“Not having a unified vision on climate across the C-suite is not good leadership”

You could say that Fredrika Klarén is firmly in the driving seat of the climate conversation.

As Chief Sustainability Officer at Polestar, the Swedish EV brand, she has led the company’s impressive push toward its Polestar 0 project which has declared the ambitious goal of delivering a climate-neutral car by 2035.

In this instalment of our new Modern European Leader series, which sets out to define what it means to lead – and to lead well – in an era defined by technological disruption and geopolitical instability, we talk to Fredrika Klarén about why every business must think more sustainably, and what it takes to drive meaningful change in an industry so defined by legacy.

Island Roots

“I grew up on a small island outside Gothenburg, a car-free island. Being raised in that tight-knit community, vulnerable to the climate and to changes in biodiversity, and understanding the value of community and transparency, I can see how those values were ingrained within me. I think that’s what I carry with me.”

The Al Gore Moment

“I was a student of environmental science, heavily pregnant, when I went to see An Inconvenient Truth [Al Gore’s 2006 documentary], with my husband. My husband was filled with dread, but I remember thinking:[Al Gore] can turn this problem into a graph. He can show us how to measure this. I left that cinema filled with actionable hope, and I’ve been diving into the climate issue ever since. I actually met Al Gore a few years later and told him the story – which was amazing.”

The Universal Problem

“Prior to Polestar, I was a sustainability coordinator at IKEA. Looking back on my time there has made me realise that the challenges businesses face around sustainability are inherently the same, regardless of what industry you’re in. It means the solutions often are as well.

Neutrality is Inevitable

“A climate-neutral society is inevitable. We will not be able to stop it. We will be forced into it whether we like it or not, because it’s being created by so many forces already in motion. The real question for business leaders is whether you lead that transition or get dragged into it.”

Leaning Into the Message

“A lot of companies are worried about talking about climate because they might be impacted in terms of investments. We leaned into it. Last year, in the height of that retreat, when everyone else seemed to be zagging, we were zigging at Polestar. I was on tour throughout Europe with our CEO leaning into the climate message. It was great – we only got a positive response from that.”

Irresponsible Leadership

“Not having a unified vision on climate across the C-suite is not good leadership. It’s irresponsible, both towards your own workforce and towards your shareholders and investors. I see it as something genuinely dangerous. The Polestar 0 Project wouldn’t have happened without full buy in of the board – and we are truly committed to this mission to develop a truly climate-neutral car.”

No Time to Waste

“We are beyond the 1.5-degree increase now. We don’t have time to sit around and talk about creating an entirely new economic system. We need to face the problems because they are critical and they are here now. That’s why I love working in business: businesses have processes that are built to work efficiently, and I’m trying to work through those processes to cut emissions now.”

Full Buy-In From Day One

“I’m not the one with the highest ambition here. I’m joined by all senior leaders. This is not just a few of us thinking sustainability matters; it’s an executive decision that we as a brand stand for the new way forward. It’s not just because we want to do good, it’s because we feel this is a race to the top.”

Circularity as Growth Strategy

“Our whole sustainability strategy is built on the fact that we need to grow, but we want to decouple that growth from negative impact. We’ve been clear from the get-go that electric cars aren’t sustainable today, the way they’re produced and used, so we need to take the opportunity now to redefine how we create and use cars. Across all our models, we are focusing on removing the highest-emitting materials and components and replacing them with better solutions. As a result, we have already managed to decrease greenhouse gases per car sold by 31 percent in six years. Low-carbon aluminium, renewable energy in battery production, recycled aluminium in the rims: these aren’t rocket science, they’re no-brainer solutions. And circularity is central to that, because it isn’t only about decreasing environmental damage, it’s something you can turn into profit.”

Legacy Resistance

“What I’m seeing in Europe is industry players actively lobbying against the electric transition because they want to safeguard their short-term earnings, to be honest. There’s an internal resistance here that I don’t see in the same way in Asian markets, where companies don’t carry that legacy and are far more open and curious about where the industry is heading.”

Guerrilla Climate Warfare

“What’s happening with EV sales dropping in the US, when we need to be accelerating, is terrible. It has a lot to do with Donald Trump, and the fact that businesses feel less free to talk about sustainability today. But I love the smart way in which companies are navigating that. They’re not actually going back on their commitments, they’re just doing it without talking about it, because most of them know this is coming. It’s exciting, like guerrilla climate warfare.”

AI: A Double-Edged Tool

“I don’t have a simple answer regarding AI, because it’s both a positive force and source of concern. On the one hand, AI is doing genuinely interesting things for climate. Take Climate TRACE, founded by Al Gore, which uses AI, satellite data and pollution detectors to independently verify the emissions companies and countries report. You can go on the website right now and see real emissions data from power plants, regions, shipping routes. That kind of tool helps us find solutions to problems much faster than we could otherwise, which matters enormously when it comes to climate. But the environmental cost of the hardware behind it is genuinely worrying. We need to hold both truths at once, and that’s exactly where policymakers need to step up and regulate it properly.”

Listen, Then Steer

“Businesses need to listen to the inherent, basic needs that consumers come to us with, but we can also influence the solutions they choose to meet those needs. There’s a need to get from point A to B, safely and in an environmentally sound way. We can steer people in the wrong direction, or we can steer them in the right direction. That’s up to us.”

Hope in the Next Generation

“I’m very hopeful and excited for what’s coming. We’re now seeing leaders emerge from the millennial and Gen Z generations who will not accept the old ways of operating a business. At Polestar we have a genuine speak-up culture, a core behaviour we live by. We publish the carbon footprint of every car we make. By showing we dare to do that externally, we create trust that you can speak up internally too, and that makes every decision we make better.”