Back in the ’70s, there was a comic strip called Peanuts, in which the timeless narrative trope of “hope, followed by hope-dashed,” was replayed regularly by Lucy tricking the hapless Charlie Brown into kicking at a football that she would inevitably pull away at just the last moment, sending the poor lad sprawling. It never got tired. Well – except for Charlie of course.
Those were simpler times, when only a handful of scientists and oil industry executives knew that, left unchecked, the emissions stream from our consumption of fossil energy would eventually melt the ice-caps and turn the global climate up-side-down.
Now everybody knows it. Every COP feels like Lucy. And as we lace up our sneakers to take one more kick at that ball, it’s hard to not visualize ourselves doing another Charlie Brown.
But if dashed hopes could stop the COP process, it surely would be over by now. Since that’s not the case, perhaps we should look deeper for a counter-narrative to the bleakness.
There are observable trends – in the finance community, in the scientific innovation community and in public opinion that say we are making some progress.
Sure – there’s lots of “blah, blah, blah.” But there’s also real change happening.
Like Sustainable Steel.
And this ambitious approach announced by John Lewis Partnership to reform the ecological impact of supply chain partners in the UK grocery system.
And this audacious announcement by Fortescue Metals to eliminate fossil fuel from operations by 2030. !
And what’s particularly interesting, is notwithstanding the “all talk no trousers” charges levelled at corporations – these ones are ripping ahead and stealing a sustainability march on their rivals. They are finding strategies that make their business more attractive to employees, their products more attractive to customers, and shares more attractive to investors.
If these incentives are not enough – CSRD government regulation, at least in Europe – is going to push corporations to join the sustainability race starting January 1, 2024. The only question is whether they start the race ahead or behind their rivals.
If you’re in a position to help your firm be in the former category rather than the latter, we have some tips for you. Six of them – pertaining to Double Materiality Assessment. You’ll need to do it to comply with CSRD in 2024.
Will COP 27 break our hearts? Of course it will. Will we pin new hopes on COP 28? Of course we will. Do we have a choice? Yes we do – the choice, this year, starting now, to take the actions we can, with the resources we have, to make things better not worse – for all of our stakeholders. You can Download the tips here.