Midway through London Climate Action Week 2025, L’Oréal and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) joined forces to co-host a roundtable focused entirely on sustainable innovation. The event, which took place at Goals House—a community of business and political leaders, activists, academics, philanthropists, NGOs, and entrepreneurs with a shared mission of creating partnerships, platforming innovation and finding solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges - served as a dynamic forum, bringing together leaders from across sectors to explore the opportunities and challenges of cross-disciplinary collaboration in scaling sustainable solutions.
It was a platform for both entities to share the launch of L’Accelerator’s call for applications, and open up the conversation on the solutions required to face the complex web of sustainability challenges.
The dialogue placed a strong emphasis on the power of collaboration and the strategic development of robust ecosystems. Participants highlighted the indispensable nature of cross-sector partnerships, asserting that collaboration between companies, startups, NGOs, and government is crucial for effectively scaling sustainable solutions. The discourse also ventured into the challenging yet vital domain of scalability and systemic change. While recognizing significant systemic barriers like regulatory hurdles, fragmented supply chains, and insufficient standardization, participants urged a fundamental transition from singular, isolated innovations to holistic, systemic solutions that can genuinely achieve widespread impact across all industries and geographical boundaries
What was concluded was beyond just innovative technology; a shift in mindset, bold collaboration, and the courage to think beyond silos. As articulated during the session: “We need to spend a bit more time thinking about the behavioral and systemic integration sciences that go hand in hand with the technology, so that solutions can be truly implemented and scaled effectively across all relevant contexts.”
