EP251: The New Climate Denial Is About Cost, Not Science
Jens Heitland and sustainability expert Brian Kilkelly explore how the climate debate has shifted from denial to affordability, why personal motivation drives sustainable leadership, and how businesses can build a culture that treats the planet as a long-term investment.
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The New Climate Denial Is About Cost, Not Science
I have had the pleasure of sitting down with Brian Kilkelly twice now, and both times the conversation has pushed me to think differently about what it means to lead with a long-term view. This time we met in London, and I wanted to pick up from where we left off two years ago when Brian was doing groundbreaking work on using data to predict droughts and extreme weather events.
A lot has changed in those two years. Not in the direction of the science, but in the nature of the argument itself.
The Debate Has Moved
What Brian described in this conversation is something I had been sensing but had not heard put so precisely. Climate denialism has largely faded as a position. The world has watched fires burn in California, floods tear through European cities, and storms hit with greater regularity and at greater cost. The physics, as Brian put it, does not negotiate.
But the opposition to action has not disappeared. It has simply changed its argument. The new framing is not that climate change is fake. It is that net zero is too expensive. The cost of living is too high. That green policy is some kind of ideological imposition on ordinary people. It is a faster, more emotionally available story, and that makes it harder to counter than anything that came before.
For those of us leading organizations, this matters. Because our teams, our boards, and our stakeholders are all absorbing this noise. The context in which we try to build sustainable businesses and sustainable cultures is now politically charged in ways it was not a few years ago.
What Is Actually Driving You
Brian is currently working with organizations, including the Church of England, on decarbonizing their estate, and he is also doing work with the Roffey Park Institute on connecting mindset shifts and behavior change to sustainability outcomes. What he keeps returning to is the same question: why does this matter to you personally?
Not as a communications exercise. Not as something to say in front of your board. But genuinely, as the person leading the organization, what is the actual reason you care about this?
Brian was honest about his own answer. For him, it comes from his faith, a belief that we are stewards of this planet and that part of that responsibility is restorative work, not just maintenance. He has been exploring how that theological grounding connects to practical leadership, and he is building spaces where other leaders can explore the same question from their own starting point.
What struck me is that his starting point need not be yours. It could be that you hate pollution. That you fear for what your children will inherit. That you have watched nature deteriorate in places you love. Whatever it is, Brian's argument is that being clear about your own reason makes you a more authentic and more resilient leader on this topic. You will need that resilience because the headwinds are real and they are likely to get stronger.
The Blue Planet Exercise
One moment from our conversation I keep thinking about is a workshop Brian ran with the management team of a major housing association. He asked everyone to draw a circle and write inside it everything they loved and valued about life. Family. Their neighborhood. Nature. Sports. The things that give life meaning.
Then he showed them a photograph of Earth from space and said: Everything inside your circle is sustained by that one planet.
He told me it makes him emotional just recounting it, and I understand why. That reframe does something that strategy documents and sustainability reports cannot. It makes the work personal. It connects the abstract complexity of decarbonization targets and net-zero commitments to something that sits within every person in that room.
That is what good leadership communication does. It does not just explain why something matters. It makes people feel why it matters.
The Payback Question
One of the most practical parts of our conversation was about the economics of decarbonization, specifically the gap between different types of investments and how long they take to return value. LED technology pays back in a couple of years. Solar panels in seven to eight. A heat pump might take forty to fifty years.
The instinct, especially in organizations under financial pressure, is to take the quick wins and defer the harder decisions. Brian's argument is that the smarter approach is to blend these investments together into a longer-term proposition, creating a fund over twenty or thirty years rather than optimizing for the nearest return.
For me, this is as much a leadership question as a financial one. We, as business owners and CEOs, are trained to think in quarters, in annual cycles, in immediate accountability. Doing the right thing often does not pay back straight away. That is something we need to sit with more honestly than most of us currently do.
The organizations that figure out how to maintain a long view while managing near-term pressures will be well positioned. Not just ethically, but commercially.
Technology as a Tool, Not a Purpose
We also touched briefly on AI and technology in the context of sustainability, and Brian made a point worth sitting with. Technology, including AI, is a useful tool for this work, but it does not supply the reason for doing it. And in some respects, AI itself is creating new pressures, consuming energy and water at scale in ways that add to the very problems we are trying to solve.
The point is not to avoid technology. It is important to be clear about why you are using it and what you are trying to achieve. The purpose has to come first. The tools serve the purpose. That sequence matters.
Brian is building a community around this work through forallcreation.org, bringing together leaders from different backgrounds and sectors to explore how personal motivation, faith, and sustainability connect in practice. If this conversation is landing for you, it is worth reaching out.
The work of restoring this planet is long. It will not pay back immediately. But that has never been a reason not to start.
Guest Links
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Jens Heitland: Brian, good to meet you again.
[00:00:02] Brian Kilkelly: Thank you. It's great to be back here again.
[00:00:03] Jens Heitland: It's am- amazing. Every time when I'm in London we try to meet up, and we manage even to record a podcast this time.
[00:00:09] Brian Kilkelly: We do.
[00:00:12] Jens Heitland: The, let's, let's maybe start off where we have ended last time. So about two years ago we did a podcast recording which was part of the Walk the Talk series, where you talked about climate change and resilience.
Mm-hmm. And we did that in front of the Tower Bridge- Yes ... in London.
[00:00:29] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah.
[00:00:30] Jens Heitland: And one of the things where you were working in that field as you were before as well. Yeah. So you were looking into how data can predict droughts and you explained that- Yeah ... in details. Looking at the world right now and looking what has changed-
[00:00:49] Brian Kilkelly: Mm
[00:00:49] Jens Heitland: the last two years, what's your experience? What do you see? What has changed for yourself?
[00:00:54] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah. Yeah. So, a couple of years ago we were talking about climate resilience, as you say. And talking about the fact that, yeah, we've got data now which can predict and forecast upcoming events. So floods, storms, droughts, extreme weather events.
And, uh, over the last couple of years, of course, we've been seeing those continuing to come with more regularity. So we can certainly see that the impacts of our changing climate are evident all around. Um, we've had, uh, fires in California in that period as well, so- Mm ... some, some extreme, extremely costly events in terms of loss of life, but also loss of, um, of value in terms of properties, GDP.
So yeah, so climate change is definitely amongst us. We can see that. Also my work has moved more from climate risk into working on decarbonization and net zero. I'm doing work now with a variety of clients, including the Church of England, looking at decarbonizing their estate. And in that period, what we're seeing is a lot of different new headwinds around opposition-
[00:02:07] Jens Heitland: Yeah
[00:02:07] Brian Kilkelly: to the net zero journey. So the politics, it's becoming more of a political issue. So before it was kind of about climate deniers. Now those who believed in climate change, those who didn't believe in climate change. Mm. We're of course aware of the fossil fuel industry seeking to sustain itself and, you know, there are those that believe that they've been muddying the waters with lots of false reports.
What we're also now seeing is politicians coming in on one side of the story and making it part of their kind of political pitch. Um, so the, the debate has moved not so much about does climate change exist, that's kind of... that debate has moved on. The debate is now in the territory of, oh, can we afford to be net zero?
[00:02:54] Jens Heitland: Mm.
[00:02:54] Brian Kilkelly: So it's not people are denying it, it's more they're questioning the value of actually doing something about it, or at least questioning whether or not we should be doing something about it, whether it should be somebody else doing something about it. And it's quite a cynical, I would say, and clever technique at avoiding action.
Um, and, uh, you know, it's, it's a nice story like, oh, you know, it's, it's not fair. We can't afford it. Uh, it's all a conspiracy. You know, the corporate sector are all trying to make us do this. Um, which is completely ignoring the fact that, but it does need to be done. You know, if we don't- Yeah,
[00:03:33] Jens Heitland: exactly ...
[00:03:33] Brian Kilkelly: if we don't decarbonize, and we don't get to net zero, these problems don't actually just go away.
Um, the physics is the physics, and it will just continue to get worse. Um, but telling the story that- Delaying action is gonna cost us more is a very hard argument versus a very quick soundbite to say, "Oh, net zero's too expensive. Cost of living. Look at our fuel costs. You know, we, we need to ease off the net zero.
Let's get rid of all this green woke stuff."
[00:04:02] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:04:02] Brian Kilkelly: So, um, for those of us working in sustainability, what we're finding ourselves in now is in an environment where we need to navigate, um, more of the emotions, the politics, the culture, um, the mindset battle more than we ever used to.
[00:04:22] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:04:23] Brian Kilkelly: You know, previously it might have been about technology questions.
You know, should we go for electric vehicles? Should we go for hydrogen vehicles? It'll be more about, you know, is climate change real? So it'll be more debates around the science and the technology. So that's been a real shift in the last couple of years.
[00:04:39] Jens Heitland: The, the, the tricky thing to that point is that politicians, most of them, and it's, it's maybe fair to say or not nice to say, but in the end they only care about getting elected next time or not.
Yeah. And yes, personally they might consider long-term consequences, but if they are at the edge of getting elected or not getting elected, they will always go for- like the short term, and that's the tricky thing what, what we see I think worldwide, and then some countries are more than the others.
[00:05:13] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah.
[00:05:14] Jens Heitland: And, and, and more extreme than others. Yes. But it's also w- at least my perception of what's happening is th- this extreme views has changed. Yeah. First it was, like, we're, we're on one side, and then it's on the other s- side, and just because a different leader is pushing extremely in one direction, the whole world is questioning things from one day to the other.
Yeah, yeah. Which was... That, it's a little bit weird, but I think that's something we need to work with. Like, like you said, we as humans and leaders in our, like, leading ourselves but also leading organization- Yeah ... we need to look into how do we tackle that for ourselves, where do we stand on these topics- Yeah
for ourselves, and how do we want to go forward? Because in the end, like, we both have kids. Yeah. We want them to have a planet where they will survive, and their k- kids after-
[00:06:07] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah ...
[00:06:07] Jens Heitland: will, will be in, not in a harmful environment- Yeah ... in the same way.
[00:06:10] Brian Kilkelly: Very true. I think you're absolutely right that, you know, in those, in this period, not only are we seeing this kind of shift, but we have this kind of, um, sort of accelerated short-termism.
[00:06:21] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:06:22] Brian Kilkelly: So, um, you know, social media, um, means that, uh, yeah, the, the latest thing that's popped up that day is what gets all the attention, and everybody forgets about what was said. And of course, you know, we know certain actors in the world play that game very well. Uh, and it's constant shifting, changing, distracting.
Um, and yeah, there's, we're seeing this kind of division, you know, of, of opinions really, really increasing. And you're right, we need to understand and navigate, navigate that, which means, as you quite rightly say, some of these kind of l- longer term, um, sacrificial choices, um, the idea of investing now for the long term or, um, taking into account of our actions here having an impact on somebody else globally, is, it, that's, that's a hard world or hard message to engage people in when they're, there's something new just popped up, um, and things are changing so sw- so swiftly.
So, um, it i- it is challenging. And, you know, you said, Jens, about, um, you know, uh- Understanding our motivation. Um, so our, you know, our, our... the kind of, what kind of future do we want to leave to our children? The, these, the, you know, u- understanding what is it that's driving us and why is this important. Uh, what I'm finding is that it's increasingly important for us as leaders to be clear about why is this important for ourselves.
You know, what is the... For me personally, what's driving me, um, to want to see a positive change?
[00:07:50] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:07:50] Brian Kilkelly: Uh, and I think, uh, there are lots of reasons why, um, climate change, sustainability, um, recovering nature are important. Uh, and we all have our different reasons, and that's, and that's fine. And there, you know, it could be about children.
It could be that you hate pollution. You know, you see destruction, and that really, uh, really upsets you. It could be that you just love nature, uh, and you want to protect it and you want to see it, you know, improve. Um, it could be that, you know, fear of loss. You know, when you see these storms and these floods and these fires, you know, it, it's, it's very impactful for people.
You know, there's a, there's a fear factor there. These are real. Mm. People's li- lives are being lost, and we see it in our, in our backyard. It's, it's no longer a global south, uh, challenge. We're seeing it now in Europe as well.
[00:08:39] Jens Heitland: Right.
[00:08:40] Brian Kilkelly: Uh, and in North, and in North America, so it's right, right here now with us.
Um, so lots of reasons, but actually understanding what your personal motivation is and how that translates into how you lead, uh, what that means for the culture of your organization, how that feeds into your strategy. Uh, we're seeing, uh... I'm, I'm doing work with, uh, lots of organizations like the Roffey Park Institute to really understand, um, how we connect behavior change and mindset shifts to our work on sustainability, and I feel that's where the new battleground is.
That's where we need to lean into more as, as professionals and as leaders in this area.
[00:09:19] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And I, I think too that is- One part is we need to, we need to understand it for ourselves, but then I saw, well, that's, that's how I see it. I see the opportunity with leading a business and, and in my case even owning a business, that we can make the change in the world.
Yeah. So I have the possibility to change something towards the positive side. Yes. And it takes my dedication to that to be able to do that. And to, to, to, to the way of understanding for myself that sometimes needs... we need to step back and reflect, and that's at least what I see working with CEOs from around the world.
Not every CEO is taking that time- Yeah ... to step back and look into what does it mean for the long term. Yeah. Because we are so pushed in delivering every day- Yes ... business that we, that w- that we don't consider that.
[00:10:11] Brian Kilkelly: That's true. L- last time we, we, we spoke, Jens, uh, I talked about brokenness in organizations.
Yeah. And, uh, and in a way, you know, climate change and the challenges around sustainability reflect a kind of a wider brokenness in the way we live our lives. Um, you know, for example, you could say, you know, that kind of, um, selfish attitude towards living as opposed to selfless attitude means that we don't, we don't think about the impacts of, on others of our lifestyle, and we are, we are surrounded by a system that is essentially broken.
You know, our, our, our economic system has been driven by GDP, and countries look at GDP, and GDP doesn't take into account the external effects of growth. So, you know, we send our, our, our rubbish abroad to be processed so it's out of, out of sight, out of mind, and that's somebody else's problem to deal with.
Uh, and I think we're, you know, increasingly we're recognizing we can, we can no longer live that way, you know? We're living beyond our means. And so when we come to, um, a leader's self-reflection, I think recognizing that, you know, there is brokenness in ourselves and our, our organizations, and we need to think about how do we, how do we start to restore that?
And the exciting thing is that there are, there's a lot of great ways in which we can restore both ourselves and our organizations, and which actually, it actually is good for business. Uh, and we're seeing that. We're seeing businesses embrace this. But I, I, I love w- the work that you're doing with leaders around understanding what is it about them, you know, their personality, and how does that, how does that kind of connect with their business?
And I really see a parallel there here, that actually understanding why is this topic important to me, uh, spending some time reflecting and thinking about that, and then how does that affect how I lead my business? I think that's an incredibly exciting and powerful place for us to kind of, um, get alongside leaders and help them on that journey.
Because the more you can be personally clear as to why this is important for you- the more authentic you'll be w- in front of your board of directors, in front of your staff, in front of your customers, and the more you can steer your organization to be an organization that's part of the solution, part of the, the restoration of this world, and not somebody that's exploiting.
Uh, and, and that's what... That, that will be attractive.
[00:12:29] Jens Heitland: Yeah. No, agree. I remember a couple of years back when, when you had this, this big white paper role where, where you looked into-
[00:12:37] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah ...
[00:12:38] Jens Heitland: um, and you, you did time to reflect yourself- Yeah ... for, I think, quite some time at that time. Yeah. What is the driver for yourself?
[00:12:46] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah. So the, the driver for me comes from my, my faith, so, uh, this belief that we have a creator, uh, that's given us this precious planet. Uh, and actually, um, part of our purpose on, here on Earth that our creator is, uh, in charge, given us a responsibility for, is to be good stewards of this wonderful planet.
But I also believe, you know, delving into kind of the teachings of the Bible and, and, uh, and what Jesus demonstrated when he was on, on Earth was actually goes beyond, uh, stewardship, which kind of talks about looking after what you have. It goes beyond that. It talks about actually being part of his restoring work.
Um, so as Christians, we believe that ultimately everything will be made new. Um, so the h- so the Earth will be made new and all this pain and all these problems will be, will be fixed, but that, that work has already started. Uh, and what I'm, what I was delving into was there's a, there's a kind of a sense in our teachings over 2,000 years of, of Christianity that has kind of adopted this kind of cultural norm that actually, um, we can exploit the Earth, uh, and not worry about the consequences, and that's crept into our theology, into our, our- Mm
our thinking. And what I... Going back to our theology, I recognize that actually that was false, that's false thinking, that actually, you know, we need to be not only- um, stewarding well, but we also need to be part of the res- res- restorative work. And I'm really excited about that because, um, uh, I see, uh, that there's so much we can be doing to actually restore things, repair things, and that's actually part of what God's purpose is for us here on Earth.
Um, so I'm very excited about working alongside, uh, people of faith, um, Christians, but also those from other beliefs or, or people who maybe are just kind of aware spiritually- Mm ... to the fact that this is, there is more than the material around us. There is a spiritual dimension as well. Uh, and leading into that and thinking about how can that be, how can we kind of, uh, grab hold of that and that be also a driver for action for us.
And part of the, part of the fixing of brokenness is tapping into that restoration work.
[00:15:04] Jens Heitland: Yeah. How, how would you approach that, or what, what, what are the things that, that you do toward getting towards that?
[00:15:10] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah. So I'm, I'm at the moment exploring with others how we connect our, our faith, uh, our thinking around leadership and sustainability, how we think about our organizations and the culture, uh, against this backdrop of headwinds we talked about earlier on.
Mm. How do we navigate that? How do we become better at connecting the why is this important to me? what, what are my beliefs to what does that mean for how I live and how I lead in this world? So I'm, I'm creating a space and inviting people into it to come with me on a journey to explore how can we do this better.
You know, how can we learn from each other and find ways to support each other in actually becoming, uh, much better at dealing with these challenges? Uh, because no doubt there is a lot of challenges around us, like we talked about earlier on.
[00:15:58] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:15:58] Brian Kilkelly: Um, and the, the Church of England's going to be launching a paper later this year called Hope for All Creation, which lays out the theologic- the theological kind of backdrop or, uh, basis for the church's, uh, beliefs around this, and I'm really excited about that work.
But we need to translate that into how do we apl- how do we apply it? So I'm interested in kind of meeting with others, with other leaders to explore how we empower and enable people to step into this space. So, uh, so yeah, so I'm, uh, I think by meeting together, we can become clear about our objectives, clear about how we lead and how we influence our organizations, the culture, the mindsets, and then we can be much more effective at delivering this work.
[00:16:45] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:16:46] Brian Kilkelly: And ultimately, that draws us closer to our creator, because, uh, the more we're involved in His purposes of restoring the Earth, the, the closer we get to our creator, the closer we get to what Jesus intended. And ultimately, for me, that's what it's all about.
[00:17:00] Jens Heitland: Nice. But what is interesting about that is in, in, in the end, exploring together, being on the journey will help ourselves to find it out.
Yeah. And, and it gives you a dif- like, different perspective from other people if you start, let's say, a discussion around, um, where you go deeper into these topics- Yeah ... and then explore this together, and then you get inspired by other people who are maybe one step ahead.
[00:17:23] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah.
[00:17:24] Jens Heitland: And, and, and with that, a movement is going to form and- Yeah
and, and people will start doing things which they might not have done before. Very
[00:17:31] Brian Kilkelly: true. I think we, you know, it... What I've seen working with businesses, um, uh, just here in London, I, I spent a day with the management team of a major, um, housing association. And, uh, I started the day asking people to, um, to draw a, draw a circle on a piece of paper and write inside that circle all the things that were important to them, you know, what they loved and valued about life.
Uh, I got them to draw the circle in blue, and then on the screen after I g- I gave them some, some time to reflect on that and write down some things. And I think people would've written down things like, you know, family, um, their neighborhood, nature, sports, all the things that we love and the joy of life.
[00:18:14] Jens Heitland: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:15] Brian Kilkelly: Um, and then I showed them a picture of the, of the Blue Planet, you know, that beautiful sh- shot from space of our beautiful, precious planet, and I said, "Everything inside your blue circle is contained within that planet." And then just pause and give people a, some moment to think about that. Mm-hmm.
And, uh, it makes me emotional just talking about it actually, 'cause you realize that, yeah, everything that we, we love is sustained by that one blue planet, and if we don't look after that one blue planet, all the things we love are gonna, are gonna go. And, and then we got into talking about sustainability for that organization.
But I think what that does is that just sets people, their mind in the right place thinking this, this work is really important.
[00:19:00] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:19:01] Brian Kilkelly: You know, our work on sustainability really matters. It matters for eternity. Uh, and stopping and thinking about and reflecting on that I think builds the steadfastness, the resilience to overcome the obstacles and the headwinds that we are gonna increasingly face.
Uh, and I think we, we do need to invest in ourselves to build that resilience because actually things are just gonna get harder, unfortunately. You know- Yeah ... uh, climate change means that we are gonna get more of these extreme weather events, all the things we talked about last time. So actually, um, there's gonna be less resource and less money around to invest in decarbonization right at the time that we need to be doing it.
There's gonna be less money because we're dealing with wars and conflicts that are actually being accelerated by climate change.
[00:19:57] Jens Heitland: Um- Yeah, that's very true.
[00:19:59] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Jens Heitland: But if, if we turn this positive, I think it's also being or having these constraints allow us as well to innovate in a completely different way, utilizing technology that was not- Yeah
existing five years ago-
[00:20:12] Brian Kilkelly: Yes ...
[00:20:13] Jens Heitland: to do this more effectively.
[00:20:15] Brian Kilkelly: Yes.
[00:20:15] Jens Heitland: But if you then connect it to where you come from with faith and as well, like your- Yeah ... your values-
[00:20:21] Brian Kilkelly: Yes ...
[00:20:22] Jens Heitland: I think there are, there's always a way. It's, it's just are you willing to g- go into that way? And I believe, at least from a business perspective- It's worth it.
[00:20:32] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah.
[00:20:33] Jens Heitland: And it will pay back. Yeah. It, it's, it, it's just you need to look into will it pay back tomorrow or will be- will it be paying back in two weeks or four weeks- Yeah.
[00:20:42] Brian Kilkelly: Yes ...
[00:20:42] Jens Heitland: from a horizon perspective, and then it's doing the right thing is often not paying back straight away.
[00:20:47] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah, very true.
[00:20:48] Jens Heitland: That's something we need to learn.
[00:20:50] Brian Kilkelly: We do, yeah, and there's ways of blending these things together.
[00:20:52] Jens Heitland: Exactly.
[00:20:53] Brian Kilkelly: Um, so for the work that we do, um, for example, with, um, with schools at the church, it's, you know, uh, LED technology pays back in a couple of years. Um, solar panels pay back in seven to eight years. A, a heat pump might take 40 to 50 years to pay back.
[00:21:09] Jens Heitland: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:09] Brian Kilkelly: And the question is, um, can you blend these things together into a kind of a, a business proposition where, you know, you, you do all three, and actually the payback is over 20, 20, 30 years?
[00:21:21] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:21:22] Brian Kilkelly: And, uh, you know, create a fund that's going to, that's going to be able to sustain that rather than doing the quick wins now and then the h- leaving the harder stuff till later.
Um, but it's great that you mentioned about technology. Uh, and I think, yeah, the te- the technology, for example, things like AI, are fantastic tools to be able to help us to do our work well, but it does all come back to that, exactly, but what is it that I want to do, and why do I want to do it? Exactly. Um, so needing to be very clear about the reasons why and the importance of this and then using those tools.
Uh, otherwise, those tools can just distract us and actually can lead us to more problems.
[00:22:01] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:22:02] Brian Kilkelly: Uh, A- AI is both a wonderful tool, but also sadly, it's also an ex- more of an accelerator of emissions. Yeah. Uh, and, uh, also water is a big challenge with AI. The amount of water y- it, it takes to run data centers means that it's putting more strain on our water supplies, which is, um, increasingly becoming a more precious commodity than even oil.
Um, so if you look at s- a lot of the conflicts around the world, uh, uh, there's a lot of water stress in places in the world where there is conflict.
[00:22:35] Jens Heitland: Mm.
[00:22:36] Brian Kilkelly: Um, so, uh, yeah, te- uh, technology is useful, but we need to know the reason for our why.
[00:22:44] Jens Heitland: If we loop that back to your exploratory work, looking into how do you bring leaders around one table, where do you see this going?
[00:22:54] Brian Kilkelly: Uh, I, I see this, um, growing into a kind of a, a, a, a movement of people connecting together, learning together, and creating, I guess, insights and tools, um, that others can, can take hold of. And, you know, very practically it could be, uh, kind of case studies or examples on how do you translate your personal why into, um, a, a leadership style and mindset that you can use to drive change in your board and in your strategy.
So what does that, what does that look like?
[00:23:28] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:23:29] Brian Kilkelly: Um, so telling stories, showing examples, bringing people into conversations to explore that. Practically, I think that's how this could look. Um, so out of it I would hope to see a body of work in terms of learning, um, yeah, case studies, stories, um, tools, uh, and a s- perhaps even an assessment methodology.
I'm curious to know, is there a way in which we can measure, um, and assess, um, how good we are at or, or how clear we are at understanding our why and our mindset? You know, what, what does a purposeful-driven business look like? How would you measure that?
[00:24:08] Jens Heitland: Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:24:09] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah. Um, what are the kind of indicators that would tell you as a leader that your organization is following a sustainable culture?
And what are the markers for an organization that has sustainability in its culture? Not just in its strategy-
[00:24:26] Jens Heitland: Mm ...
[00:24:27] Brian Kilkelly: um, not just in its, um, in its sustainability reports, but also, you know, i- h- how does, how do you know my, is my organization actually adopting a more sustainable culture? What does that look like?
How would I measure that?
[00:24:38] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:24:38] Brian Kilkelly: And, um, I'm fascinated there are already, you know, app, apps out there that you can, that you can buy that help you to, uh, measure, uh, mindset, um, on a, on a kind of a broader sense. But can we take that and narrow that down specifically around, um, sustainability? Uh, and I, I think that could be very, very interesting.
[00:24:59] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Brian Kilkelly: And, and it may be that there's almost like a ranking system for companies that have a strong sustainability culture embedded in them, and there's a way of measuring that.
[00:25:10] Jens Heitland: The, and it, I think the, the possibility is one thing you can do that in one company and look into it, how do we approach that?
But I think a, a bit what you said is you, you can bring other people around the table and say maybe an industry or maybe completely not d- connected, um, in- industries. Can be private people, can be business people- Yeah ... and I maybe even the mix is the, the beauty of it.
[00:25:37] Brian Kilkelly: Yes.
[00:25:37] Jens Heitland: But we look deeper into
[00:25:38] Brian Kilkelly: that.
Yeah, definitely. My, my work in the Church of England has been interesting in terms of, um... It's a very complex organization. Um, it's quite a, um, quite a light touch in terms of command and control structure.
[00:25:51] Jens Heitland: Mm.
[00:25:51] Brian Kilkelly: So a bit like a, you know, a large corporate, it's full in corporate with branches in different countries, lots of different, um, you know, entities, independent, semi-independent, and that's real world.
[00:26:01] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:26:01] Brian Kilkelly: Um, and, you know, how do you- How do you build a culture of, of love for creation and care for creation in such a wide organization? And there are people in the church who don't believe in climate change, um, who don't see creation care as being our, being a key part of our mission and our objective.
In the same way in corporates, you'll have, of course, many people who are not on board with the sustainability goals of an organization.
[00:26:29] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:26:29] Brian Kilkelly: Uh, they don't see that as the reason for. So understanding how we engage people on that journey, considering the headwinds we talked about earlier on where it's becoming very politicized, uh, uh, um, you know, that is, that is the context in which we're trying to do this.
So for leaders, it's a pretty difficult context- Yeah ... to be, to be part of. Um, so I think, um, I think understanding how you, uh, engage in a, in a culture and a culture shift in complex organizations is something which we need, we definitely need to learn together and to understand together.
[00:27:05] Jens Heitland: So w- what are the different ways that people can reach out to you and, and connect to you to, to...
Let's say there's a listener who says, "Hey, this sounds interesting. Would love to, to connect and maybe be part of that."
[00:27:17] Brian Kilkelly: Yeah. I'm launching a website called forallcreation.org. So that's where I'm going to be inviting people into these conversations. So that's a place to go. Also available on email, so hello@briankilkelly.com.
Um, so I'd love to hear from people. Send me the email. Let's, uh, let's discuss, let's share, um, because we definitely need each other. You know, we can't do this alone. It needs a community.
[00:27:46] Jens Heitland: Is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should talk about? Uh,
[00:27:51] Brian Kilkelly: I think my point at the beginning about the fact that, uh, our work and sustainability matters for eternity, um, that's something which, uh- You know, I, I, I think it's, it's, it's something which we need to really think about.
You know, recognizing that actually, you know, these things matter, you know. Uh, you know, we have a, we have this precious Earth, um, and we want it to be here. You know, we want to protect it for ourselves now, but also for future generations. So the, all the work that we do on sustainability and climate change has eternal consequences, and that's something which, uh, I would encourage people to, to think about, to reflect about, because I believe the more we believe that for ourselves, the more it'll help us to maintain and sustain our work in this area.
[00:28:43] Jens Heitland: For the listeners, we will put the, all the connections to Brian in, into the show notes, and as well the previous episodes that we have recorded, so you can dive deeper into how Brian has worked with sustainability in different organizational context and look deeper into who Brian is as a person as well.
Brian, thank you very much for being on the podcast, and it was a pleasure to meet you in person.
[00:29:10] Brian Kilkelly: Thank you.