Boards & Execs: Sustainability isn’t a side project, it’s a strategy
- Priyal Bhosale
- Mar 27
- 3 min read
Insights from edie25: “Competing Priorities: Ensuring Board-Level Ownership on Climate Action”
In the years since COP26, climate ambitions have become commonplace. Transition plans are expected. Net zero targets are announced. But in the boardroom, delivery remains the missing link — not for lack of intent, but for lack of integration.
That was the central message from today’s #edie25 panel featuring Julie Baddeley (Chapter Zero), Rashmi Rungta (Westminster Citizens Climate Action Committee), Munish Datta (Specsavers), and Natalie Campbell (BELU), chaired by Adrian Pryce.
“Every company needs a transition plan that takes account of nature, net zero and is completely embedded in company strategy. Not a separate plan, but ONE plan that is about commercial realities,” said Julie.
For too long, sustainability has sat adjacent to business strategy — a well-intentioned bolt-on rather than a board-level mandate. That’s changing fast. Speakers agreed: climate risk, nature loss, and evolving regulation can no longer be treated as externalities. They are core to long-term business performance and governance.
This was echoed across a panel of seasoned leaders, including Rashmi Rungta, Natalie Campbell and Munish Datta. Each brought a pragmatic, systems-level view of the role Boards must play — not simply in endorsing sustainability, but in shaping it.
Climate action cannot be driven from the top or the bottom alone. “There needs to be a top-down and a bottoms-up approach for the organisation,” said Rungta, making clear that employee initiatives without leadership buy-in are destined to stall. Likewise, as Baddeley reminded us, “"The best ideas I've seen have come from the shop floor - from the people doing the work day to day. The board doesn't have the ideas - the board needs to mandate the ideas."
It’s in that convergence—where mandate meets momentum—that transformation becomes possible.
For Natalie Campbell, that transformation has taken the form of a radical shift in governance. BELU is now fully owned by its foundation, with all shareholders relinquishing their right to dividends. The move aligned their legal structure with their purpose, ensuring that all profits go back into impact. “It’s the only way to deliver our purpose—on purpose.”
But not every boardroom is aligned — or equipped — to lead on sustainability. There is still a clear disconnect between strategic intent and operational delivery, exacerbated by an overload of evolving reporting frameworks and unclear metrics. The very data required to measure risk and performance is often fragmented, immature, or not decision-useful.
Many boards still struggle with climate risk assessment, double materiality, and long-term scenario planning. The metrics available are too often backward-looking or unambitious. ‘Sea level will rise by 35cm by 2050’ is not actionable information. What’s needed is clarity — data that breaks down long-term scenarios into immediate, commercially relevant insights. It’s also about language. Sustainability teams must start speaking in terms that Boards already understand: resilience, efficiency, cost volatility, growth in future markets, and investor relevance.
Regulation is helping to force the issue. From CSRD to the ISSB frameworks, compliance has been a catalyst. But as Datta warned, “If businesses are just doing this for compliance, they are missing 90% of the benefits.” Compliance is a baseline — not the goal. Boards must be educated, equipped, and engaged with the regulatory landscape not just to avoid risk, but to unlock opportunity.
To move from climate ambition to business transformation, Boards need more than reporting frameworks — they need decision-useful insight. As Munish Datta put it, “Boards have a responsibility, because they are shaping the future strategy for the business. Scenario analysis, double materiality — these are the tools that bring risk into context and unlock opportunity.”
The options: lead the market, follow it, or be left behind. Legacy, competitiveness, and resilience are all on the line. There is no longer room for a sustainability strategy that sits in a silo. If the goal is to remain relevant in a climate-constrained world, every business strategy must become a sustainability strategy.
Double materiality isn’t just a compliance exercise — it’s a strategic framework that helps leaders understand where the business is exposed, where it creates impact, and where it can lead. For Boards navigating today’s complexity, it offers a clear path forward: one rooted in relevance, resilience, and long-term value creation.
