The Climate of Business #67: Making 2023 count

The planet alongside all the people on it are ready to turn the leaf on 2022.?

This year was an affirmative one for the climate agenda. Not only because climate change became more visible across the world with events like the floods in Pakistan or heatwaves in Europe, but also because of decisive action on behalf of business and government, with frameworks such as EU Taxonomy and TCFD or global decisions such as the "loss and damage" commitment made at COP27.?

In the business context this shift in focus towards sustainability meant a necessity to make a commitment. And that is what happened.

Scores of people across companies worked hard throughout the year to normalise in daily business sustainability. It takes a few to change the minds of many and this year many started believing in the role of sustainability as the defining factor for transformation in effort to achieve economic stability.

Thousands of companies decided to kick off or deepen their commitments to their sustainability journeys. In our work we have seen historically how difficult it is to start speaking a new "language" such as the net zero one, learn a new "math system" such as carbon accounting, and start using these new tools in your old context. The commitments businesses made are the reference point for the rest which are still defining their role in this global transformation.

2023 will be the best year yet for the work we do as a sustainability community. Because it has taken us a lot of effort to achieve all the progress, which, as we go down the path, illuminates a view of a transformed, improved, equitable, human economy. This year the progress is more visible than even and it is our duty to continue defining the agenda of a transformed world.

I am hopeful for the future ahead of us. Hope you are too.

Let's make 2023 count.

Climate Change Reality

Why climate change is intimately tied to biodiversity? (The Economist)

Scientists freeze Great Barrier Reef coral in world-first trial (Reuters)

Atmospheric carbon might turn lakes more acidic (AP News)

The forest in your chocolate (The New York Times)

How a climate-smart forest economy could help mitigate climate change and its worst impacts (World Economic Forum)

Methane cloud over Australia coincided with pipeline gas release (Bloomberg)

Changing rainfall patterns threaten insects in the tropics (Yale Climate Connections)

SCi-Fi foods says first sustainability study of cultivated beef proves climate benefits (Vegconomist)

Business Climate Reality

Net-Zero journey, explained (Plan A Academy)

Bank floats $10B Brazilian bond plan to halt Amazon deforestation (Reuters)

Zimbabwe proposes incentives for $1 bln solar projects (Reuters)

The great green office crunch (Financial Times)

How adaptation finance can lead to resilience and spur in sustainable growth (GreenBiz)

The great carbon con is coming to an end (Wired)

Carbon-credit investors start to pay up for quality (The Wall Street Journal)

Raw lithium exports banned in Zimbabwe as demand and prices soar (Bloomberg)

‘It’s just not tenable’: cost of living crisis hits sustainability sector (The Guardian)

How are asset managers doing on net zero? (GreenBiz)

Investors ramp up pressure on Big Oil firms to set 2030 climate targets (Reuters)

There’s a small but growing push to make video gaming greener (Bloomberg)

Carbon Price