Supporting and accelerating the white spaces in the Mission Possible Partnership
The Mission Possible Partnership
When it comes to climate change, winning slowly is the same as losing.
This is a catchphrase from the Mission Possible Partnership (MPP). An eminent partnership of 10 leading collaborative climate action organisations, advocating for and enabling industrial decarbonisation leading up to COP26, through to 2030 and beyond.
Their mission? To trigger transformational change in the worlds’ most carbon intensive industries.
The MPPs approach is an excellent example of transformative thinking — starting at the deepest level to intervene in a system — with a deep paradigm shift. In this case, from the UNFCCC seeing the real economy as a side event (in the age of 1995–2019) to being part of a whole web of inter-connected and inter-dependent sectors and specialisms, all working towards a common goal (from 2021 onwards).
To the MPP, this is called an integrated climate action paradigm. To you and I, this means a meeting of top-down nationally determined contributions together with the cross-cutting net-zero targets from industry in order to galvanise collective action. A lattice-work of climate action, capable of setting off a “flywheel of progress”, by bringing together industry and its suppliers, customers, governments and banks, and institutional investors around it to mobilise it.
The strategy for achieving this is beautifully simple: 1. Elevate sector decarbonisation (as a key axis for climate action implementation), 2. Integrate efforts (of the major collaborative climate action partners) and 3. Orchestrate net-zero industry platforms.
Furthermore, the platforms themselves use tried and tested methods and tools, and are laid out in 4 key stages that are universally applicable across all sectors:
1. Shared Visions (convening willing stakeholders around net-zero ambitions).
2. Roadmaps and Metrics (comprehensive, industry level and with 5-year increments).
3. Committing to Action (target setting, together with the reform of certain rules of the game i.e., policies, procurement etc); and,
4. Supporting the Implementation (practical resources and toolkits, including collaborative R&D, green product labelling, and financing scale up blueprints)
First up for this new partnership? Supercharging the pre-existing high ambition industry sector groups already in action: Shipping, aviation, road freight, aluminium, cement, chemicals, and iron and steel.
It’s the kind of focus and momentum people in the climate movement dreamed of just a few short years ago, and what brought me to co-develop the experiment in coordinated climate-action programme, Project X.
Initiatives like the Mission Possible Partnership represent precious acupuncture treatments to the system, where timebound and targeted interventions can fundamentally impact the path of transformational change.
Moments like these, where meaningful action galvanises around momentum and demand, are so rare we must all collectively do what we can — to either clear their path or jump into the slip-stream — and fast.
The White Space Opportunities
So, what can be done to help?
From one avid and curious fan of this partnership, to I’m sure, many more — I see many white spaces where the growing climate community can plug-in and support. Starting with a couple of examples below:
1. Clearing the path:
Shared Visions — Developing Transformational Intent
This may sound simple, but transformational change requires true transformational intent. And not the kind of transformation that pledges to sequester or offset all its damages in pursuit of the next sexiest net-zero announcement. Real, hold on to your hats, reconfigurations of service offerings and entire business models, leaning into stranded assets and departments, holding difficult conversations with shareholders and losing some along the way, committing to a just transition for supply chains and employees when it is considerably less profitable to do so — and beyond. This is not something every leader has within reach and without a clear sense of belief — in themselves and their organisation — there is a risk these leaders won’t get to the gate of the MPP in the first place. Organisations among us specialise in the internal transformations needed. Transformations inside ourselves and our organisations in order to manage and lead the change — and are here to help.
Roadmaps & Metrics — Roadmaps and Guides
The way Nigel Topping assimilates the development of pre-competitive industry decarbonisation pathways to the IoT transitions associated with 3 to 5G and beyond, is an excellent analogy. However, each pre-competitive industry roadmap needs to be complemented with the bespoke confidential applications, company by company, to support it. There are plenty of consultancies out there professing net-zero roadmaps, but next to none can speak to and deliver on the real transformation required — outside and in — and as such leave corporations exposed on their journey and their assets at risk in the process. A small group of true Transformation-as-a-Service providers are emerging that can either deliver near end-to-end services, or provide time-intensive orchestration, to support this journey. Such providers can flex between engaging the industry transition platforms and the complex networks associated with them, and the technical and competitive needs of the individual corporate actors navigating within it — acting as a constant calibrator from individual corporate strategy to transformational collective action.
Committing to Action — Demand Signals squared
Across the first cohort of industry platforms to be accelerated, there is a mix of B2B and B2C companies. With momentum and awareness at an all-time high, consumers are grasping the importance of the hitherto hidden B2B links such as feedstocks in the value chain, and investors and major buyers are exerting enough pressure to compound that. With this as a backdrop, classic demand signals can be further accelerated through coordinating commitments and messaging from pre-existing platforms and interventions — with a 360 approach, of sorts. From stipulations in the procurement pledge, to signatories in the CDPs Supply Chain programme, through to united end-consumer behaviour pledges in the European Commissions’ Climate Pact. Much like the surround sound effect felt in Greta’s Summer of 2019, corporate interventions and community-led activism now have a proven place in helping drive demand alongside shareholder interventions, and can be intelligently coordinated in line with these roadmaps for maximum positive impact.
Supporting Implementation — Accelerating Policy Innovation
The role of major climate policies like industrial net-zero transition deadlines and national laws are incredibly powerful market makers, but the many levels of policies and regulation beneath are what enable or prevent the change. In many cases the path of transformational change is not hampered by a climate denying or profit-seeking corporate lobbying outfit. More insidiously, it can be the result of a complex web of well-meaning, fit-for-purpose at-the-time, policies whose lead-time for reform is life-threateningly slow. Live examples of how this can play out can be found in the EIT Climate KIC Healthy Clean Cities programme — In buildings as an example, where historic policies in some cities are preventing the most ambitious developers from building new best practice developments. Without policy reform fast enough, these developments will lock in unsustainable practices and materials for decades to come. Organisations like EIT Climate KIC, have responded to this challenge by developing regulatory sandboxes. These are safe places that are endorsed by senior politicians, co-created with industry, and populated with innovative policies that can be developed and tested outside of the usual sticky public sector protocols and accelerate the process before implementation. Similar examples can be plugged into these roadmaps to provide a safe space for rapid policy innovation and deployment.
2. Jumping in the Slipstream:
Tackling the “other” — Filling up the slipstream
Underpinning the progress of the MPP programme, there is a unilaterally understood and evolving blueprint for coordinated industrial action. This is something others can follow. Internationally recognised frameworks or methodologies like this one enable tighter learning loops and more transferability of knowledge between sectors. And unlike usual competition-driven first-mover advantages, in this case, the more industrial players that can follow this blueprint, the better. Where there are pre-existing coalitions, like the Step-Up Coalition as an example — this blue-print can be followed with other partners and peers so that direct comparables can enabler tighter learning loops and faster progress for all. The work of excellent industry coordinators — i.e., Imagine, Xynteo, and BSR — can all follow suit using the same or adapted blueprint for industries that can tackle the significant impact of “other” industries not yet in the sights of the MPP partners as they don’t have the resources to deliver.
3. General — Whole Systems Approach to Innovation
In the words of Jim Skea, we hear the need for unprecedented changes and the critical role of the scale-up of technology and innovation to achieve it. In PwC’s State of Climate Tech Report, we read that current innovations will only get us 70% of the way, and at the IEA, we see that 45% of the GHG reductions needed to be eliminated in the energy sector alone require the roll-out of technologies either in early adoption or demonstration phases. Despite this dependency, the pathway to scale for the highest impact innovations remains unchartered territory. How they will react in the market, the rate of adoption and what the adverse effects might be, are all predictions, so can’t be met with prescriptions. Collaborative R&D, financing blueprints and product standards will all help — but the adoption of technologies can be held back by much more than just a policy or a lack of investment. Everything from belief systems to spread IP strategies, from organisations culture to entrenched consumer behaviours can play a pivotal role. In this context, accelerating industry progress through innovation is a highly contextual and nuanced game, requiring multiple levers for change to be deployed and tested simultaneously over time. Without this kind of whole systems support for the driving forward industrial transformation, investments and high-performing innovations have a much higher propensity to fail.
Onwards to an outstandingly successful 2030
The Mission Possible Partnership is the level of coordination and momentum we have all been waiting for. And with some small support mechanisms and interventions from the climate community, we can all collectively improve our chances of outstanding success.
In the delivery of this, one key hurdle in the hearts and minds of key climate actors must be overcome. As an independent who could not qualify as a suitably resourced service provider, I feel comfortable sharing this on behalf of my peers.
Individual corporate or SME service providers are as critical to the delivery of this programme as the corporates and MPP partners themselves. Similar to the paradigm shift from exclusivity to inclusivity that is the central mission of the MPP, so too must we shift our relationship with those that can accelerate progress. Despite popular belief, service providers don’t require special endorsement and do not compromise programme independence if handled well. Instead, working with them requires a neutral approach to assessing industrial and corporate needs, and an unbiased end-to-end inventory provision and/or selection process. In return, it can cut costs, leverage investment, accelerate the dissemination of learning and ultimately the pace of progress.
Tackling transformation at this scale requires coordinated action at all levels and unless we responsibly engage all suitably resourced and qualified partners in on the coordination, we dramatically reduce our chances of success.
We are in this together, after all.
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As always, feedback and comments welcome.
Keeping myself out of trouble, at:
kate [at] wolfenden.info