Science-business partnership in practice
Established by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC), Action2020 was a partnership that spanned the academic and business sectors to set science-based targets based on the planetary boundaries framework. WBCSDâs previous strategy, Vision 2050 was too far out into the future and had been developed for business by business. The new CEO of WBCSD wanted to set near-term targets for businesses based on science to enhance the legitimacy of their strategy. Challenges faced by member companies during Action2020 included reconciling significant differences in interests between science and certain industries.
Initial methods of working proved challenging for the partnership. At first, the plan was that both partners would co-design a strategy and corporate sustainability targets. Co-creation (joint development of knowledge) and translation were attempted as ways of structuring the collaboration. However, it soon became clear that this would not succeed because the scientists became uncomfortable with the role of helping to develop the strategy for businesses to adhere to scientific principles, as it was too close to a âconsultancyâ role.
The partners then tried an approach based on translation, where the scientists would translate the science for business in the form of executive briefs. This in turn did not work, because the businesses were uncomfortable with committing themselves to the science that would have broad-reaching implications for their industries.
The parties then brought in intermediaries to prevent the collaboration from breaking down altogether. However, including the intermediaries had the effect of diluting some of the commitments of business to science, making the outcomes of the project less stringent.
The strategy the partners eventually settled on entailed a change of course for the aim of the partnership, pivoting to focus on âsocietal must-haves’ beyond the accountability of business.
These changes enabled Action2020 to launch its shared corporate sustainability targets, despite the challenging collaborative process.