Agree with that ‘climate finance’ is a crucial part of the puzzle and having more of these types of financing support from FCDO that de-risks investment in new approaches/ innovation will help accelerate our progress
Some insights from Enric Sala (The nature of Nature, 2020):
- Human survival argument: the loss of all ecosystem services would mean a global human extinction. Thus, the value of the natural world must be infinite.
- Policy making is based in a short-term period while the ecological systems take longer time. Today, the focus in on maximizing the benefit from a single use of an ecosystem (timber of seafood) which means destroying the ability of that ecosystem to provide any other benefits.
- Mangrove forest sequester 10 times more carbon per hectare than tropical forest do, and thus serve as a powerful engine for mitigating climate change… Protecting the mangroves and restoring loss ones can generate far more economic value than converting them to other kind of product.
- National park services in United states: In 2018, visitors spent an estimated $20 billions. every dollar invested by the federal government generates $10 in economic output.
- The natural world provides more benefits to us than just the market price of one community. Example: pollination vs pesticides to keep monoculture crops.
- Every year our natural world provides $125 trillion in free support to human society and the global economy, however, many ecosystems are not fully included
Thank you Filipe! We try to involve internal and external stakeholders through different channels.
To go a little deeper into our Social Impact process:
- The first step is to identify and manage our key Stakeholder which help us understand their expectations regarding the Company’s operations and establish guidelines for improved and innovative social and environmental investment.
- The second step is to identify and manage our impacts. Every business activity, regardless of its sector, generates positive and negative impacts where it operates, and it´s our responsibility to better understanding the effects of our operation on stakeholders and thus communicate or maximize positive impacts and reduce negative ones.
- The third step is to contribute to the identification, prioritization, and management of risks, which are added to the Risks and Opportunities Agenda coordinated by the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) area. This allows us to attack the causes that generate them, as well as prepare ourselves in case these risks become incidents.
- The fourth step is the Co-design and Implementation of Community Engagement Plans, which ensures that our efforts around our operations are aligned with what is relevant from our community’s perspective.
- Through our CEPs community initiatives, we also contribute directly to other underlying SDGs including 1,3,4,5,12 y 17. We measure our progress through our sustainability 2030 targets, KPIs designed for each project and impact measurement on selected pilot projects.
- We communicate our results and progress externally and internally through our Integrated Report, our Social impact practices booklets, our annual communication on progress with the UN Global Compact, CDP, KPMG net value to society, press releases and case studies
Building on this Sandra, I would add the following:
To build the methodology needed to validate and assure delivery of net zero and nature positive against environmental footprint and social impact, I would suggest following the Business For Nature framwork (https://www.businessfornature.org/)) to set the best-fit methodology, but I would highlight the following steps:
Conduct an initial materiality assessment on your business’ greatest impacts on nature – setting clear socio, economic and enviro baselines.
Dig deeper on dependencies on natural capital – Natural Capital Protocol & toolkits,
Work with We Value Nature to build your business’ staff skills and capacity around natural capital.
Identify priority locations using tools like the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) for Business, and risks, e.g. using WWF’s Water Risk Filter.
Carry out an integrated assessment looking at nature, ppl & climate, inc. natural, social and human and produced capital.
Measure, manage and report on your climate impact through the GHG Protocol.
Commit to ambitious goals, commitments and set SBTs aligned to the 2022 guidance to achieve nature positivity & carbon neutrality
Make commitments using best practice ESG metrics,
Monitor, report and continually improve on progress
Adopt the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ framework, due to published in 2023.
1 Like
Maria I like the We all have to change. ‘Consumers will have to make new choices changing certain habits’. I wonder what you @CEMEX do to change consumers ‘habits’?
Peter, excellent analysis. Maybe we just have to change the question in order to better adresse a new methodology and definition of what is a sucessful company or business practice. In your experience, what that methodology would look like?
I am interested to hear how you do that @beneficiary feedback
A3. From the company´s perspective:
-
Creating awareness and making visible the impacts of putting people at the center of climate action as a way to become more resilient and have a more competitive and fair business culture.
-
Doing good from our role. The cement and concrete industry plays an essential role to help Europe achieve its strategic objectives on growth, innovation, social inclusion and climate and energy.
-
Measure and keep track in order to scale the social and environmental footprint stewards of the planet. At CEMEX we will continue to engage with our partners to reach our goals and have a strong commitment to building a better future causing, directly or indirectly, a positive net change on stakeholders.
-
Create the incentives for companies to move in the right direction, either through regulation that takes into account the efforts the participants need to make in order to evolve their operations or through investment in companies that are ahead of the curve in sustainability terms, for this we need common metrics to be able to validate and compare, and in this sense the European taxonomy will be of great help.
-
Foster partnerships and systems-based approach to solving problems. In order to have true solutions to the multifaceted problems we face today we need to have multiple specialists and organizations on the table, thus creating robust solutions that solve the issue without creating other unforeseen consequences.
Excellent suggestions Hina, thanks!
I discovered Business for nature last year writing an article for IUCN. Businness for nature
recommends measures such as:
Adopting target to reverse nature loss; aligning, integrating
and enforcing policies for nature, people and climate;
valuing and embedding nature in decision making and
disclosure; reforming subsidies and incentive mechanisms;
joining forces for nature and empowering everyone to act.
Additionally, Business for Nature highlights some
opportunities for business such as: long-term viability of
business models; cost savings; increases in operational
efficiency; increased market shares; access to new markets,
products and services; predictable and stable supply
chains; better relationships with stakeholders and
customers.
1 Like
Hi Laura, So great to find you here. Looking forward to a great session. Regards. Aftab
Thanks Justin, if you would like to take a look please find he link (p.16) https://www.cemex.com/documents/20143/52528892/IntegratedReport2020.pdf/d7d4abda-2ddd-0809-8902-b09af5114bba
1 Like
Hi Aftab, good to ‘see’ you too. Hope all well. Laura
1 Like
Thank You Maria Jose!
Wow what an insightful session - if there was one point you wanted to hammer home, what would it be?
There is no climate justice without trade justice, and so working together with business to ensure that producers receive fairer prices and wages, enables them to invest in climate resilience and mitigation.
1 Like
A3: Awareness and Education! 
If people have readily available data (Not just historical, but continuous live data) they can make more informed decisions. Tech firms can leverage their data technologies by providing consumption statistics at consumer and even enterprise level.
On the BanQu platform, we offer Brands like Nestle, AbInBev, CocaCola an opportunity to access accurate data directly from their last mile suppliers. This often includes small holder farmers and recyclers. For the first time, brands can monitor data like number of plastic bottles collected at buying centers on a daily, or hourly basis. See the fluctuations of crop data from their farmers during different seasons.
We have a great use case on how companies like Coca Cola are meeting their sustainability goals, by having this data available: How Coca-Cola uses BanQu to optimize the recyclables value chain
Sustainable development can only be achieved by striking the right balance between economic, environmental and social components. Decarbonisation of our global economy will only succeed if climate justice includes solutions for workers, communities and the most vulnerable.
1 Like
Hina, the document of Dasgusta is highly relevant for the new business case. Thanks for the sharing.
I will add some info to that (From: Dasgupta, P. (2021), The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review. (London: HM Treasury
• our ecological footprint is not only made up of the material we take from the biosphere, but also of the transformed material we deposit into it as waste. Enforcing standards for re-use, recycling and sharing has an important role to play in reducing such waste, and is likely to have a positive economic impact, including the creation of jobs.
• We need also to change our production and consumption patterns. The human economy is bounded, so it would be entirely counterproductive to seek economic growth that damages Nature in order to provide the necessary finance for investment in R&D.
• If ‘business’ were to continue as usual, consumption in high income countries – and emerging upper-middle and lower-middle income countries – is projected to remain the key factor in driving the world’s ecological footprint ever larger. An important feature of our ecological footprint is our diet.
• If the societal goal is to protect and promote well-being across the generations (i.e. ‘social well-being’), governments should measure inclusive wealth (societal means to those ends). Inclusive wealth is the sum of the accounting values of produced capital, human capital and natural capital. The measure corresponds directly to well-being across the generations: if a change enhances social well-being, it raises inclusive wealth; if the change diminishes social well-being, it reduces inclusive wealth. Social well-being and inclusive wealth are not the same object, but they move in tandem. There lies the value of inclusive wealth in economic accounts.
Read this for practical advice on how to take that first step:
Covid has been a challenge BUT presents us with a great opportunity to put climate and people the heart of recovery