Prove you mean business: how big business can expand its sustainability agenda to drive global change

Last month, the FT published a piece called ‘Big business is no longer the planet’s biggest problem’. It argued that pitting large corporations against the climate crisis is outdated, challenging the widely accepted notion that they are villains fighting for the wrong side.

This was a plucky angle to take, considering the global attitude towards ‘big business’ isn’t exactly favourable at current. ‘100 businesses are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse emissions’ is a headline that’s bouncing around the news and social media like the Duracell bunny. 

As FT writer, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, put, ‘big business has long been a byword for corporate misdeeds’; a term vehemently offered up at dinner parties as a sacrifice to The World’s Problems. 

Multinationals are certainly not blameless but Johnson makes an interesting point; many of these giants have actually shifted their attitudes towards climate change and are committed to operating more sustainably. They’ve had no choice, their customers and investors demand it.   

Shell, for example, committed to maintaining its targets even when the US Administration announced its plan to slash methane restrictions. To me, this is definitely a step in the right direction but for argument’s sake let’s say this was a purely cosmetic action; even ‘the rhetorical shift’ (FT, 2020) of businesses towards sustainability is important. It arms activists and investors with ammunition to force change. Shell was one of the companies forced to cut ties with lobby groups over climate change earlier this year and is still being pushed to do more.

There’s a new aspect to consider when it comes to achieving your sustainability agenda

The key part of Johnson’s message, one that I’d like to share, is that—for those big businesses earnestly committed to tackling climate change—there’s a new aspect to consider when it comes to achieving your sustainability agenda; your mid-tier suppliers and your employees. 

SME’s tend to slip under the radar when it comes to pressure to join the green revolution, which is curious considering how much of the business population they account for. There were 5.9 million SMEs in the UK in 2019, over 99% of all businesses (House of Commons Library, 2020). 

This means a large portion of the business world isn’t under direct pressure to adopt SDGs or CSR. And since they can be costly and complicated, without that pressure it’s tough for those businesses to justify the changes. It’s my view that the SME shift must be driven by their large business customers; the big businesses that recognise they have ‘no option but to be a force for change’ (Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group)

According to CDP’s 2019 Global Supply Chain Report, supply chain emissions can be up to 5.5 times more than a company's direct operations. This means even if a big business is smashing its emissions targets, there’s still plenty of carbon entering the atmosphere on its watch. 

In a world where investors will only invest in, customers will only buy from, and talent will only work with businesses that are green at heart, aligning suppliers to internal sustainability goals just makes good business sense. 

‘A massively underutilised resource in a business’s fight against climate change.’ 

As for employees, this is one that’s close to my heart. I am by no means the perfect low carbon citizen, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over my time building Pawprint it’s the power of collective effort. 

Employees spend over a third of their lives, at least half of their waking day, at work. To deny that company culture has influence over them would be irresponsible. On the other hand, injecting green practices and education into cultural policies can have a powerful compound effect; employees take a green attitude home, teach it to their partners/friends/kids, they pass it on to their partners/friends/kids, and on it ripples. 

Bringing employees in on their company’s sustainability agenda is my personal mission over the next year. They’re a massively underutilised resource in a business’s fight against climate change. 

If you’d like to learn more about how Pawprint for Business works, . We’re inspiring employees to fight climate change, and helping businesses align their stakeholders to internal green objectives. Ultimately, we’re cultivating a feeling of unity (‘we’re all in this together’) amongst businesses invested in saving life as we know it... 

To summarise, I urge big businesses to think beyond Scope 2. Think about your suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders that might have been omitted from your sustainability agenda to date. The further your reach, the closer you are to creating a future in which both your business and the planet can thrive.

Ultimately, a green revolution is needed and it’s needed fast. Judging by the speed of the digital, internet, and mobile revolutions, this is something that big business is more than capable of. 

“The same force that powered the last period of global change can also power the next.” (Our Planet: Our Business, 2020)

This post was originally published at www.pawprint.eco on October 20, 2020.