McKinsey Sustainability: McKinsey at COP29

When it comes to sustainability, business leaders agree that there is progress to be made – in fact, 85% of Fortune 100 leaders have set at least one climate or energy commitment.
Their challenge - figuring out how to make it happen.
Our audience insights pointed to three problems facing executives on their sustainability journeys:
1. They were behind where they committed or expected to be and were feeling pressure to catch up.
2. They struggled to balance decarbonization and profitability.
3. They struggled to scale pilot programs into something truly impactful.
In summary, they have bold ambitions and ideas, but don’t know how to make them happen.
At McKinsey we’re well known for our work helping companies set bold strategies, including on sustainability topics, but we’re less known for our work helping companies turn their ambition into action.
We needed a campaign that met executives where they are – a bit frustrated with all the talk about sustainability, without yet seeing the action and results – and shifted their perception of McKinsey as just thinkers, to a partner to help them mobilize their organizations and make measurable progress.
These insights gave rise to a deceptively simple creative platform: ‘beyond why, to how’.
The platform asserts that discussing why decarbonization is important is over – it's time to talk about how, and get moving in a way that remains profitable. This was a galvanizing idea for colleagues and clients, and met the unique moment executives are in on their sustainability journeys.
We activated the campaign around key sustainability moments, starting with the UN General Assembly’s New York Climate Week and amplifying our message until it reached a fever pitch at COP 29 in Azerbaijan. Between the events we ran owned, earned and paid tactics to keep the message front of mind and took advantage of the lull in competitive messaging between the two events to improve our connection throughout.