Before, during, and after COP26, I could not stop thinking about the final scene in the movie Caddyshack. In the film, young Danny Noonan vies to win a golf match to fund his college tuition. His winning putt teeters on the edge of the 18^th hole when suddenly the golf course explodes. Bedlam ensues, with people running in all directions. But caddy manager Lou Loomis keeps a steady eye on the ball. As the tremors build, the ball wiggles and drops into the hole. Victory! 

COP26 had a similar dynamic. Climate chaos drove unprecedented calls for action by young people and communities harmed by climate change. The private sector showed up in force with pledges to decarbonize. I tried to keep my eye on the ball. Would there be enough pressure to force the world’s governments to “ratchet up” their commitments to prevent catastrophic climate change? 

In Glasgow, sadly, life did not imitate art.  

Governments did make new commitments, including pledges to cut methane emissions and end deforestation, but the net result will not be enough to limit climate change to the needed goal of 1.5 degrees. And questions remain about governments’ ability to deliver on the commitments they made.  

Why this failure of political will in the face of unprecedented global pressure? 

Call it the “plus one” problem. The strength of a government’s commitment in international negotiations depends on its ability to enact policies back home to cut emissions, most importantly to switch to non-fossil energy. As any politico will remind you, enacting policy in a democracy requires 50 percent of the votes in the legislature “plus one”—even more when a supermajority is required, as in the United States Senate.  

According to the International Energy Agency, all but two of the G20 countries responsible for 80 percent of global emissions rely on coal, oil, and natural gas for over 70 percent of their energy (France has nuclear power and Brazil has bioenergy). Switching to non-fossil energy at the scale required will hurt states and provinces that produce the coal, oil, and gas, at least in the near term. The legislators who represent those jurisdictions will be skeptical at best.  

In the United States, the Biden administration and Democratic leaders in Congress are trying to pass legislation to implement the U.S. pledge to cut emissions 50 percent by 2030. Using budget legislation, they need only 51 votes in the Senate, which they can reach with only Democrats. The “plus one” is West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who rejected the administration’s preferred approach, a clean energy standard for electric utilities. Why? Mining, oil, and gas made up 17 percent of West Virginia’s economic output in 2019—a major source of jobs, livelihoods, and funding for schools, hospitals, roads, police, and other services for Senator Manchin’s constituents. West Virginia is not alone. One in five U.S. states depend on mining, oil, and gas for 5 percent or more of their economic output, some as much as 20-30 percent, based on data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

At COP26, in the most consequential mulligan of all time, governments agreed to revisit their commitments a year from now at COP27. With the political situation in G20 capitals dominated by the ongoing pandemic and its economic impact, deeper pledges are unlikely, especially from China, India, Indonesia, Australia, Russia, and South Africa who with the U.S. are the world’s leading coal producers. 

I do not elaborate this point to excuse inaction. I have dedicated my 30-year professional career to climate action, and I am as angry as anyone that we have allowed climate change to become the deadly threat that we predicted it would be decades ago. But I think any progress going forward demands brutal honesty, and the truth is that the move away from fossil fuels will not be immediate. Political reality, as much as technical and economic feasibility, means that the global energy transition will take decades. Yet science tells us we must act urgently in this decade to cut emissions at least 50 percent to avoid catastrophe. 

What do we do now? I see four immediate priorities: 

First, the private sector must implement its decarbonization commitments, even where policy signals are not sufficient. While voluntary action is not enough to solve the problem, it is an immediate source of incentives for emissions reductions throughout the global economy. The growing demand from investors and financial regulators for climate action and disclosure may become the most consequential driver of emissions reductions in the near term. The good thing is that many companies see the Race to Zero as a business opportunity. 

Second, companies and governments need to collaborate on carbon removal. The global economy is unlikely to decarbonize fast enough to meet the 1.5-degree target. Carbon must be removed from the atmosphere. Natural climate solutions such as regenerative agriculture and habitat restoration are available immediately at scale and provide economic benefits to local communities while they sequester carbon. Human engineered technologies for carbon capture, utilization, and storage will be needed to decarbonize the fossil energy production that we cannot eliminate.  

Third, companies and governments need to invest in resilience with the same urgency as decarbonization. Climate advocates once considered adaptation a distraction from mitigation. We no longer have that luxury. Communities are suffering climate-induced floods, storms, droughts, heatwaves, and pandemics today, and it only gets worse from here. Infrastructure and public services need new thinking and investment for climate resilience. This cannot come at the expense of decarbonization, as more emissions today means more expensive adaptation in the future.  

Fourth, companies need to help build political constituencies to deliver the “plus one” votes for climate policy, especially in districts that produce fossil energy and agriculture, which tend to view climate action as a threat to their livelihoods. Investments in clean energy, carbon capture, natural climate solutions, resilience, and new employment for energy workers can address these concerns by showing that climate action delivers economic benefits. 

COP26 did not put us on track to a safe climate. But the forces it unleashed among young activists demanding a better future, communities facing climate chaos, and business leaders banking on the transition are unstoppable. Which reminds me of another scene from Caddyshack. Danny asks the club’s top player for tips, and Ty Webb replies, “There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen. All you have to do is get in touch with it…and be the ball.”   

It is time for all of us to be the ball. 

Glenn Prickett is the President and CEO of the World Environment Center. He has spent three decades leading international environmental, natural resource and climate change policy in some of the world’s preeminent NGO’s.

Download PDF version HERE.

Private sector decarbonization commitments are more vital than ever to meet the challenge of climate change. Only days remain until the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow where governments are expected to “ratchet up” their commitments under the Paris Agreement to avoid catastrophic climate change.   

At this writing, the U.S. Congress has not enacted legislation to back the Biden Administration’s pledge to halve emissions by 2030. China has not accelerated its prior commitment to peak emissions by 2030 and has ordered increased coal production to meet energy shortfalls. Leadership from these two global powers is essential to the summit’s success.

Meanwhile, September’s “Climate Week” in New York City saw the number of businesses and local governments pledging net-zero emissions double.  According to a UN-backed report, 1,500 companies with combined revenues over $11.4 trillion and emissions exceeding that of the European Union are now committed to net zero.   

With leadership from national governments uncertain, business can drive the transformation needed in industry and land use to decarbonize economies and adapt to climate change.  In the process, business can help mobilize broad-based public support for governments to act more decisively.   

The greatest challenge for companies to deliver their net-zero commitments lies in Scope 3, the emissions of their suppliers and customers. Often the majority of a company’s total greenhouse gas footprint, these sources are beyond a company’s direct control. Persuading consumers and other companies in a value chain to cut emissions requires a carefully targeted combination of voluntary incentives and public policies. The right tools and approaches vary by industry and geography.

WEC is committed to helping companies implement net-zero commitments across their value chains. With Trane Technologies, Chemours, and Toyota we have launched a series of Executive Roundtables on Decarbonizing Value Chains focused on the built environment, transportation, agriculture & land use, and industry & energy production. In these 2-day roundtables, senior executives and technical experts learn from one another about innovative solutions they can deploy in their business today and strategic challenges that demand collective action into the future.

Efforts by WEC member companies and others to decarbonize value chains place new demands on suppliers and customers that don’t have a history of engagement on sustainability. The challenge is magnified by simultaneous scrutiny from investors concerned with environment, social, and governance (ESG) performance and rising customer demands for sustainable supply chains more generally.

WEC has launched our Next Tier Membership program to support companies that are new to managing sustainability in their business. Next Tier members will benefit from specialized webinars and roundtables that deal with the basics of building a sustainability management system. They will have access to the WECosystem, our new digital platform, so that they can meet and learn from WEC’s global members. The WECosystem includes a geo-located directory of WEC members, a digital toolbox of sustainability resources, and a forum for queries and discussion of challenging topics. Next Tier Members will also be eligible for 1-1 mentorships to learn from more experienced WEC members in a structured, 9-month program that we will organize and support.

WEC will do all we can to help our member companies and other businesses drive decarbonization in their value chains. We hope that you will join our Executive Roundtables on Decarbonizing Value Chains and that you will encourage key suppliers and customers to become Next Tier Members of WEC. The more engagement we have from our members, the bigger the impact we can have in driving the transformation to a net-zero economy.

We don’t have any time to lose.   

Glenn Prickett is the President and CEO of the World Environment Center. He has spent three decades leading international environmental, natural resource and climate change policy in some of the world’s preeminent NGO’s.

Download PDF version HERE.

Spring has arrived on time in Washington, DC. Tender yellow and white buds poke out of forsythias and magnolias. Warm sunshine and fresh, earthy smells fill the air. Nature is renewing itself like clockwork.

In the Prickett family, we are preparing for Passover seder. Wait, didn’t we just have a Zoom seder? Where did the year go? And at the same time, how did it feel so unbearably long?

Welcome to the pandemic reset.

The pandemic is far from over. But in fortunate places like ours, with vaccination underway, we are emerging from our quarantine shells into a renewed world and starting to wonder what our “new normal” will be.

A reset is what we need.

The world went into lockdown at the start of 2020, just as scientists told us that we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half and conserve a third of the planet by 2030 to ensure a livable future. The pandemic revealed the inequities of our economies, as poor people and underrepresented communities suffered disproportionately from COVID-19 and its economic impact. The senseless killing of unarmed citizens in the U.S. contributed to a global movement for racial justice.

To be honest, a year ago I had a difficult time imagining how we could make the systemic changes needed to ensure planetary sustainability. The world seemed set on its economic course — despite the environmental and social warning signs flashing around us.

Then came the pandemic. We realized that we could make abrupt changes in our economies when our lives depended on it. While painful, governments and the private sector instituted shutdown plans and relief packages. We managed our way through a tragic year without the economy collapsing.

We learned to reset. Along the way, a surprising number of global companies declared deeper and more urgent commitments to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. A new government was elected in the U.S. with a renewed commitment to act on climate change, economic inclusion, and racial justice. As we emerge from the pandemic, some of the emergency changes we adopted—working from home, replacing travel with Zoom meetings, spending more time outdoors with family—may take hold permanently.

Now we can apply the lesson of this reset. Societies can act decisively to tackle the ongoing challenges of sustainable development. WEC member companies can play vital roles in driving the changes we need.

We must decarbonize. As companies set science-based climate targets, they need to help governments enact smart policies for net-zero emissions. Companies on their own can’t achieve the emissions reductions needed without public policies to drive changes among their suppliers and customers. WEC roundtables this year on decarbonizing value chains will explore policy and market incentives to decarbonize the built environment, transportation, land use, industry, and energy production.

We must invest in nature. The value of biodiversity is underappreciated because nature is a public good—we get its benefits for free. Yet investments in nature—conserving biodiversity through protected areas and sustainable use—deliver tangible economic benefits in water supply, flood control, agricultural productivity, climate stabilization, and more. WEC will continue its partnership with UNEP this year to document nature-positive business models and hold roundtables on regenerative agriculture and achieving net positive water.

We must pursue environmental justice. We all have a stake in ending systemic racism. As societies rebuild their economies, we must ensure that investments benefit underrepresented communities and don’t further disadvantage them. This applies to companies’ own sustainability initiatives, as well as to public projects. WEC will convene a roundtable this year on environmental justice and how companies can help to advance it. We will also continue our long-standing work to build capacity in micro, small, and medium enterprises in the developing world.

A year ago this month, in a column about the looming challenges of the pandemic, I wrote “we can…start thinking about opportunities to emerge from this crisis on a more sustainable and resilient path.” We’ve learned a lot from the reset. Now it’s time to act.

Glenn Prickett is the President and CEO of the World Environment Center. He has spent three decades leading international environmental, natural resource and climate change policy in some of the world’s preeminent NGO’s.

As I write this, encouraging reports on President-elect Joe Biden’s early cabinet picks and policy plans suggest that we are starting to turn the page on 2020 at last.

Of course, we are not through the global pandemic yet.  Infections rates are rising, promising a long winter with more suffering and death among vulnerable populations.  With stimulus funds drying up, the prospect of a double-dip recession is all too real.

But the arrival of vaccines in 2021 and a new U.S. administration with a more disciplined approach to combatting the virus offer hope that, with shared effort and sacrifice, we can put this pandemic behind us.

Beyond a shared commitment to public health, we will need a shared determination to tackle the four challenges that all societies face in 2021:  defeat the pandemic, rebuild the economy, fight climate change, and deliver racial justice.

WEC and our members can play a key role in this effort.  Our mission is right on point.  Sustainable development is the ideal framework for acting on these multiple, interconnected challenges.

Societies don’t have the political or financial capital to address each problem in isolation.  We must integrate economic recovery with aggressive action on climate (and other urgent environmental issues), racial and social justice, and public health.  

Gro Brundtland’s definition has never been more apt:  “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” 

WEC’s 2021 program of Executive Roundtables will arm our members with practical tools to deliver integrated outcomes for decarbonization, human rights in supply chains, sustainable food production, water security, plastic waste reduction, and more, all with a through-line of broad-based economic growth.   

Our Capacity Building programs will continue to help small enterprises in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East strengthen the economic, ecological, and social fabric of their societies while contributing to the solution of global and regional environmental challenges, most importantly climate change.   

Our Gold Medal Award will again recognize a global corporate leader—like the Ford Motor Company in 2020—whose deep commitment to sustainable development makes a difference in its own right and inspires other companies to raise their ambition. New jurors from Asia, Europe, and the U.S. will ensure that our Gold Medalist is truly world class.   

I’m especially excited about the opportunity we’ll have in 2021 to provide a sounding board for governments on effective policies to advance economic recovery, climate action, social justice, and public health through sustainable development.  WEC is not an advocacy organization, but our members have encouraged us to add public policy to our agenda, since our sustainability priorities depend on it.

With a new U.S. administration and other governments embarking on economic recovery programs, WEC can convene roundtables with policymakers for our members to share effective policy recommendations.  Our board is beginning to make plans for this work, and I will reach out to members for your advice in the coming weeks. 

As we turn the page on 2020, I wish all of you and yours happy and healthy holidays.  I can’t wait to start working with you in 2021 to help all of our societies build back better. 

Glenn Prickett is the President and CEO of the World Environment Center. He has spent three decades leading international environmental, natural resource and climate change policy in some of the world’s preeminent NGO’s.

It’s been a busy summer for sustainability leaders. Companies have issued new goals and strategies at an astonishing rate. Just since June:

• BP announced a strategy to reach its previously declared goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner, including a 40 percent drop in oil & gas production and a $5 billion annual investment in low-carbon energy by 2030.
• Microsoft articulated implementation strategies to reach its goal of removing more carbon from the atmosphere by 2050 than it’s emitted since its founding.
• Apple declared it will be carbon neutral across its value chains by 2030.
• Unilever set out new sustainability goals, including net-zero emissions from all its products by 2039 and a deforestation-free supply chain.
• Ecolab set new 2030 impact goals for water, climate, food, and health, including a 50 percent cut in emissions and a positive water impact.
• P&G pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030.
• Citigroup launched a new sustainable progress strategy, including $250 billion in environmental financing.
• Cargill announced 2030 goals to restore water, reduce pollution, and ensure safe drinking water in priority watersheds.
• Kering pledged a net positive impact on biodiversity in its supply chains by 2025.
• Leading companies and NGOs partnered to form the Transform to Net Zero Coalition to accelerate implementation of net-zero commitments.

All of this in the midst of a global pandemic and a resulting, worldwide, economic recession. What’s happening?

Many expected 2020 to be a transformational year. It was to mark the first “ratcheting up” by governments of their Paris Agreement commitments, with extreme climate events signaling the need for greater urgency. New global goals for biodiversity were to be set at a landmark UN conference in China. And companies and industry associations around the world had set 2020 as a target year to reach and reset their own sustainability goals.

One would think that the global disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic would have interrupted this collective, corporate exercise in long-term, global planning. Amazingly, it hasn’t. In fact, it may even be helping to accelerate corporate commitments.

The focus isn’t so much on the calendar anymore. The UN climate and biodiversity conferences have been postponed. Companies’ own goal-setting deadlines still came due, but the ambition and depth of this summer’s commitments are startling.

Business leaders seem to be responding to a more important, real-world lesson: that natural events—the pandemic in this case—can trigger massive disruptions in the global economy that require systemic changes to mitigate and prevent. Companies are rethinking core business strategies in light of the disruption. The record drop in global energy demand this spring is a good example. While energy demand has recovered, the energy sector faces a more uncertain outlook, which encourages all companies to think more deeply about their own energy dependencies. Similar disruptions and uncertainties loom for supply chains, consumer behavior, public sector budgets, and other planning parameters.

Analysts have long warned that climate change and other environmental threats could have disruptive impacts on the global economy. But threats of such magnitude—not linked to war or political unrest—have always seemed remote and easy to discount. No longer. While the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t have a direct link to climate change, it anticipates climate-driven disruptions to come, including disease outbreaks, droughts, floods, storms, heatwaves, and more. We have learned in 2020 that we ignore the warnings of science at our peril.

On top of the pandemic and its economic impact, the sudden and welcome rise of the Black Lives Matter movement is forcing companies to think more deeply about their impacts on society and their obligations to dismantle long-standing systems of oppression. As I wrote in my last blog, sustainability and social justice are intimately linked. An economy that grows by benefiting some at the expense of others is inherently unsustainable. The urgency of this summer’s sustainability commitments in part is a response to the renewed social justice movement.

Stepping back from the specifics of 2020, it’s clear that disruptive change is becoming the norm, and the changes are accelerating. Sustainability is a strategy to “future-proof” a company to unpredictable shocks and disruption by minimizing dependencies on vulnerable natural resource supply chains, building resilience and efficiency in operations, and responding more quickly to changing societal priorities and demands.

The World Environment Center aims to help its member companies surf these waves effectively. We are convening executive roundtables on decarbonization, ESG investing, circular economy, sustainable food production, nature’s contribution to the SDGs, and more. We are welcoming a next tier of members new to sustainability, who want to learn from more experienced companies. We are redoubling our capacity building programs for small enterprises in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East and linking them to the supply chains of our members.

Our members get out of WEC what they put into it. The same is true for our peer organizations who convene business leaders on sustainability. The pandemic has left us all more stressed, isolated, and burdened than ever. It’s easy to let the urgent overtake the important. I encourage you to get involved in WEC and other programs that are meaningful to you and your business. Share your ideas and challenges with your peers. They can help you position your company to capture the opportunities and avoid the pitfalls that disruption brings.

In 2020, we are all learning. WEC believes we are stronger if we learn together. Join us!

Glenn Prickett is the President and CEO of the World Environment Center. He has spent three decades leading international environmental, natural resource and climate change policy in some of the world’s preeminent NGO’s.