Why boards need to listen beyond the boardroom

Nowhere is the wisdom of crowds more evident than in climate change and sustainability. Climate risk is not about abstract ESG considerations or reporting exercises; it has become a balance sheet issue – affecting asset values, insurance availability, supply chains, cost of capital and, ultimately, licence to operate. Treating it as a peripheral sustainability matter is no longer tenable. It is a governance issue, squarely within the board’s remit.

Yet many boards remain constrained by how insight reaches them. Traditional governance models privilege information that is formal, aggregated and filtered – often arriving too late or stripped of nuance. In a world defined by rapid transition, systemic risk and deep uncertainty, this model is increasingly inadequate.

The challenge for boards today is not a lack of data. It is a lack of perspective.

Insight lives closer to the action

Across every organisation, critical insight sits well beyond the boardroom. It is held by employees close to customers, suppliers, assets and operations – those who see emerging risks and opportunities first. Engineers notice stresses in infrastructure. Procurement teams see supplier fragility. Sales teams hear changing customer expectations. Sustainability and risk specialists identify patterns long before they appear in formal reports.

This ‘crowd’ is not about scale or consensus. It is about distributed expertise.

Effective boards understand that their role is not to absorb every detail themselves, but to ensure that insight flows from where it originates to where decisions are made. This does not require larger boards or informal engagement. It requires deliberate governance design: structured mechanisms that surface frontline intelligence, challenge assumptions and test strategic choices against reality.

Boards that succeed in this are better equipped to anticipate risk, allocate capital wisely and adapt strategy as conditions change. Those that do not risk governing by hindsight.

Beyond the organisation’s boundaries

Critically, valuable insight does not stop at the organisation’s edge. Suppliers and customers hold essential knowledge about resilience across the value chain – about exposure, dependency and opportunity – that no internal dashboard can fully capture.

As climate shocks, regulatory shifts and market expectations accelerate, and boards that actively engage with these external perspectives are better positioned to understand systemic risk. They are also more likely to identify growth opportunities emerging from transition – new products, services and business models aligned with a low carbon future.

Listening outward is no longer optional. It is a core component of effective stewardship.

From reporting to decision making

Much of the boardroom discussion on climate has focused on disclosure: targets, metrics and compliance. While necessary, this is insufficient. The harder – and more important – question is how climate considerations shape everyday decisions across the organisation.

Risk is no longer managed solely at the top. Small, routine decisions made on the front line – about procurement, pricing, investment or customer engagement – can materially affect long term outcomes. High performing boards recognise this and ensure that people across the organisation are equipped with the tools, incentives and frameworks to factor climate risk into their decisions.

Listening to the crowd is only half the task. Enabling better decision making is the other.

A test of modern governance

Harnessing collective expertise requires boards to embrace modern governance practices. This means breaking down silos, encouraging collaboration and ensuring that relevant information reaches the right level at the right time. It also means rewarding behaviours that support long term resilience; not just short term performance.

At its core, this is a question of stewardship.

Boards exist to provide accountability, assurance and long term direction. In the context of climate transition, this includes custodianship of the organisation’s future viability. Chairs and non executive directors have a critical role to play in holding executives to account for decisions with enduring strategic consequences – and in ensuring that those decisions are informed by the fullest possible understanding of risk and opportunity.

Without systematic access to frontline, customer and supplier insight, boards cannot form a reliable view of organisational culture, resilience or exposure. Governing without that perspective is no longer defensible.

The wisdom is already there

The irony is that boards do not need to invent new expertise. Much of what they need to know is already present – distributed across their organisations and ecosystems.

The task now is to listen more deliberately, connect insight more intelligently and govern more boldly.

In an era of climate uncertainty and accelerated change, the wisdom boards need is already on the front line. The question is whether they are prepared to hear it.