Professor Chris Harrop OBE
Speaking, interviews and conversations on sustainability, tax and responsible business.
Tax As An Investment
“Tax is one of the smartest investments you can make.” That’s Professor Chris Harrop’s promise to companies, and his new tax funded impact model proves it by helping quantify how paying tax is not only good for their businesses, but for the economies they’re operating in, and of course for people and society.
The Human Adaptation Economy
For more than a decade, Net Zero has been the organising principle of corporate sustainability, driving unprecedented investment, innovation and corporate action. Yet, paradoxically, public support for climate action is becoming increasingly contested, despite stronger scientific evidence and more visible climate impacts than ever before. In this thought-provoking keynote, Professor Chris Harrop OBE explores what he describes as the Net Zero Paradox and introduces his Belief-Conditioned Change Model (BCCM), explaining why trust, information, capability, grievance and legitimacy increasingly shape society’s willingness to embrace change. He argues that the greatest barrier to climate action today is no longer technology, but belief. Drawing on more than thirty years of business leadership and sustainability practice, including his role in developing PAS2050, the world’s first product carbon footprint standard, Professor Harrop challenges organisations to ask a new question. Rather than focusing solely on reducing the carbon footprint of products and services, businesses should ask: “How can we help our customers adapt to a world of 1.5°C and beyond?” The keynote introduces the concept of the Human Adaptation Economy, proposing that the next generation of business success will come from creating products and services that build resilience, improve wellbeing and help people live with the realities of climate change. From the built environment and nature-based solutions to mental health, eco-anxiety and climate resilience, adaptation is presented not simply as an environmental necessity but as one of the greatest commercial opportunities of the twenty-first century. Combining evidence, practical business experience and original thinking, this keynote challenges delegates to rethink sustainability from compliance to innovation, demonstrating how every climate challenge creates a human need, every human need creates demand, and every demand creates a market. The organisations that recognise this shift first will not simply survive the transition; they will help define it.