Dear DOer,

“We cannot address climate change at the scale and speed required without developing sustainability capacity and fluency in the global workforce.”  - Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President, Microsoft

The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) comes to a close in Egypt today. As world leaders negotiate how to get global warming under control, we all need to ask how we can urgently become a part of the solution. 

The role of businesses was highlighted by Microsoft this month in their report ‘Closing the Sustainability Skills Gap: Helping businesses move from pledges to progress,’ sharing key insights into the extent of the challenge:

• To tackle the impacts of climate change, more than a third of the world’s largest public companies have set net-zero targets. To reach these targets, sustainability must spread into every sector of our economy. 
• Currently, the world does not have enough people who have specialized in sustainability education and training, so employees are being tapped from within companies to fill this void. The problem? Internal talent has vast gaps in the knowledge and skills needed to implement vital sustainability culture and practices into the DNA of organisations. 

So, how do we take action?

Employers must move quickly to upskill their workforce through learning initiatives, focusing on sustainability skills and knowledge.

At The DO, we help organizations make this vital transition with speed. With our Upskill: Leading Climate Initiatives course we work on many challenges at once.

We practice a universally applicable innovation method to solve the climate emergency from within companies, driven by employees. Employers become part of the solution by supporting the implementation of their sustainable business strategy with employee-led initiatives that raise a culture of sustainability. The new innovation skills can be applied in any field and accelerate individual and organizational upskilling.

We have worked with H&M, Mercedes-Benz and NXP to upskill their teams, achieving key outcomes:

1. Working with the Mercedes-Benz team, we helped equip employees with the skill set to integrate sustainability into ongoing processes. During Upskill the team ideated three ways to implement sustainability practices into their culture:

2. H&M has set ambitious green targets and needed support to empower its leaders to become co-drivers of their sustainability transformation. Customer Service Trainer Valeria Krauter said Upskill helped to build awareness and led to concrete idea generation. “We acquired knowledge, learned how to educate others, and act as role models. The mixture of self-study and learning together in meetings - the whole concept fits!”

3. NXP wanted to expand the skills and impact of their green team. Employees participated in a two-day Upskill workshop, learning how to drive innovative sustainability within NXP. Participants gave the workshop a 100% Net Promotor Score when asked how likely they would be to recommend it to colleagues.

The Art of DOing: Climate Nuggets

When we think about climate change, the whole concept can feel like an enormous mountain. This can led to overwhelm and that inhibits action. In this video, Hauke Stachow, Director of Leadership Development and Intrapreneurship at The DO School makes it simple, sharing important facts and action steps.

Forbes Feature:

Meet The Leaders Showing Us How We Can All Take Action

The DO Founder Florian Hoffmann sat down with Forbes to share some of his favourite changemakers from his book, Our New World. 

Microsoft report: Closing the Sustainability Skills Gap: Helping businesses move from pledges to progress

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