January 30, 2024
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January 31, 2024
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Taking Biodiversity Seriously Across Corporate Value Chains
Event: “Taking Biodiversity Seriously Across Corporate Value Chains”
When: January 30-31, 2024, 2 p.m. – 2 p.m.
Where: The Hague, The Netherlands
About the Event:
The World Environment Center, alongside AECOM and Dow, invites you to a critical 24-hour roundtable discussion. As we navigate a world where the loss of biodiversity increasingly impacts economies and societies, our dialogue couldn’t be timelier.
Considering the ambitious goals set by the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, this roundtable is an opportunity to define and elevate the role of businesses in this global effort. Join us in shaping the actions necessary to safeguard our planet’s biodiversity.
WEC Executive Roundtables are Chatham House Rule discussions open to Members of WEC. Not a member yet? Feel free to request an invitation hereto this event or on behalf of a peer company.
Taking Biodiversity Seriously Across Corporate Value Chains
Event: “Taking Biodiversity Seriously Across Corporate Value Chains”
When: January 30-31, 2024, 2 p.m. – 2 p.m.
Where: The Hague, The Netherlands
About the Event:
The World Environment Center, alongside AECOM and Dow, invites you to a critical 24-hour roundtable discussion. As we navigate a world where the loss of biodiversity increasingly impacts economies and societies, our dialogue couldn’t be timelier.
Considering the ambitious goals set by the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, this roundtable is an opportunity to define and elevate the role of businesses in this global effort. Join us in shaping the actions necessary to safeguard our planet’s biodiversity.
WEC Executive Roundtables are Chatham House Rule discussions open to Members of WEC. Not a member yet? Feel free to request an invitation hereto this event or on behalf of a peer company.
Nature-Based Solutions Roundtable at UN Asia Pacific Climate Week
WEC to host executive discussion at Asia-Pacific Climate Week in Johor, Malaysia
Amid global efforts to combat climate change and protect our planet’s biodiversity, the importance of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) has never been more paramount. Investments in NBS, encompassing conservation and restoration across a range of ecosystems, are key to our collective ambitions for a sustainable future.
WEC Members and UNCC Conference participants can join us for this exclusive roundtable, as part of the UN Asia Pacific Climate Week, delving into the intricacies of reducing investment barriers for quality and scale in NBS. This discussion, planned in partnership with Shell, is timely and pivotal, especially as divergent views on carbon offsets are threatening the much-needed funds to safeguard our vital ecosystems.
Key Topics of this Executive Roundtable:
Carbon Markets & NBS: How should NBS investments be designed to ensure high-quality benefits for climate, communities, and biodiversity?
Stakeholder Collaboration: How can the private sector build trust in the integrity of NBS investments among key stakeholders?
Regional Focus on Quality and Scale: How can policymakers ensure that carbon markets drive quality and scale in NBS investments?
WEC, with support from multinationals, project developers, the financial sector, NGOs, and academia, will convene a discussion among key stakeholders to address these conflicts over corporate investment in NBS. Countries in Asia Pacific are in the process of establishing rules for carbon markets, so the roundtable will focus on NBS in the region.
This free event is open to WEC members and UNCC Conference participants.
🌿 Leadership in Unlocking Sustainable Farming Practices: Regenerative Agriculture Roundtable Summary Available Now! 🌿
Discover the key takeaways from our recent Regenerative Agriculture Round Table! This event brought together speakers from the UN Environment Programme and General Mills, along with industry leaders to discuss the future of farming, with a focus on aligning goals and driving scalable solutions.
📖 Download the Event Summary PDF and gain valuable insights into how regenerative agriculture is shaping the world’s agricultural landscape.
Join the business movement towards a more sustainable future! 🌎 #RegenerativeAg #Sustainability #FarmersCollaborate
As climate change accelerates, access to water is becoming increasingly at risk for communities and businesses worldwide. Learn how industry leaders are taking on the challenge at our next WECExecutive Roundtable. Join us and industry leaders from across the globe for a discussion on key business solutions for water basin management.
While this is a WEC Members invite-only event, if you would like to invite a peer, please let us know and we will consider extending an invitation! Please get in touch with Frank Werner to add your invite fwerner@wec.org
January 30, 2024 @ 8:00 am – January 31, 2024 @ 5:00 pm UTC-4
September 13
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September 14
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12:00 pm UTC-4
Regenerative agriculture is gaining ground across food & agriculture value chains. Business leaders are attracted to natural climate solutions that offer economic and environmental co-benefits.
Join us with co-hosts UN Environment and General Mills in our next WEC Executive Roundtable on Scaling Regenerative Agriculture. We’ll discuss how to build on current incentive programs and overcome challenges to drive scale across key geographies and commodities in North America.
While this is a WEC Members invite-only event, if you would like to invite a peer, please let us know and we will consider extending an invitation! Please contact Frank Werner to add your invite fwerner@wec.org
January 30, 2024 @ 8:00 am – January 31, 2024 @ 5:00 pm UTC-4
WEC Action Forum – Event Summary on Building A 100% Positive Future
WEC and members were joined by industry leaders from WEC member companies in discussing Ecolab’s book Clean. We explored building a sustainability strategy at all levels of the organization.
Authors of Clean: Lessons from Ecolab’s Century of Positive Impact, Paul C. Godfrey, William and Roceil Low Professor of Business Strategy in the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University & Emilio Tenuta, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Ecolab led the conversation.
Check out key takeaways from this important discussion below:
WEC Executive Roundtables – Working with the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Practical Experience of Global Companies. WEC’s SDG Workshop # 5
The World Environment Center, in collaboration with Ricoh, convened a virtual one-day Executive Roundtable in June 2023. WEC members along with other global companies discussed effective policies and practices in SDGs, and shared best practices on how companies can incorporate them into their sustainability initiatives.
25 participants from business and academia/NGOs in ten industries and eight countries shared their advances on working with the SDGs, i.e. how they collaborate with peers to increase impact. The roundtable was held under the Chatham House Rule to encourage open dialogue, and so none of the quotes or company examples in the report are attributed to anyone.
In case you missed it, check out the summary of this important discussion below.
We are excited to invite you to our next WEC Action Forum: Building a 100% Positive Future on Wednesday, July 26th at 11AM ET (Washington D.C.) / 17:00 CEST (Berlin).
Join industry leaders from WEC member companies in a discussion on Ecolab’s book Clean. We’ll explore building a sustainability strategy around a company’s business strategy.
We will have authors of Clean: Lessons from Ecolab’s Century of Positive Impact, Paul C. Godfrey, William and Roceil Low Professor of Business Strategy in the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University & Emilio Tenuta, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Ecolab, to present and speak at our next WEC Action Forum.
This is a WEC members’ only event with open invitations available to peers from your company.
This is a WEC Member only event. To request and invite, please contact skonduri@wec.org.
January 30, 2024 @ 8:00 am – January 31, 2024 @ 5:00 pm UTC-4
Can AI Help Supply Chains Be More Environmentally Conscious?
By Ariadnna Garcia
Pixabay. December 20, 2016. Boat in body of water
I am pleased to introduce this WEC blog post by Ariadnna Garcia. As we explore challenging issues for sustainable development, we want to feature diverse perspectives. Ariadnna is an undergraduate at UC San Diego and one of our first Climate Ambassadors in partnership with the University of California Alianza Mexico. Ariadnna explores the potential of AI as a tool for sustainability in supply chains. We hope you find her ideas thought-provoking!
– Glenn Prickett, President and CEO of WEC
Supply chain sustainability, which refers to the management of the environmental, social, and economic impacts of goods and services throughout their lifecycle, is a pressing challenge facing businesses today due to the worsening condition of our planet. As the climate crisis approaches the point of no return, it becomes essential for corporations to ensure their business practices are sustainable and protect the environment from further harm.
Supply chains are complex and global in nature. Thus, it is no surprise that businesses may struggle with measuring their sustainability performance, managing their carbon footprint, and reducing their waste. Also challenging is ensuring that their ethical and social responsibility mitigate their environmental impact. According to a report conducted by McKinsey in 2016, 80% of a business’s emissions are produced from the supply chain. Businesses understand the cruciality of sustainability within their supply chains and rank this among their most urgent concerns.
Can AI address sustainability challenges in supply chains?
A solution that may address these challenges is that of artificial intelligence (AI) which is the future of data organization, analysis, and complex decision-making. By incorporating AI into the process of supply chain sustainability, businesses may contribute to a more equitable and environmentally conscious global economy by further developing tech-smart approaches to corporate sustainability.
Mikhail Nilov. May 2, 2021. Men looking at the code on the board
Sustainability with AI- collecting and synthesizing sustainability data
One of the most significant barriers facing businesses in achieving supply chain sustainability is the complexity of modern supply chains. With hundreds of thousands of suppliers spanning worldwide, it is difficult to track, collect, and measure environmental data, specifically their sustainability performance.
The increased number of regulations implemented by governments adds additional complexity in the management of supply chain data. All this data must be synthesized into a human-readable format so that businesses make data-driven decisions, implement the most effective sustainability initiatives, and analyze their current progress.
This is where AI has the potential to transform the way in which businesses interact with data. Such uses include:
AI works quickly, frequently outperforming humans and accomplishing tasks that might take minutes in a matter of seconds. The complexity and globality of supply chains can benefit from technology like AI that can sort and process through large data sets, producing insights and visualizations with fewer errors than those committed by humans.
AlphaTradeZone. November 8, 2020. Man in blue dress shirt holding black digital tablet beside a person writing
Tracking data- advanced technologies can decrease environmental harm
This transformative technology can monitor a business’s current sustainability performance by providing continuous feedback on highly polluting actions executed by businesses daily, such as:
carbon emissions
waste generation
water consumption
energy usage
Using AI may improve communication among the supply chain networks as businesses share their real-time data providing fast feedback to decision-makers so that errors can be addressed, and improvements implemented.
The scope of AI insights and suggestions can extend to assessments of risks and opportunities. AI may be programmed with technology that can advise where a business can improve its sustainability performance and flag areas where a business may be failing. For example, AI can provide businesses with options for the most optimal transport routes based on traffic and other data, suggestions on the most sustainable suppliers and materials, and methods for the most efficient way to package items – all of which improve supply chain sustainability.
AI may also have the ability, through its analysis of patterns and trends, to predict future risks and ways in which a business can best mitigate or eliminate these sustainability endangerments. The collection and synthesis of this data can then be used to boost a company’s sustainability transparency and communicate to stakeholders their commitment to mitigating their environmental impact.
Ella Ivanescu. January 9, 2020. Shooting steam at the sky
Maximizing profit while reducing environmental footprint through AI
Such insights may help with the overproduction of items, reducing waste, and ensuring that products are delivered to customers safely through its analysis of transport routes. According to the company, Avery Dennison, overproduction and waste can account for approximately $163 billion worth of lost inventory. If businesses wish to maximize their profits while simultaneously losing fewer products and increasing customer satisfaction, AI can potentially help achieve this.
Navigating the risks of AI integration
Although AI brings substantial benefits to supply chain sustainability, the risks and challenges of working with large language models should not be ignored. Companies should consider the risk before implementing this sophisticated technology. These risks can arise from how AI is implemented within a business to the technology itself.
Discrimination expands to AI-powered supply chain sustainability
The most prominent issue that has gained international attention is that of biases and discrimination within AI technology. AI works by taking in copious amounts of data, sifting through them, and generating an output. Because AIs are training on large, unfiltered data sets from the internet, biased language in the AI output may occur.
According to McKinsey, even the most perfectly crafted AI systems can generate biases despite efforts to avoid it during development. For example, if using AI for hiring new suppliers, biases present in the language model may favor certain demographics of candidates as opposed to others who may have more sustainability qualifiers. Businesses should be aware of these risks, rigorously assess the data used to train the AI systems, and develop alternate approaches in case of biases or output errors.
Mitigating security risks and privacy concerns of AI technologies
Another potential risk of using AI technology is the impact on IT security and data privacy. AI systems may collect a sizable amount of confidential data and IT infrastructure that must be adequately protected. If the data security systems fail or if the AI system is poorly designed, data breaches could occur and negatively impact businesses. Security and privacy measures, like bias and discrimination checks, should be rigorously implemented to ensure that the AI system is appropriately designed to protect the vast amount of information collected and mitigate the occurrence of breaches.
Understanding the limitations and fallibility of sophisticated technologies
A third risk is that of over-relying on the AI system and fully entrusting it to produce infallible information. Although AI produces fewer mistakes than humans, a business cannot without review expect the technology to produce no errors. Implementation of an AI system should ensure that human decision-makers work alongside the programs to provide quality assurance checks that data and outputs are accurate.
Tara Winstead. May 16, 2021. Person reaching out to a robot
Recognizing the possibility of job displacement
On this same note, an issue that also prominently is discussed is the rise of unemployment due to the integration of AI systems. While using an AI tool does not directly translate into job losses, new jobs can even be created while old jobs can be improved. AI requires input from humans, especially to inspect its accuracy; therefore, companies should be inspired to create these new jobs and train their employees to handle these machines instead of simply dismissing them. Training programs for employees can equip the evolving workforce with the skills to use AI to increase productivity and decrease time wasting administrative tasks. Job losses are a valid concern for individuals, and optimistically, with the right approach and design of AI, the potential job losses can be partially offset.
Exploring the future of AI in supply chain sustainability
Supply chain sustainability is an urgent and complex challenge facing businesses. Those challenges should be met with technology that is equipped with the correct tools to handle the complicated and international nature of supply chains. Fortunately, AI is the current technology available that may be able to live up to the responsibility of ensuring companies are on a sustainable route placing the betterment of the environment at the forefront of their agenda.
An AI system can
Gather, analyze, and simplify a significant amount of data collected through the supply chain
Generate insights, patterns, and projections along with suggestions for sustainability improvements.
constant reporting of information gathered coupled with the predictive analysis performed provides AI the ability to spot ways in which a business can improve as well as where it is failing
can assess future risks that pose a threat to the business
Optimize supply chain sustainability through data-driven decision making
Enhance production and increase efficiencies that reduce overproduction and the production of waste
AI does include potential risks, such as the presence of bias and discrimination, security and privacy breaches, fallible technology, and job losses. Companies can mitigate these risks through a series of strategies that focus on human-reviewed safety and security features along with fallback systems.
Final Thoughts on How Businesses Can Use AI to be More Environmentally Conscious
In this era of widespread technological advancements, the prevalent use of sophisticated technologies, like AI, is bound to affect our lives. Therefore, here I start the conversation about the potential effects of AI in sustainable supply chains. Become a WEC member and join the discussion on AI with industry leaders. Already a member? Log into the forum now to join the conversation.
Ferrer, Xavier, Tom van Nuenen, Jose M. Such, Mark Cote, and Natalia Criado. “Bias and Discrimination in AI: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective.” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 40, no. 2 (2021): 72–80. https://doi.org/10.1109/mts.2021.3056293.
Eight years after the official birth of the SDGs there still seems to be a lack of collective action in the business community to support them. Or, perhaps, is there a lack of transparency? Governments at least are continuously repeating their calls for business action on the SDGs while they develop and fund projects with NGOs and civil society that do not have the impact needed to reach a single goal or even one of the 169 targets.
The first global meta study, led by Prof. Frank Bierman and Xian Sun, et. al. at the University of Utrecht (2022), clarified that “the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Global Goals thus far”. Not a single transformative initiative led by business was identified. The Catalyst 2030 Awards for Systemic Change, on the hunt for companies contributing to the SDGs, presented SAP as winner for having committed 10% of its procurement spend to social enterprises and diverse-owned enterprises. A very noteworthy initiative. However, not what’s getting us close to reaching the Goals.
And yet, the business case for companies to contribute to the SDGs is strong as identified in several publications (e.g. BSDC and SSRN). While many of these companies communicate their own businesses’ activities with respect to the SDGs, they seem not to consider pure business-related collaborations a relevant SDG contribution. And those are the ones that can have a transformative impact for the SDGs.
This WEC Roundtable wants to identify collaborations with a large impact, that help to achieve one or more SDGs. It is an opportunity for business executives to get inspired under the Chatham House Rule.
This is a WEC Member only event. To request and invite, please contact fwerner@wec.org
This event has passed. Please check out the full event summary below:
WEC hosts 2023 Gold Medal Symposium: Aligning Business Strategy with the UN SDGs
2023 Gold Medal Symposium Summary
On the occasion of awarding the Gold Medal 2023 to Jacobs, WEC convened a Symposium for Business Executives to discuss with thought leaders and practitioners how to align business strategy with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Held under the Chatham House Rule, this Symposium was a dialog designed to learn from companies that made the SDGs the center of their business strategy.
All panelists were current or former WEC Gold Medalists, which underlines that they are successful and leaders in sustainability. Participants Speakers represented the United Nations as well as three Gold Medal awardees.
The Roundtable was held in the beautiful premises of the Planet Word Museum, with approx. 50 senior executives from WEC member companies, other international corporations, as well as from government, science, and think tanks.
