When Emma Scott joined Kent as Vice President of Sustainability, she walked into a century-old engineering company built on oil and gas. Her brief was simple on paper: make it sustainable. In reality, it meant rebuilding trust, inside and out, in an industry many no longer believe can change.

A Blank Page, Heavy with History

Emma’s role didn’t exist before she arrived. Kent’s leadership had decided the company needed a sustainability strategy, but not much else.

“There were good things happening,” Emma recalls, “but there was no strategy. Everything was in isolation.”

The CEO’s response was to give her complete freedom. “He said, ‘I trust you. Go and do what you need to do.’ It was empowering,” she says, “but also a little scary.”

That trust became both an opportunity and a burden. Building sustainability “from scratch” meant taking a hard look at an organisation still tied to fossil fuels, and at how much it would take to change that.

Finding the Facts Before the Promises

When Emma started, Kent didn’t even know its global emissions baseline. “We had no real insight into where the big impacts were,” she admits.

Her small team, just two people, spent months collecting data from projects across dozens of countries. What they found confirmed what many suspected: one large Middle East site accounted for most of the company’s emissions.

“It was sobering,” she says. “But at least we knew where to start.”

The project became their pilot for change, swapping diesel for solar, tracking every tonne of carbon, and sharing what worked and what didn’t. “We can’t boil the ocean,” she says. “So we picked the biggest beast first.”

Why She Stays Inside the System

Kent’s deep roots in oil and gas invite scepticism. How can a company built to serve fossil fuel clients claim to be part of the transition?

Emma doesn’t dodge the question. “I’d rather be inside, helping to make change, than outside throwing stones,” she says.

“The lights still need to stay on. The question is: how do we do it better?”

She knows that balance is fragile. Kent now invests heavily in renewables and low-carbon work, but it still depends on the old energy system to survive. “We choose both,” she says. “But we choose to do both more responsibly.”

The Myth of ‘Net Zero’

Emma’s thinking sharpened when she read Digging to Zero, a Reuters investigation into decarbonising mining. She quotes a line from Fortescue Metals’ CEO: “The word ‘net’ is killing us.”

“I completely agree,” she says. “We need real zero — cutting emissions, not offsetting them.”

Kent’s own progress mirrors that stance. Rather than buying offsets, it’s testing new solar systems for its high-emitting sites. “One of them’s basically a container full of panels and batteries,” she laughs. “You pull it out of the truck, and it replaces a diesel generator.”

It’s practical, small-scale work, but real. “It’s not perfect,” she says. “But it’s honest.”

The Price of Transparency

If there’s one principle Emma refuses to compromise, it’s honesty. “We don’t want to be accused of greenwashing,” she says.

“Everything we say has to be true and clear.”

That sounds simple, but she knows how uncomfortable truth can be when progress is slow. “We’ve had to publish data that isn’t flattering,” she admits. “But hiding it would be worse.”

She works closely with Kent’s communications team to keep sustainability updates factual. “There’s a lot of jargon in our field,” she says. “People confuse sustainability with ESG. I want to make it simple and real.”

From Awareness to Ownership

Emma wants sustainability to become everyone’s job, not a specialist’s. “Education is the biggest priority,” she says.

“People need to understand how it helps them do their work better.”

She’s also pushing inclusion and well-being as part of the same mission. “Belonging is sustainability too,” she says. “It’s about people as much as carbon.”

Her long-term goal is to make herself redundant. “When sustainability’s fully embedded, I’ll have worked myself out of a job,” she smiles. “That’s success.”

Let’s Get Real

If she could change one thing about business overnight, it would be forced honesty. “Give every corporation a dose of truth serum,” she says.

“Be honest about your impacts and what you’re doing to improve.”

She wants sustainability reports to stop pretending. “They should show the good and the bad,” she says. “If they were truly honest, the world would look very different.”

For Emma, responsibility starts with reality. Her journey isn’t about perfection, it’s about staying in the uncomfortable middle, where progress depends on truth more than image.

What does it take to lead a life shaped not by convention, but by values? For Mark Goyder, the founder of Tomorrow’s Company and a lifelong advocate for responsible business, the answer lies in embracing failure, resisting conformity, and holding fast to a sense of purpose that transcends profit.

Speaking on The Responsible Edge podcast, Mark reflects on a career that has spanned politics, business leadership, and decades of work pushing companies to rethink their role in society. His story is less about climbing a straight ladder and more about weaving together experiences—volunteering, factory work, political campaigns, and boardroom debates—into a philosophy of leadership rooted in human values.

From Quaker Roots to Cambridge Disillusionment

Mark’s early influences were profoundly shaped by family. His mother, of Quaker origins, embodied calm resilience, while his father campaigned for responsible business long before it was fashionable. Sent away to boarding school, Mark witnessed the racism and elitism of the system, sparking a radical streak.

But it was through community service volunteering—working with Punjabi communities in Shropshire and later with young offenders—that he discovered his ability to lead, persuade, and organise.

“Suddenly,” he recalls, “I found I could communicate, I could persuade people to do things.”

It was a turning point that revealed leadership as service, not authority.

Failure as a Teacher

Mark’s career, by his own admission, was not a linear path. After roles in HR and general management, he entered politics with the Social Democratic Party, standing for parliament twice and serving on Kent County Council. Despite tireless campaigning, he saw little electoral progress. Personally, he also faced the devastating loss of his infant son—an experience that reframed his sense of failure.

“Nothing succeeds like failure,” Mark says.

The lessons he thought were distractions—writing press releases, building grassroots campaigns, persuading people on limited resources—later became the foundations for his work with Tomorrow’s Company. Failure, in his words, is never wasted.

The Birth of Tomorrow’s Company

In 1990, Mark was invited by Charles Handy to direct a programme at the RSA that asked the radical question: What is a company for? The resulting Tomorrow’s Company inquiry brought business leaders together to explore the role of purpose and relationships in corporate success. Its landmark 1995 report introduced the concept of “enlightened shareholder value,” later enshrined in UK company law.

For Mark, this was a pivotal moment: a chance to translate years of hard-won lessons into a new vision for business.

“Human business is effective business,” he argues.

Purpose and values, once seen as “soft” add-ons, are now recognised as central to success.

Protecting Purpose in a Corporate World

One of the central questions Mark wrestles with today is how companies can retain their values once they grow or are sold. He points to the Ben & Jerry’s-Unilever saga as a cautionary tale. Founders can write protections into agreements, but ownership structures and market pressures often erode original purpose.

“The idea that you can talk about a purposeful company independent of talking about ownership is for the birds,” he insists.

True purpose requires governance that ties values to decision-making at every stage—what he calls the “seven ages of the company.”

Reinventing for the Next Generation

Now, Tomorrow’s Company is turning its attention to education, working with schools to help 14- and 15-year-olds discover their potential and imagine new ways of engaging with work. It’s a return to Mark’s own formative experiences with community service, completing a circle that began in Shropshire decades ago.

At the same time, he is championing “game-changing ideas” with networks of responsible business organisations—from new governance models to place-based investment. The goal is not just incremental change, but systemic reform.

A Rebel’s Advice

If there’s one message Mark offers to young leaders, it’s this: don’t let conventional definitions of success box you in.

“Be a rebel, be a pirate if that’s what it takes to reconnect with the real soul inside you,” he says.

For someone who has combined politics, business, and activism into a restless, values-driven career, the advice rings true. The future of responsible business, as he sees it, belongs not to those who follow the rules, but to those willing to challenge them.