From Brand Strategy to Climate Solutions: James Payne on Leading Business Through Sustainable Transformation

James has built a remarkable career leading global sustainability strategies across household-name brands. He has shaped long-term strategies for Guinness, Smirnoff and Baileys, driven Diageo’s 2030 sustainability vision, and now advises major multinationals on systemic change.

As a renowned Environment & Sustainability speaker, James shares expertise on climate action, responsible leadership, and navigating complexity in uncertain times.

In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, James discusses how businesses can avoid greenwashing, use technology to accelerate change, and inspire others through honest communication and bold innovation.

Q: How can businesses authentically communicate their sustainability goals to audiences?

James Payne: “Yeah, that's a question that many of the businesses that I work with are wrestling with. I think there's a lot of concern currently around greenwashing—and rightly so—particularly with the reputational risks around it, but also with all of the regulation that we're seeing coming through, particularly from the EU.

“Yeah, it's a big concern for businesses. Obviously, there's a lot of backlash as well in places like North America and the politicisation of ESG. So I think what we are seeing more and more is greenhushing, where businesses are doing really good stuff for sustainability but are not communicating it or are not talking about it.

“That is an issue. That is a problem because, to make progress on these issues, we need many, many businesses—all of the incumbents and all of the businesses across key sectors—to be taking action and to be seen to be taking action, to sort of create that sense of momentum.

“So, talking about what you're doing, talking about your goals, talking about what you're achieving, sharing what you're learning is central to creating the broader, more systemic impact that's needed. We're real proponents at Forum for the Future of what we call "green doing"—setting ambitious targets, taking bold action, and communicating the actions that you're taking and the ambitions that you're setting.

“It's not always about only communicating what you've already done. Obviously, it's good to have a track record and good to have substance behind what you're doing, but there's real power also in communicating your ambition for what you want to achieve. In signalling that ambition, that will attract partners, collaborators, and people who want to be part of realising that vision.

“So we would really advocate the communication both of bold ambitions but also of the actual tangible substance that sits behind that. It's also about engagement and being authentic about what you're struggling with. We'd always say it's better to aim high and set a target based on what the world needs and make a really good effort to achieve that—and engage authentically around that—and communicate, if you are falling short, what you're struggling with.

“Rather than setting a really low, achievable target that isn't what's needed and easily achieving it—that isn't going to get us where we need to get.”

Q: What are some of the most pressing sustainability issues business owners should prioritise, and how can they start addressing them effectively?

James Payne: “The most pressing issues for any specific business will be as unique as the businesses themselves. The most relevant, most material issues will completely depend on the sector that you're in, what your business does.

“So, it's hard to sort of answer that question generically. Obviously though, there are some issues that are really time-critical. Climate, in particular—we know that we have a narrow window of opportunity over the balance of this decade, probably the next five to six years, where we still have an opportunity to mitigate the worst impacts of climate breakdown.

“We need 50% decarbonisation by the end of this decade in order for that to really be possible. We need a massive transformation across all sectors, and we also need that to happen rapidly to avoid some of the critical tipping points that we know we will cross if we don't take that action.

“That's an obvious one, but when we look at the rate of biodiversity loss, how particularly after the pandemic the numbers on inequality are really going in the wrong direction in many places—I think what business leaders are facing is really a polycrisis. Multiple, very challenging contextual issues that are all interrelated and compounding.

“It's not like climate change is just an environmental issue. It's also clearly a very big social issue, has huge health implications, and it's interconnected with nature and inequality. Not addressing those interconnected issues will make every one of those issues worse as they compound.

“But then also, positively, successfully addressing some of those issues and finding solutions that solve for multiple issues simultaneously, and taking smarter, more effective approaches to really get to the root causes of some of these challenges, can have compounding benefits as well.

“So, I think there's many, many issues, but what's important is that you're approaching them in the right way, with the right sense of urgency, but also understanding the interconnections and not trying to address issues in isolation.

“Really what's needed for that is a new way of thinking and acting. What I see a lot with the business leaders that are most successfully navigating this is an understanding that the operating contexts that their businesses are facing are fundamentally different now than they were for the relatively stable and benign operating contexts that most senior business leaders have enjoyed for most of their careers.

“We've seen in IKEA—they've moved away from fixed strategy roadmaps to just using scenario planning for their forward business planning, because they recognise how volatile their operating context is, their value chains.

“Therefore, the idea that you can map out what you're doing for the next eight quarters, or however long, is just a complete fallacy. It's made up. So, they've shifted to scenario planning for their business planning.

“I think what we're increasingly seeing is enlightened business leaders understanding that, and really making the very difficult choice of facing into it, and understanding that they need to think and act differently, and embracing a kind of new approach to managing their business.”

Q: How can technology be used to tackle climate change?

James Payne: “One of the things that is abundantly clear is that we have all of the technology that we need to tackle climate change. Initiatives like Project Drawdown really highlight how just applying current technologies and existing technologies at scale will get us to a point where we're drawing down more carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases than we're emitting.

“So it's not like there's this huge conundrum around new technology that doesn't exist. A lot of what's needed with technology is just deployment and mainstreaming and scaling. But that is no small feat. The amount of infrastructure and investment and business opportunity around that is absolutely massive.

“When it comes to things like energy, now renewable energy is typically at a lower cost than fossil fuels. Sometimes also the technology is really, really old technology. Particularly when it comes to the agriculture sector, a lot of the regenerative agriculture techniques that many businesses are seeking to scale now are based on very, very old forms of things like crop rotation and cover crops that have been in indigenous knowledge or practised by farmers for really long periods of time.

“So it's not always about the latest shiny new thing. There are areas where technology is definitely needed—particularly around hard-to-abate sectors, and areas like flight, things like green hydrogen for steel production and other heavy industries. So technology is definitely needed, and we are seeing incredible breakthroughs.

“Particularly when it comes to types of protein—meat or dairy protein—that are very greenhouse gas intensive, the breakthroughs that we're seeing around things like precision fermentation are absolutely incredible and will completely reshape entire industries over the next five to ten years.

“So there definitely is a lot of disruption and some really promising technologies that are on the cusp of mainstreaming, we think.

“But I think it's important also to be aware that actually we have so much technology already, and it's often just about scaling that.

“One of the things that is really exciting for business leaders is the opportunity about a challenge like the climate crisis—the need for such rapid business transformation over the next five years and the huge shifts that are needed.

“We've seen—I worked with Diageo, the leading drinks business globally, to set their 2030 strategy back in 2019. One of the things that they really leaned into was what we call the Innovation Gap.

“Rather than setting a target based on what you think you can deliver with current technology and current costs, setting a target based on what the world needs and then working to develop the breakthroughs and the innovations that can deliver that target at an affordable cost and at the pace that's needed.

“Obviously, you don't just do that and do nothing. Diageo set up Diageo Sustainable Solutions—an open innovation platform where they set out the key challenges where they needed new technologies or needed things to scale in order for them to achieve their targets.

“It's been incredibly successful. When we set the strategy, they'd talked about fully decarbonising their operations by 2030, and a 50% decarbonisation of their supply chain. One of their biggest parts of their carbon footprint is glass bottle manufacturing. As a premium drinks supplier, it wasn't possible when we set the strategy to produce zero carbon glass bottles. That technology didn't exist.

“Now they are in the process of piloting a glass manufacturing facility in the UK, partnering with a supplier that will produce net zero glass bottles. If they hadn't set that innovation gap and hadn't had the courage to do that, that breakthrough wouldn't have come through.

“So I think there's a huge opportunity for businesses to challenge themselves and really be aware that actually doing nothing is often—in a more stable operating context—being a fast follower is often a smart choice. But given the dynamism that we're seeing and are likely to see in the decade ahead, actually, it's a much smarter business choice to be the innovator, be the pioneer, and develop some of these breakthroughs, rather than being caught off guard.”

This exclusive interview with James Payne was conducted by Jack Hayes of The Motivational Speakers Agency.