Iain Watt

Background

I coordinate Forum for the Future's work on climate change, where I help our partners develop a full understanding of, and response to, their exposure to climate risk – challenging them to think beyond offsetting. I also sit on our energy hub and manage relationships within the energy sector.

I found my way to Forum in 2005 after 7 years working for Ceres in the US (a leading coalition of investment funds, environmental organisations and other public interest groups). At Ceres, my work was focused on corporate accountability and sustainability reporting, and I co-drafted the first two editions of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. Even then, climate change was the issue that was resonating most with both companies and investors.

This meant that my passing knowledge of the thermohaline circulation of the Atlantic ocean and Edinburgh’s urban heat island (I specialised in climatology as a geography undergraduate) became relevant once again – and I jumped at the chance to tackle climate change more explicitly with Forum.

What would your dream Forum project be? My dream project would involve working closely with a company – or a sector – to implement the Forum Climate Challenge in full. Too many companies continue to approach climate change as a compliance issue, and this inevitably means they focus on their operational emissions. Yet really addressing climate change means developing climate-resilient supply chains, and a suite of products and services that are fit-for-purpose in a world that both experiences climate change and has to respond to it.