GUBERNA Summer School 2026: Leading Governance in Times of Resource Scarcity and Geopolitical Complexity
On 24 June 2026, GUBERNA brought board members, governance experts and business leaders together in Brussels for its annual Summer School, established as one of the highlights of GUBERNA’s permanent education programme. This year’s theme, “Leading governance in times of resource scarcity and geopolitical complexity”, set the tone for a day built around sharp diagnosis, lively debate and personal reflection. From breakfast networking through to the closing drink, with a lunchtime visit to Royale Belge’s striking floating building along the way, the day combined two threads: rethinking how economies and boards strategically relate to resource scarcity, and how leaders build sound discernment when data and certainty are no longer sufficient.
A Changing Global Context
The day opened with a keynote by Dr. Janez Potočnik, Co-Chair of the UNEP International Resource Panel and partner at SYSTEMIQ. He framed the day's central tension by highlighting a fundamental shift: natural resources and Environmental sinks, not capital or labour, have become the limiting factors of economic development and human wellbeing. In a world marked by climate change, biodiversity loss, critical change to Earth systems and geopolitical tensions, businesses are facing multiple, interconnected crises at once.
Janez Potočnik stressed the persistent gap between long-term awareness and short-term action: we understand the risks, he argued, yet keep acting on short-term logic. He also did not shy away from uncomfortable numbers: high-income countries consume roughly six times more materials per capita for provisioning systems (built environment, mobility, energy and food), and generate around ten times the climate impact, compared to low-income countries.
His answer was the circular economy not as a technical fix but as a systemic transformation. Decoupling resource use from economic activity and human wellbeing & targeting it to human needs through provisioning systems. Rather than focusing on products, organisations should design around human needs: “we don’t need cars, we need mobility”. Recycling alone won't solve this if demand keeps rising. However, addressing the material footprint and aligning economic systems with planetary boundaries requires a fundamental shift in governance models, incentives, …and mindsets.
Right after, Yannick Adriaenssens, Executive Director of Out of Use, brought Potočnik's diagnosis down to the boardroom: why does sustainability still struggle to land with directors? His answer pointed to a short-term financial focus, a lack of a clear business case, and competing strategic priorities. Directors, he argued, need to turn sustainability into tangible and measurable outcomes, not as an act of faith.
From Diagnosis to Direction: Europe’s Policy Compass
After the coffee break, Janez Potočnik returned for a second, equally energising session, this time zooming out to the European policy level. He traced the EU's circular economy agenda and did not mince words about where the debate currently stands: companies, he argued, do not need deregulation, they need predictability, financial support and genuine simplification. The room engaged in a lively exchange on exactly that tension; with the conclusion that simplification is anything but simple.
“If we want to avoid extinction of elephants in nature … we must extinct elephants in our rooms “.
A recurring thread: Europe needs to shift from a quantitative to a qualitative reading of sustainability, connecting circularity to wellbeing rather than chasing circularity rates as an end in themselves. It also needs to pay more attention to the demand side, including how both consumers and producers are pushed toward over-consumption.
In calling for a shift from downstream to upstream policies, he emphasised how much Policy and business focus remains concentrated on recycling and waste recovery. About 43% of sectoral CE strategies focus only on end‑of‑life stages. Higher‑impact upstream strategies (Refuse, Rethink, Reduce) remain underdeveloped. Efficiency gains are often cancelled out by rebound effects and rising consumption.
According to Janez Potočnik, the main blind spots preventing us from moving faster and going further lie in:
A lack of holistic system approach,
A lack of drivers and pressures perspective (particularly in terms of natural resource use and management)
A lack of demand side focus, leaving out an important solutions potential.
To embrace a Systemic Path to Wellbeing, Potočnik shared a "system change compass» of guiding principles for where policy, and boards, should focus next: meeting human needs while respecting planetary boundaries. Supported by concrete translations for 50+ nascent industrial investment opportunities based on compass orientations, he went on to illustrate what ecosystem-level policy orientations might offer for the Intermodal Mobility for example.
Adriaenssens closed the morning with a second round of discussions, this time on regulation: Belgian boards, he said, need a true and effective single EU market, less red tape through simplification rather than deregulation, and a shift in mindset from risk aversion to opportunity-seeking.
EU is as strong as it works together. Single Market remains the Union’s greatest collective achievement, yet it is still incomplete and far from having deployed its full potential.
Decision-Making in Complex Environments
In the afternoon, Victoria Pellé Reimers, Founder of Intuition Open Source, expert in intuitive intelligence in high-stakes and complex environments, invited us to look at decision making in another angle, considering how we are both rational and intuitive.
She first addressed decision-making under uncertainty by screening on what we often fail to see. Reminding us that a complex decision involves multiple factors, each subject to various possibilities, it is necessary to establish what defines the stake(s) involved. Relying solely on data or rational thinking may not be enough or may even be impossible.
In unstable environments, and when a process is not perfectly replicable, intuition complements rational analysis. What is not rational can be described but is difficult to explain. The key question for board members is therefore how we can communicate this and make it sharable. To come up with solutions and act, additional interpersonal and diplomatic skills will be needed; these will help avoid typical problems such as delayed decisions, processes and reactive deadlocks.
Be then rational: listen to your intuition:) And keep in mind that intuition is often surprising you, while biases never do! That perception is not opinion either.
The second half of the afternoon was dedicated to practical application of discernment under pressure. Working with real complex situations and peer sharing, the day closed with workshops allowing participants to apply these ideas to their real-life situations, highlighting the importance of collective intelligence and diverse perspectives in board decision-making. A complementary deep diversity within the board of directors proves to be there an added value.
With a 3-questions tool (“What does my intuition tell me? What are the risks of listening to it? What happens if I don’t listen to it?”) Victoria Pellé Reimers showed that Human Intelligence stands on two legs: intuition and reasoning. If the four following conditions let intuition emerge:
a clear intention,
a grounded confidence,
a clear-eyed attention,
a nurtured experience.
This tool helps to overcome our biases, and the unconscious strategies for avoiding reality sometimes. What paves the way for a different risk approach too. As one participant put it: “If I follow my intuition, it's a personal risk; if I not it may be a collective risk for the whole company!”
The day concluded with peer sharing of experiences, followed by workshops on discernment under pressure, enabling participants to apply these concepts in real-life situations. These discussions highlighted the importance of effective collective intelligence and diverse perspectives in board decision-making.
Key Takeaways
The 2026 Summer School made one thing clear: governance today must evolve to match a world of scarcity, uncertainty, and interdependence. Boards are called to:
Adopt a systemic perspective, understanding the broader context behind every decision;
Strengthen discernment, balancing short-term pressure with long-term impact, even in uncertain times;
Integrate sustainability into strategy, not as a constraint but as an opportunity;
Leverage collective intelligence, embracing deep diversity of perspectives;
Align values, science and governance to navigate complexity responsibly.
As one speaker put it: “Strong minds discuss ideas, weak minds discuss people”. This year’s Summar School was very much a room full of strong minds, and a reminder that effective governance demands proactive leadership with a clear compass, not just adaptation.
Better Boards, Better Organisations, Better World.