Barriers to Net Zero – Silos

15 March 2023

At Aether we have developed 10 observations on the barriers to society meeting its obligations to mitigate the impacts of human-influenced climate change. We aim to discuss and provide answers to these problems and point to where connections need to be made between government policy and private sector action. Our observations are a series of intertwined issues with the system we operate in. There is no hierarchy to these issues, but we have framed them between the organisational structures we operate in such as time, geography, and data and the human responses to these structures such as polarised thought, fear and learned helplessness.

The starting point to our white paper is an education system that celebrates specialists and linear thinking and derides the generalist. We see commentators decree the need for ‘whole system thinking’ as the answer to net zero. But in an education system that forces specialist thinking from a young age combined with a brain that’s success has evolved from logic and order, unilateral ‘whole system thinking’ is a fallacy.

Download: Barriers-To-Net-Zero-v3-part-1-silos.pdf

See all news


Testimonial

Don't just take our word for it...

“ Engaging Aether to support us to develop the first GHG Inventory System and first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for the United Republic of Tanzania has been a rewarding experience due to their high level of professionalism, creativity, timeliness and value for money. We will definitely consider Aether in our future initiatives. ”

Abbas Kitogo, Programme Specialist Energy and Climate Change, UNDP Tanzania

“ Aether's approach to couple innovative visualisation with high expertise manpower delivered valuable insights for our inventory work. ”

Umweltbundesamt (Germany)

“ Both the face-to-face training and the online version have been of high quality, with dynamic methods and a practical orientation that have allowed students to reach a solid knowledge base. The products have been delivered within the stipulated deadlines with an excellent quality and the team has always shown willingness to make adjustments according to the requirements of CONAF. We are very satisfied with the work. ”

Javier Cano Martín, Professional Unit for Climate Change and Environmental Services, CONAF (National Forestry Corporation), Chile

“ The Aether team were a joy to work with and I would recommend the consultancy - the service provided throughout the process was exceptional. ”

Clare Bayley, Defra

“ Aether delivered training workshops and generated learning materials for our SSN members, providing technical content in a manageable and comprehendible format. We particularly benefitted from their extensive knowledge and ability to interpret the needs of our members into the training materials. ”

Jennifer Anderson, Sustainable Scotland Network

“ The support provided by Aether for this project was especially remarkable considering the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tools and methods used in order to engage local stakeholders really added value to the capacity building of the national team. ”

Shanna Emmanuel, Saint Lucia BUR Project Coordinator

Contact us

Get in touch

Call us on +44 1865 259 200, complete the short form below, or go to the Contact page

Aether would like to keep in touch with you via email with news and updates. Please be assured that we'll treat your information with the utmost care and will not share it with other companies for marketing purposes. See our privacy policy.

Newsletter