In this session, the Chartered Directors focused on all the knowledge and skills they have gained these past few months and discussed how best to enact them at a boardroom level. This workshop focused on ‘Bringing Climate Change to the Boardroom: the barriers and roadblocks to change’. The participating Chartered Directors from across Ireland were asked to consider these barriers within the Boardroom and discuss the latest national and international research on this topic. 

The group was welcomed to Belfast by John Healy, Chair of Invest NI, followed by Sheila Byrne, Director Development & Training Manager at Institute of Directors in Ireland, who gave an overview to date on the state of play of Directors and Boards, both at home and abroad. 

The intention of this session was to get the participants to reflect on their individual and collective role(s) in driving climate action considering the question: ‘’What are the biggest barriers to change in my Boardroom and how can I work to overcome them?”. 

Directors further considered how to develop a set of collectively generated guiding principles on ‘how to change the climate in the boardroom’. Participants were encouraged to share their experiences and perspective and to consider the key barriers and roadblocks on how they might tackle these barriers at the Boardroom level through active listening exercises and group discussions. After these sessions, they were offered to chance to re-frame these ‘barriers’ as ‘opportunities’. 

In the afternoon, Lara Hanlon, Steering Member at Design Declares Ireland introduced ‘Design Declares’ as a model for committing to and harnessing the tools of industry to reimagine, rebuild and heal our world. Inspired by this Design Declares format, the participants worked together to outline 8 tangible actions that a board / board member can take to positively impact the Climate Crisis to ‘change the climate in the boardroom’ and develop positive outputs to enable businesses to organise for change. 

Caroline Spillane, Chief Executive Officer, IoD Ireland and Kirsty McManus, National Director, Institute of Directors in Northern Ireland were present to hear the deliberations of the participating Chartered Directors before the closing out of this final in-person session of the project.

The Creative Boardroom: Collaborate4Climate project will now move into a phase of reflection and analysis on the key outcomes of the work across the 5 formal workshops. The director group will remain actively involved in giving expression to those outcomes supported by the Creative Boardroom team and the project will conclude with an exhibition in NCAD in November 2024. Details of the exhibition to be announced soon.