6.1 The role of business in achieving transformational change


"Humanity has reached a new turbulent state, where social, economic and environmental changes interact with unexpected outcomes for our businesses and nations. It is of critical importance that science and business together co- design strategies to transition into a safe operating space and build resilience in the face of unavoidable surprise."


Johan Rockstrom, former Executive


Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2012


While business has been severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis—and it therefore also has an interest in a return to ‘normal’—this moment does not have to be a return to ‘business as usual.’ There is an opportunity for the business community to help lead economies towards a nature positive state. Businesses that are able to leverage this time to explore, experiment, collaborate and ultimately begin to adapt to change will be ahead of others. This is as true for small- and medium-sized enterprises in service and supply chains as it is for large corporations.


What that means in practice will be different for every business, as the policy, market and social drivers that accelerate sustainability transitions are context- and sector-dependent. But three key underlying mechanisms provide entry points for strategizing to support transformative change:


— Build-up: actions that help develop, professionalize, scale and institutionalize nature positive transformative innovations, technologies and business models to the level of society, markets, organizations and regions.


— Change and adapt: actions that lead to adaptation, adjustment and realignment of existing business models, regulations, instruments and conditions to accommodate this transformative change.


— Phase-out: Actions that anticipate phase out of certain technologies, market collapse and disappearing practices, changing consumer preferences and institutional conditions inherent to transformative change.


The impacts of these transformative forces will be big, but these strategic risks have now become systemic, meaning that change driven by nature or society, or both, will lead to disruptive and transformative market shifts. Failing to create an individual transformative pathway risks the business's future. There is no long-term basis for business that operates at the expense of nature and people.


21 Adapt to Survive: Business transformation in a time of uncertainty


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