The Leadership Summit: CEO Inspiring Sustainability Leaders

Sustainability LIVE: The Leadership Summit at London Climate Action Week kicked off with an opening keynote from Glen White, CEO of BizClik.

The event, held at CodeNode London, is part of the UK capital’s wider programme of events to inspire and drive climate action.

The Leadership Summit brings together more than 600 attendees and features in-depth conversations about sustainability strategy and responsible business.

Glen’s keynote address launched the conference, setting the tone for the one-day event of panels and workshops.

Glen said: “I’ve been around the city all week. The energy from the sustainability community this week has been amazing.”

Celebrating leadership

Aligning with the wider themes of The Leadership Summit, Glen highlighted the importance of strong sustainability leaders.

“We’re not about what companies do. It’s about what companies are,” Glen said.

“What we’re looking at is what change means. Our capacity to change; capacity to transform; capacity to develop our leadership to support these initiatives.”

Sustainability LIVE is hosting panel discussions and keynotes from global sustainability leaders, facilitating key conversations about climate action. 

Panels such as the Women in Sustainability panel and the Global Decarbonisation Strategies panel will examine the impact of strong leadership in driving the development and implementation of successful sustainability strategies.

Inside The Leadership Summit

Glen introduced some highlights from The Leadership Summit, with some of the world’s most influential leaders speaking at today’s event.

He spoke about the keynote from Jim Andrew, Chief Sustainability Officer at PepsiCo, which followed Glen’s speech.

Glen mentioned some of the reasons why leaders like Jim are successful: “Hard work, honesty, vision. PepsiCo is a global entity, but I still see Jim take the time and the energy to travel the world to meet with its global community of farmers.”

“We’re going to hear from an amazing talent about the automotive industry: Andrea Debbane from Jaguar Land Rover, who’s absolutely amazing.”

Glen also teased some of the other big sustainability names on The Leadership Summit’s line-up: “Mark McKenna of Arcadis, Nicole Sautter from American Express Business Travel, Garrett Quinn from Smurfit Westrock – one of the largest packaging companies in the world.

“This is not sustainability for doing sustainability because you need to be seen to be doing sustainability.

“This is about the fact that we engage the real people, those that walk the walk then have the capacity to come up here and talk the talk.”

The future of sustainability

Rounding out his keynote address, Glen introduced some of the other events that Sustainability Magazine has in the upcoming year.

“We’ll be back in the UK for Sustainability LIVE: The Global Summit and Global Awards in September,” Glen said.

“We’ll be in New York for Climate Week and we’ve got events across the week. Our main Sustainability Summit is on 22 September.”

Turning back to the event at hand, Glen encouraged delegates in the Enterprise Theatre to maximise the day: “Please network. This is what it’s all about.

“As for today’s agenda, we will talk about sustainability strategy and net zero. But it’s about making sustainability real.”