Climate and Environmental Governance: Driving climate and nature action in the boardroom: Why and how

This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on May 18, 2026 - May 24, 2026

In November 2015, I received an unexpected telephone call from a group of institutional investors who were on their way to Paris for COP21, the 2015 UN climate change conference: they were planning to use their powers to participate in board director nominations and asked me to help by providing a list of candidates with climate-competency skills that were similar, they said, to my own.

“Alas,” came my answer, “I possess no such list: in fact, despite a career dedicated to sustainable business and finance, I too struggle with these challenges and would not describe myself as possessing the full range of skills needed to properly steward a board’s climate transition strategy” — one that would, in fact, align with the about-to-be-minted Paris Agreement.

But while that list of directors never materialised, these investors planted a seed that would grow to become the global network of national and regional director bodies known today as Chapter Zero Alliance (formerly the Climate Governance Initiative).

Ten years on, with invaluable support from the World Economic Forum, which launched the alliance’s initial set of Principles for Effective Climate Governance in 2019. The alliance comprises 34 locally governed chapters, covering more than 70 countries. This past decade has seen us build a network of peers and experts who share this commitment to placing a Paris-aligned transition strategy at the heart of the board agenda.

In January 2026, the alliance launched the updated Principles for Climate and Nature Governance, which provide a handy framework for board directors to incorporate not just climate but also nature drivers into their companies’ corporate strategies and board decision-making processes. This has clearly landed at a complicated time, when the climate emergency is being sidelined by acute geopolitical crises and, in many cases, even dismissed as irrelevant. But despite these headwinds, one common thread unites us across all geographies and sectors: the regulatory landscape may have become more confusing, the politics messier and the geopolitics a source of existential threat, but what about the laws of science?

These have not changed and will not wait for mankind to sort its squabbles. This means that “business as usual” remains as untenable as it was before war, inflation and the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution took centre stage while technology, often turbocharged by strong policy support, has delivered and will continue to deliver real disruptive change and a whole new set of business opportunities. As board directors, it is our core duty to reconcile the urgent business priorities that our management teams focus on day-to-day with the equally crucial task of positioning our companies for resilience and often reinvention. Like sharks, we cannot afford to tread water — it is a case of keep swimming or die!

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