ClimateVoices Featuring Joel Makower

In this issue, I’m pleased to speak with Joel Makower , chairman and co-founder of Trellis Group , creator of GreenBiz.com, and principal author of the annual “State of Green Business” report. His company hosts the annual GreenBiz conference where I’m honored to be speaking this year (February 12-14 in Phoenix), as well as the GreenFin, Circularity and VERGE conferences. For 30 years, Joel has been an award-winning and pioneering voice on business, sustainability, and innovation and a catalyst for climate progress, and he currently serves on the ClimateVoice Advisory Board.

In your assessment before COP28, you note that corporate “climate action is waning” and “we’re losing ground.” In the wake of COP, what should companies do to turn these trends around?

They should start to consider a world without — or with at least fewer — fossil fuels. Not in the next six months, but in the next six years, soon enough. What will that look like? How will that change strategy and operations? What kinds of opportunities does that afford? That sort of mid-range thinking is what's needed — not merely how to publish the next sustainability report, or plant another million trees, or even reduce energy use at headquarters. What's needed is a fundamental re-assessment of one's products, services, supply chains and business models in an age where greenhouse gas emissions become a constraint and where fossil fuel use sunsets, and the opportunities that unfold from there.

Looking forward to GreenBiz 24 in February, what is your call to action for the cadre of sustainability professionals that attend? How can they have an impact, particularly on climate policy progress?

Be bold! It's time to step up — and speak up. All of us — those inside companies and those outside — spend too much time celebrating incremental change in an era where audacious step-change is needed. We need leadership companies to show the way, of course, but we also need them to advocate for policies that create a floor — one, ideally, that keeps rising as the state of the art of sustainable business ratchets up, as it has continually for the more than three decades I've been watching it. And we need to ensure that companies align their sustainability commitments and achievements with their policy stances. That may mean getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, stepping away from the cozy embrace of trade groups and other organizations whose policies and advocacy don't align with a company's own goals and policies. Easy to say, harder to do, but absolutely necessary.?

Many employees want to be climate advocates, but don’t know how to navigate their company’s structure and join together to raise their voices. Based on your understanding of where companies are at today, what advice would you give them?

There's no one-size-fits-all model, but it begins with someone raising their hand, inviting colleagues to come together to ask questions of the C-suite, speak out at all-hands meetings, make their concerns clear and unambiguous. And ultimately, to have an “ask”: What do they want their employer to do differently? In some cases, it's to eliminate waste and inefficiency. In other cases, it's to exhibit leadership — in their markets, in the places where they operate, in the political arena. There are good models for this, as ClimateVoice has ably demonstrated. But it all starts, as Margaret Mead famously put it, with a small group of committed individuals.?

In Big Tech, they call me a “shit stirrer” – and I love that nickname. What’s your moniker??

I don't know that I have one. At the office, they call me the O.G., which I'm pretty sure stands for "old guy." But I'm open to suggestions.

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The opinions and views expressed in this interview are solely those of the individual(s) being interviewed. They may not reflect the views, policies, or positions of ClimateVoice, the employer(s) of the individual(s) being interviewed, nor of any other organizations with which the individual(s) being interviewed are affiliated. This interview is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as an endorsement or official statement on behalf of such employer(s) or organization(s).