Paris, France — 26 April, 2022 — The Boson Project, Goodness&Co and Quantis today launched Generation Glasgow, a task force of leaders from 30+ organizations — businesses, NGOs and academia — aiming to address the barriers that are preventing companies from mitigating the planetary crisis.

Representing companies with combined revenues of €300+ billion, the task force members come from multinationals from the food, fashion, cosmetics & personal care, finance, hospitality and insurance industries. They include: Accor, Aema Groupe, Aigle, Association Familiale Mulliez, B Lab, Bel, Camif, Carrefour, Chanel, Decathlon, Eurazeo, Groupe Rocher, Interface, L’Oréal, Maif, Mars, Mirova, Sodexo, Sycomore Asset Management.

The task force also includes universities EM Lyon, HEC Paris; youth organizations CliMates, Ecological Awakening, Jeunes Ambassadeurs pour le Climat as well as thought leaders Arthur Aubœuf (Time for the Planet), Bertrand Badré (CEO & Founder, Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital; former CFO, World Bank), Dominique Bourg (philosopher), Sandrine Dixson-Declève (co-president, Club of Rome), Emmanuel Faber (Chair, International Sustainability Standards Board), Bruno Roche (founder & executive director, Economics of Mutuality).

Tackling the barriers to successful business transformation

As the 2030 deadline to prevent crossing irreversible climate tipping points approaches, business transformation hasn’t taken hold at the necessary speed and scale. While corporate commitments to tackle climate change continue to grow, the considerable structural, cultural and operational challenges leaders face in implementing sustainability agendas are often overlooked. To address this, Generation Glasgow’s founders interviewed dozens of CEOs, C-level executives and activists, to uncover the primary obstacles preventing meaningful progress.

Having identified a number of shared barriers to change, the partners behind the task force aim to provide a space to tackle them. Some initial challenges the task force seeks to address include:

• Shifting internal culture and business practices to align with sustainability objectives;
• Enabling collaboration among competitors, non-governmental organizations and local communities;
• Rethinking corporate governance to pave the way for a shareholder economy;
• Integrating sustainability into performance indicators and mobilizing finance;
• Forging greater partnership with governments to standardize and incentivize sustainable business models.

What’s next for Generation Glasgow

Generation Glasgow task force meetings will kick off this year with the aim of creating a community of leaders to share best practices, establish a network of accountability and co-create solutions to shift conventional business practices and external dynamics at odds with sustainability goals. Now officially launched, Generation Glasgow founders call for additional leaders to join the collective.

Emmanuelle Duez, Founder of The Boson Project, said “We’ve joined forces to bring together a group of leaders who are deeply committed to meeting the challenges of sustainable transformation in their companies. With their insights into the difficulties encountered on the way, we’re working to shed light on solutions to accelerate change — and to make their enthusiasm contagious to bring others on board.”

“One thing is certain: there will be no transformation without courage. Business leaders must have grit and be willing to go against the status quo and call out obstacles along the way, ” said Isabelle Grosmaitre, CEO of Goodness&Co. “The clock is ticking and we’re past the point of pledges. Time is now about action. Generation Glasgow is bringing together business leaders eager to build better futures and get to work blazing a trail to transformation.”

“Solving the global, complex task of operating within planetary boundaries and fighting the climate crisis requires challenging the status quo and confronting the elephants in the room — the true barriers stalling sufficient action,” said Dimitri Caudrelier, CEO of Quantis. “Collaboration isn’t optional. We hope Generation Glasgow’s collective approach will open up a candid dialogue about the root causes of the challenges leaders face in scaling transformation, driving progress collectively.”