by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
The UK’s BII recently released their Emerging Economies Climate Report 2023, and the results from the 2023 survey of senior executives working across their large and impressive portfolio of companies and funds, were not good, although did confirm what we are seeing across and hearing from our membership at the coal face (a decent metaphor, we think) of climate change.
A quick look at BII’s results tells us the worst:
“79 per cent of respondents said climate change is impacting their organisation today, an increase from 68 per cent in 2022.
72 per cent of respondents from corporates have experienced an extreme weather event.
Flooding, drought, and heat are the top physical risks.
61 per cent thought climate change will affect the viability and growth of their business in the next five years [up from 56% in 2022].
97 per cent agreed to some extent that organisations that take steps to reduce their carbon emissions and reduce vulnerability to physical climate change risks will be more successful in the long-term [up from 91% in 2022].”
They also quote: “In Africa, more than 110 million people were directly affected by weather, climate and water-related disasters in 2022, causing more than $8.5 billion in economic damages.” United Nations, Ghana, 2023 here.”
All very sobering, especially when one recognises that Africa is responsible for such a small part of the global greenhouse gas emissions - yet they play such a massive part in the form of deaths and destruction of lives and businesses.
As our regular readers will have seen, 2023 is our year for being positive and finding solutions or ways forward, rather than being grumpy and complaining. So in that vein, how can we not only protect our companies but also use this as an opportunity? An opportunity might sound strange in this context, but it is no secret that women through their businesses have a large impact on their local communities. So ensuring and indeed creating the opportunities for our businesses to grow is essential, not only for us, but for all the employees and communities that rely on us and them. After all…there is a reason there is an ’S’ for ‘She’ in ESG.
So what can we do? This week we were lucky enough to watch the 24hr web marathon that is the Global Sustainable Procurement Day, starting in Asia in the early hours of GMT, flowing through to EU and the UK before finishing at midnight in the States. With speakers from some huge multi-national companies, this was the cream of the procurement industry giving their time, hints and solutions on what works for them when looking to control and improve their Scope 3 emissions.
When we say ‘huge multi-national companies’, there was one moment where one of the speakers said that many of them involved in that 24hr ‘web-a-thon’ would have supply chains containing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of suppliers across the globe…each. Yes each!
So we had Bayer; Unilever; WPP; BASF; Schneider Electric; AstraZeneca; Pfizer; Siemens; EY; SPP; GEP; Henkel; Walgreens Boots; AXA and many others - all openly and freely sharing what works best for them, in many cases allowing their in-house guides to be downloaded and used by all (some of which have been kindly collated by the Climate Drive here).
What was certainly noticeable was the recognition across all that Scope 3 emissions were becoming ever more important, not just because regulations, as led by Europe, were increasing, but because of all the emissions that these huge companies had, their Scope 3 emissions, especially those within their Supply Chain, were by far their largest - and of which they had no direct control!
This in turn has increased their determination to work with their supply chain from the very large suppliers down to the SMEs, to train and guide, and through this together lower emissions.
So what can we understand from this?
Firstly, don’t be surprised when your large customers come knocking asking for your emissions report and Net Zero Plan.
Secondly, don’t be surprised if they offer to assist and train you in best practices.
Thirdly, if you become known for already having done the leg work, having prepared, measured, and created a reduction plan, that will either encourage your customers to use you more or that knock on the door maybe instead a large new customer happy to use a new supplier who is ahead of the competition.
Even if you are not a B2B supplier, it has been shown that high street consumers are backing their values with their purchases. In the paper ‘Do Consumers Care About ESG? Evidence from Barcode-Level Sales Data’ from the European Corporate Governance Institute, by Meier, Servaes, Wei and Xiao (here), they have shown within the US that “…firms with better perceived E&S performance have higher subsequent local product sales. A one-standard-deviation increase in a brand owner’s…E&S performance, is related to a 9.2% increase in next-year sales for the firm’s products relative to other very similar products sold in the same county” (showing the power of data in any distribution plans, they also found that sales increased by more in places with Democrat voters and a higher average income).
So let’s get started!
The Climate Drive tells us how to do this is easy to follow steps (here), explained in very helpful chapters:
Ultimately you just have to start. So start, get ahead of your competition and do good at the same time! What have you got to lose?
Stay safe.