince of Wales's EU Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, demonstrates how the activities of some of the world’s largest companies are contributing to the delivery of a low climate risk economy. Profiles and examples of the activities and climate projects are given for each of the member CLG companies featured, including their carbon reduction goals and how these are being met.

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Download a copy of the report.

On 29 June 2011, the UK CLG launched a new report into Government policy, calling for stronger action on climate leadership. Seize the Day reflects the member companies' belief that the UK Government has set the right goals for the economy, but must dramatically step up action to deliver these goals.

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Download a copy of the report.

The Cambridge Natural Capital Leaders Platform, a major business-led programme addressing the impacts of natural capital loss and degradation on business and wider society, has released a suite of major reports focusing on four key areas identified by business in its first year of work. This Summary report for Phase 1 brings together the most important  points.

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Download the Summary report.

After several iterations, a narrative for a wide multi-sector business audience The Value of Environmental Infrastructure – Business Briefing has been created. This narrative has been further developed and has produced a specific CEO briefing document, Valuing Natural Capital – CEO Briefing for use in the boardroom to make the case for action. These briefings are collected together in the Building a Leadership Narrative for Business report, which is now publicly available to download.

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Download the Building a Leadership Narrative for Business report.

The collaboratory has released the report Understanding and Managing the Business Risks and Opportunities, which sets out a toolkit to help business understand the natural capital risks and opportunities. Exploratory scenarios have been developed to interrogate the landscape of risk and to investigate the interconnections between aspects of current and future practice, technology and policy.

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Download the Understanding and Managing the Business Risks and Opportunities report.

Proposing a shift from demand-led consumption to a ‘supply-constrained’ approach, the Building Resilient Value Chains Within the Limits of Natural Capital report highlights the importance of developing a new framework for purchasing decisions which incorporate the cost of externalities.

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Download the Building Resilient Value Chains Within the Limits of Natural Capital report.

This report contains case studies provided by collaboratory members that illustrate how value chain interventions can be aligned with the demands and opportunities that drive natural resource use, and demonstrates the value of collaboration and cooperation between organisations and across sectors.

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The culmination of the study is the Increasing Mainstream Investor Understanding of Natural Capital report. The report summarises insights from the investment community and recommended leverage action points for action. These are coupled with detailed evidence from the interviews.

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Download the Increasing Mainstream Investor Understanding of Natural Capital report.

This report delves deeper into the risks and opportunities highlighted in the Natural Capital Investment Report. It highlights Natural Capital risk and exposure in the financial sector, provides a gap / opportunity analysis in decision-making within the mainstream investment community, and a gives a synopsis of interviews conducted with members of the finance community.

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Download the Increasing Mainstream Investor Understanding of Natural Capital Part B: Evidence report.

Sustainable Water Stewardship: The Next Big Step Forward was a significant sector event, held in November 2010 with the support of Anglian Water. This publication provides an overview of the meeting’s discussion and its outcomes. It includes a set of imaginative proposals from Tim O’Riordan, Professor Emeritus at the University of East Anglia, which provide a signpost for future work, highlighting innovative ways to address the challenges of sustainable water stewardship and proposing next steps for collaborative action.

Download Sustainable Water Stewardship: The Next Big Step Forward.

A thought piece by CPSL, November 2010. According to a recent survey of 766 United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) 93% of  member CEOs see sustainability as important to their company’s future success. Furthermore, 96% believe that sustainability issues should be fully integrated into the strategy and operations of a company. This begs a question: what does this mean for those in leadership positions? And is ‘sustainability leadership’ different from leadership elsewhere?

Download Sustainability Leadership – a Force for Change.

This publication brings together academic, business, practitioner and educational perspectives on present-day sustainability leadership. It includes an account of CPSL's 20-year experience and international perspectives; articles from leading academics and faculty; and up-to-date perspectives on the key sustainability leaders of 2011 and today's most influential books and films.

Buy a hard copy of A Journey of a Thousand Miles: The State of Sustainability Leadership 2011.

Download A Journey of a Thousand Miles: The State of Sustainability Leadership 2011.

The report, West Africa: the climate of change, discusses climate change impacts, awareness and preparedness across West Africa. Published in November 2010, it was researched with Green Actors in West Africa and written by postgraduate student Rosie Robison and CPSL Development Director Ruth Findlay Brooks.

Download West Africa: the climate of change.

Jeff Immelt, CEO and Chairman of General Electric, delivered the London Lecture of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme (BSP) on 28 October, 2010. Mr Immelt addressed over 300 members of the CSN, including CEOs, chairmen, senior executives and policy makers. Mr Immelt communicated the important role of developing new energy technologies that not only address environmental problems, but also create jobs, improve efficiencies and deliver genuine economic value.

Download the BSP London Lecture 2010.

In October 2010, a new publication from the ‘Next Economy Initiative’ was launched: Towards a Sustainable Economy, Business Leadership & UK Government Policy. The publication, authored by Founder Director of Forum for the Future, Jonathon Porritt, explores how business, working with government, can speed up the rate of change towards a sustainable low carbon economy.

The Chevening programme is the British Government’s flagship scholarship and fellowship scheme. The Chevening Fellowships Programme on the Economics of Climate Change has been run over the last three years by CPSL. Over these years we have welcomed 36 Chevening Fellows from around the world to Cambridge for three months at a time. This publication brings together fifteen essays from some of the Fellows.

This unique title draws together in one volume some of the best thinking to date on the pressing social, environmental and ethical challenges we face as a society. These are the Top 50 Sustainability Books as voted for by the Cambridge Sustainability Network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. In addition to profiles of all 50 titles, many of the authors share their most recent reflections on the state of the world and the ongoing attempts by business, government and civil society to create a more sustainable future. 

The Top 50 Sustainability Books was written by Wayne Visser on behalf CPSL. Published by Greenleaf (December 2009).

Download the chapter "When Corporations Rule the World" by David C. Korten (1995)

Download the list of the Top 50 Sustainability Books

CPSL has identified the need to develop a transformational change model (TCM) which provides a draft framework for action to achieve a low climate risk economy. Business leaders recognise that although they may have a vision of where they want their particular company to be in the future, they lack clear frameworks to support them in reaching those objectives. The TCM is designed to inform a wider policy debate about sustainability transformation.

Download Transformational Change Model: Achieving a Low Climate Risk Economy

Download the Summary for Business Leaders and Policy Makers  

This report examines the long-term economic health and resilience of the insurance industry and how material ESG factors must be systematically integrated into underwriting guidelines and product development, and other core insurance processes such as investment management, claims management and sales & marketing. It articulates the insurance industry's assessment that the societal response to managing the global, long-term and systemic risks posed by many ESG factors is underdeveloped.

Based on their own practical experience, a taskforce of eight leading companies worked with CPSL and Business in the Community to produce a groundbreaking guide to carbon management for suppliers. The guide sets out practical tools and strategic advice which suppliers require in order to compete, regardless of size.

This report by The P8 Group, ClimateWise, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners explores how public finance mechanisms could scale up private sector investment to support low carbon growth in developing countries. The report was launched at the 2009 Global Roundtable of the UNEP Finance Initiative.

Landmarks for Sustainability is a high impact, quick reference guide to many of the most critical events and initiatives that have shaped our world, and the sustainable development agenda, over the past 20 years and more. These include high profile historic events – like the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Rio Earth Summit, the anti-globalisation protests in Seattle and Genoa and the collapse of Enron – as well as more subtle but no less important developments, such as trends in fair trade, ethical codes and sustainable investment.  

Written by Wayne Visser, Senior Associate of CPSL. Published by Greenleaf (April 2009).

Download the Introduction .

Download the Climate Chapters.

This publication brings together a selection of case studies from CPSL alumni, drawing particularly on alumni of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme, and designed to help leaders understand the sustainability challenges and address some of the potential responses to them. The cases are grouped using the Five Capitals Model. Developed by Forum for the Future and widely used in CPSL’s programmes, the model is one way of describing the stocks and flows of resources (natural, social, human, financial and manufactured) as they relate to a sustainable society and economy.

Download Finding the Way.

The Cambridge Climate Leaders Reference Guide is designed to give leaders an introduction to climate change and the complexities associated with it. The four broad themes are: The Science of Climate Change; The Economics and Technology of Climate Change; Policy Responses to Climate Change; and Business Responses to Climate Change.

Download the Cambridge Climate Leaders Reference Guide.

SCP provides a major platform for innovation that reaches into all corners of business activity. Its emphasis on finding ways to achieve more with less opens new avenues to improved performance, competitive advantage and stronger reputation. The primer is all about opportunity. It encourages business to look outside its natural boundaries and probe wider markets for better ways of meeting customer needs.

Through its working group on energy transformation, the Taskforce has investigated how, by taking a strategic approach to energy use, resource efficiency and waste management, companies can integrate sustainable consumption and production into their business model. It has focused specifically on the role that decentralised (distributed) energy can play.

Today, the car is at the heart of personal mobility, offering us independence and our own space – at the price of congestion, pollutants and a rising contribution to climate change. Can we do things better? Industry and the public need to work together to achieve a low carbon future. The Business Taskforce has developed a road map to trigger change and guide us to Mobility 2020.

SCP provides a major platform for innovation that reaches into all corners of business activity. Its emphasis on finding ways to achieve more with less opens new avenues to improved performance, competitive advantage and stronger reputation. The primer is all about opportunity. It encourages business to look outside its natural boundaries and probe wider markets for better ways of meeting customer needs.

An analysis of The Prince of Wales's Business & Sustainability Programme’s Sustainable Economy Dialogue. The report contains the results of discussions by 350 senior business leaders who were asked to define the fundamental objective of a good economy, to examine current failings, and to explore ways in which the business community might contribute to remedying these. The report also contains opinion pieces by members of the BSP core faculty.

This collection of contributions from 35 leading thinkers and practitioners associated with the Programme was published to launch the second decade of The Prince of Wales's Business & Sustainability Programme (BSP). It focuses on engaging the world of business in a reflective, challenging conversation about its pivotal role in shaping humanity's future and furthering sustainable development.

CPSL has produced two functional briefings examining the personal and commercial opportunities arising from sustainability issues. Produced in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, each briefing provides insight into how a sustainability perspective affects particular business functions.

This briefing has been designed for HR managers and people with responsibilities for recruitment, performance evaluation and training and development. It focuses on the issue of sustainable development – a term which many HR managers have become accustomed to hearing alongside jargon such as stakeholder engagement and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

CPSL has produced two functional briefings examining the personal and commercial opportunities arising from sustainability issues. Produced in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, each briefing provides insight into how a sustainability perspective affects particular business functions.

The Marketing briefing is designed for marketing managers and people with responsibilities for communications, brand management and new product development. It focuses on the issue of sustainable development, a term which many marketers have become accustomed to hearing alongside jargon such as stakeholder engagement and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Helping People Learn is designed to equip practitioners with the theoretical background they need to understand recent research and thinking on the subject of learning. It analyses how learning can be supported, accelerated and directed towards an organisation's strategic needs, and investigates the role played by the culture of the organisation and the motivation, learning styles and attitudes of employees. The report was commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Order Helping People Learn from CIPD

The World in Context: Beyond the Business Case for Sustainable Development is an essay by Jonathon Porritt, Co-Director of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme, Co-Founder and Programme Director of Forum for the Future and former Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission.

Download The World in Context: Beyond the Business Case for Sustainable Development.

H. Lee Scott Jr, then Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, delivered the London Lecture of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme (BSP) on 1 February, 2007. Mr Scott Jr was invited to speak following earlier remarks in 2005 in which he described the ‘wake-up call’ of Hurricane Katrina and set out how Wal-Mart intended to address the whole subject of sustainability. Mr Scott Jr outlined the company’s Sustainability 360° approach and emphasised the commercial opportunities from engaging with environmental issues: "Being a good steward of the environment and being profitable are not mutually exclusive. They are one and the same."

Download the BSP London Lecture 2007.

The UK Prime Minister at the time, the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, delivered the London Lecture of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme (BSP) on 14 September, 2004. This lecture marked the tenth anniversary of the Business & Sustainability Programme, and welcoming Mr Blair, HRH The Prince of Wales affirmed the importance of political commitment to the sustainability agenda: "Achieving sustainable development is a task for the whole of society. Each sector, and particularly the business community, will need to play its part in that process, but the one absolutely essential ingredient – without which we can’t hope to, or even begin to, make progress, especially, and crucially, in the two areas of climate change and the protection of future fish stocks – is political commitment." Mr Blair called on business to take a leadership role, emphasising that: "British scientists, innovators and business people can lead the world in ways to grow and develop sustainably."

Following the London Lecture, a group of business leaders was convened by CPSL and formed The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change.

Download the BSP London Lecture 2004.

The Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, delivered the London Lecture of The Prince of Wales’s Business & Sustainability Programme on 15 March, 2001. The lecture, on the topic of Healthy People, Healthy Planet, affirmed the powerful relationships between health, environment, economics and society. "Global warming, air and water pollution, biological and chemical pollutants in the food chain: all have an impact on health. Environment and health are both inextricably linked to development." Following her speech, Commissioner Margot Wallstrom commended Gro Harlem Brundtland’s landmark report of 1987 on sustainable development, and concluded by calling for the creation of a clear vision for change: "I am convinced that vision and cleverness are fundamental ingredients of a successful strategy for sustainable development."

Download the BSP London Lecture 2001.