The HBS Club of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) welcomed Her Excellency Mariam Bint Mohammed Saeed Hareb Almheiri, the Minister of Climate Change and Environment for the United Arab Emirates, and Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, for a lively conversation about the role of business and government in confronting climate change.

The January event was part of the club’s Harvard ThinkTank panel discussion series on leading transformation, which features high-profile leaders from across the GCC as guest speakers. The 90-minute hybrid event, which was coproduced by Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), attracted 225 alumni, with club board members joining Almheiri in-person at the Etihad Museum in Dubai, while Polman and the majority of alumni attended the event virtually.

“The Harvard ThinkTank series brings together experts from across the Harvard ecosystem to facilitate, discuss, debate, and discover ways to help solve the GCC government’s most pressing challenges,” says club board member Raja Al Mazrouei (AMP 186). “No other topic will require excellence in leadership more than climate change and environment.”

At the national level, Almheiri is leading the UAE’s recently launched Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative, a coordinated effort between government agencies, businesses, and civil society. “Her Excellency discussed the climate change agenda as an opportunity for economic growth, which attracts new skills and new jobs,” says club Saleh Abdullah Lootah (GMP 10).

Almheiri emphasized that leaders in the UAE are accessible and caring, and communicate clearly, frequently, and candidly. She said that part of her role as a leader is “educating the public, through frequent communication, including via social media” as well as through the example she sets with her own personal actions.

Polman, coauthor of Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More than They Take, focused his talk on the role of business in solving the world’s most pressing problems, especially climate change. “Corporations that are merely focused on being ‘less bad’ aren’t doing enough,” he said. “Businesses need to become net positive, which is restorative, regenerative, and reparative. How can companies profit from solving the world’s problems, not creating the world’s problems?”

Drawing from his recent book, Polman said a net-positive company takes responsibility for its total impact on society, which extends throughout a company’s value chain; optimizes returns for all stakeholders, including employees, communities, value-chain partners, the planet, and future generations; and drives broader system changes by working in collaboration with governments and civil society.

Both speakers talked about ESG—using environmental, social, and governmental factors to evaluate companies and countries on their sustainability efforts—and agreed that ESG transformation is underpinned by leadership transformation, which requires vision, trust, credibility, and transparency.

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