Reconciling Net Zero and Net Profits – Innovation Zero 2025

As the world races to decarbonise in the face of growing geopolitical instability and economic headwinds, the path to net zero remains a defining challenge of our time. At Innovation Zero 2025, dss⁺ hosted an interactive workshop entitled Reconciling Net Zero and Net Profits. The event featured an executive panel discussion and roundtable discussions with over 50 business leaders, investors, and sustainability experts. The aim: to examine what organisations can realistically deliver, what’s holding them back, and the enablers that can accelerate the transition.

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Published on May 16, 2025

Despite market uncertainty and political shifts, panellists remained resolute. They stressed that reconciling climate action and profitability is possible but that it will require new perspectives and innovative approaches to balancing investments, returns and stakeholder engagement on near term, and longer-term expectations. Practical implementation of net-zero in line with this perspective requires clear leadership, operational alignment, and strategic innovation. There was a strong consensus that visible leadership, robust governance, meaningful internal culture, financial innovations, and further skill development are essential to turn ambition into implementation.

Below is a synthesis of insights from the panel and roundtable discussions, organised into five themes that emerged as central to enabling net-zero transformation.

Visible leadership and cultural alignment
Innovation beyond technology
Financial strategy and patient capital
Addressing the skills gap
Empowerment, collaboration and the role of SMES

Roundtable insights: enablers and obstacles to Net-Zero delivery

Following the main panel discussion, participants joined facilitated roundtables to explore practical enablers and challenges in delivering net-zero strategies. These working groups brought together crosssector leaders, SMEs, advisors, and sustainability professionals, generating grounded insights into what’s working—and what’s holding organisations back. Seven key themes emerged across the discussions:

Leadership and cultural continuity
Supporting SMEs in the transition
Skills and capacity gaps
The challenge of actionable data
Commercial viability and return on investment
Regulation and strategic align
Partnerships as an accelerator

How dss⁺ helps companies accelerate profitable net-zero transitions

At dss⁺, we work with organisations to translate ambition into action – bridging the gap between strategy and implementation to deliver net-zero outcomes that are both credible and commercially viable. Our experience across high-impact sectors has shown that success is not determined solely by technical solutions or bold targets, but by the ability to align leadership, culture, operations, and capital around a clear transformation pathway.

We partner with companies to:

Create the enabling environment for change: We help senior leaders embed net-zero goals into governance, leadership behaviours and decision-making frameworks—ensuring alignment across business functions and accelerating the cultural shifts required to move from intent to execution.
Scale innovation and operationalise sustainability: We support clients in integrating climate and carbon considerations into daily operations—whether through procurement, capital planning, product design or supply chain engagement. Our approach connects sustainability to value creation and resilience, rather than treating it as a separate or compliance-driven agenda.
Build internal capability: We help organisations close the skills and maturity gaps that often slow or stall progress. This includes developing sustainability literacy, enabling cross-functional collaboration, and building structured programmes for workforce upskilling and capability building—so that the right decisions can be made at the right levels, every day.
Strengthen the business case and unlock investment: We work with finance and operational leaders to sharpen the investment case for decarbonisation, including identifying co-benefits, minimising stranded asset risk, and making the case for capital allocation in ways that resonate across stakeholders.
Enable collaborative ecosystems: From supplier engagement to cross-sector coalitions, we design and govern partnership structures that drive scale, share risk, and foster innovation. Our collaboration frameworks are grounded in operational reality and built for measurable results.

Ultimately, our role is to help clients accelerate the journey to net zero – by unlocking the capabilities, confidence and conditions required to make sustainability a source of competitive advantage.