In the past month alone we’ve seen record-breaking heat throughout the globe, floods in Germany and China and fires across California and Canada. With these increasingly extreme events comes renewed vigor in calls for climate action. The corporate world has realized that teamwork, even with competitors, makes for faster solutions. This week, we explore three ways brands are evolving these collaborative efforts to create detailed solutions to climate change.
- Solutions through retail: Global brands H&M Group, IKEA, Kingfisher, and Walmart have launched a new effort called the Race to Zero Breakthroughs: Retail Campaign. The goal of the initiative is to drive overall climate action within their industry and to inspire others to do the same. Retailers who join the race commit to slashing their greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. To certify their objectives, this group of companies has also partnered with the COP26 High Level Climate Action Champions and is backed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
- Solutions through forest preservation: LVMH, UGG and 28 other major brands have joined a collation with nonprofit, Canopy, to work toward preserving the world’s forests. The NGO has two brand initiatives, Pack4Good (packaging solutions) and CanopyStyle (fashion and fabric solutions), that support companies in their efforts to bring forest-friendly product options to the mainstream consumer market. The brands that are part of this coalition establish objectives such as eliminating the use of endangered trees in production, working with supply chains to protect the remaining forests and championing next-generation solutions.
- Solutions through investments: In another coalesced undertaking, Amazon, Disney, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Salesforce, Unilever and Workday founded the Business Alliance for Scaling Climate Solutions (BASCS) to expand the influence of the private sector’s investment in climate solutions. The sustainability leaders in these companies found that they were already sharing ideas informally, so they decided to formally open the doors to climate solution investments to all willing parties – large and small. In partnership with BSR, Environmental Defense Fund, United Nations Environment Programme, and World Wildlife Fund, the coalition looks to finalize their game plan by September of this year.
The concept of major brands working together to fight climate change isn’t a new one. But amidst the urgency and attention on the topic growing every day, companies are having to come up with creative and specific solutions to do the most amount of good. With so many factors affecting climate change, these distinct endeavors are necessary to keeping the global temperature rise under 1.5 C.