Net Zero Transformation Leaders

Community of Practice - Cohort 1 - October 2024

High-Level Overview:

  • 103 Ventures and UNGC UK have identified the need for deeper and more connected, on-the-ground and ongoing support for Net Zero Transformation leaders who are already on their journey.

  • To support this, 103 Ventures is creating a community of practice for just 10 leading individuals for the space of 1 year to deep dive into some of the most pertinent barriers and opportunities associated with delivering a transformative net zero strategy, and provide a safe space where practitioners can share and learn together.

  • Blending on and offline experiences, the community of practice will break the year into 12 separate 1 day sessions that cover all the key components of a net zero strategy, calling upon the collective experience of practitioners in the room, as well as bring in leading case studies for the community to dive into and learn from and result.

  • Each session will provide a blend of best practice insight and case studies to learn from, together with an opportunity to bring your own related challenges to the group, to harness the power of collective experience to help strategise a better way forward together. 

Objectives of Net Zero Transformation community of practice 

  • To provide a complete break-down of the key components of a successful net zero strategy over 12 monthly sessions of the programme. 

  • To provide space for each participant to deep dive into their personal challenges with their peers and develop more robust and informed revised strategies as a result. 

  • To create a deeper sense of community amongst sustainability leaders who are lacking a meaningful and aligned support network.  

Overview of key activities*:

  • An overnight, 2 day retreat in nature to kick start the programme, get to know each other and our most pertinent challenges needing to be tackled during the course of the year.  

  • 12 x monthly full day workshops breaking down the core components of a successful net zero strategy. These topics will be prioritised according to the needs identified by the community, but examples include integrating your purpose with  a transformative agenda, changing mindsets and behaviour, governance, accountability and incentives, materiality and trade offs, transition planning against scenarios, supply-chain and multi-stakeholder partnerships, case building and raising transformative finance, systemic approaches to innovation, and intervening in your industry to drive wider systems transformation. 

  • An overnight 2 day retreat in nature at the end of the series to celebrate successes, failures and learnings. 

*NB For those that would like to contribute to the wider education and advancement of wider industries, there is an option to share our findings in a panel discussion with UNGC UK upon completion of this series. 

What results can a participant expect?

  • Like all things in life, we get out what we put in, but participants can expect to be able to work up to 12 challenges across the course of the year. 

  • Expert insight will frame each session, but each participant will also have the opportunity for a 45 minute - 1 hour surgery on their specific challenge, to enable greater collective insights and breakthroughs. 

  • We aim, but cannot guarantee, that by the end of the programme each participant will have had at least one major breakthrough in the delivery of a more transformative net zero strategy.

Application and selection:

Finding the right participants marks the difference between a low- or high-impact community. Participants need to have the same or similar level of authority, authority to act on their findings and see common ground in their challenges. For that reason, we have created a selection criteria to ensure the best possible experience for our attendees. Details as follows:

  • Seniority: Director, Head of, responsible for Sustainability and/or one down from the CSO. 

  • Strategy maturity:

    • Clear expression of intent / ambitious targets set 

    • Clarity over carbon materiality. Nature and social impacts in progress or complete  

    • Decarbonisation strategy in place and in delivery

    • Specific challenges areas in the delivery identified and able to bring to a community of practice environment  

  • Wider organisation engagement: 

    • C Level endorsement of participation

    • Under study in case of any required absences 

    • Be open to creating an internal NZT shared learnings working group to ensure insights are shared more widely with the key stakeholders in your team. 

Cohort 1 of the community of practice will kick off in October 2024. Recruitment will take place through expressions of interest in the programme, followed by 121 interviews with a member of the 103 Ventures team. The final ten participants for the first cohort will be chosen bearing in mind the potential complementaries between participants. If anyone doesn’t make the first cohort selection, we will prioritise them for the next. 

Cost of participation:

  • This community of practice costs £30,000 per participant. 

  • Travel to the 2 face to face retreats will be expected to be funded by the participant. 

  • To remove the potential current budget cycle barrier, payments can be made in instalments upon request.

How to apply: