The Global Impact Coalition was featured in a recent Q&A interview with Karen Laird in Sustainable Plastics magazine. The following is an excerpt from the magazine. For the full story, see here.
“To go far, go together”
A strong belief in the urgent need to defossilise the chemical industry and the realisation this would be possible only through a collaborative innovation approach led to the formation of the Global Impact Coalition (GIC) in 2023. A spin-off from the World Economic Forum, GIC was founded by seven of the world’s leading chemical companies.
Sustainable Plastics talked to Charlie Tan, CEO at the GIC, about its mission and goals. “Innovation in the context of collaboration will be core to a company’s business model as we all move towards a low-carbon future,” he emphasised.
EXCERPT FROM THE ARTICLE:
What do you think makes the Global Impact Coalition work?
I think the GIC has really been able to create a unique environment of trust between peer companies, where they feel safe knowing that ideas can be shared and discussed in a confidential way. And in fact, one of the goals of the platform is really to allow and encourage conversations about new ideas that could then turn into tangible business opportunities.
That’s interesting. How was it possible to create trust between companies who, more often than not, are competitors?
In all honesty, it took time to develop. It wasn’t an overnight success. It took a top-down approach. Remember, this is a CEO-led coalition, which means you are dealing with the top level, so when it comes to getting things done, the internal barriers can be broken down very quickly. The governance structure we have in place also helped to foster this trust. We have an executive committee, comprised essentially of CEO delegates from each of the companies including some chief technology officers and some presidents of different departments. As a team they have an interest in setting the strategic direction of the Coalition. Over time, with the level of trust we’ve built, these executive committee meetings feel like we’re all actually speaking from the same company. And I think this is very, very rare to find, especially when you’re dealing with peers who, by nature, could be reluctant to operate in that space.
We have found that members buy into the mission and understand what it will take and the time needed to achieve this. And obviously, nothing will be achieved unless there’s a strong element of trust in place. And it’s a trust that we’ve seen survives the changing of the guard, so to speak. It’s something that is independent of who the CEO happens to be.
Read more here: Global Impact Coalition CEO weighs in on Net Zero | Sustainable Plastics
