About Us

The Climate Governance Initiative supports the growth of groups of board directors around the world to form networks, known as Chapters.

Our Mission, Vision & Values

Our mission is to mobilise boards around the world to accelerate the net zero transition, guided by the World Economic Forum’s Principles for Effective Climate Governance.

Our core purpose is to enable effective climate corporate governance and mobilise boards to act.

Our vision is that a critical mass of boards proactively govern their organisations to ensure they fully contribute to resolving the global climate challenge.

Our values underpin everything we do.  We are impact focused, collaborative and entrepreneurial in spirit.

Impact focused – We are highly motivated to make a difference through effective climate governance, using impact as a lens for our decision making.

Collaborative – We work with others who share our goals to achieve our mission, valuing the importance of collaboration over competition.

Entrepreneurial – We are fast acting, creative and learn from our actions and those of others.

Our unique proposition

The Climate Governance Initiative is driven by a community of non-executive directors focused on making climate a boardroom priority, building on the World Economic Forum’s Principles for Effective Climate Governance.

Why?  Climate change is a global emergency.  Business has a crucial role to play in the necessary transition.  Boards must take the lead on this.

All Chapters have signed up to our Charter, and commit to upholding the values of the Climate Governance Initiative.

Our Ambition 2025

We see the years to 2025 as critical in our response to the global challenge posed by climate change.  The IPCC report 2021 signals a ‘code red’ for humanity and emissions globally need to be halved by 2030 to ensure average temperature rise does not exceed 1.5 degrees by 2050. 

The business community must act now to move from pledges to action, yet lacks the tools, skills and expertise to do so effectively, to create climate related opportunities and respond to risks.  Boards are uniquely placed to drive this change, asking the right questions and providing robust challenge for the long-term resilience of the companies they oversee.

Our ambition is for Boards to be transformed through implementation of the World Economic Forum Principles for Effective Climate Governance.  This will be evidenced by the progress of companies whose board members are active members of Climate Governance Initiative Chapters over the next 3 years and an overall increase in the number of companies with transition plans compatible with a 1.5 degree scenario. 

The Chapters of the Initiative have an instrumental role to play for this Ambition to be realised, with the support of the Governing Board and Secretariat.

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Our Strategic Action Areas

In line with our mission, vision, values, identity and operating environment, as the basis of a plan to achieve our ambition for 2025, our strategic action areas are:

  1. SUPPORT THE NETWORK: Strengthen the Climate Governance Initiative network by engaging the Chapters to build a robust community of climate board leaders, advocates and supporting partners, focusing funding and partnership to deepen our impact.
  2. DELIVER EFFECTIVE CLIMATE GOVERNANCE CONTENT: Foster and facilitate collaboration, knowledge and content sharing among the Chapter network to equip non-executive directors to implement the World Economic Forum’s Principles for Effective Climate Governance.
  3. DRIVE FOCUSED, IMPACTFUL GROWTH: Focus Initiative growth in the most critical economies that increase our global climate impact.

Our governance

The Climate Governance Initiative is overseen by a Governing Board which consists of eight elected Chapter representatives, a World Economic Forum representative and the Head of the Secretariat as an ex-officio member. Each member of the Governing Board brings a wealth of knowledge and experience of boardroom best practise and is committed to promoting effective climate governance in boardrooms globally. 

The secretariat is hosted by the Centre for Climate Engagement, which is based at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The secretariat has the responsibility of coordinating collaborative efforts among Chapters to advance the Initiative’s strategy in addition to supporting the Governing Board.

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Our Governing Board

Our Advisory Board

Networks in 71 countries worldwide

There are currently 29 Chapters, in:

  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Brussels
  • Canada
  • Central America & Caribbean
  • Chile
  • Egypt
  • France
  • Greece
  • Germany
  • Hong Kong
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • The Nordic countries
  • Poland
  • Romania
  • Singapore
  • Slovenia
  • Southern Africa
  • Switzerland
  • Türkiye
  • UK
  • Ukraine & Caucasus
  • Uzbekistan
  • USA

Chapters in development include:

  • India
  • Nigeria

Members

Some of the host organizations of local chapters have an extensive membership of NEDs, for example:

Chapters

Join a Chapter

If you would like to join a Chapter, please use the Twitter, LinkedIn and website links on our Chapters page to make contact with your local Chapter.

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