The polycrisis has explicitly revealed the climate, ecological and social injustices that have resulted from the current, long-established, arbitrary growth-based systems in which we live - the very injustices and biases today that often influence AI models and systems which are being used to solve tomorrow’s problems.

• What is being done to regulate and ensure responsibility in AI, to ensure that such injustices are not perpetuated further in the future, and that technological innovations meet accountability, and act ethically in support of people and planet, rather than against it?

• What role will AI have, at a pivotal moment where we are reckoning with deep social and ecological crises which we want to eradicate, to create a more just, sustainable, and thriving future for all?

Join us for this compelling exploration and discussion, led by:

Join our Knowledge Xchange to hear from Gail Gallie (Founder, THE NAT) and Archie Cage (Impact Manager, Tribe Impact Capital) about the underlying barriers towards closing the $700bn+/year Nature Finance gap according to the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), between funds currently available and the investment needed - in order to finance robust Nature-Based Solutions and fund crucial nature restoration projects to restore and protect nature. 

Gail and Archie will also take us through what the THE NAT and Tribe Impact Capital are doing to close this gap, and what it would take to massively scale this to urgently halt and reverse nature loss, and restore and protect nature.

THE NAT

THE NAT is a new convening force for Nature, launched in September 2025 at New York Climate Week, with its mission to reconnect people with nature's awe-inspiring power, and unite people to effect real, measurable change - by bringing together and galvanising a growing community of people and groups committed to a nature-positive world to raise the private capital needed to close the Nature Finance Gap.

Tribe Impact Capital 

Business Declares member, Tribe Impact Capital are the UK's first Impact Wealth Manager on a mission to change wealth management - for good. Tribe is formed of a team of wealth managers and impact specialists committed to support the growing community of people who are passionate about using their wealth to help create positive social and environmental change to the world. View Tribe's Nature Footprint and approach in their 2025 Sustainability Report.

A key part in addressing the polycrisis involves articulating and implementing a plan to restore and dramatically reduce negative impact on nature and biodiversity, by a target date of 2030. Nearly 45% of firms in a major study have said they have already been financially impacted by physical nature-related risks[1]. This Knowledge Xchange will provide insights into the power of communities wanting a nature-positive world in utilising their private capital to drastically close the Nature Finance Gap, to restore and protect nature and biodiversity.

[1] Verney, P. (2025) Nearly 45% of firms say nature loss and damage is already costing them. Available at: https://real-economy-progress.com/nearly-45-of-firms-say-nature-loss-and-damage-is-already-costing-them/ (Accessed: 02/10/2025)

Come along and hear from Alice Kalro (Managing Director & Thought Leader-in-Chief; arkH3), the lead author of Leading through the Polycollapse: A guide to Systemic Foresight for VUCA native strategy. The guide is an unprecedented resource for business leaders on the specific nature and scale of disruption that organisations must adapt to in order to survive the upcoming decade and secure future shareholder returns, as well as to ensure future liveable conditions on the planet - and on how exactly to do so.

The resource’s authors conclude that a rapid transformation to a wellbeing economy and broader systemic transformation is the only way to ensure future business continuity - and therefore what we owe our shareholders, investors and owners.

The guide can be leveraged by our members, not only to guide their own specific transformation agendas, but also to mobilise reluctant leaders and laggard organisations - turning them into powerful allies for collective 'corporate systemic leadership' and a true force for change.

• Read the Executive Summary of the resource here, or

• Watch a video summary of key insights for business leaders

Join us on July 24 to learn more about arkH3's work in Systemic Foresight and get your questions answered.

Come along and listen to a dynamic discussion + Q&A hosted by Sam Baker with Lucca Ewbank from InfluenceMap and Nick Hajdu from Climate Majority Project, about corporate lobbying - its current employment in driving the status quo, but also its power in advocating for meaningful action, policy changes and transformations necessary to tackle the polycrisis and achieve systemic change:

Lucca Ewbank, InfluenceMap's Program Manager for Transport, will share insights into the organisation's work. Lucca leads InfluenceMap's global analysis of the automotive, aviation and shipping sectors, providing vital transparency into how these industries influence climate action.

Nick Hajdu, part of the founding team of the Transition Lobby, will share some revealing findings from two pieces of research carried out recently - one to senior leaders in the business community, and the second to 100 sitting MPs - to establish views from both groups on the state of the climate emergency today, the extent to which better regulation on climate is needed, whether businesses are lobbying for that regulatory change, and what MPs need to see to make that change happen.

Care is the foundation for life itself. In our conscience, care is honoured as an intrinsic, irreducible good. In our economic system however, it is sidelined and hardly recognised, amidst continued prioritisation of broadly defined, arbitrary economic growth and productivity.

The ‘careless economy’ has resulted in social injustice, cost of living crises, the climate crisis and ecological collapse - all in the pursuit of profit.

How have we reached this predicament? How has our economic system lost sight of the urgent need of care, to ensure we live within planetary boundaries and fulfil social foundations? What should we do to change things?

Join us for this Knowledge Xchange, where Tim Jackson, author of “The Care Economy” will tackle such questions, and take us through the possibilities for change towards a healthier, more humane society, and a restored, protected planet.

One of Business Declares' fundamental beliefs is that there is insufficient recognition of the true cost of doing business.

It has been a year since we announced our support for the True and Fair Project hosted by Social Value International. The project encourages businesses to recognise and disclose the costs of the impact they make on the planet and society in their financial statements. Directors may agree with this, either to give a true and fair view or because they want to make an appropriate commitment. And they can do this using the existing legal and accounting frameworks.

One year on, a guide has been produced, there's a library of supporting material including the seminal legal opinion by George Bompas KC and momentum is growing. Come and hear from Jeremy Nicholls and Jo Fackler of Social Value International about progress and how to act.

We will also hear from Sam King about the GIST Impact's work valuing these impacts. Effective valuation is clearly required to report impacts appropriately. GIST have a range of solutions to "Measure, value and manage your impacts, risks and opportunities".

Sam Baker, director at Business Declares, will chair this discussion and will ensure there's plenty of time for questions.

The 2024 Climate Gap Report from Ethical Consumer has identified Transport as one of the four key impact areas of emissions, for which an average target of 44% CO2e reduction has been set across consumers, to be achieved between 2019-2030, based on the UK’s Committee on Climate Change ‘Balanced Pathway’.

In this Knowledge Xchange, we will be speaking to:

• Dan Brown; Climate Entrepreneur, RouteZero

• Anna Hughes; Director, Flight Free UK

on their insights into how businesses can evaluate and make transport choices which benefit their teams, the climate and their organisations, to tackle and reduce emissions from business travel.

About:

• RouteZero - a climate-tech company and platform which uses digital tools to decarbonise business travel emissions, by providing transparent journey planning, including cost, duration and carbon intensity of different travel journeys. Through leveraging machine learning and behavioural psychology, RouteZero amplifies decarbonisation efforts across organisations and nudges traveller behaviour to boost decarbonisation of businesses’ travel emissions.

• Flight Free UK challenges people to take a year off flying to reduce emissions and shift the norm away from aviation, as a great way to inspire long-term behaviour change, and show that individual consumer choices can lead to industry and system change. Their positive campaign empowers and inspires people to pursue flight-free travel, for both their own benefit as travellers and for the climate.

Register below

or alternatively, register directly via our Ticket Tailor events page.

Looking for ways to contribute to reducing your business’ carbon footprint?

Join our 45-minute interactive walkthrough of the Small99 Action Box, a hands-on toolkit designed to empower SMEs with practical steps towards sustainability. Discover how to identify key emission sources, implement effective reduction strategies and enhance your brand’s reputation, all while connecting with like-minded professionals.

Join our Knowledge Xchange with Small99 and Decarboneaser on 20th March.

Small99 Action Box: Carbon Reduction Fundamentals - this hands-on, flexible and interactive workshop-in-a-box includes everything needed to run powerful workshops to empower businesses, teams, clients and supply chains, to get started, gather inspiration and take action with sustainability.

Decarboneaser - provide actionable, practical sustainability workshops and training to have thought-provoking conversations leading to impact, including Small99 Action Box - which in turn can fit within programmes including Carbon Literacy programme, Climate Fresk and Biodiversity Collage.

Register below

or alternatively, register directly via our Ticket Tailor events page.

Join Business Declares in collaboration with Uncomfortable Conversations for a lunchtime session that will ask the hard questions and help us explore the discomfort that’s holding us back from shaking up business as usual.

We know that to unleash the changes we want to see, we need new ways and new spaces of being uncomfortable together. What feels counterintuitive now—what seems like the opposite of action— might be exactly what we need for moving forward together! We will focus on sensing, relating and healing.

What is ‘Uncomfortable Conversations'?:

We unleash radically caring collective potential of being uncomfortable together.

We are a pioneering, experimental ‘challenger space’ for the conversations we’re still not having, for the perspectives we might be ignoring and for the solutions we continue to discount.

The session will be cohosted by Charlotte Sewell and Tess Wehmeyer

Find out more/ follow us here:
NEWSLETTER: https://uncomfortableconversationslove.substack.com/
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uncomfortableconversations
WEBPAGE: https://www.uncomfortable.love/

Bios

To kick off the new year, we have 2 speakers to lead a discussion, as part of our Knowledge Xchange series, on the contribution business is making to addressing the accelerating polycrisis, and whether business collaboration should be a greater focus.

Experienced sustainability journalist Lizzie Rivera will be presenting her recent research investigating the disconnect between the sustainability intentions of businesses/ professionals and the impacts of their actions, examining how we can increase that impact through enhanced alignment between our work and our values, and reflecting on the balance of internal vs external focus.

Corporate partnering expert and sustainability champion Stephanie Lambert will also draw on recent research to explores how the FMCG industry is collaborating through the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty to advocate for an ambitious plastics treaty globally, and why this is so important, highlighting the coalition’s pooled resources and strategic approaches for effective advocacy.

Sam Baker will then host a discussion/ Q and A about the importance of stepping up business collaboration more broadly.

Bios:

Join Business Declares for an inspiring panel discussion on the future of business structures. We'll explore whether current models are suitable for the challenges ahead and what alternatives could be put in place.

Today’s business structures mainly prioritize financial returns and shareholder interests, which have pushed climate and nature to the brink. We've exceeded six of the nine planetary boundaries which are essential for humanity to develop and thrive for generations to come. Trends such as rising carbon emissions and ecosystem destruction continue to worsen.

Business Declares believes that businesses can still be a force for good, but our current systems often hinder the radical changes we need.

We’ll discuss innovative governance models, stakeholder capitalism, the triple bottom line approach, Impact Performance Indicators (IPIs) instead of traditional KPIs, B Corps, new financial frameworks, and the importance of integrating nature into our business strategies, even putting nature on the Board.

The speakers are:

• Philip Corsano - a barrister and Independent Mediator, specialising in Climate Conflict Resolution, deep governance expertise and a belief that current ‘stakeholder capitalism’ isn’t working. He has worked as a multi-lateral banker within existing environmental and social frameworks. He supports the changes in governance recommended by the OECD and the development of specialised skills training.

• Donna Okell - a B Leader and founder & CEO of UK for Good, a B Corp Certified business, committed to working with businesses to improve impact on people and our planet

• Annika Schneider - the Lead for International Partnerships at Purpose Economy. At the centre of her work is the belief in ‘steward-ownership’ – an alternative to conventional corporate ownership models and shareholder value primacy.

• Brontie Ansell - is a lawyer founder and co-director of Lawyers for Nature who act to represent the natural world and provide legal assistance and research for those doing this vital work. She was the lead lawyer on the project 'Nature on the Board' which gave Nature a voice and a vote on a corporate board.

John Elkington, Founder and Chief Pollinator at Volans, is one of the founders of the global sustainability movement, and has been a strategic partner of Business Declares since the network was first established in 2019.

In this Knowledge Xchange, we will be discussing John Elkington’s new book, “Tickling Sharks: How We Sold Business on Sustainability”, explaining how a series of societal pressure waves have instigated change in business, markets and ultimately, capitalism.

We will also have the opportunity for a wider discussion with John Elkington about his journey in sustainability and corporate social and environmental responsibility.

Watch a trailer of the new book, “Tickling Sharks”, here.

It has been 5 years since Business Declares was launched, during the growing wave of climate awareness and climate strikes during September 2019.

Five years on, it is clear that the combined efforts of businesses, governments and citizens have fallen well short of delivering a tangible transition to address the climate, nature and social crises.

Business Declares has felt that it is critically important to acknowledge this, by issuing a new position statement, and a renewed set of commitments which we would like our members network to take on, as we near the midpoint towards the next decade in addressing key climate-nature targets.

Come along to our Knowledge Xchange with our Director, Ben Tolhurst, as we discuss our fundamental beliefs, best practice principles which we would like to see businesses adopt in their transitions, and our renewed commitments, upon our reflection of the polycrisis thus far.

This Knowledge Xchange will build on the key outcomes, insights and questions raised from our recent panel discussion with London Business School and London Alumni Club, on whether we need to change, transform or replace our economic system in order to survive the Polycrisis - here is a video recording and transcript of the event, if you missed it.

There were many questions and thoughts around implementing a fair, just, rapid and equitable transition, as well as the uncomfortable truths about the realities of the climate, nature and social polycrisis.

Join Sam Baker and some of our speakers at the event to have the opportunity to voice your questions around the polycrisis, and what our economic system(s) should look like to influence and create a better future.

It’s been 3 years since we collaborated with Wholegrain Digital to create the Digital Declutter Toolkit. Since then, the industry has been growing at over 6% pa and this growth is accelerating - doubling in size in under 10 years, driven by multiple factors including AI, Blockchain and Digital Transformation. The FT reports that data centres alone could drive a rise in the world's energy usage of up to 6%.

Bill Gates is telling us not to worry... Should we? Come and listen to, and engage with, Rafi Addlestone and Randy Adjei on two fascinating perspectives on the digital industry and the ramifications for organisational and personal use.

Rafi has worked at the intersection of technology and sustainability with both Deloitte and Amazon Web Services and will cover industry growth, the hyperscalers' record on emissions and disclosure, how this plays into the polycrisis and what you should be thinking about as a user-business.

Randy will draw on a new report which takes a hard look at one of the most significant environmental challenges of our time, e-Waste. Africa, the focus of the study, is challenged by the import of obsolete electronics and informal recycling practices. He will reflect on the feasibility of circularity and what we should do to reduce the harm we are responsible for.

Come and hear Ben Tolhurst discuss the key outcomes and points of interest from the recent 10th International Degrowth Conference in Pontevedra with participants. Over 1,200 people attended and over 950 abstracts were presented.

Topics to cover include: how degrowth interacts with other disciples e.g. ecological economics, inflation and the green transition, the role of innovation/ entrepreneurship/ technology in a degrowth world, textiles as a case study of regulatory corporate capture, and whether or not advertising has a place.

The participants, including Sam Baker our strategic advisor who's fresh off the 33-hour bus journey, will be asking you to mark your diaries the 11th Conference to be held in Oslo next year.

Join our Knowledge Xchange event with Business Declares and Nature's Workforce, to find out more about the nature work guide jointly created by the National Trust, the RSPB and WWF to help transform how we work, and our natural world.

This comprehensive work guide is aimed at employees of large businesses in sustainability networks, or those who would like to start a network. It is also valuable for anyone who has their own business and wants to encourage their team to take more action on nature. The tools and resources have been developed with input from some leading businesses including our members, the Financial Times and Café Direct.

Format

1. Introduction from Nature's Workforce team

2. Launch Video from Deborah Meaden: Everyone in every business can bring nature back from the brink

3. Alison Fortescue from the FT will speak as a business involved in Nature's Workforce, about how the tool was co-created with business, for business.

4. Q&A

Speakers

• Alison Fortescue, Company Secretary and Head of Compliance; FT

• Kim Dunn, RSPB Save Our Wild Isles Business Advocacy Lead; RSPB

• Ellen Howells, Communications and Engagement Strategy Lead; National Trust

More about the guide:

As an employee, you have a powerful voice which can initiate changes to help your business bring nature back from the brink. Your workplace pension could help fund the restoration of habitats, and your supply chain could shift to more nature friendly practices, having a positive impact on wildlife in the UK and beyond. There are lots of ways you could influence your workplace to make ambitious changes for nature.

You don’t need to be a nature expert to act. Together, the National Trust, the RSPB and WWF have created Nature’s Workforce, designed to help you start the conversations that will lead to lasting change. Bring your passion for nature, knowledge and ideas; and Nature’s Workforce will help you to ask the right questions, shape discussions and collaborate with your colleagues to make a plan for action that will benefit your business and the planet.

A punchy 45 minutes (including your questions!) led by Adam Bastock, founder of Small99 who have an ambition to guide 1 million businesses to net zero by 2025 and who run the ubiquitous People, Planet, Pint evenings.

Come and participate in the discussion which will be structured in 3 parts:

• net zero and what it means for SMEs;

• broader reflections and examples on why and how climate change matters to SMEs; and

• what to do: practical advice on planning, actions and communication.

Sam Baker, on behalf of Business Declares, will be your host.