7. What kinds of leadership and collective intelligence are needed to respond to climate change?

Businesses that identify and respond to the climate change risks earlier than their competitors will be the ones to survive the rest. This requires strong forward looking leadership and ability to determine the risks and the necessary mitigations.

Success will require both a top down and bottom up approach within a best practice management framework. Now is not to the time to stint on training. Employees need to be encouraged to embrace change and become knowledgeable about the effects of climate change.

Investment in R&D will be necessary, as well as focusing on assets that are not vulnerable to the extreme weather events and other climate change impacts.

Ashridge College suggests that the following seven attributes are important for responsible leadership:

• Acting with integrity;
• Caring for people;
• Demonstrating ethical behaviour;
• Communicating with others;
• Taking a long-term perspective;
• Being open minded;
• Managing responsibly outside the organisation.

Collective intelligence is the synergetic accumulation of global knowledge and expertise. The possible benefits in climate change arena are:

• Global scale and expertise;
• Openness and sharing;
• Definition of issues, options and risks;
• Evaluation (tools, protocols and mechanism);
• Collective decision-making.

More information is available on these websites:

• Ashridge report: ‘Leadership qualities and management competencies for corporate responsibility’ [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ;
• ‘Collective Intelligence to Address Global Climate Change’ by Malone, T and Klein, M. published in Innovations Summer 2007, Vol. 2, No. 3;
• Article on Collective Intelligence;
• The future in our hands: Addressing the leadership challenge of climate change;
• The climate collaboratorium: Harnessing collective intelligence to address climate change issues.