HOW TO MAKE CORPORATE CLIMATE ACTION HAPPEN: Building the winning team
In the last few months, major corporations — including Apple and L’Oréal, following Google and Microsoft earlier this year — announced a series of ambitious climate commitments for 2030. While this can only be considered very encouraging news, it got me thinking about the term ‘commitment’, and what it means in an age of climate change.
As we know, the overwhelming and multi-faceted nature of the climate emergency has paralysed many people (myself included, at times), causing us all to wonder what on earth, quite literally, we can do. As Extinction Rebellion members often remind us, the scientific facts we face have triggered widespread grief, rage and depression. The younger generations, especially, cannot understand the failure of governments to halt the future displacement of millions of people, the global spread of infectious disease, generations of premature deaths caused by air pollution, drastic food and water shortages and the increased risk of war and conflict. That future, in many ways, is already here.
This time last year, I was speaking to United Nations Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, whose long pursuit of peace in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq has taught him how to find hope amidst collective despair. He said that in the case of climate change, people can’t face the idea of global catastrophe. They need to know that there’s something to look forward to; something they can do to make it happen. They need to feel like they’re part of a winning team.
“In the case of climate change, people can’t face the idea of global catastrophe. They need to know that there’s something to look forward to; something they can do to make it happen. They need to feel like they’re part of a winning team”.
Our conversation spurred me into action. I began thinking about what this ‘winning team’ might look like in the business context. After a year’s work, I have come to develop a new form of climate action for corporations, which would not only strengthen the meaning of their commitments but help transform our societies from within. It’s about the mass mobilisation of employees.
It’s helpful to remind ourselves that the people we think of as climate activists — a term which, like any other label, is easily abstracted — are also people with jobs, families and communities, and by extension, people with individual radii of influence. They are citizens, consumers and employees, with the power not only to make informed choices, but to channel whichever values they currently hold outside of their work and communal lives, into them. So, as members of corporations, we can ask ourselves: When these people return to the office on a Monday morning, having been out campaigning with Extinction Rebellion on the weekends, where does that energy go? What are their companies allowing them to do with it? Is it being channelled into corporate innovation?
If the whole company were acting together, could it not be a tremendous opportunity for transformation?
The reality is that, in most cases, the energy just sits there. All that passion and desire to change the status quo, to shape a different future for our societies, goes nowhere. There are companies, of course, that would be less enthusiastic about unleashing a wave of climate activism in the workplace. Such a change could be considered inherently threatening and disruptive. But if the whole company were acting together, could it not be a tremendous opportunity for transformation? The mass employee action taken recently at companies like Amazon and Google demonstrate that this potential exists.
I believe that, in order for corporate climate action to be as successful at the scale of the climate emergency requires, its commitments must extend beyond the targets set by company boards. They must be multidirectional and multilateral: travelling from top to bottom; bottom to top; sideways and diagonally; permeating not only all people and parts of a company, but beyond it, into the communities it serves. The average employee needs to play their part as much as leaders and board members; and everyone must eventually feel some degree of ownership and empowerment in relation to these global issues.
The average employee needs to play their part as much as leaders and board members; and everyone must eventually feel some degree of ownership and empowerment in relation to these global issues.
While global companies seek to reduce their carbon footprint, individuals, especially millennials and Gen Z, are looking to have what Bill Weihl of ClimateVoice calls a ‘climate positive career’. This means that no matter what job you have, no matter what company you work for, you and your fellow employees are doing everything you can “to help us out of this mess”, or at least, to keep us from “descending further into it.” We believe that companies have the power and responsibility to facilitate that degree of engagement.
The idea is far from utopian. It’s a question of cultural change. Every corporate revolution since the dawn of industry has been accompanied not only by technological transformation, but by a radical shift in mindset and behaviour that seeks to embrace the future and adapt to it, rather than wait for it to leave them behind. In the same way that it’s almost impossible, now, to imagine a company or organisation devoid of reliance on IT infrastructure, it will soon be inconceivable for a company to have remained reliant on limited natural resources and ill-equipped to operate within the new climate reality.
As we know, many leaders are still resisting change. Committing to business and cultural transformation is no mean feat; especially in the case of climate, where there are big risks and limited time frames in which to act. But if there is one thing that our digital era has taught us, it’s that being ahead of the curve — by responding to evidence of change and being willing to scale those responses in a way that will transform societies — not only demonstrates leadership and visionary thinking; it is also necessary for the thriving of businesses over time.
Dr. Kate Marvel of NASA’s Goddard Institute recently said that we need courage, now, not hope. After my discussion with Special Envoy de Mistura, I was convinced that we in fact need both. Being proactive in the face of a global threat is about holding fast to the hope that our future can be different- and doing everything we can to make it so.
Sophie Lambin is the Founder and CEO of Kite Insights, a research and strategic communications agency that recently launched The Climate School. Thank you to Ruth Dobson for her contribution to this article.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
