Earth Day at 50: Has the business sector helped move the needle?
During this time of social distancing, some of us have had a little extra space in our lives to dig into new topics related to our field, try a new workout regimen via Zoom, or participate in one of many of the webinars popping into our email inboxes. Last week I attended the Yale Business Sustainability Summit which was held to mark the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day on April 22. A couple of hundred individuals gathered on a “live” webinar hosted by Yale Professors Dan Esty and Jeff Sonnefeld. CEOs and business experts from across the globe discussed the evolving role of business in addressing society’s sustainability challenges, including the current pandemic.
Webinar speakers and many other sustainability experts have been highlighting the link between the coronavirus crisis, the economic devastation it’s wreaking, and the health of our planet (see a few articles at the end of this post to read more). But what I found fascinating about the conversation was the array of views about the role and effectiveness of the business sector in addressing current and future global sustainability challenges.
Several CEOs provided numerous positive examples of how their companies are setting ambitious targets to reduce their environmental impact along their whole value chain while striving to improve social conditions and develop new economic opportunities for their companies. Mike Lamach, CEO of Trane Technologies (an HVAC- focused spin off of Ingersoll Rand) noted his company’s launch of the “gigaton challenge” where by 2030 they aim to save 1 billion metric tons in greenhouse gas emissions by working with their customers to employ next generation technology and are challenging other companies to find the same savings in their value chains. He also mentioned Trane’s goals focused on gender parity and being water positive and zero waste by 2030.
Other company leaders, including those from Honeywell and WestRock, extolled their company’s substantial sustainability efforts. But it was Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever, who, while noting that the consumer goods giant is poised to announce much more ambitious sustainability goals in 2020, brought some measured reality back to the conversation. “We haven’t done a great job. The planet is hurting, equality never has been worse, even with all our good intent. We are still ignoring the true costs of social and environmental impacts, and there is a lack of visibility and data…we have been tranquilized into thinking incrementalism- small steps-will get the job done, but it won’t. We need to reinvent business models.”
As someone who works day in and day out with companies who display good intent and are challenging themselves to become better corporate citizens, I know there is much progress being made in the private sector to try to address environmental, social, and ethics issues. It was refreshing, though, to hear Jope, the CEO of one of the oldest and largest multinational corporations, acknowledge that companies must take much bolder steps to protect nature, stabilize the climate, deal with inequality, and to be able to continue to provide economic opportunity for people.
Jope’s comments made me think of interviews I conducted over the past two years with Mauricio Ramos, CEO of Millicom, a telecommunications company that is one of SustainabilityNext’s clients. For the past two years, we’ve helped the company prepare its annual integrated report. Ramos speaks eloquently about his company’s purpose: to build the digital highways that developing economies in Latin America need to enter the 4th industrial revolution, and to do it responsibly. The company leads in efforts to close the digital gender gap and to protect children from possible negative consequences of online access, all while bringing economic opportunities to its customers, employees, and shareholders. For Ramos, “everything is about making positive impact in our communities. We are uniquely positioned to do so.”
It’s this kind of intertwining of business strategy and purpose that I believe Jope was talking about. He and other experts speaking at the Yale summit, ranging from Goldman Sachs to Walmart to PepsiCo, called for multi-sector collaboration, new incentives, proper pricing of carbon, and even smart regulation to encourage businesses to rethink their models. Several leaders noted that addressing these global challenges, especially climate change, is not just the right thing to do…it’s a business imperative. Given demand from millennial consumers, employees, and investors, private sector entities will have to do what they do best…innovate to solve some of their own and the world’s sustainability conundrums.
One thing became very clear to me as the panel was wrapping up: while corporate efforts alone have not and cannot get us to where we’d like to be in terms of COVID 19 and our other global sustainability challenges, especially compared to 50 years ago when the first Earth Day occurred, business is starting to step in where governments aren’t, or where they can’t move fast enough. I am grateful for that.
Here are a few articles to read in your spare time about how the current health pandemic may provide some lessons and opportunities for a more sustainable future world.