Why the Private Sector Must Heed the COP26 Message on Climate Action

This article on COP26 and the private sector was written with Debbra Johnson.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, that begins on October 31 in Glasgow (at the venue shown above) will mobilize participants to step up their actions on resilience to global warming. Indications are the private sector will get the message and accelerate its slow, uncoordinated and graceless dance toward helping achieve net zero carbon emissions.

Arguably, COP26 should serve as a wake-up call to the private sector, seen as being both principally responsible for causing the global warming predicament and for fixing it. As for fixing it, the private sector has an essential role to play. A 2018 assessment by two Vanderbilt University climate change specialists estimated that private actions can close 10 to 30 percent of the so-called “Paris Gap,” the difference between the 2015 Paris climate accord and what that agreement will achieve by 2030 if all countries comply with their commitments.

A growing number of companies are moving to achieve their own climate- and risk-mitigation strategies and objectives. Roughly 300 global companies, for instance, are members of the RE100 initiative and aligned with that commitment to using 100 percent renewable electricity across their global operations. Climate warriors gaining kudos for leading the way to combat climate change are companies such as 3M, IKEA, John Deere, Patagonia and Unilever – and industries, notably agriculture, apparel and logistics.

But most private sector companies aren’t yet embracing an overall program to shrink their environmental footprint. Marsh & McLellan Companies’ Global Research Center concluded in a study that most companies focus narrowly on passively mitigating long-term climate risk while meeting short-term environmental or sustainability compliance standards. This approach fails to build climate resilience to gain a competitive advantage. A smaller, savvier group embeds climate risks in strategic assessment and operational planning to leverage resilience to their advantage.    

Private sector blind spots toward climate risk are surprising since practically every company is vulnerable and likely already experiencing global warming’s impacts, whether from disrupted output, higher operational and maintenance costs, or scarcer natural resources like water.

COP26 may prove most valuable in illuminating why the private sector can no longer shilly-shally. The 13-day conference is expected to identify at least six powerful forces already moving to require the private sector to play its critical role – or else. Those forces are investors, regulators, customers/clients, competitors, suppliers and employees.

Consider the potential clout of each group of stakeholders attending COP26:

Investors: Late last month (September), over 50 members of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which manage over $10 trillion in assets, urged 50 major at-risk companies – including energy companies as well as noted brands such as Nestlé, Clorox, Swatch and Campbell Soup – to identify and respond to climate threats and issued guidelines it expects all companies to do to address the issue. And in the 2021 proxy season, shareholder proposals submitted on environmental matters and climate-related proposals in particular climbed for the second consecutive year to 115 from 89.

Regulators: Watchdogs worldwide are signaling they plan to make climate-related disclosures mandatory – from U.S. banking regulators and the Securities & Exchange Commission to stock exchanges in Hong Kong, London and South Korea and regulators in Britain, New Zealand and Switzerland. Many are taking their cue from the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, a global group of regulators that has recommended a reporting standard comprising 11 broad climate-related categories that focus on material risks rather than environmental impacts.

Customers and Clients: Consumers increasingly communicate they want companies to take action on environmental issues. A Deloitte survey found that nearly one-fourth will switch to buying products from an organization that shares their environmental values, and 21 percent have encouraged others to switch, with consumers ages 18 to 24 three times more likely to switch brands based on values.

Competitors: As resource scarcity surfaces, companies that don’t innovate around climate resilience may falter behind direct and indirect rivals. Already, companies are factoring in climate change and resource supply into their business strategies, explaining why companies like Google and Apple are among the largest buyers of renewable energy.

Suppliers: Early adopters of climate resilience strategies are collaborating with suppliers to enhance their overall operational resilience. In May, for instance, Apple published its annual supplier responsibility report for 2021, outlining the progress it and its suppliers are making to further environmental protection goals. Apple partners that don’t meet the selection criteria face being dropped from the partnership. Walmart and others also make climate protection a requirement in selecting suppliers.  

Employees: The pandemic has sparked a new Employee Value Proposition with a stronger focus on employee well-being rivaling pay and advancement. In a recent study, Edelman, a longtime reporter of the link between brands and trust, concludes that today’s employees are belief-driven, with more than three-fourths expressing higher expectations of employers and 61 percent choosing their employer based on beliefs, especially about social issues. A growing number of companies that encourage employees to take action on climate and other issues find this approach helps during the current war for talent to attract and retain younger generations. And the nonprofit Drawdown has just published a guide, “Climate Solutions at Work: Unleashing your employee power.”

Which brings us to the 2015 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to 2030. It serves as a roadmap for how to make communities safer and more resilient. More specifically, it underscores how the private sector must collaborate in partnerships with the public sector to reduce disaster risk with a heavy emphasis on prevention.    

Indeed, while fading, a misperception continues to exist that climate risk prevention is the sole responsibility of governments and the public sector. The Sendai Framework and COP26 will help shatter that myth and emphasize the vital role of the private sector. It is essential to keep a fire under the private sector. The planet depends on it. 

This article was written with Debbra Johnson.

The Next 100 Days Will Be Crucial for Securing Climate Resilience

This second article on climate resilience policies within the Biden administration was written with Laurie Schoeman and first published on Triple Pundit.

Last week, we discussed how President Biden’s first 100 days in office has helped us as a country reset and ensure that the 2020s will be known as the resilience decade. So far, the very early scorecard on climate change risk disclosures and the financial markets is one that rates favorably. But the next 100 days will be crucial as we anticipate what the Biden White House can achieve to bolster climate resilience across the U.S.

The Biden administration’s American Jobs plan proposes to stimulate the U.S. economy by creating jobs; capitalizing infrastructure, housing and services; and investing in education and training of millions of Americans in dozens of industries.

It’s an ambitious range of policies: $213 billion in support of housing; $621 billion in transportation infrastructure; $50 billion to improve infrastructure resilience through additions to FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program; $111 billion for water infrastructure improvements; and $100 billion to improve the nation’s electric grid and investment in clean energy.

Linking equity and climate resilience

A slate of executive orders from President Biden signal a vision and drive to build social equity. The executive order focused on tackling the climate crisis creates an environmental justice council and sets a goal to deliver 40 percent of climate investment benefits to disadvantaged communities, referred to as Justice40.

Another executive order on advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities prioritizes a “comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality” in federal government programs. These executive orders will need to be turned into active programs so that they have permanency and longevity moving forward.

The administration’s removal of "onerous restrictions" that have been preventing full deployment of more than $8 billion dollars in congressionally approved Hurricane Maria recovery funding to Puerto Rico unlocks funding dedicated almost four years ago to help Puerto Rico recover and build protection from future storms.

The president’s ”30 by 30” U.S. lands and oceans climate goal envisions teaming with various state, local, tribal, and territorial governments’ agricultural and forest landowners; the fishing industry; and other key stakeholders” to protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and ocean territories by 2030.

A focus on environmental justice is a must

The American Rescue Plan bill includes $100 million for environmental justice grants – a step in the right direction to address disproportionate climate risks to vulnerable populations and, hopefully, not too little, too late. The bill recognizes the nation’s strength depends on American households having access to fundamental services and on states and cities possessing funding to support critical functions and maintain a dynamic public transportation network.  

Exemplifying an early impact of these executive orders is the Transportation Department’s Infrastructure for Rebuilding America program. For the first time, it will support projects aimed specifically at fighting the effects of climate change and environmental racism to ensure equity in infrastructure and clean energy investments. Further, the department has rebranded TIGER and BUILD as Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE). 

For America’s communities, look to leading initiative such as Resilience 21 (R21), a coalition of 50 leading U.S. practitioners, of which we are part of, that works with cities and communities of all sizes and types to build resilience to current and future shocks and stresses with an emphasis on the disproportionate risks faced by marginalized communities. A chief recommendation of the R21 includes the development of a “Future Visioning” Task Force to address communities threatened by climate and human-caused displacement, including sea level rise, wildfire, flooding, environmental degradation and pollution and civil unrest. This task force must support the free will and mobility of communities to determine their own futures and address funding for proactive action.

Samantha Medlock, senior counsel of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis told Resilience 21, “a lot of efficacy will come through implementation. We need to consider the needs of America’s communities.” She suggested setting a goal post that embeds resilience into infrastructure, housing and disaster response and recovery bills.

What does the next 100 days and beyond hold?

The hard work must continue, with as much urgency as the first 100 days, to make up for a lack of climate resilience effort in the last decade and to rebuild the nation’s economy and spirit. The new administration will need to build and train teams to implement policy and vision and ensure staff has subject matter expertise and a      proven track record in climate resilience, adaptation and equity. Policies and programs created, designed and deployed need to be informed by practitioners to yield  permanent structural changes that can resolve the deep systemic challenges that impact many low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color that are now in the direct path of natural hazards and risks.  

Look for a draft executive order, focused on climate-related financial risk disclosures, that will insert climate risk into decision-making across the financial sector. Major industries such as housing, agriculture, lending and insurance will be asked to assess and disclose climate risks, identify solutions to manage those risks, and as necessary, fund the implementation of these strategies.  

Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, recently told world leaders that climate change is a national security issue at late April’s virtual climate summit. “It needs to be fully integrated with every aspect of our analysis in order to allow us not only to monitor the threat but also, critically, to ensure that policymakers understand the importance of climate change on seemingly unrelated policies,” she said. 

This is an admirable start to what promises to be an exciting and uncertain adventure in this resilience decade. We must continue to push to make decisions at all levels of government that strengthen our path forward for all and help us to acknowledge previous and historical inequities, plan for current and future risks, invest in affordable housing, transportation, water and other infrastructure and build capacity to create justice for all.

Co-author Laurie Schoeman is the co-founder of Resilience 21 and leads Enterprise Community Partners’ efforts to preserve and protect affordable housing across the nation from the risks and impacts of natural hazards and a changing climate.

Image credit: Nikola Majksner/Unsplash

Biden’s First 100 days: A Climate Resilience Appraisal

This article on the Biden administration’s plans and how they could affect climate resilience was written with Laurie Schoeman and first appeared on Triple Pundit

How has President Biden’s first 100 days in office helped us as we continue through this resilience decade? What’s the very early scorecard on climate change risk disclosures and the financial markets?

In a new CNN Poll, the president gets the highest rating for his performance during the first 100 days for his leadership on environmental policy, with a net positive rating of 54 percent. What is clear is his team has the social capital, vision, commitment and know-how to drive an agenda that builds an equitable, resilient and strong nation.

It’s encouraging that the new president’s climate action strategy includes important and valid emphasis on climate change mitigation. He has spoken favorably about decreasing greenhouse gas emissions primarily through increasing investments in renewable power, while increasing regulations to direct the private sector toward more efficient technologies and operations. Nevertheless, to connect this strategy to apply to all Americans, the White House must emphasize climate resilience. So far, the administration’s policies are trending in a positive direction.

Here is our top seven list of the administration’s most impactful efforts to build a climate-resilient nation.

Seven key steps the new administration has taken toward climate resilience

President Biden has reinstated America as a leader in domestic and international climate action by rejoining the Paris Agreement, committing to both decrease global greenhouse gas emissions and boost climate resilience in our communities.

The administration has so far positioned seasoned and respected leaders to champion the international and domestic climate agenda and put climate action into practice, including Cecilia Martinez, Senior Director of Environmental Justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Department of the Interior; Michael Regan, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Gina McCarthy National Senior Climate Advisor; and John Kerry, International Climate Envoy.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen committed her department to examine the financial risks of climate change; to wield Treasury’s broad powers to tackle potential risks to the financial system posed climate change imposes; and to the appointment of a senior official to lead climate initiatives.

The Federal Reserve has launched a climate committee to assess the implications of climate change risks on the U.S. financial system, including banks, corporations and infrastructure.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued a “Request for Input” on integrating climate risk management for its regulated entities that include Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Bank to investigate housing finance system climate risks disclosure and management.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun work on potential regulations that would require companies to disclose exposure to climate risk; it is evaluating climate disclosure guidelines, and it has prepared a detailed questionnaire seeking industry feedback until mid-June.

And finally, the Commodity Future Trading Commission has announced a new Climate Risk Unit that follows on its groundbreaking 2020 report, Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System.

So what's next?

These all are significant advances. But at a moment when the nation is emerging from the economic and community disruption of the century’s largest health crisis, every move the Biden Administration makes must be related to supporting both Main Street and Wall Street. Next week, we will discuss several initiatives on which the new administration can lead that we believe can bolster climate resilience along with the economic infrastructure of the nation.

Co-author Laurie Schoeman is the co-founder of Resilience 21 and leads Enterprise Community Partners’ efforts to preserve and protect affordable housing across the nation from the risks and impacts of natural hazards and a changing climate.

Image credit: Tabrez Syed/Unsplash

Why is the Climate Resilience Field so White?

This article originally appeared on Triple Pundit: https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2021/resilience-field-white/717881

Joyce Coffee and Chauncia Willis co-authored this article

“In the days ahead, we must not consider it unpatriotic to raise certain questions about our national character.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in “Where do we go from Here: Chaos or Community?”

In early January, as our respective networks prepared to mix at a resilience reception to kick off 2021 and the resilience decade, we asked one another an obvious – but unanswered – question: Why is the climate resilience field so white? 

It’s not a new question in the U.S. environmental movement. The headline in a January 2017 article in the January 2017 issue of Quartz proclaimed: “The overwhelming whiteness of U.S. environmentalism is hobbling the fight against climate change.” And, a Nov. 21, 2019 post in The Gender Policy Report headlined “Diversifying Leadership Is a Necessity for Climate and Energy.”

At our reception, comprised of mostly white resilience professionals, different voices provided various thoughts on the issue: Many in the American climate resilience field have arrived here via the environmental movement, which historically has been white and racist; the primary feeders to the climate resilience field – economics and the physical sciences – are overly represented by whites; and climate action and climate change mitigation are often paired with solutions such as renewable energy, electric cars and net zero homes, which often are unaffordable luxuries for low-income, marginalized, and vulnerable communities.

To continue the resilience decade and beyond, this group of professionals must agree that solutions start with racial equity, especially since communities of color are disproportionately subjected to the impacts of the climate crisis.

Here are five solutions offered by the resilience reception guests:

• Create climate resilience by fortifying social infrastructure – which starts with education, jobs, investment, housing, healthcare and personal security.

• Cede power to BIPOC leaders and make it a priority to use white power to unlock social equity solutions.

• Encourage privileged knowledge and learning beyond the academic setting.

• Within the education system, encourage BIPOC students to pursue STEM fields, provide them with mentors and paid internships, and demand that higher ed include academics of color in proportions that accurately reflect America.

• Do not pigeon-hole BIPOC leaders into “environmental justice” or “diversity” roles. Create social equity and include career pathways jobs with upward mobility, with or without advanced degrees.

While listening to civil rights leader and writer Alicia Garza keynote a Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute, I found that she put a fine point on our quest when she recalled a Dr. King quote in which he noted that Black Americans “hold only one key to the double lock of peaceful change. The other is in the hands of the white community.”

We can expect progress on this front from one recent change: President Biden’s environmental team. It includes North Carolina’s environmental chief Michael Regan, on course to become the first Black American to head the Environmental Protection Agency; environmental lawyer Brenda Mallory to lead the Council on Environmental Quality; New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland to be the first Native American to lead the Interior Department; and Ali Zaidi, a former New York deputy secretary for energy and environment deputy, who happens to be Muslim, as national climate advisor.

We must remember, as Dr. King also maintained, “the ultimate measure is not where we stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where we stand in times of challenge and controversy.” It’s important to be encouraged to approach resilience with the power of understanding that we each play a role in a resilient future, and that resilience exists at the intersection of climate, hazards, and vulnerability.

We cannot solely advocate for climate, hazards, and resilience and exclude factors that contribute to vulnerability as this works against all that we aspire to achieve in the resilient decade.

Image credit: Niek Verlaan/Pixabay