How Businesses Are Prioritizing Innovation to Catalyze Climate Solutions

Sustainability strategists from five different companies in key industries spoke about how their businesses are working to build sustainable and transformative climate solutions at the inaugural TIME100 Climate Leadership Forum in New York City on Monday. 

During the panel, moderated by TIME’s Chief Climate Officer Shyla Raghav, the business leaders covered issues of decarbonization, corporate culture around sustainability, and the role and responsibility of the private sector to partner with policymakers.

The panelists, all of whom represented sponsors of TIME’s Climate Leadership Forum, included Ezgi Barcenas, chief sustainability officer of L’Oréal Groupe; Haley Lowry, global sustainability director of Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics; Claire Lund, global vice president of sustainability of GSK; Matt Mayrl, vice president of strategy of American Family Insurance; and Mary de Wysocki, chief sustainability officer of Cisco.

“Of the $3-5 trillion necessary for climate action, 80% of that will need to come from the private sector,” Raghav said, pointing towards the importance and power of each panelist as sustainability and strategy leaders.

Though each panelist represented vastly different companies, from makeup to insurance, Raghav highlighted how they tended to unite around the theme of “innovation.”

“We’re a very science based, innovation driven company,” said GSK’s Lund, speaking of the pharmaceutical company’s culture of prioritizing science and thus how it’s “not actually difficult” to focus their efforts on combating the climate crisis and to ingrain sustainability in their culture. “We have 70,000 employees globally across 70 different markets, and they’re driving real, tangible impact, whether it’s biodiversity at our site, whether it’s recycling plastic.”

Multiple panelists also addressed a perceived tension between profitability and sustainability. Specifically, de Wysocki spoke about how important technology is to Cisco’s commitment to emitting net zero greenhouse gasses by 2040, and how society can develop generative technologies like AI in a way that is equitable and contributes to a “livable planet.”

“We should just rapidly be sharing what’s working and what’s not,” de Wysocki said. “How can we talk about how we’ve developed our own sustainability goals, how we are building our playbooks and sharing that with all industries, as well as especially small medium businesses.”

The panel then turned towards the timely topic of policy and cooperation with the government, specifically noting the election later this year.

“How do we create those frameworks,” said L’Oréal’s Barcenas of the questions she asks herself about the relationship between the private and public sectors. “How do we become part of the public debate and help build those, what I call, regulatory backposts that support this transformation, and provide the right incentives, grants, subsidies.”

Partnership with the government is a crucial part of doing business, but as Lowry pointed out, that partnership needs to have tangible results in the form of policy.

“Partnerships are critical to actually addressing these big world challenges, but they've only got us so far,” Lowry said. “So the real accelerator is actually going to be policy to drive that further.”

And these companies also look beyond traditional partnerships. “We're really thinking about ways that we can partner with our customers to do proactive prevention, because the best thing we can do is avoid the waste associated with the climate disaster,” said Mayrl. “And that's a ripe area for partnership... [And] it'll be with other insurers. It'll be with other partners in the industry, governments that are all going to have to come along on a journey of helping us as an industry be able to meet customers and their evolving risk landscape and provide solutions to that.”

Finally, Raghav moved the conversation toward every leader’s experience with net-zero goals in their respective companies, especially as many companies have missed milestones in their journeys to sustainability.

“The scientific field is not linear,” Barcenas said. “If you look at advanced research, that’s how science evolves. … And I think once you start seeding the market in terms of what you’re looking for, in terms of innovation, that’s when you’re going to start seeing an acceleration of these barriers.”

The TIME100 Climate Leadership Forum was presented by American Family Insurance, Cisco, Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Fortescue, Iberdola, L'Oréal Groupe, Siemens, and GSK.