Date: 2025-03-14 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00020996
Headlines
GreenBiz
Joel Makower ... Climate Week (finally) gets down to business ... September 20, 2021
Original article:
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Joel Makower // GreenBuzz Unsubscribe
9:04 AM (22 minutes ago) to me
Climate Week (finally) gets down to business
Joel Makower September 20, 2021
It’s Climate Week, a sprawling mélange of events, webinars, workshops, private dinners and other meetups — mostly virtual, but plenty of them taking place in New York City. And did I mention reports? Lots of them, last week and this.
Call me jaded, but it’s hard to get overly excited about the litany of pronouncements and commitments that typically populate the week — or of the dire warnings that usually accompany them. But the indicators these days aren’t particularly promising. Carbon emissions are trending north when they need to be headed downward. National climate commitments, the “nationally determined contributions” aimed at meeting the obligations of the 2015 Paris Agreement, are less ambitious than they need to be — and even the ones that are ambitious aren’t making sufficient progress. And then there are the biblical impacts of extreme weather happening just about everywhere.
Given that, I’m spending less time listening to speeches and more time homing in on the tools and resources designed to help companies go further, faster. With all due respect to the dozens of event organizers and hundreds of speakers this week, these resources feel more on point, of higher value than the talkathon, show-and-tell stuff.
Take, for example, a new report from the consultancy Oliver Wyman in partnership with The Climate Group, the organizer of Climate Week. Titled “Getting Real: A blueprint for a commercially smart climate transition,” it moves quickly past the doom and gloom — and steers clear of the irrational exuberance — typical of climate reports these days.
In the opening paragraph, it gets right down to business:
'More than a fifth of the world’s largest corporations, with combined sales of nearly $14 trillion, are estimated to have committed to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. Many more still need to do so. The challenge for all these corporations is to make their intentions real: to turn commitments into sustainable plans and actions.'Making it real: a challenge, indeed. Many of those net-zero commitments are so vague or long-term as to be meaningless. Increasingly, they are under the ever-watchful gaze of critics, from activists to customers to investors, which are doing what they can to hold companies accountable.
The authors talked to 27 major corporations across a range of industries, many of them members of the Climate Group’s “100” and “Zero” initiatives such as EV100, in which companies commit to 100 percent electric vehicle fleets. The goal of the exercise: tap into companies’ expertise and distill it into a blueprint for a commercially smart transition.
“We found some strong, non-obvious patterns and themes that we believe make for a challenging and instructive blueprint, for all its imperfections,” the authors noted.
That blueprint consists of four domains of activity as well as two guiding principles: “Own the problem, don't offload it” and “Innovate the business, not just the technology.” And while those may seem like enigmatic Zen koans, they get right to the point:
Own the problem: Leaders’ mindset is not to offload the problem to other players, but to take it on and make the biggest impact they can, given who they are. “Owning the problem, up and down the value chain, has a profound impact on the management of every domain of our transition model — and on what others expect from a company.”The rest of the report applies these guidelines to four business domains: leadership, business systems, customers and finance. Peppered throughout are brief examples from among the companies interviewed, including AT&T, BP, Cemex, HP, Microsoft, Nestlé, Ørsted, PepsiCo, United Airlines and Volvo.
Innovate the business: Strategically rethinking the business design or working tactically with customers, investors and colleagues. “Business and technology innovation are not in competition: The transition depends on both, with each driving and reinforcing the other.”
I encourage you to check it out. It’s a relatively short read, though I predict that you’ll find yourself doing plenty of highlighting and margin-writing. This is no generic overview or self-congratulatory treatise (though, to be clear, most of the leadership companies interviewed are far from perfect, climate-wise).
Rather, it delves into the key questions companies need to know: What is the systems view of the changes a company needs to make? And what does it take for a company to move beyond incremental changes to make the sweeping changes that will be required of it — if not now, then soon?
It’s as useful a set of tools as I’ve seen.
We’ll be compiling and reporting on more of the Climate Week resources and announcements in the coming days.
Sustainable Solutions Collaborative Winners Sponsored By Morgan Stanley The world’s most complex sustainability challenges, from climate change and waste reduction to equitable health care and food insecurity, require large-scale solutions. Learn how Morgan Stanley is helping advance breakthrough innovations for sustainability issues. Read More
Taking Care of Business Why does it make business sense to focus on ecosystem services and biodiversity protection? We'll dive into that question in a webcast on September 28 at 1pm ET, looking at the challenges and opportunities involved with focusing on biodiversity strategies. Register for this webcast here. #Trending Now
PepsiCo doubles down on reducing virgin plastic The food and beverage company is bringing all of its water, agriculture and new plastic commitments under an umbrella plan called pep+. By Jesse Klein
The future of nature and business: A blueprint for action.
Businesses have the unique capacity to spearhead our transformation to a more nature — and people-positive future. By Akanksha Khatri & Alexia Semov
Past deforestation awaits a world of conversion-free supply chains
Grasslands are one of the most in danger landscapes in America. WWF is working to raise awareness about the conversion of these lands. By Theresa Lieb
Diving into 'water positive' pledges by Facebook, Google
Facebook commits to replenishing 120 percent of what it consumes. Will that claim hold water? By Heather Clancy
Gordon Gekko vs. ESG
Want to know what does serve investors? Good governance: transparency and accountability. By CJ Clouse
We’re going to need a bigger boat: Climate strategy beyond COP
Let the United Nations process play out, but let's also work on a separate, bold 'grand bargain.' By Terry Yosie
How electrified, equitable mobility can transform US cities
The movement to make American cities more sustainable, healthy and equitable has a powerful, unassuming ally: The city bus. Sponsored by WSP USA.
350 podcast: Chatting about diversity and biodiversity
Climate, biodiversity and the 'other COP' … Gordon Gekko meets ESG … Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Sustainability … and why we're going to need bigger boat: Climate strategy beyond COP. Hosted by Joel Makower and Heather Clancy
HSBC Helps Via Redefine Transit
Sponsored By HSBC
Did you know that Via is providing tech that promotes sustainable and equitable transit to more than 500 public and private entities in more than 35 countries? We’re proud to support technology companies like Via with venture growth financing, to help them expand globally and continue positively impacting our world.
Watch How
Recent White Papers & Research
Extending ESG Best Practices Into the Supply Chain
Awareness on ESG issues has steadily grown over the decade. Consumers increasingly prefer a sustainable lifestyle and engage in sustainable activism. A global…
Going the Distance – Charting the Journey to Net Zero
Climate change isn’t a future problem — the crisis is already here. Extreme weather and rising temperatures pose grave risks to our communities and environment…
www.greenbiz.com
350 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza Suite 800, Oakland Ca, 94612
© 2021 GreenBiz Group, All rights reserved.