Letter from the CEO: Chapter Zero members are more engaged than ever, despite the headwinds

In the Spring when the headwinds from the US were freshest, I met with 100 of our members at our McKinsey event. The press was heralding the ‘death of sustainability’. I proffered a view then that we were entering a period of polarity, where some entities would retrench but others would double-down on embedding climate into core business strategy. I remember the uncertainty from directors and suggested that Chairs would do well to have crisis and communications expertise on their boards because the climate crisis would not just stop.

Since the Spring, I have been asking myself whether our members’ verve and engagement have been dwindling. Now in the Winter a host of indicators give me reasons to be optimistic. The urgency has inspired a more outspoken style of leadership from directors and Chairs, with members now prepared to share their views on camera. A host of other indicators make me more encouraged about progress on the climate agenda: our FTSE350 member engagement for in-person masterclasses is up 28% up since the same time last year; since the Autumn our member events have been 100% oversubscribed and we have run waiting lists for the first time; and engagement from our Chapter Zero Fellows is peaking rather than declining.

Ongoing support from our long-term partners is not faltering, including four-year relationships with McKinsey & Company, Deloitte, the London Stock Exchange Group, A4S, Kantar, the Financial Times, Fidelio Partners and the SHREK firms – Spencer Stuart, Korn Ferry, Heidrick, Russell Reynolds and Egon Zehnder to mention a few.

Directors and Chairs are working in a dynamic and fast-changing context, and climate discussions have matured. Directors are focusing on energy security, the business case, resilience, risk and the climate innovation opportunity. What has fascinated me most is the fact that above any other area of business strategy or governance, climate is impacting the entity’s culture and organisation most actively, according to our pro bono Kantar survey, and this measure has increased by 29% since last year.

During this time of COP, we hope that multilateralism will play its part, but surely the corporate sector is now leading with vigour. After all, as the Rt Hon Nicholas Stern argues once again in his book published on 5 November 2025, climate is ‘the growth story of the 21st century’.

Vicky Moffatt