@liwhitehead I think in pockets, yes! At the Learning Planet Institute, which launched the #LearningPlanet Alliance in partnership with UNESCO, we’re trying to drive the learning-society revolution that believes learning, research, collective intelligence, and creativity can help both individuals and organizations adapt to the increasingly complex challenges of our rapidly changing world. We’re starting to work with businesses and other entities that see the need for this kind of thing. At the #LearningPlanet Alliance, many of our members are businesses who have seen the need to collaborate and co-create with other actors to ensure that they put diversity and inclusion at the heart of what they’re trying to do, which is starting to include climate action.
There are also examples, such as Footprints Africa which is based in Ghana, of really focused individuals or groups that are trying to push this kind of thinking and the support needed to go with it in a more local / national context.
Businesses can start with assessing their climate risks/ understanding how their businesses are impacted by climate change and how they can address those. Second, understanding how their employees are impacted by climate change and how can they help them overcome some of those challenges. There can also be opportunities to look at the gendered impacts.
Companies need to understand the differences across value chains and across communities, they need to take action to address the burdens that face communities and they need to share best practices amongst one another. Companies can also learn from other sectors: for example at Greengrants we have built our decentralised and participatory decision-making model, in which strategies and grant recommendations are made by volunteer advisors who are based in the countries and movements where our partners work.
Use expert partners to identify and include the right stakeholders in your decision making e.g. in building the resilience of farmers by earning a living income, IDH works closely with the Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP). In ensuring that vulnerable workers in banana supply chains are empowered to negotiate their own wage, IDH works closely with the Fairtrade movement. And once you’ve identified and included the right stakeholders – REALLY LISTEN.
Use rapid pilots to gather data and be willing change approach as you go. Recognise that a non-traditional approach to consultation, planning, implementation, learning and iteration may be required. By recognising that a just transition cannot be delivered without a fundamental change in business models, true impact may be achievable.
At times people don’t get involved when these challenges are being identified, thus they wil look at it as they are being put at a disadvantage. Businesses should involve the people in all aspects and the goal to fairly share the burdens and benefits of climate change can be achieved more easily because everyone will be understanding what’s happening.
Vulnerabilities to climate change depend on multiple factors and affect people in different ways. It’s clear that those in developing countries who are reliant on farming and agriculture as a main source of income suffer the most from climate change. The biggest polluters suffer the least from climate change. Women are more likely to be affected by climate change than men because of the impact on traditional socio-economic roles. Businesses should ensure that the burden of tackling climate change should not fall on the shoulders of the poorest in society. CSR strategies are one way to do this, but this could be taken one step further with any benefits of climate change being shared amongst those who have suffered the most.
It is difficult to highlight at due to the many factors behind one’s vulnerability to climate change. Different socializations and contexts like demographic, social, economic, political, religious contexts make it difficult to target and identify peoples issues. By focusing on intersectionalities, businesses can find the most vulnerable to better split the benefits appropriate to the burdens.
We can take steps to ensure we consider a people centred approach but often - people end up generalising ‘women and girls’ which brushes over a whole spectrum of vulnerabilities. E.g. Practical Actions work on assessing loss and damage in Nepal - sets out powerful stories of how children are (sadly) not frightened of flooding anymore as its become too common. It also sets out how vulnerable women headed households are post floods - with men often working overseas, women hold the responsibility and the trauma of disaster recovery for many years after extreme events. Where private sector is active in areas which are likely to have extreme climate events - can they target recovery efforts to those most vulnerable (and spend some time considering exactly who that is before taking action?). Save the Children shared a compelling report about climate change impacts on children in 2021.
No i haven’t seen anything (there is some talk of introducing ethnicity pay gap reporting in the UK to mirror the work happening on gender pay gap reporting but it feels fragmented. A more holistic/intersectional approach would be so beneficial…
Increasingly, I think this will be part of climate risk disclosures required by governments around the world. We are not there yet, and of course the S in ESG is often the last to be paid any attention.
I think a key issue will be the scale of the challenge. I recently learned from colleagues at the ILO that 1.2 billion jobs, or 40% of the global workforce depends on healthy ecosystems and stable environment for their livelihoods. Increased heat stress alone will cause 2.2% of working hours to be lost – that sounds small, but equates to 80 million full time jobs globally. Understanding the breadth of the impact and the relevance of this to their workforces and supply chains will be a key first step for many companies.
I feel that understanding climate injustice and a company’s role in it isnt top of the list for many - the main focus is still on the net zero numbers game. We all need to keep making the case as to why real climate leadership is also about the social impacts of climate change - as Edward Cameron does so well in his new book. I’m looking forward to Dylan’s answers here - i know she played a very active role at Verizon in pushing for innovation in this space - supplier diversity, tech solutions led by climate impacted communities etc. I’m also impressed by the work Apple are promoting in this space through their racial equity and justice initiative.
On sharing burdens and benefits - i think there is a lot to be done to ensure that the switch to transition minerals is not one that mirrors the errors of existing mining practices - see this great new BHRRC report out this week. There are also some interesting innovations around co benefits with renewables - eg tech data centres sharing the renewable energy they are using with local grids.
This is an area I personally feel we are not moving fast enough. Businesses we work with are slowly starting to engage in more vulnerable regions but certainly not the most, and struggle to make a case to engage in landscapes they don’t directly source from. The same applies to much of the finance that is available. So many global funds still look for ‘safe-ish’ investments which don’t sufficiently (or at all) centre vulnerable voices. GARI sounds like an interesting and useful add on to traditional finance.
@rjoshi Living Income is a strong leveller isn’t it - it makes sense. In a previous role we looked at this in an evaluation of a large aid programme. We found that unless it was mandated by the donor, it didn’t happen. I wonder if there’s a way to use this in contracting to incentise it or make it a mimimum standard in a wider business certification scheme?
I couldn’t agree more Ruchira. Worker voice will be key - whether this is along the supply chain, or at headquarters. The strength of employee voice and representation has been on a steady downward trend, particularly in MNCs – we are seeing a resurgence in some areas, but this will be an increasingly important topic when it comes to inclusion in the fight against climate change.
Part of the reason many companies in the U.S. aren’t willing to step into the light here is the huge reputational risk involved. Because the impacts on communities aren’t well understood (and in some cases companies do know what they could do better, and don’t want to be forced to), it’s a massive minefield of bad press and activist interest. Especially given the divisive climate around race in this country, there are genuinely a lot of ways companies are vulnerable to criticism here. Keeping it under the surface is considered safer. Ideally that means quiet action would happen, but more likely it doesn’t.
We find it so much more complex to discuss with business than living wages. It feels a step removed from business as it doesn’t relate as directly to price for example. We’ve tried to approach it through a ‘roadmap’ approach - start with removing any of the data and more practical issues, and then moving to collectively defining interventions to close gaps including looking at the role of policy makers and DDR. See more here - Roadmap on Living Income - IDH - the sustainable trade initiative
So true! Having a past life in social impact assessment, I can attest that it is often trailing a few steps behind environmental reporting, and the two are certainly not yet well connected or integrated. Integrated Reporting has been a great movement, as well as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights – but I would love to see more connection between a companies net-zero targets, social impact, and social engagement.