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Blog | Tuesday January 26, 2021

Inside BSR: Q&A with Margot Brent

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At BSR, we are proud to say we have a global team of sustainable business experts that collectively, along with our members and partners, advances our mission to create a more just and sustainable world. But we are more than just the sum of our parts. 

We are excited to launch "Inside BSR," a new blog series to get to know the people who make up the BSR team. Each month, we will feature a different team member and learn more about them, the unique background they bring to BSR, and their passion for sustainability. 

For our inaugural interview, we connected with Margot Brent in our Hong Kong office. Margot spoke to us about the roots of her obsession with sustainable fashion, her work with the Sustainable Futures Lab, and her firsthand experience with women's empowerment programs. 
 

 

Tell us a bit about your background. Where are you from, where are you based, and how did you get started working on sustainable business?

I’m originally from South Africa but have lived in Hong Kong for the past six years.

Following an undergraduate degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and a post-graduate degree in Sustainable Development, I began working on climate change adaptation with vulnerable groups in South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Nigeria.

I spent a good amount of time literally trekking through mud-filled mangroves working with coastal communities when I decided to trade in the field work for the city and headed to Hong Kong to pursue another passion.

When did you join BSR and what is your current role? What are some interesting projects that you get to work on as part of your role?

I joined BSR mid-2019, and I’m currently an Associate. I’m part of the Sustainable Futures Lab and also work with our consumer sector members. 

As part of the Sustainable Futures Lab, I work on our quarterly emerging issues publication, entitled The Fast Forward. The publication helps make sense of the rapid and complex changes companies are facing and potential disruptions coming down the line, from new technologies to growing social movements. I enjoy the creative process of exploring these nascent issues and the significance of developing future-fit strategies together with our members.

I also work on projects with BSR’s Women’s Empowerment and Climate Change teams.

The opportunity to work on all these issues that I am passionate about, with one eye on the future, is what drew me to BSR. I love that I get to explore so many parts of sustainability and how rapidly it is changing, as well as how the solutions to wicked problems, such as unsustainable fashion, the climate crisis, and gender inequality, converge and intersect with one another.

Can you tell us about your experience before BSR? Have you always been interested in issues of sustainability?

Alongside my interest in climate, I’ve been interested in fashion, and sustainable fashion, for many years—including hours spent poring over the Vogue archives I discovered at my university library. I found fashion to be this intensely contrasting space filled with beauty, craft, creativity, and self-expression, all things I love, but historically has faced a lot of environmental and social challenges.

It created a strong conflict in me: how could I love these beautiful things while knowing what’s behind them? At the same time, I knew the power and importance of the industry and how it could be a force for good for so many, especially women.

When I first arrived in Hong Kong, I joined Li & Fung and Fung Group as an innovation manager, exploring emerging technologies, innovations for sustainability, and new collaborative ways of working in the fashion supply chain. We used a lot of design thinking and rapid prototyping, and these are approaches I still value in my work.

It’s also here that I really learned about BSR and HERproject and got involved in another women’s empowerment NGO, The Women’s Foundation, as a volunteer helping to design and implement a women’s professional mentoring and leadership skills program. As a beneficiary of the program, I felt firsthand the impact that it can have on professional and personal development, and so I joined the advisory council to give back and help develop the program further. I still meet regularly with my mentoring circle all these years later.

2020 was undoubtedly a difficult year. What were the things that brought you joy amid lockdowns/quarantines? What are you most looking forward to in 2021/when the pandemic is over?

It goes without saying 2020 has offered us all a moment of reflection—both globally and as individuals.

Personally, I’m fortunate to live in a city full of beautiful hiking trails on our doorsteps, so much of my time has been exploring the wild side of Hong Kong. I’ve tried to welcome the boredom—such a novel concept in the overstimulated 21st century—and bring more mindfulness to how I spend my time and what I consume, both physically and digitally .

That being said, like most people, I cannot wait to be gathered around a crowded table of home-cooked food and family back home, reflecting on the absurdity of this experience. 

Blog | Wednesday August 1, 2018

Steps to Create Your Company's Renewable Energy Strategy

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At the Global Climate Action Summit this fall, stakeholders from around the globe will meet in San Francisco to discuss how we can take climate ambition to the next level. Business can play a significant leadership role in accelerating the transition to a lower-carbon economy, and as we have seen through initiatives like the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA), renewable energy can be a key component of climate action efforts.

Corporate renewable energy procurement should be guided by a defined strategy based on available options, key priorities, and ambition. To create your strategy, you must identify your company’s motivations for procuring renewable energy, adopt supporting goals and commitments, and identify available internal human and financial resources to aid execution.

These are the steps we would suggest to help you get started.

1. Assess Your Options

The first step is to assess the landscape of renewable energy sourcing options available on the market to determine what is feasible. This will ultimately determine the renewable energy options available to you.  

Current and future policies will impact renewable energy costs, incentives, and availability. The Climate Policy Tracker can be a useful tool in assessing how regulations will impact your renewable energy choices in various jurisdictions.

After narrowing procurement options based on geography, your company must consider specific site constraints. Here are some questions to consider:

• Is your real estate portfolio suitable for onsite renewable energy generation? Leased assets often pose a challenge for onsite generation, requiring companies to liaise with their landlords; however, renewable energy availability also poses a challenge. For example, a company that leases retail space in an urban locality with poor solar energy potential may not have the option of leveraging onsite renewable energy, despite a supportive landlord.
• If your real estate portfolio is suitable for onsite generation, what is the energy capacity of potential projects/installations? Companies with owned or leased assets that support onsite renewable energy generation should consider the energy capacity of any potential projects/installations and use this to calibrate their local procurement implementation. Asset type and energy capacity should be significant considerations when negotiating contract terms with potential project developers.
• What is your time horizon? Long-term contracts should not be considered for sites that are likely to be eliminated from the real estate portfolio before the termination of the power generation contract.

2. Create Your Strategy

Once you’ve determined what your renewable energy options are, the next step is to determine your ambition level and define your strategy for renewable energy. To ensure adoption and integration within your company, this should complement both your business and sustainability strategies. A company with existing energy intensity, greenhouse gas reduction, and business growth goals should design a renewable energy strategy that complements existing objectives and initiatives to facilitate execution. Available financial resources should factor prominently into this and will ultimately dictate the realistic level of ambition your company can set.

Your strategy should reflect your company’s motivation for renewable energy procurement. For example, a company seeking to grow the renewable energy market and illustrate private-sector demand for clean power may prioritize options like new onsite or regional solar installations and choose to only purchase renewable energy attributes (e.g. RECs) that are bundled with renewable power. One example of this is Intuit’s Purely Green Program, which the company launched in part to show market demand for wind energy in Texas for its business partners, employees, and customers. Adobe’s renewable energy strategy prioritizes onsite installations and PPAs, supported by energy efficiency and policy advocacy, to meet its 100 percent renewable energy goal. Anheuser-Busch InBev’s strategy aims to source roughly 75 percent of its electricity from direct PPAs and roughly 25 percent from onsite installations.

3. Identify Opportunities to Collaborate

While renewable energy procurement variables can be complex to navigate, you do not need to work in isolation. Collaborating with other companies can help you achieve your strategic renewable energy objectives and minimize the barriers to entry for procurement.

For example, you could consider partnering with a group of companies with regional operations who are willing to enter into a shared procurement contract. This approach, known as consortium aggregation, is both feasible for companies with energy demands that are typically individually too small for project developers and companies with significant energy demands that can appropriately distribute the project load. For example, AkzoNobel, DSM, Google, and Philips leveraged this approach in the Netherlands—each company assumed an equal stake in a wind PPA there. The shared contract can also be anchored by a company that assumes the majority share of the energy, leaving smaller companies to assume small shares of the overall project load.

Initiatives like the Future of Internet Power and REBA can also provide the resources and tools for companies to execute against their renewable energy strategies together. Contact us if you’re interested in learning more about how you can help increase your climate ambition with renewable energy in advance of the Global Climate Action Summit.

Reports | Thursday September 26, 2019

Reducing Poverty through Employment Toolkit

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Roughly 735 million people continue to live on less than US$1.90 per day, the World Bank’s threshold for extreme poverty. A much greater number of individuals and families subsist below national poverty levels. Ending poverty in all forms everywhere is the first goal of the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development agenda, which provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity, and companies have an enormous opportunity to contribute to this agenda through their existing operations.  

Quality employment is one of the most effective, lasting ways to reduce poverty. As the provider of nine in 10 jobs worldwide, the private sector can take a leadership position in fighting poverty and inequality by actively creating employment and advancement opportunities for those living in poverty, across their direct operations and their supply chains. Importantly for companies, this is also an investment that can create business value and build competitive advantage amidst evolving labor markets and increasing customer and stakeholder expectations for the private sector to contribute to sustainable development. 

To help companies act, BSR and the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC) have developed the Reducing Poverty through Employment Toolkit, which provides a range of good practices, case examples, and resources to guide companies on how to get started or how to enhance existing efforts to employ, empower, and improve the advancement prospects of those living in poverty.  

This Toolkit, developed through literature review and drawing on the extensive knowledge and good practices of global GISC member companies, is intended as a resource for all employers at all stages of their inclusive employment journeys.

Blog | Monday September 17, 2018

Climate and the Economy: The Relationship between Inclusion, Equality, Business, and the Planet

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As the aftermath of extreme weather events around the globe has made clear, climate and the economy are intimately linked. For example, in 2017, the U.S. experienced Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria—three of the top five costliest hurricanes in U.S. history.

Furthermore, an economy characterized by layers of exclusion and structural discrimination amplifies climate risk by exacerbating the social, economic, cultural, and political vulnerability of marginalized individuals and communities. In other words, the poorest are most likely to be hit the hardest by the impacts of climate change, and this will be particularly pronounced both within less inclusive societies and in less affluent communities around the globe.

Conversely, an inclusive economy with improved employment practices, job quality, and job access; increased affordability and access to critical products and services; and enhanced community and government engagement can boost our capacity to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of climate change. In essence, when a company learns to work at the “nexus,” or intersection, between climate and inclusion, it becomes more climate-resilient and ready to respond to climate impacts. That is one reason why today we are excited to publish Climate and Inclusive Economy: The Business Case for Action—the latest in our climate nexus report series that explores the intersection between climate resilience and key sustainability issues.

As we begin to experience the reality of our already-changing climate, there remains a critical need for business to support society in adapting to climate risk and to do so in a way that addresses inequality and structural inclusion.

The business case for undertaking this effort now is clear: While business has been working to address climate change for years now, much of the work done thus far has consisted of steps to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. However, as we begin to experience the reality of our already-changing climate, there remains a critical need for business to support society in adapting to climate risk and to do so in a way that addresses inequality and structural inclusion.

What exactly does this look like? We applied our “Act, Enable, Influence Framework” to consider how companies are working across their value chains, collaboratively with partners, and to influence governments and policies to advance more inclusive economies that build climate resilience.

• Act: Businesses should improve enterprise risk management systems by investing in human, social, natural, physical, political, and financial assets, which provides a more holistic approach to climate risk, looking further than infrastructure and operations to consider how climate affects people. For example, businesses can build resilience by enhancing employment practices.
  • Noting a decrease in crop yield and quality from farm suppliers, Woolworths developed  an  initiative aimed at providing additional assistance to farmers challenged by increasingly difficult growing conditions. The initiative provides guidance to producers on agricultural best practices, with a heightened focus on water conservation for South African producers. It also helps organize farm partners toward collective action and engagement with the broader ecosystems of partners needed to preserve the function of their community water resources.
• Enable: Businesses can enable greater resilience in part by increasing the affordability of and access to products and services.
  • Sompo Holdings took a significant leadership role in the insurance industry by launching its Weather Index Insurance product that helps farmers cover the revenue losses caused by extreme weather events.
• Influence: Businesses can seek to create an enabling environment for inclusion and resilience through stronger community and government engagements.
  • Allianz Re became a founding partner of a multi-stakeholder partnership aiming to provide governments and NGOs with improved agronomic data on rice production. This partnership intends to support new climate and food security policies in Southeast Asia, as well as support enhanced crop insurance programs.

It’s clear that companies can play a critical role in building corporate and community resilience through inclusivity. Considering inclusivity in everyday business practices and new programs, products, and services can both benefit climate resilience and create a more inclusive economy. 

Addressing the underlying vulnerabilities that marginalized communities and populations face will help to build a more resilient society—one in which businesses can thrive. To learn about the “nexus” between climate and inclusive economy, read our new report, Climate and Inclusive Economy: The Business Case for Action.

BSR’s climate and inclusive economy nexus report is the third in our series, which also includes reports on the intersection between climate and both supply chains and health. Stay tuned for more on the connections between climate resilience and women’s empowerment, human rights, and a just transition to the low-carbon economy in the months to come.  

Sustainability FAQs | Tuesday November 1, 2022

Climate Change and People

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This FAQ sets out the BSR perspective on the relationship between climate change and people. Both the physical effects of climate change (e.g., extreme weather events) and the transition to a net-zero economy (e.g., shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy) will have disproportionately adverse impacts on under-resourced and under- served communities and exacerbate the underlying systemic inequities that these communities already face. We believe that climate justice should be central to company action on climate change and address the interlocking elements of access and participation, human rights, just transition, and resilience.

Climate Justice

What is climate justice?

Climate justice is the recognition that climate change (which is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels) disproportionately impacts some communities over others and exacerbates underlying systemic inequalities.

Climate justice prioritizes the people and communities that are most likely to be affected by the climate crisis but are least responsible for it, and places the needs, voices, and leadership of those who are the most impacted at the forefront.

What is the connection between justice and climate change?

There are at least three key elements to the connection between justice and climate change, and these set the context for business approaches to climate justice.

• Those least responsible are affected the most: The climate crisis has been caused by those with the economic power and privilege to overconsume resources; however, those least responsible for climate change are also least able to adapt and recover from its impacts.
• Existing inequities exacerbate the impact or risk: Some people are negatively affected due to existing inequities related to income, access to resources, and livelihoods that often correlate with gender, race, disabilities, and other factors. They may also live in regions or countries most affected by the climate crisis (e.g., physical events such as hurricanes and droughts).
• Climate policies have unequal consequences and participation: Policies designed to manage climate change have unequal consequences, and the climate change decision making processes (e.g., emissions reductions, adaptation strategies) often exclude those most affected by the climate crisis.

What is the connection between business and climate justice, just transition, human rights, and resilience?

There are at least four ways in which climate change can disproportionately impact communities facing systemic inequities and where solutions can be focused:

• Just transition to a net zero economy: The transition to a net-zero economy requires a shift away from fossil fuels—but while necessary, this transition risks leaving behind workers and communities dependent on fossil fuel industries for jobs and livelihoods. For example, women risk being left out of the “green jobs” movement because current operational and technical jobs that are predominantly held by men will be redeployed to similar technical roles in renewable energy development.

• Human rights in the renewables value chain: The development and procurement of renewable energy can be associated with human rights violations, including land grabs and poor working conditions. For example, renewable energy supply chains require mining of metals and other precious metals for solar cells and batteries, and these industries are associated with conflict and poor working conditions.

• Resilience to climate change impacts: Extreme weather events, drought, flooding, sea-level rise, heatwaves, and other physical events disproportionately exacerbate systemic inequity, including lack of access to finance, healthcare, and other essentials. For example, low-income Black communities were hit hardest during Hurricane Katrina because they did not have the resources to cope.

• Access to products and services: Under-resourced communities are more likely to experience energy insecurity and lack access to affordable, efficient, secure, and reliable clean energy. For example, older, cheaper, and more polluting vehicles will be exported to lower income countries while advanced countries shift to an electric vehicle market.

What is “loss and damage”?

“Loss and damage” refers to the consequences of climate change that go beyond what people can adapt to, or when options exist but a community doesn’t have the resources to use them. Loss and damage can result from both extreme weather events and sea level rise, and can be divided into economic losses (e.g., disrupted supply chains) and non-economic losses (e.g., impacts on culture). Loss and damage harms vulnerable communities the most, making it an issue of climate justice. The Paris Agreement recognized the importance of “averting” (mitigation), “minimizing” (adaptation), and “addressing” (loss and damage), with the latter referring to helping people after they have experienced climate-related impacts—such as via funding, financing, and humanitarian assistance after an extreme weather event.

What should companies do to address climate justice?

Companies should ensure justice is central to their climate change strategies. There are few examples of this in practice today, so BSR encourages companies to innovate through one or more of the following three approaches:

• Define a commitment: Companies should ensure that justice is integrated into climate strategy, policies, practices, and investments, appropriate for their industry, business model, and location.

• Localize action across the value chain: Companies should co-create solutions and opportunities by first listening to communities most affected.

• Undertake inclusive advocacy: Companies should promote policy frameworks that address systemic injustices and institutional barriers and amplify the voices of frontline communities in climate policy, such as in relation to “loss and damage”.

Just Transition

What is the just transition?

The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines the just transition as follows: “A Just Transition means greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned, creating decent work opportunities, and leaving no one behind. A Just Transition involves maximizing the social and economic opportunities of climate action, while minimizing and carefully managing any challenges – including through effective social dialogue among all groups impacted, and respect for fundamental labour principles and rights.”

BSR views the just transition as both an outcome (an inclusive and green future that maximizes the social and economic opportunities for workers and communities) and a process (a partnership with those impacted by the transition to net zero, involving people as active participants in the transition).

What does the Paris Agreement say about the just transition?

Signatories to the Paris Agreement commit to take into account “the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.”

What are the ILO Just Transition Guidelines?

Endorsed by the ILO’s Governance Body in 2015, the ILO “Guidelines for a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all” provide non-binding guidance to governments and social partners on the just transition. The Guidelines set out a vision for governments, workers, and employers to use the process of structural change to support a low carbon economy, create decent jobs at scale, and promote social protection.

Are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relevant to the just transition?

Yes. The relevant SDGs are SDG 8 (“promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”) and SDG 13 (“take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”).

What are examples of actions companies can take?

As companies transition out of high-emitting industries and/or energy sources, they need to understand and manage their potential adverse impacts throughout operations, projects, and value chains, including both upstream and downstream. Companies can make the just transition integral to their net-zero plans in the following ways:

• Identify people (e.g., workforce, communities) who may be impacted by transition plans

• Engage in social dialogue with workers and their representatives

• Promote an inclusive workforce transition (e.g., employee training, talent development, or reskilling programs)

• Engage suppliers of renewable energy to advance just transition principles in company supply chains

The just transition is a systemic challenge beyond the reach of any one company. What else should companies do?

Companies can seek to influence the development just transition policies and strategies of governments in a responsible manner, such as encouraging the adoption of the ILO Just Transition Guidelines, promoting just transition plans in countries, integrating just transition considerations and activities in their own operations and their supply chain, and supporting / funding civil society organizations working to achieve a just transition.

What human rights are at stake in the just transition?

Rightsholders must be central to the just transition as there is potential to impact or cause additional impact to numerous human rights. The most salient human rights include: the right to an adequate standard of living; right to fair renumeration; right to equal pay; right to just and favorable conditions of work; right to rest and leisure; right to peaceful assembly and association; right to form and join trade unions; right to equality and non-discrimination.

Human Rights

Why are human rights relevant to climate change?

The physical impacts of climate change, the transition to a net-zero economy, and the ability of communities to respond to climate change can impact any human rights contained in the International Bill of Human Rights. The impacts of rising global temperatures—natural disasters, the proliferation of vector-borne diseases, climate migration, famine, and drought—will negatively impact many human rights, such as rights to land, shelter, natural resources, mobility, health, employment, and livelihoods.

The transition to a net-zero economy will impact the rights such as an adequate standard of living, equal pay, just and favorable conditions of work, rest and leisure, and the right to form and join trade unions. For example, the development and procurement of decarbonization technology and renewable energy requires the mining of metals and minerals—however, the extraction, production, and disposal of many of these materials are associated with armed conflict, land and water grabs, violation of the rights of Indigenous peoples, the denial of workers’ rights to decent work and a living wage, and other human rights abuses.

Civil and political rights such as privacy, freedom of expression, assembly, and association, and political participation are all essential for the ability of rightsholders and communities to participate in decision-making about how the impacts of climate change are addressed. The absence of adequate protection for human rights— particularly the right to information, participation in decision-making, and access to remedy—magnifies the risk faced by communities who are disproportionately impacted by both climate change itself and our response to it.

The right to share in scientific advancement and its benefits is relevant for access to technologies designed to mitigate or assist with adaptation to climate change.

Finally, the urgent need to address the climate crisis also places new pressure on intellectual property rights and raises new human rights dilemmas, such as how to balance the right to freedom of expression with the desire for a healthy information environment that supports informed decision making (i.e., address climate misinformation).

Is there a right to a healthy environment?

Yes. The right to a healthy environment was acknowledged by the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2021 and endorsed by the UN General Assembly in July 2022. This right is interconnected with other health-focused human rights, such as the right to water and sanitation, right to food, and right to health.

What responsibility do companies have to address the human rights impacts of climate change?

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) serve as the primary internationally accepted framework for standards and practice regarding human rights and business. According to the UNGPs, companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, which requires that companies (a) avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities and address such impacts when they occur and (b) seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products, or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.

In the context of climate change, this means that companies have:

• A responsibility to address adverse human rights impacts related to their physical climate impacts

• A responsibility to address adverse human rights impacts related to their transition to a low-carbon economy

• An opportunity to promote the realization, fulfillment, and enjoyment of rights in a resilient world.

What is a human rights-based approach to climate change?

Put simply, companies have a responsibility to identify and address the adverse human rights impacts arising from the physical climate impacts of their business operations and the impacts associated with their transition plans. To appropriately fulfill this responsibility, companies should integrate a human rights-based approach into their climate work by consulting with impacted rightsholders, identifying potential adverse human rights impacts arising from their climate strategies, and taking action to address these impacts.

Can companies combine their use of the UNGPs and the TCFD guidelines?

Yes, there is an opportunity to embed an assessment of potential human rights impacts into the climate scenario analysis that companies undertake when implementing the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations or complying with regulatory requirements based on the TCFD.

The TCFD is based on the premise that the most significant effects of climate change will emerge over the medium to longer term, and that their timing, magnitude, and impacts are uncertain. For this reason, the TCFD offers a scenario analysis framework for assessing the potential implications of a range of plausible future states under conditions of uncertainty, allowing companies to understand how various combinations of climate-related risks may evolve over time. We believe there are opportunities to identify the potential human rights impacts of different climate scenarios during this analysis, thereby improving the quality of a company’s human rights due diligence.

We believe there are opportunities to embed climate justice considerations into this analysis to explore how different scenarios may disproportionately impact some communities over others and exacerbate underlying systemic inequalities. This analysis will inform efforts to make climate justice central to company action on climate change.

Access

Why is it important to consider access to energy?

Under-resourced communities are more likely to experience energy insecurity and lack access to affordable, efficient, secure, and reliable clean energy. We need to ensure all communities have equitable access to the resources needed to move to net zero and respond to a changing climate.

For example, small and medium sized enterprises may not have access to the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) necessary to reach their customers’ net-zero targets, while fuel-combustion vehicles (i.e., older, cheaper, and “dirtier” technologies) may be shipped to lower-income countries while higher-income countries shift to an EV market.

How should companies consider access to energy?

When companies implement net-zero targets across their value chains suppliers will need access to renewable energy to meet their customers’ expectations. However, not all markets have access to clean technologies or renewables in the electrical grid, and under-resourced communities are more likely to experience energy insecurity. Identifying gaps in access to energy across the value chain is an important step to deciding what proactive actions companies can take—such as policy advocacy, financing, and coalition building—to counter inequities in access to clean energy.

Resilience

What is climate resilience?

Climate resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to the impacts of climate change. Sometimes the terms “adaptation” and “resilience” are used interchangeably, but resilience has become the preferred term. Resilience emphasizes the ability to acquire new capabilities and thrive, whereas adaptation emphasizes using existing resources to navigate changing circumstances.

Why is climate resilience important for people?

It is essential to build resilience to the impacts of climate change—such as extreme heatwaves, floods, droughts, and wildfires—that we cannot prevent and that are endangering health, jobs, and livelihoods. We need to build systemwide resilience to the consequences of climate change that are now unavoidable, while simultaneously strengthening strategies to reduce emissions as quickly as possible in a bid to prevent these impacts from getting any worse.

Individuals and communities are less able to prepare, respond, and recover from extreme weather events and the spread of disease if they lack access to financing, insurance, or healthcare, or if their rights are not protected. Consequently, women, people of color, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, children, and the elderly in under-resourced communities are often less able to adapt and build resilience to climate impacts.

What does the Paris Agreement say about resilience?

The Paris Agreement establishes a global goal on adaptation—of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. The Paris Agreement recognizes that resilience is a global challenge faced by all and emphasizes the importance of technology development and transfer for improving resilience to climate change.

What is the role of business in building climate resilience?

Building resilience to climate change needs to be a driving force behind business strategies, investments, and policies. In doing so, we can ensure that people thrive despite climate change, such as through diverse food systems, regenerative agriculture, and new forms of economic opportunity.

Business can support climate resilience for everyone by helping to ensure that all communities across their value chains are prepared, protected, and able to rebound from climate impacts. Conducting climate risk assessments can be used to identify and understand how climate change is affecting communities across a company’s value chain, and climate resilience can be deliberately integrated into climate scenario analysis frameworks.

Companies can use climate resilience as an opportunity to identify ways to increase access to their products and services (e.g., medicines, technologies, energy, food) and help build resilience equitably. Large companies should be mindful of the need to engage smaller companies (e.g., suppliers, partners, customers) that do not have the capacity to address climate risks and bring them along in the journey—such as by providing access to renewable energy procurement, investing in technology and technology transfer, and other forms of capacity building.

Companies can emphasize the importance of equity and resilience in their public policy activities, such as prioritizing investments for low-income communities.

Blog | Wednesday December 8, 2021

The New SBTi Standard Places Science at the Heart of Corporate Net-Zero Targets

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The launch of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) Net-Zero Standard just before COP26 marks a significant milestone. It is the first independently certifiable standard that assesses a company's net-zero targets, and importantly it clearly grounds them into 1.5°C-aligned short-term and long-term action.

Experts from civil society, corporates, and academia worked together over the past year to develop the standard, which was then piloted by more than 80 companies. The result brings much-needed clarity to corporate net-zero targets—a rapidly evolving, and sometimes criticized, topic.

The standard finally invites climate science to the net-zero conversation and, importantly, distinguishes between near-term and long-term science-based targets.

Near-term science-based targets focus on a short timeframe (5-10 years). They require companies to align their Scope 1 & 2 targets with a 1.5°C goal, while Scope 3 ambitions should retain a threshold of well below 2°C.

Setting longer-term targets is an important development. It requires companies to achieve 1.5°C-aligned decarbonization by their net-zero target year, but by no later than 2050. Achieving that ambitious goal translates to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 90 percent for the vast majority of Scopes 1, 2, and 3.

These changes are significant in that they provide a mechanism for increased accountability in the near term, but also for the longer term, when a company pledges to reach net zero. With this robust new framework, the question for businesses is no longer “by how much should I reduce emissions and on what scopes?” but rather “how do I transform my business to align with the 1.5°C ambition?”  

And that is why this new SBTi standard is so important: it enshrines 1.5°C across scopes as the minimum ambition, in alignment with the UN Race to Zero initiatives. And, as a standard, it provides a pathway to independent verification. This is a much-needed and welcome development, which provides companies with a clear framework for action.

The standard also clarifies the meaning of the "net" in net zero. The mounting criticism of net zero has focused on companies claiming net zero by simply offsetting emissions without decarbonizing.

The new standard addresses this critique by clearly stating that a company will not be able to claim it has achieved a net-zero goal until the long-term decarbonization target is met. When companies reach such deep decarbonization across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 at their target year, they are required to net their emissions by balancing out residual emissions with permanent carbon removals.

This means that in their target year, companies should reach net zero by netting a portion of emissions by investing in technological or nature-based solutions that effectively remove GHGs from the atmosphere. What this also implies is that avoided emissions or reduced emissions credits will not be part of the "net" of net zero.

Companies will need to plan for their carbon removal strategies. Companies should expect additional guidance on this topic in 2022, both from SBTi and initiatives such as the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI).

The standard also provides initial guidance on climate solutions beyond companies’ value chains. While the standard insists on the essential importance of deep decarbonization, it recommends that companies also step up action beyond their Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by investing in appropriate climate solutions; e.g., by investing in forest conservation to eliminate deforestation by 2030 on their way to net zero.

The urgency of the climate crisis could not be more acute, and immediate action is needed. The new SBTi standard makes science-based decarbonization across scopes the baseline for businesses. Climate leadership will increasingly require companies to concurrently look beyond their value chain, with additional investments to slash methane emissions and scale nature-based solutions, on the way to net zero.

Further guidance and clarity on the role of SBTi to encourage climate action beyond the value chain is needed. Here are a few things to look out for in 2022:

• Increased company uptake of the SBTi Net-Zero Standard: SBTi had validated the targets of seven companies by launch, including Transform to Net Zero member Wipro. Early signs suggest more than 70 companies are already interested in validation, and this is poised to grow further.
• Increased clarity: Two main SBTi projects are in the works. A review and development of long-term Scope 3 target-setting methods will help build confidence in comprehensive Scope 3 decarbonization targets; the cited "beyond value chain mitigation" project will bring clarity on expectations for climate investments to supplement decarbonization efforts.
• Guidance on forest, land, and agriculture: The forest and agriculture sector especially requires additional guidance; e.g., accounting rules for land-based removals. The release of the forest, land, and agriculture (FLAG) methodology will help and likely trigger updates in the standard.
• Net-Zero Standard for financial institutions: It is worth noting that a separate process is ongoing for financial institutions, with more information available here.

As we recently wrote after COP26, it is very clear that net-zero corporate commitments are here to stay, and so is the pressure to define what good looks like.

The key pillars of the SBTi Net-Zero Standard delineate the backbone of robust corporate net-zero implementation. We encourage businesses to embrace them and think strategically about the business transformation needed to achieve them.

The publication of the SBTi Net-Zero Standard is a start and not an end, as some topics need additional guidance—but we now have the "what." The challenge ahead lies in the "how" companies will reach those targets through business transformation in a just and equitable way.

Blog | Wednesday March 8, 2023

Accelerating Equality for Women Workers in Global Garment Supply Chains through New Initiative RISE

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This International Women’s Day, BSR is celebrating the launch of RISE (Reimagining Industry to Support Equality), a collaborative initiative from BSR’s HERproject, Gap Inc. P.A.C.E, CARE, and Better Work to scale impact and accelerate equality for women workers in global garment supply chains.

We asked Aron Cramer, President and CEO, BSR and Christine Svarer, Executive Director, RISE about the formation and ambition for the initiative.

Combining the fashion industry’s four largest women’s empowerment programs seems like a logical move. How did it come about?

Christine: Having had a relatively similar journey, since each of the four founding partners started working on women’s empowerment around 2007, we have been collaborating on specific initiatives in an ad hoc fashion. It’s been a friendly coexistence. However, in recent years, we’ve noticed bumping into each other in the same workplaces, sometimes delivering very similar activities. This means there is potential for duplication and confusion across the industry, potentially leading to fatigue in the same way we’ve seen with audits and inefficient deployment of resources, halting our ability to support a greater number of workers.

For a very long time, we have been saying to business that advancing gender equality is best done in a collaborative manner. No one entity can tackle this alone. With that, it was quickly clear that coming together as one single entity was the only way to accelerate progress on gender equality in supply chains.  

What do you hope RISE will achieve that was not possible as individual initiatives?

Aron: We are certainly proud of what we have been able to accomplish through the 15 years of HERproject. But we are also aware that there are systemic barriers to women’s empowerment, and they require systemic solutions. There are three simple and structural reasons why RISE can achieve even greater impact. First, we can remove duplication and redundancy in the delivery of our respective programs. Second, we can leverage each other’s strengths, as we each bring slightly different assets and experience to our work. And third, we can speak with one voice, and that consistency will enable greater impact both operationally and as we aim to influence markets and policy.

We believe that the result of all this will be a collective ability to reach more women—and men—to ensure women can thrive in their roles in global garment supply chains.

As it is International Women’s Day, can you give us an idea of the international reach of RISE and how it supports women garment workers?

Christine: We are immensely proud to have supported more than five million workers in over 20 countries in partnership with 70 global companies. There is still a long way to go if we want to see women workers fulfill their economic potential, supported by industry and other key stakeholders.

Women workers continue to be concentrated in low-wage, low-skilled, low-status roles. While these jobs offer women access to employment in the formal economy —which is important—women workers still face barriers such as discriminatory social norms, limited access to formal financial services, exclusion from career advancement and higher-paying opportunities, and risk of sexual harassment and gender-based violence in the world of work.

RISE works to tackle all these barriers in its workplace activities. We want to complement that by intentionally working with brands, buyers, and suppliers to activate strategies that both embed and reward progress on gender equality.

We also have plans to set up a data platform that can both map live activities to avoid duplication as well as produce a simple set of data points to support businesses in making gender-responsive decisions, inform worker representatives and policymakers, and increase the visibility of women workers.

How will RISE help the fashion industry deliver real action and impact for businesses and women workers?

Aron: We believe that RISE can truly elevate women’s empowerment in the global apparel sector. Through RISE, the industry will be able to apply leading edge programs to enable women to thrive. The initiative will provide a common platform on which all elements of the industry—buyers, suppliers, workers, workers’ representatives, and local communities—can learn from and contribute to. We hope it will be recognized as a new norm for the industry: something that both enables and demonstrates a strong commitment from all industry stakeholders.

From our experience with HERproject, we know that doing so delivers great benefits for women and strengthens the enterprises that embrace the model. We see RISE as being able to create a new norm that can define the industry at a time of immense change.

How can business get involved with RISE?

Christine: RISE is based on membership from brands, buyers, and suppliers anywhere in the world. So, the first step is to get on board as a member. In addition, we work with our member companies to enroll workplaces within their supply chain—either individually or together with other brands, buyers, and suppliers—into one of the RISE programs which we develop and deliver in partnership with local organizations. We also work with both our company and donor partners to continuously deepen our impact and scale. For example, we’re currently working with a small set of companies on evolving our approach to gender-based violence. We’re also looking for company partners who want to help us build our approach to women’s advancement and leadership.

RISE is a platform for collaborative action. Contact us. We’d very much like to hear your ideas.

Blog | Thursday September 21, 2017

Redefining Sustainable Business: Radical Collaboration, Inside and Out 

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As our CEO Aron Cramer articulated in his recent post, our continually evolving landscape means “a new agenda for business, new tools for sustainability leaders, and, in a world of political volatility, a new approach to business leadership” are urgently needed.

The world is increasingly looking to businesses—and business leaders—to chart a path forward on a range of critical topics, from diversity and inclusion to climate action.

One key element of this new approach will be a dramatically increased role for collaboration, both within organizations and between companies and their stakeholders.

For example, at BSR we are engaging member companies in the development of formal strategies and plans to understand and address vulnerability to climate change and related impacts across their entire value chains. These rapidly growing efforts aimed at building climate resilience provide a useful case study of what sustainable business will increasingly require.

While we are still in the early stages of this work, two things have become clear.

First, business can’t do it alone.

The challenge of building resilience to climate change—as so painfully illustrated by recent extreme weather events around the world—is the very definition of a “systems challenge.” Most companies have some degree of business continuity planning in place focused on the “hardening” of physical company infrastructure. This is of course critically important, but it is just the beginning of a journey that must also address the following questions:

• Even if our facilities are secured, will our employees be able to make it work?
• Will our suppliers be able to provide the inputs we need to maintain production?
• How well equipped are the communities we operate in to restore/resume operations and commerce in the aftermath of a storm or other disruptive event?
• What investments can and should we make in building critical infrastructure and capabilities across our value chain—and what is our best role vis-a-vis public sector and other players?

Even more important than the increased expectations of business is the stark reality that business cannot achieve its objectives without working with other sectors. Specifically, business needs to step up its approach to advocacy and collaboration, using the full range of its core competencies to enable and influence stakeholders in the public sector and civil society.

And the sustainability department certainly can’t do it alone.

This leads us to a second, more internally focused point about addressing resilience and other critical systemic challenges. The scope and complexity of issues and efforts necessitate a whole organization approach to sustainability, leveraging the combined competencies of multiple functions and disciplines. Here are just a few examples of how departments across companies are engaging on climate resilience:

• A dramatically expanded approach to enterprise risk management, with participation from strategic planning, is critical to development and acceptance of an expended approach to risk assessment/management.
• Operations and transport/logistics teams assess vulnerability across company-owned operations and networks, while global supply chain and procurement organizations do the same for key input providers, and these departments will be the owners of programs and partnerships to address their respective vulnerabilities.
• Public affairs and government relations teams evaluate climate-related regulatory and policy risks and determine how best to address them in the context of companies’ overall public policy objectives.
• The human resources team develops enhancements to workplace policies, training, and capability-building.
• A company’s foundation identifies how to allocate resources and pursue partnerships key to the implementation of the resilience strategy.

What does this mean for CSOs and sustainability teams?

Sustainability leaders and their teams will play important roles in enabling other parts of the business, both internally through cross-functional work and externally via significantly greater collaboration and advocacy. In order to do this, however, most sustainability teams will need to increase their focus on organizational change and capability-building.

Sustainability teams will also need to leverage their external engagement and relationships with unusual actors to help other departments spot trends and proactively respond to issues as they arise. They will be called upon to incubate new public-private projects and partnerships, too—sometimes in conjunction with their company foundations. The UN Sustainable Development Goals in particular can serve as a vehicle for sustainability teams to build coalitions around key issues and priorities for the organization.

The bottom line: Sustainability departments need to embrace and promote a spirit of “radical collaboration” if they are to achieve their objectives in a rapidly changing environment.

Join us to continue the conversation on how business leads at the BSR Conference 2017 in Huntington Beach, California, from October 22-24.

This week, we are featuring several blog posts about the role of collaboration in shaping our climate future. Follow @BSRnews on Twitter for updates from Global Goals Week and Climate Week NYC; see our recent blog post for the full list of where we’ll be.

Blog | Friday March 22, 2019

To Advance Gender Equality, We Need to Tackle Climate Change

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Tackling climate change requires tackling gender inequality. On International Women’s Day, an article in Business Green quoted L’Oréal’s Chief Sustainability Officer Alexandra Palt as saying, “I do not think we will see any advances in gender equality if we do not succeed in mitigating the consequences of climate change on women's lives.”  

As the effects of climate change continue to exacerbate poverty, inequality and other social issues, the solutions we put forth must include social focus. This includes empowering women to be leaders. Even if slowly, we’re moving in the right direction. The international community has begun to mainstream gender-friendly decision-making through policies and solutions: in 2015, through the development of the SDGs, both climate change and women’s empowerment were prioritized as goals, and in 2017, the UN climate change negotiations put forth the Gender Action Plan to promote gender equality throughout climate change policy.  

As these gender and climate solutions trickle down through global, national and subnational solutions, what does this mean for business?  

First, as we’ve seen in multiple climate-fueled extreme events, climate risk can affect every aspect of a business from operations and supply chains to the communities crucial in providing raw materials or labor. Following severe flooding in Thailand in 2011, reported insured losses were estimated as high as US$20 billion, and more than 14,500 companies reliant on Thai suppliers suffered business disruptions.  
 

 

Second, the opportunity for empowering women to lead on climate solutions can unlock multiple business benefits, including driving productivity and innovation, especially within sectors with large women workforces; protecting raw materials; increasing financial stability and returns; and strengthening the resilience of local communities because women are well connected in their communities. The broader business benefits of investing in women are already clear: BSR’s HERproject, for instance, found that following the implementation of workplace programs promoting women’s health in 37 factories across six countries, turnover of the workforce decreased by 4.5 percent. When women are empowered not just in the workplace but as changemakers and leaders for their communities, the benefits multiply and the return on investment grows. And companies are already seizing this opportunity: Through the Women4Climate initiative with C40, L’Oreal aims to provide climate change leadership opportunities for women in their own company and influence others to do the same.  

Business has a role to play here not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes pure business sense.

Although acting at the intersection of climate change and social issues, including women’s empowerment, are new topics for business, over the last few years we’ve seen companies step up to tackle the challenge, recognizing how it’s a win-win-win for business, society, and women.  

Mondelez International, recognizing that increasing resilience of farmers and communities is necessary to maintain sourcing of one of their crucial commodities, has developed The Cocoa Life Program. The program increases women’s access to farm inputs and land ownership, supports young women by ensuring participation in youth-oriented programming, and helps women improve their livelihoods through access to finance, entrepreneurial skills, and more. 

Business has a role to play here not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes pure business sense. By addressing these barriers through the provision of basic human rights, access to education, finance and decision-making, and the removal of discriminatory laws, it enhances the resilience of women so that they can be better positioned and able to lead.  

More specifically, companies can:  

• ACT to put women at the center of all internal climate change approaches and solutions. In particular, they can provide women in their operations access to relevant trainings, inputs, financing, and technologies.  
• ENABLE women throughout the value chain and broader community to effectively respond to climate-related events by linking them with local networks and partners, which can serve as mutual support mechanisms to strengthen climate change solutions.  
• INFLUENCE underlying inequalities such as the lack of decision-making power or access to financial resources that exacerbate the disproportionate negative impacts for women in the context of a changing climate. 

While undoubtedly women are disproportionately affected by climate change due to the various social, economic, political, cultural and economic barriers they face, women are far from the vulnerable victims as often depicted. Given the opportunity, women can be great leaders that will help to catapult society forward while tackling the greatest crisis we’ve ever faced.  

While there are few examples of corporate solutions that aim to put women at the center of their climate change solutions, many are beginning to see the opportunity of expanding their women’s empowerment and climate change programs to intersect. The business case for opportunity is clear to put women at the center of climate solutions.  
 

To learn more about business can act at the intersection of climate change and women’s empowerment, read BSR’s report, Climate and Women: The Business Case for Action. As an official partner of the Women Deliver Conference, which will take place from June 3-6 in Vancouver, Canada, BSR will also co-host three sessions on women and climate, exploring how to finance a “just” transition to a low-carbon economy and why empowering women and girls is key to addressing climate change. For more information, please contact us.  

Blog | Thursday August 29, 2019

Supply Chain Visibility: Traceability, Transparency, and Mapping Explained

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Companies across sectors are under pressure to gain visibility into their multi-tier supply chains and to share more information with their customers, partners, and stakeholders. Regulatory due diligence requirements, increased investor and consumer expectations, and technological advances have all raised the bar.

Below, we explain three concepts for gaining and demonstrating visibility in multi-tier supply chains: Traceability, mapping, and transparency. What are these concepts, how do they differ, and what do they offer?

Supply Chain Traceability

Supply chain traceability is the process of tracking the provenance and  journey of products and their inputs, from the very start of the supply chain through to end-use.

There are many reasons to pursue traceability, and some sectors have been chasing it for many years—for example in food and pharmaceuticals, where safety is critical. Traceability provides opportunities to find supply chain efficiencies, meet regulatory requirements, to connect with and understand the actors in the upstream supply chain, and of course, to story-tell to consumers about the provenance and journey of products, often utilizing pictures or scannable QR codes on packaging.

In the sustainability context, traceability provides an opportunity for a company to credibly make and verify sustainability claims. The UN Global Compact and BSR’s definition of traceability explicitly incorporates sustainability. While traceability is the backbone of a sustainable product system to verify social and environmental claims (e.g. certified organic, carbon neutral, no forced labor), traceability alone does not provide this verification. It’s vital that companies deliberately specify sustainability objectives and ensure that they incorporate appropriate data capture and validation methods into their approach, as well as choose the right technology that can meet their needs.

Traceability Examples: The hot technology in this space continues to be blockchain. Provenance, a company providing blockchain technology, now claims 200 retail clients. BSR and Envisible are leveraging blockchain to trace ingredients from smallholder farmers to global brands. However, blockchain is not necessary: 98% of Subway products have traceable barcodes using GS1 technology. This field is exploding, with many cutting-edge technologies to explore including DNA tracking, microbiome, near field communication, and Internet of Things.

Supply Chain Mapping

Supply chain mapping is the process of creating a full picture of the companies and organizations within the supply chain at every tier. Mapping does not show the flow of goods among the individual actors to fulfill individual orders, but rather enables visibility of all the potential actors within each tier of the supply chain. When mapping complex supply chains far upstream, this can become complicated with smallholder farmers, artisanal miners, or homeworkers. In these cases, proxies such as geographic location may be used or the mapping may stop at a trusted collective point, such as a farming cooperative.

Mapping is a useful tool to support risk assessment and for prioritizing suppliers and actions within a sustainable sourcing strategy. It also provides the ability to produce some interactive visuals that still respect confidential trading relationships within a supply chain.

Supply Chain Mapping Examples: Guerlain launched a public-facing product supply chain map that enables consumers to see all of the suppliers at different levels in the supply chain associated with the product. There are multiple examples from Sourcemap, a leading enabler in the supply chain mapping space. L’Oréal has been mapping its supply chain for palm oil derivatives.

Supply Chain Transparency

Supply chain transparency refers to the strategy of how to disclose supply chain and sourcing information to stakeholders. Transparency is defined by what data you are going to be transparent about, to whom, and how often, or when. Any company pursuing visibility needs to consider transparency upfront.

1. Who: Who needs to have visibility and access to supply chain information, and for what purposes? Examples can include internal stakeholders, suppliers at multiple tiers, clients, and consumers.
2. What: What information is being shared, and in what format? Is it a supplier list or a map? Does it include multiple tiers? What information needs to be included?
3. When: How often will the information be shared and updated? There is pressure on companies today for information to be closer to real-time, but achieving this is a challenge.

Increasing transparency is an effective way of demonstrating sustainability efforts and openness to stakeholders. Many companies have used transparency in response to criticism, where achieving full traceability is currently impossible—for example sharing supply chain mapping for a palm oil supply chain.  

Transparency Examples: Nike is arguably the pioneer of supply chain transparency, as the first company to publish its supplier list. Today, the Nike manufacturing map provides more insight on its supplier base. Companies choose to publish periodic reports, such as the Apple Supplier Responsibility Progress Report, which shares real progress, admirably including when performance slides. This revelation of poor performance serves to catalyze action. As a starting point for companies considering their approach to supply chain transparency, the BSR Supply Chain Leadership Ladder reporting dimension provides guidance for what good transparency looks like.

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Traceability, supply chain mapping, and a supply chain transparency strategy can help companies to better understand, and thus respond to, the most important risks and opportunities in their multi-tier supply chains. We are always open to discussing this, so don’t hesitate to reach out, and please join us at this year’s BSR Conference, where we’ll be exploring this in more detail at our session, The Secret to Transparent, Traceable Supply Chains.