Accountability

Accountability 

‘We will be holding everyone to account…..everyone doing everything they can to address climate change’

Simon Stiel UNFCCC executive secretary opened COP27 with these words, setting the tone for accountability.

Accountability, or being responsible, is something that has been a factor throughout my journey as an entrepreneur and I will be honest, sometimes I have wondered if it would be ‘better for business’ to ignore it.

One of my first realisations that being accountable was going to be part of my business DNA was when a potential client offered a good amount of money for a project which would not further our business goals. In todays language that could be described as a greenwashing project but that terminology was not used at that point, many years ago! Turning down that piece of work seemed to go against everything small business owners were encouraged to do, yet my common sense told me that it was the way to move forward. Without realising it I was making business decisions based on being accountable. My company’s vision was for a sustainable event sector, rejecting the opportunity to be paid to greenwash was being accountable for this vision.

With the memory of how much thought, worry, consideration and doubting that early business decision took from me I have empathy for the business leaders whose commitment to addressing climate change means accountability will now be the barometer by which they decide.

I’m hopeful that in the future it will be the norm for humanity to live in a way that everyone is doing everything they can to address climate change. Until then accountability looks like its set to become a focus and I’m ready for it.