My 4 Takeaways from New York Climate Week

Finding meaning in Climate Week has a secret recipe (much like COP), and I think it’s 10% formal program, 30% side events, and 60% coffee chats. Over a four day agenda (and interactions with just under 200 people), I’ve got four takeaways from Climate Week:

1. Corporate sustainability is an increasingly dense community. In the space where Altruistiq plays (consumer sector, especially food & beverage) everyone knows everyone. Companies are actively speaking with peers, suppliers, and customers. Sustainability professionals are rotating from one team to another (and across organisations). This density is great, because it facilitates collaboration, and catalyses knowledge transfer at extraordinary speed and scale.

2. Product Carbon Footprints are gathering momentum fast (and faster than I’d anticipated). What’s interesting is not the volume of PCFs being shared (the PACT team tracks around ~4k, but I suspect real number is quite bit higher)… but the leading indicators.

These are:

• Many brands that are not part of WBCSD are promoting PACT to suppliers.
• Suppliers in some sectors are seeing early movement as a competitive advantage (e.g., packaging).
• Most solution providers are now seeking PACT conformance.

3. Business is vibrant. I’ve heard a lot of talk of an ESG step-back, I suspect this is true in certain contexts (and on some parts of the ESG stack - e.g., DE&I). But from everything I could see, corporations are continuing to build ambitious climate programs - creating an ecosystem of solutions to enable them to succeed. These programs are more pragmatic than they were in 2021 (and that means that on paper they look less aspirational), but they are moving forward.

4. We’re at the early stages of cross-sector collaboration. As a community, we often get the balance wrong - either we have every sector in a room together (with no real commonality), or we isolate ourselves in sector specific discussions. The sweet spot I’m seeing is in sectors with overlapping environmental dependencies (e.g., food & fashion are united by agricultural dependency). I’d love to see much more collaboration here (and hope to facilitate some of it). More on this point below!

By?Saif Hameed, CEO of Altruistiq

Events

Last Chance to register?

State of Sustainability F&B Summit, 10th October, Register interest.

Our flagship F&B summit is in > 2 weeks! We’ve got 80 sustainability leaders from global F&B brands registered to learn, network and share. The agenda covers 4 sessions:

1. Buy-in, Budgets and Tooling
2. Product Carbon Footprints
3. Creating Supply Chain Traceability
4. Communicating Sustainability Claims

The day features expert panels, dedicated workshops with peers and is designed to be interactive (but not painful).

If you’re a sustainability professional at an F&B company, there’s just enough time left to secure a spot. (And it's free?!)

5 Takeaways: Cross Sector Supply Chain Collaboration

During NYC climate week, the Fashion and Food industries came together at the Altruistiq X Theory Breakfast. The highlight of the event was the panel discussion, sharing learnings from the supply chain. Panelists included: Heidi Hairston (Kraft Heinz), Graham Tabor (Thom Browne), Sally Smith (Flora Food), Saif Hameed (Altruistiq) and was moderated by Wendy Waugh, SVP sustainability at Theory.

The challenges, suppliers and locations are often mirrored across Fashion and Food industries. During the event, one attendee literally realised their tomatoes were grown in the same field as another’s cotton.

Here are 5 key takeaways from our panelists:

1. Create a collective ask with other brands: Multiple customers asking for the same thing from a supplier will influence those key impact areas and prevent multi-ask bottlenecks.
2. Arm procurement with supplier soundbites: Translate the complex sustainability asks to the language of the supplier’s business and possible impact - e.g. let’s transition from using aluminium together, as the CBAM regulation will impact and cost you in the future.
3. Exhaust your cheapest opportunities in the value chain first…then cascade to maximise ROI.
4. Humanise and contextualise suppliers: Understanding your supplier’s context and conflicts will create better, long term decarbonisation partnerships.
5. Small suppliers to showcase solutions: If you feel you lack the buying power - fear not! Forward thinking sustainability challengers (armed with great data!) can demand the room and increase volumes bought from the big brands/retailers.

If you run with one piece of advice, let it be Sally’s soundbite:

“How do you stop the quest for perfection overcoming progress? Use data to get insights into what matters (hint: material suppliers), work out what you are going to do about it and crucially what you need of others. Then begin.”

By Frankie Musson, Sustainability Impact Advisor

Other News

• ?????China’s Carbon Market Expansion (Carbon Brief): China’s national carbon dioxide emissions covered by their Emissions Trading Scheme is set to rise to 60% (from 40%). This rise accounts for the inclusion of steel, aluminium and cement, alongside the previously included power sector.
• ?????Biodiversity finance on the rise (Climate Home News): In 2022, concessional loans supporting developing nation’s biodiversity challenge grew by over $4bn. “The?OECD report, which analysed the period from 2015 to 2022, showed that biodiversity funding grew from $11.1bn in 2021 to $15.4bn in 2022.” However, concerns grow over the funding gap for the “Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in Montreal – which includes a target to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030”
• ?????UK’s coal power draws to a close (BBC News): After 142 years, the birthplace of coal becomes the first major economy to seize use. This comes following the rapid expansion of green renewable power as the UK continues to exceed 50% of total generation from renewable sources (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero).
• ???????Hurricane Helene’s Devastation (The New York Times): A horrific storm, spanning multiple states, caused destruction, when it “carved out a devastating path from Florida’s Gulf Coast to Tennessee. Reports of destruction and record-level flooding stretched more than 600 miles.”

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