How can a company’s climate change commitments be better informed by those most impacted?

A1: Practical Action can be considered the “other entity” as collaborative work with communities is a major principle underpinning our work. For example, in Bolivia, we have been combining partnerships with organisations ranging from the private sector to NGOs such as Christian Aid, funding partners such as GIZ and international organisations such as European Union to deliver change for rural communities grappling with new weather patterns. In the past year, more than 2,000 rural families have improved their incomes through accessing modern renewable energy, improving their production and accessing new markets for their businesses

Also, we mainly use partner organisations for collaborative community based approaches, e.g companies wanting to develop “green business” in Peru/Bolivia and market interest groups in Kenya to facilitate the engagement of farmers and other marginalised groups.

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Much welcome @gladyshabu, we use an enterprise development approach to contribute to eradication of poverty. With a 4 step approach and 7 modular training approach that takes 9 months

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Also outside of Practical Action’s work, another example is Nestle. “Nestlé is laying out its plans to support and accelerate the transition to a regenerative food system – one that aims to protect and restore the environment, improve the livelihoods of farmers and enhance the well-being of farming communities. Nestlé will work with its food system partners, including the company’s network of more than 500,000 farmers and 150,000 suppliers, to advance regenerative farming practices at the heart of the food system. As part of this journey, the company will also initiate new programs to help address the social and economic challenges of the transition”

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Hello everyone, this is Manav here; I am currently a PhD student in Italy but joining from India at the moment.

I worked with the Green Climate Fund, and the whole idea of the formation of this organisation was to help and finance developing and least developed countries to fight against climate change. I carried out policy analysis and evaluation for many projects such as REDD+ in Latin America. This was very interesting and gave me a lot of information about how indigenous communities benefit from climate finance.

I can share the link if anyone is interested.

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Details of the statement available on our website here: - Sourcing rum responsibly: Nordic Alcohol Monopolies sign joint statement - Bonsucro

I believe an important step will be to understand the values and beliefs of respective communities that will host said business/development. Many foreign projects for example that seek to engage at community level in the pacific islands often take a very long time to progress because people are not made fully aware of the significance of support that will be brought upon their shores. Thus it is often short lived and unsustainable.

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Interesting to know about Patagonia and its support to indigenous groups.

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Hi Caroline Downey here from Women Working Worldwide. A bit late to the discussion but answer to Q1 . Many companies are seeking the views of workers and/or suppliers to inform their work through worker voice, social dialogue, worker committees etc and some of these will touch upon the wider community impacted by climate change – but in my opinion not many and not enough at scale. There are some fantastic companies and projects addressing sustainability, resilience, gender equity, fair trade etc from large corporations such as Body Shop to small(er) scale such as Farm Africa and forest coffee – the question is whether these views are genuinely changing practices of the way the company operates, and its impact on the people and the planet.

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From a local Caribbean context, such instances are quite rare, as the consultations with communities, in particularly indigenous groups, is usually triggered after the firm has commenced operations which often leave such communities in a more vulnerable state.

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I know wouldnt it be great to see more of this sort of authentic engagement. it can be done!

prior consultation, and discussions on co- benefits… these should come first! Why is this still not happening do we think?

I think the question around genuinely changing practices is interesting. Large companies could be driving significant and valuable change in one community, but having very little impact in another. I think it’s important that companies have decent monitoring and evaluation processes and can adapt as they go. Of course listening to communities as projects/work/initiatives unfold and develop.

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While extensive engagement with the impacted community by business at large has much to be desired, i do see significant positive examples by large companies driven by several stakeholders.

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OK question 2 here we go…What are the biggest challenges for business, in working with impacted communities and how can transparency and accountability to impacted groups be improved?

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Absolutely and ensuring the communities are part of the evaluation of the activity/initiative.

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The main challenges includes and not limited to:

  1. Unpredictable weather patterns orchestrated by climate change leading to poor agricultural production leading to losses.
  2. Soaring prices of farm inputs due to inflation and unsupportive government policies
  3. Poor prices on farmers’ produce due to unfavourable market conditions dominated by intermediaries who make more profit than the farmers do.
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thanks Lalit - can you say a little more about why investors and other stakeholders are becoming more interested?

A challenge for global businesses is that they are far away from the most impacted communities, and therefore may not be seen as legitimate partners in climate solutions.

I think that developing carefully considered partnerships with trust and transparency is critical. For local businesses (like sugarcane mills), it is vital to engage with communities and create systems. Businesses should provide a safe space for community members to raise their concerns and contribute to developing solutions in an equitable manner. The needs of communities should lead to concrete actions.

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Q2 First is that the business/trade model has been, in the main, one of an exploitative, extractive model; from cheap labour (e.g. women in flower farms, tea plantations and garment factories) to investment and financial systems that hoover up funds before they reach those in need (like the care system and NHS) and the exploitation and destruction of natural resources - palm oil, forests cut down for beef, soya, avocados, over fishing etc. which sucks the natural resources out of countries for a pittance and left and still leaves the local communities to cope with the local ecological destruction – which is now impacting at a global level and finally those in the ‘north’ (and the rich within those exploited countries and the poor within the north). The idea that we are ‘all in this together’ is a myth - some are more ‘in this’ than others.

Need a radical rethink of trade models – de colonialisation and degrowth
Build on positive examples – B Corp
Ensure that the engagement with local communities has genuine impact – do they contribute to developments, included in assessing and reporting on progress or lack of? Etc.

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I also wanted to share the example of other entity ie my city’s Municipality
The City of Toronto as a large municipality conducts regular public consultations, including the Draft Biodiversity Strategy originally released in 2018. Both the City and TRCA (Toronto Region Conservation Authority) undertake and support community engagement activities aimed at increasing awareness of biodiversity and encouraging connection with nature and the outdoors, including the Community Stewardship, Natural Environment Interpretive Projects, Pollinator Laneway and WexPOPS Garden Space.

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