The world’s richest countries met at the G7 summit in Germany in June 2022. Among other pressing issues, food security and climate change were at the top of the agenda.

Climate change, and more recently the war in Ukraine, has been adversely affecting global food security, water, and hunger. To understand it better, Gabriela Bucher (pictured above), executive director of Oxfam International, explains how business leaders can help find solutions.

The food crisis we are facing is extremely serious and probably unprecedented. It’s a combination of many crises at the same time. We started with a pandemic, but underlying that is the climate crisis, which is having an impact on food security and extreme hunger. What’s concerning are the numbers of people affected by extreme hunger, even in rich countries. The world’s attention has been very much on the Ukraine conflict, and unfortunately, the hunger crisis has been growing in the last few months. If we don’t act fast, it will reach catastrophic levels.

Long-term planning is something that is missing as an integrated approach globally. We really need multilateral institutions to step up and make sure that our responses are joined up. We know from research and experts what needs to be done and how much investment is needed. What we need is the will and the coordination to make it happen.

A lot of announcements are made, and ideas come up about global food coalitions. But no concrete plans happen, no targets are set, and no funding appears. We know there are possibilities for raising funds through, for example, windfall taxes and wealth taxes. Presently, the vast majority of taxes across the world are income-related or consumption-related. Around 4% of the total tax revenue in the world comes from wealth taxation. This is an untapped source that would allow countries to invest in their own food security.

There are good examples of solidarity that we can see across history, but we need to double up on this in moments of crisis. There can be a tendency to look after our own, but that’s exactly when we need to think differently and realize that we are globally connected. We must understand that actions in one part of the world have impacts on other parts of the world.

193 million people are in famine-like conditions right now and growing. It’s important that we respond with immediate life-saving support, but also think long-term. I hope this urgency will spur business leaders, governments, and citizens to put pressure on the importance of investing in climate and adaptation, so that we have sustainable livelihoods going forward and can ensure that we have enough food for everyone.

Actionable Solutions to Help Feed the World

• When we talk about food security, a lot of focus is only on one-dimensional food production. But climate change also impacts other dimensions such as access and utilization. Business solutions should be sought here too.
• With all the environmental pledges made by countries and corporations added together, we would need 1.6 billion hectares of land — six times the size of India — to plant trees. This is clearly a near-impossible task, and lessening levels of consumption through innovative business ideas can be more effective. Explore leaner supply chains, less packaging, or seek scientific breakthroughs that allow you to use less and yield more.
• There are many strategies, plans, and actions produced by expert groups and organizations on food security, such as the UN Food Systems Summit. Use these reports to spark ideas around new business opportunities and to spot gaps in the market.

Smart Modular and Connected Pallets for Logistics and Transportation 

Switzerland: Matthew Reali, CEO, Ponera Group (above)

Think of Ponera as the “LEGO” of pallets. A smart, modular, and digitally-enabled solution can be assembled to reach any size. Thermoplastics allow for extended life and reusability — more than 10 years and 100 usages. Embedded sensors in the modules allow for unprecedented traceability and transparency in the value chain, resulting in a 90% reduction of transport-related CO2 emissions. “Approximately 92% of the world’s natural resource consumption is not circular,” says Reali. “The industrial packaging industry still works with inefficient and non-sustainable one-time use consumables. Thirty percent of global industrial wood consumption is used for industrial packaging. Our smart modular and digitally-enabled industrial packaging solution enables circular logistics, reduces industrial packaging costs by up to 90%, and reduces wood consumption by 95% and CO2 emissions by 80%. In addition, we provide the foundations for more digitized and transparent logistics networks.”

An Affordable and High-Performance Energy Efficiency Window Retrofit Solution 

United States: Rachel Rosen & Ron Wexler, president, CEO and cofounder, WexEnergy 

WindowSkin panels are attached to the inside window glazing of existing windows and optimize the volume of air trapped in between the existing window and the insulation retrofit. Like the gap between panes in a double-pane window (or the pockets of air in a down comforter), this layer of enclosed air — and its thickness in particular — creates an insular barrier and improves the efficiency of the window, reducing energy loss by 45% on single-pane windows and 22% on double-pane windows. “Focusing on a solution to poor window insulation allows us to engage with others across socioeconomic strata in battling climate change. We can demonstrate that it’s possible to positively impact climate change while improving comfort and quality of life,” says Rosen. “Creating a solution to poor window insulation is good business sense as it addresses a highly relatable problem with an affordable solution that is easy to understand and implement.”

A Vertical Farm Using Automated and Remote Management Software for Better Crop Growth 

United States: Alexander Olesen, CEO, Babylon

Vertical farming is a technology that has been out of reach for many until now. The Cloud Farm is the world’s largest fully distributed vertical farm. It offers remote management of on-site vertical farms and eliminates barriers to entry for businesses looking to grow their own food. The farms provide the most sustainable and nutrient-dense produce on the market. Fifteen square feet produces the equivalent yield annually of 2,000 square feet of conventional farmland, uses 90% less water than conventional farming, and has zero pesticides. “Our goal is to remove the barriers that previously prevented access to vertical hydroponic farming at the community level and, in doing so, enable people to grow fresh, sustainable food,” says Olesen. “This method increases access to nutritious food while drastically reducing the environmental footprint of crop cultivation.”

Artificial Intelligence to Reduce Water Losses in Water Distribution Networks

Spain: Ainhoa Lete, executive president, BuntPlanet

Water scarcity is one of the most critical global challenges we currently face, and BuntBrain software reduces leaks and commercial losses by up to 50%. The product aims to address this global business problem with a scalable and affordable solution for water utilities that can reduce and prevent water loss in water distribution networks. “Climate change expert James P. Bruce observed: ‘If climate change is a shark, water is its teeth,'” says Lete. With the number and frequency of drought and flood events increasing, we have adopted Smart Water Management to help fight climate change. BuntBrain helps water utility companies detect and pre-locate early leaks, saving water, energy, and time.”

Sustainable Paper and Packaging From Waste

United Kingdom: Florence Miremadi-Nafici, CEO, Nafici EcoPulping

Millions of tons of wheat straw and other agricultural wastes are burnt or left to rot, causing millions of tons of carbon emissions globally every year. EcoPulping is an innovative low-carbon process that transforms agricultural wastes (e.g., cereal straw, reed, maize stover, and more) into unbleached paper pulp to produce paper, packaging, or molded products. The pulp produced is an alternative to pulp made from trees. “Millions of tons of agricultural residues are burnt, causing massive carbon emissions globally every year,” says Miremadi-Nafici. “Wheat straw, as an example, is a great source of fibers and a fantastic alternative to felling trees for paper and packaging products.”

A Green Casting Process that Creates Thin Yet Strong Sheets of Iron 

United States: Sarah Jordan, CEO, Skuld

Ductile iron has the optimum combination of strength, density, and cost compared to alternative materials. However, its use has been limited because casting defects occurred in thin sections under 6mm. Using the environmentally friendly lost foam casting process, innovations in foam blowing technology, and a metallurgical alloying process that prevents casting defects, Skuld’s ductile iron can be cast as thin as 1mm. The method uses 27% less energy, 7% less raw materials, can save 70% on cost versus iron or steel parts, and 66% versus aluminum. “The lost foam casting technique is the greenest metal-making process there is,” says Jordan. “With our Thin-Walled Ductile Iron solution, we are in discussions with a major automotive OEM to implement this solution. Their interest is three-fold: environmental impact, new lightweight designs, and cost reductions.”

Photovoltaic Trackers That Follow the Sun

France: Louis Maurice, president, Groupe OKWind

Smart photovoltaic trackers allow professionals and individuals to self-consume their renewable energy production at a more competitive rate than the electricity grid and therefore escape the constant rise in the cost of energy. Like a sunflower, smart photovoltaic trackers follow the sun’s course and produce 70% more power than a fixed photovoltaic installation. In addition, their mobile shadow protects crops and grassland biodiversity from sun irradiation and allows farmers to improve crop yields while producing renewable energy.  “Energy is at the heart of the transition to a green economy,” says Maurice. “Our self-consumption solutions, combining green energy generation and energy management, give everyone the chance to take their energy destiny into their own hands and contribute to creating a better future. Moreover, self-consumption also offers fixed-price energy during exploitation, freeing our customers from price fluctuation.”

For thousands of years, the wolf (Canis lupus) has been an enigma: The Big Bad Wolf of Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale fame, a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing cliché, and The Wolf of Wall Street all suggest an ancient and modern conflict with this essential apex predator. But there’s nothing to fear; it’s all a myth. Wolves generally avoid humans at all costs because typically, it’s their lives that are lost.

In 2020, Colorado voters passed proposition 114 mandating the return of the gray wolf to the Colorado woods and wilderness. The last Colorado wolf was shot some 80 years ago, in 1942. Since then, the woods have been missing the ancient haunting cry that signaled nature’s balance in the Colorado Rockies, or what the Utes call the Shining Mountains since days immemorial.

Colorado supports the largest elk and deer herds in the continental United States, and the Rocky Mountain West is prime habitat for the North American gray wolff. When healthy wolf populations are present, a trophic cascade results (powerful indirect interactions that can control entire ecosystems), riparian habitats flourish, and biodiversity grows vibrant and strong. This is the effect of apex predators: wolves keep life healthy and thriving by eliminating the old and the weak and keep the herds moving, which allows aspens, willows, and grasses along the rivers to grow and avoid becoming overgrazed.

By making the connection between the environment and the economy, Colorado capitalizes on the $6 million investment made by voting in the wolf’s reintroduction to the wild. In 2016, Ted Turner, through the Turner Endangered Species Fund (TESF), primed the pump with a $1 million investment into the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, spearheaded by Mike Phillips. The latter also serves as the executive director of TESF and project leader for wolf restoration at Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s.

It took another $5 million raised by a committed group of volunteers over four hard-fought years to get Proposition 114 on the ballot and convince the Colorado electorate to pass the initiative. But pass it did — and only by the slimmest of margins. The conflict between wolves, ranchers, and environmentalists goes back generations. To address this contentious issue since the 2020 passage of 114 and help ensure successful wolf reintroduction by 2023, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife has convened a Technical Working Group and a Stakeholder Advisory Group to encourage collaboration on both sides.

Colorado is an agricultural state comprising 66.3 million acres where about 60% of 7.1 billion in agricultural cash receipts come from livestock production, adding annual economic benefit. But it’s tough to make a living raising livestock, especially cattle. The last thing a rancher wants to worry about after a hard day of doing chores — mending fences, moving water for irrigating fields, planting and harvesting hay, and rounding up cattle, among countless other demands in the daily life of a rancher — is to deal with a pack of wolves taking a cow or a calf. A healthy steer can fetch a few thousand dollars at market.

Colorado also has a thriving outdoor recreation and tourism industry generating $9.6 billion annually and adding 120,000 jobs to the economy. The key is balancing the needs of the state’s ranching and recreation communities, and the reintroduction of the wolf may just be the way to do it. “Thar’s gold in them thar hills” as the saying goes, only this time it runs on four legs. Reintroducing the gray wolf to the Colorado wild creates a bridge between ranchers and conservationists, ecologists and recreationalists, Democrats and Republicans. It increases economic and environmental vibrancy and produces healthy ecosystems — mountains, forests, rivers, and prairies are good for everyone. The wolf’s reintroduction to Colorado is a win-win-win for ranchers, environmentalists, and the majestic wolf itself.

Effectively communicating climate change is an enormous challenge, especially as there is a need to reach broad audiences across the planet.

In 2016, an animated spiral graphic showing the familiar rise of global temperatures in an unfamiliar way was published on Twitter and subsequently went viral. The original tweet has been viewed more than 3.7 million times, but the reach is substantially larger when considering other media channels. For example, the animation was viewed several million times on various Facebook pages and through many online stories. Prominent people known to have used or shared the graphic include Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, the artist Banksy, and senior policymakers in the United Kingdom and Australia. It was even shortlisted for a design award and translated into several different languages by the U.S. Department of State for its online web pages.

The most high-profile appearance of the visualization was during the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics, which included a section about climate change — probably the most-watched broadcast about the climate ever. The animated climate spiral emphasized how global temperatures have already increased and was viewed by more than a billion people, many of whom may not have been previously exposed to climate science so directly. In addition, the story highlights the power of creativity, social media, open data, sharing of ideas, and collaboration between scientists who never met in person until two years later.

The original idea for creating a spiral graphic came when Jan Fuglestvedt showed Taren Faehn some earlier graphics produced by Ed Hawkins, which had used stacked horizontal lines to represent global temperatures from January to December each year since 1850. Hawkins suggested that connecting December to the following January to create a spiral would show the evolution of temperatures in a more dynamic way. Fuglestvedt thought this was a great idea and sent an email to Hawkins, whom he had never met, including the phrase “this is just a (crazy) thought.” Hawkins found this hard to ignore and further developed the idea and produced the graphic.

Effective communication about how and why our climate is changing is challenging. The primary culprit — carbon dioxide — is invisible, and the worst effects can appear remote in both space and time. As climate researchers, we have access to bewildering amounts of data, but how do we best distill this complex information to make the risks of climate change easily understandable to the public? Susanne C. Moser, a senior research fellow at the Aspen Global Change Institute, has highlighted the important role of the messenger, imagery, emotion, consistent messaging, and keeping the audience’s attention.

In hindsight, many of the design and communication aspects of the spiral resonate with the factors emphasized by Moser. First, the choice to use temperature — a variable that the public is very familiar with — makes it feel instantly relevant and understandable. In addition, the graphic was produced by scientists, who tend to be trusted messengers. Notably, the visualization does not look like a traditional boring scientific graph or require any complex interpretation; it is intuitive and eye-catching. Our impression is that the similarity with a clock — something that is usually regular and predictable but that gradually changes to be irregular — is compelling imagery for communicating the temperature changes.

The animated nature of the graphic is fundamental: It tells a story to the viewer about how temperatures are changing. The animation is not too long, ensuring attention is maintained, and as the temperatures rise substantially, it influences emotions by providing a visual surprise at the end. Many viewers reported watching the animation over and over again for these reasons.

The year counter was placed in the center of the graphic to ensure visibility, and the colors were chosen to aid interpretation and add to the message. The internationally adopted temperature limits are shown in red, which emotionally signifies “danger.” The spiral starts using dark blue and ends with yellow to emphasize that we have not yet reached dangerous levels. Although it may be tempting to use the analogy that temperatures are “spiraling out of control,” as some media stories did, an alternative (and more positive) message is that decision-makers and society can still take control and choose to avoid danger.

But even well-designed and compelling visualizations may not be widely seen or shared. Social media provides a new way of enabling many-to-many communication and is an effective tool for raising the profile of climate science. In particular, Twitter is now actively used by several thousand climate scientists to discuss, engage, collaborate, and communicate, thus raising their profile among peers and the public. Importantly, such online platforms allow a story to be consumed within the social media bubble rather than requiring a journey to another website and provide a relatively easy way of presenting information that can be subsequently amplified by journalists, the media, and highly popular social media accounts.

These factors facilitated the spiral’s spread to over a billion people. In addition, the timing of the publication was favorable, though perhaps fortuitous. It came a few months after the 1.5°C target had been adopted as part of the Paris Agreement and during a significant El Niño event that pushed global temperatures slightly higher in 2016.

We believe that the reason why the spiral went viral is the combination of a creative idea, collaboration, design, timing, and, importantly, openness and possibility for sharing on social media, both within and beyond the research community. This has facilitated the diffusion of the spiral in various forms, and its message is communicated at various forums and to diverse stakeholders. The spiral has stimulated collaborations, and its success has helped inspire other climate scientists to produce a range of visualizations of climatic changes, which have also been widely shared. These are all examples of how unrestricted sharing of data and creative ideas are beneficial. We are delighted that our small contribution has led to a spiraling of creativity, and we encourage others to experiment and continue sharing ideas.

The city prioritizes equity and inclusion as it incorporates tree coverage into climate resiliency efforts.

Mattapan, a neighborhood in southwestern Boston, is heating up. Although some areas of the residential neighborhood benefit from the cooling effects of nearby green spaces, others are vulnerable to increasing heat stress, largely because of dark roofs, unshaded parking lots and pavements, and wide streets with limited numbers of trees.

Mattapan is one of five Boston neighborhoods identified as being at particular risk for heat stress. (The other neighborhoods are Chinatown, Dorchester, East Boston, and Roxbury.) The five neighborhoods, all environmental justice communities, are at the focus of Boston’s heat resilience strategies, which include increasing the amount of light-colored surfaces and shade.

A big reason for the risk is the simple fact that there are fewer trees in these neighborhoods. For example, less than 25% of the land in East Boston (excluding Boston Logan International Airport) has adequate tree coverage.

Boston has recognized the importance of healthy tree coverage in addressing heat resilience and other climate change mitigation strategies. In fact, the city has been developing its first urban forest plan—a pathway to maintaining existing trees, planting new ones, and otherwise helping the city deal with the effects of a changing climate. The plan is set to be published in late summer or early fall.

“This plan essentially provides an analysis of the conditions in each neighborhood,” said Neenah Estrella-Luna, the principal of StarLuna Consulting, a social equity researcher, and a consultant on the plan.

Neighborhood Strategies

The plan’s “neighborhood strategies” approach considers the unique ways in which each neighborhood has the ability to address particular issues and identifies the people within that neighborhood who would be able to do something about them. The approach would employ the help of urban forest nonprofits like Dorchester-based Speak for the Trees, whose focus is on increasing the size and health of Boston’s urban forest, particularly in undercanopied areas. In addition, the plan could call upon the help of Lower Roxbury–based Friends of Melnea Cass Boulevard, which stopped a $25.6 million construction project that would have removed 124 mature trees, the Boston Globereported.

This approach was driven entirely by the urban forest plan’s equity council—a part of the larger community advisory board—and composed of individuals from historically excluded and currently marginalized communities across the city. The plan’s consultant team organized a series of focus groups, which sent out a series of surveys to the equity council to establish overarching goals, the best strategic approach, protection regulations, expectations for the level of involvement from stakeholders, and more.

Responses were summarized and consolidated and went through three rounds of refinement, a process that allowed the equity cabinet to participate on its own schedule and its members to interact with one another. “That technique pushed for consensus building, as opposed to just whoever talks the most or the loudest, which often is how decisions get made,” said Amy Whitesides, director of resilience and research at Stoss Landscape Urbanism and a consultant on the urban forest plan.

The neighborhood strategies approach also helped inform the plan’s four goals: equity, community-driven processes, making sure trees are valued and prioritized, and proactive care and preservation of existing trees. The last tenet was especially important, Estrella-Luna explained. Before the drafting of the plan, “there just weren’t sufficient resources devoted to particularly proactive protection of the existing canopy in historically excluded neighborhoods.”

In early spring of this year, the city halted renovation plans for Malcolm X Park, located in Dorchester, after outcry from residents. The plan threatened to remove 54 trees, many of which are more than a century old.

Hunter Jones, manager of the Climate and Health Project within NOAA’s Climate Program Office, noted that Boston’s neighborhood strategies approach is part of a larger trend in the United States. Jones identified air temperature, humidity, and even wind speed as factors contributing to urban heat and air quality issues across the country. “But increasingly,” he said, “there’s interest in looking at intracity differences.”

— Iris Crawford (@IrisMCrawford), Science Writer. This story originally appeared at eos.org and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story, of which Real Leaders is a partner.

Saving endangered species sometimes means knowing where they used to live — before scientists started studying them. For that, we need historical ecologists.

One of the most fascinating challenges of endangered species management is the concept of shifting baselines — the idea that how much worse a problem has gotten, and what your recovery goal should be, depends on when you start measuring the problem.

In many cases we need scientific data on the population and distribution of endangered species from before anyone started collecting scientific data.

So what do we do?

Solving this challenge has required the creation of an entirely new field called historical ecology, which looks at human interactions with the environment over long periods of time using historical research methods.

“Historical ecology sits at the intersection of a number of disciplines, including archaeology, history, anthropology and paleoecology,” says Ruth Thurstan of the University of Exeter, a leader in the field. “It is particularly useful for understanding the scale of changes that occurred before we started to scientifically monitor ecosystems.”

Take fish populations, for example. The impacts of fishing have occurred over hundreds of years, but we’ve only been monitoring some of these populations for decades. By using historical ecology, says Thurstan, “We find that deeper historical perspectives show a far greater magnitude of ecosystem change compared to the modern scientific evidence alone.”

Shark History

The same techniques can be helpful in trying to understand the historical range of a now-endangered species. Just knowing where a species lives now doesn’t tell you where it used to live — or will likely need to live again as its numbers recover.

One example of this challenge can be found in a new study that uses historical ecology methods to understand the historical range of the critically endangered angel shark.

Study co-authors Jan Geert Hiddink, a professor of marine biology at Bangor University, and Alec Moore, a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University, found a copy of the 1686 natural history book “De Historia Piscium” filled with detailed handwritten notes made by Lewis Morris, a Welsh Customs officer who died in 1765. They also found several other documents from Morris’s career that contain detailed descriptions of angel sharks found along coastal Wales.

“We found several records of angel sharks in 275-year-old notes documenting shingle reefs in Wales,” says Hiddink. “The locations where these sharks were recorded coincide with the areas in Wales where they are still present now, showing that these reefs are core habitat for angel sharks.”

Without these tools we’d know only that the sharks use this habitat now. Knowing that they’ve used this habitat in centuries past, as well, makes it much more critical to protect the reefs — and we’d never have known without historical ecology approaches.

“Detecting changes in the distribution and abundance of rare species is difficult, especially for marine species, but it’s essential for identifying where management actions are required,” says Hiddink. “These unique observations highlight the value that historical material has for conservation.”

Looking Back

To uncover the information, Hiddink and Moore tapped skills not commonly used by ecologists. “There was a long process that involved reading a lot of work outside of modern scientific literature, as well as talking with people who had local expertise and sources, including historians and archivists,” says Moore.

We may have a lot more sophisticated tools for scientific inquiry today, but historical ecology shows that we shouldn’t discount the past, either.

“This paper shows that people have made thoughtful observations of marine species, and that these sources remain very relevant today,” says Loren McClenachan, the Canada Research Chair in Ocean History in Sustainability at the University of Victoria.

McClenachan wasn’t involved in the angel shark study but has used historical ecology in her own research for years, including a  2009 analysisof how the size of fish in the Florida Keys are shrinking and the species composition of communities is changing.

To determine that, she used a clever source of data: photographs taken by charter-fishing captains from 1956 to 2007, which show the daily catch from their fishing boats.

Thurstan called this paper one of her favorite examples of historical ecology work, because it “uses sources that most natural scientists wouldn’t traditionally consider scientific data, but captures peoples’ attention immediately,” she says.

Examples of using historical ecology to inform ocean conservation by other researchers include an analysis of old restaurant menus showing that commonly available fish had changed, an analysis of old fishing magazine articles that showed a massive decline in Australian snapper, and a look at coastal change in Brazil through historical newspaper articles.

Guiding Conservation

These research techniques are useful beyond the marine environment, too.

Similar methods have helped to identify the pre-exploitation range of wolvesin Europe and have been used to help demonstrate the impact of climate change on seasons.

For those willing to delve into historical datasets, there are countless interesting and relevant questions these tools can answer. But we also need to preserve the information, which includes a long-term investment in data management, researchers say.

Historical ecology can’t tell us everything we need to know to save a species, but it can jog our memory.

“Historical records can point us to locations that might be important for helping threatened species to recover, even if we’ve forgotten about them,” says Moore.

Because we’ve been changing ecosystems since long before scientists began recording those changes, “ecological observations alone can’t capture the full magnitude of change,” says McClenachan. But “history can tell us where to focus efforts for conservation and management, and to help set appropriate recovery targets.”

With the magnitude of the biodiversity crisis we face, that information is a welcome addition.

David Shiffman is a marine biologist specializing in the ecology and conservation of sharks. He received his Ph.D. in environmental science and policy from the University of Miami. Follow him on Twitter, where he’s always happy to answer any questions anyone has about sharks. This story originally appeared in The Revelator and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

This summer, we have seen a historic and deadly heat wave scorch western Europe, killing thousands, fueling wildfires, melting airport runways, and shuttering businesses. 

Earlier this year, a record-shattering heat wave in India reduced wheat yields, straining the balance between domestic needs and ambitions to increase exports to make up for shortfalls caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Ultimately, India, the second-largest producer of wheat globally, placed a temporary ban on wheat exports, compounding the global food crisis and Europe’s current crop devastation. 

In today’s interdependent world, there is no doubt that one of the greatest threats to our global and local economies is climate change. A 2022 Deloitte report found that climate inaction would cost the US economy $14.5 trillion by 2070. The same economy stands to gain $3 trillion over the next 50 years if it accelerates towards low-emissions growth. Furthermore, a World Bank report estimated that an additional 68 to 135 million people could be pushed into poverty by 2030 due to climate change, conflict, and the pandemic. 

With their vast influence and resources, corporations and financial institutions have the power to help solve these issues on a massive scale. However, this will require new, creative solutions, because the rules and referees who have got us here will not get us to where we need to go. With a $5 trillion price tag to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, investors and philanthropists must adopt a more radically disruptive stance in their investment and philanthropy decisions.

This is where Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing (or sustainable investing) comes into play. Companies like IKEA, Chobani, Etsy, and Ecolab are already showing us what is possible when sustainability and purpose are prioritized. These priorities needn’t be at odds with profitability if we shift our mindset from short-term gains to long-term sustainability. Study after study shows that when companies create value for people and planet, they create higher value for themselves and shareholders.

From healthcare to renewable energy and water, the number of highly innovative, impactful businesses demonstrating this potential is growing annually, and generating attractive, long-term financial and social returns. From women-led startups to diverse businesses across emerging economies, these are enterprises with promising growth trajectories, and a unique ability to reach low-income consumers in emerging markets (where 85% of the world lives).

When creative solutions seem to be our best chance forward, why are we not hearing more about these investment opportunities among traditional finance circles? The answer: the financial industry continues to vet, reward, and undertake due diligence with the same lens that aligned with where the world was decades ago. Unsurprisingly, this is not in line with where we are today. 

For ESG investing to reach its full potential, we must move from passive divestments and screenings to proactive investments in impact investment funds and businesses that intentionally generate value for all. This intersection between ESG and impact investing is where there is the greatest opportunity to steer more capital towards people, organizations, and social innovations creating a prosperous future. This includes investing in diverse leadership teams and ethical supply chains; in new global standards around disclosures and reporting; and in financial risk analyses that factor in the cost of climate inaction. This is ESG 2.0.

Companies like Lebec Consulting, which are helping maximize impact for philanthropists, impact investors, and profitable business models and social enterprises, consistently see strong performance for portfolios that integrate key ESG factors. These businesses are demonstrating that purpose can generate long-term value and profitability. Many have unconventional structures, are led by social entrepreneurs in emerging markets (including women) and in the US, and leverage patient philanthropic and impact investment capital to expand their reach.

Acumen, a leader in this space with a 20-year track record, has reimagined venture financing and invested in innovative business models that create products and services for millions of underserved communities. Many of the early stage businesses Acumen invests in have gone on to scale and attract additional institutional investment, enabling millions of people to gain access to financial services in the US, and key renewable off-grid energy products in countries across Africa. Many of the businesses Acumen invests in are leading the clean energy transition. In total, Acumen has leveraged flexible philanthropic capital to invest over $150 million in 151 companies overlooked by traditional investors, reaching over 380 million people living in poverty and generating long-term social and financial returns.

Similarly, investors have failed to capitalize on global healthcare despite unending rhetoric from global leaders regarding the need to strengthen our interconnected health systems. The overwhelming majority of healthcare investments made in the last two years have been in the US and other advanced economies, with limited commitments to emerging markets where compelling business models are meeting tremendous demand. 

In Bangladesh, for instance, female-founded Praava Health achieved unit level profitability within its first year of operations with a business model that leverages technology, local and international healthcare value chains, government and private sector leadership, and a click-and-brick healthcare platform that has already delivered high quality healthcare to nearly 400,000 patients across Bangladesh. Despite these milestones, it has yet to attract institutional capital.

Betting on companies and investors like the ones mentioned here is not only a feel-good endeavor – it’s better for investors’ bottom lines in the long run, even if holding periods may be longer. Naysayers argue that high profitability will always win the day over purpose due to the design of our capitalist system. To that we say: let’s change the system and invest in opportunities that are adamant about creating impact and financial performance in places where traditional capital has failed to see opportunity. 

It’s time for new rules, new referees, and new players. Is your head in the game?

 
Lebec Consulting is a women-owned and women-led firm that advises corporations, foundations, high net-worth individuals, financial institutions, and entrepreneurs on how to achieve their greatest social impact through philanthropy; impact investing; and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.

A new guide published in May is helping companies make smarter decisions about purchasing tropical forest credits, a strategy for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, slowing deforestation and mitigating climate change.

The Tropical Forest Credit Integrity (TFCI) guide provides support for companies seeking to purchase high-quality carbon credits, which will bring them closer to decarbonizing their operations and ultimately to limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit).

“Living ecosystems are critical carbon stocks and if we lose them, they cannot be recovered in the timeframe needed to tackle climate change,” said Angela Churie Kallhauge, head of impact at the Environmental Defense Fund, the organization that co-authored the report. “We know companies want to invest in tropical forest protection and have the resources to do it — but it can be hard for them to navigate the large, complex carbon credit marketplace.”

The other report authors include some of the world’s largest conservation organizations, including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Society, World Resources Institute, WWF, IPAM Amazônia, and Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA).

The project was funded by the Bezos Earth Fund, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’s $10 billion initiative to support researchers, activists and NGOs in the fight against climate change.

Carbon credits allow companies, usually in industrialized countries, to offset their carbon emissions by paying for forest conservation, usually in less-industrialized countries. Generally, one credit is worth 1 metric ton in greenhouse gas emissions.

The voluntary carbon credit market has been growing rapidly in recent years, having reached $1 billion in value in 2021, with a future market value predicted to reach around $30 billion.

But the market has received criticism from some conservationists because it allows companies to continue to emit greenhouse gases, and has even been called a “license” to pollute. But the credits also buy time for companies trying to find other ways of transitioning away from excess carbon emissions in the long term.

As long as credits are being created, purchased and traded, there should be a strong set of recommendations available for companies seeking best practices, the new guide says.

“In the face of the urgency to conserve tropical forests and the rapidly increasing demand for tropical forest carbon emissions reductions and removals credits,” it says, “we agree that guidance for companies choosing to make such purchases is urgently needed.”

Major recommendations 

The guide urges companies to purchase tropical forest carbon credits not to replace other emissions reduction strategies, but rather to complement them. That means companies should be taking other ambitious steps to decarbonize their operations beyond purchasing carbon credits, the guide says.

The creation of carbon credits, it says, should also prioritize the rights of Indigenous and local communities — as well as of women and other underserved groups — especially when it comes to access to land, water and practices involving traditional knowledge. The best way to do this is to treat these groups as partners or shareholders, not just beneficiaries, the guide says.

Companies should take “a genuinely collaborative and intercultural approach that values diverse cultural practices and ensures full and effective participation on equal terms throughout the process … and with special emphasis on the equitable distribution of benefits,” the guide says.

Another way to make sure this happens is by creating a culture of transparency. Companies should publicly report their use of carbon credits and specify in which country the credit activity is taking place. They should also be clear about how and if the credits count toward a host country’s “nationally determined contributions,” a core component of the Paris Agreement that measures each country’s total contributions to emissions reductions.

“It’s essential that companies are transparent about their investments and credits, how they’re counting them and how they’re claiming them,” Lloyd Gamble, WWF’s senior director of forests and climate, told Mongabay.

It’s possible, for example, to purchase “removal credits” that are created through tree-planting efforts, which have been shown to be less effective carbon sinks than conserving old-growth forests. Instead, companies should make sure they’re purchasing high-quality credits that contribute to real-world reductions of deforestation in tropical forests, the guide says.

But perhaps the most important recommendation, Gamble said, involves the transition to what are known as “jurisdiction-scale programs,” in which credits are granted at state or province level — or even national level — and not project by project. If companies can rapidly transition to those kinds of purchases, the guide says, forest protections can be established on a scale of millions of hectares as opposed to thousands, allowing for carbon credits to contribute to conservation efforts at a much larger scale.

“It’s important that [companies’] accounting and planning is such that they’re supporting transformational activity, transformational change,” Gamble said, “not just little green islands of national parks or localized activities that may have short-term effects.”

This story originally appeared in Monga Bay and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

With less than 10 years left to avert climate catastrophe, campaigners Kumi Naidoo and Luisa Neubauer say activists need to ramp up civil disobedience.

Kumi Naidoo is the former head of Greenpeace. Luisa Neubauer is one of the founders of Germany’s Friday for Future climate school strike movement. But Naidoo and Neubauer’s entry into activism couldn’t have been more different.  

Now in his late 50s, Naidoo joined the anti-apartheid movement as a 15-year-old in Durban, which got him expelled, arrested and ultimately exiled from South Africa. Neubauer is from the wealthy German city of Hamburg. For young people like her from the “Merkel generation,” it was all about getting a good education and career, she says.  

Speaking in a Zoom call from Germany and South Africa, Neubauer and Naidoo acknowledge the contrast but also what unites them. Both experienced a lightbulb moment of realization that they would dedicate themselves to activism early in their lives. But they also said they’d recently come to realize they had to change their approach to activism due to the severity of the climate crisis.  

Quoting Albert Einstein, who famously said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get different results,” Naidoo believes it would be “arrogant” for activism not to take that sentiment into account.  

An end to ‘handshake activism’

With deadly floods in South Africa, extreme heatwaves hitting India, Pakistan and now the US, the effects of fossil fuels heating the planet is here. Neubauer says the time for “handshake activism” is long over.  

It’s the kind of activism that looks good on paper, and it’s where the geography student says she started out.  

“It is something that you might be very dedicated to, but you’re also very keen to meet an important minister, to shake their hand and take a photo, and prove that you’ve actually done something,” she explains.  

Naidoo, who also headed human rights organization Amnesty International, nods in agreement at Neubauer’s description of “handshake activism,” adding that his generation of activists mistook access for influence.  

Being granted access, he says “allowed some government official or minister or CEO of a big company to tick off a box saying civil society consulted.”

Do climate activists need to be more radical?

Members of the global environment movement Extinction Rebellion have blocked roads and glued themselves to buildings and planes. And last year in Germany, young activists, calling themselves the “last generation,” took part in a hunger strike in front of the parliament building.  

Given what is at stake for humanity, some have suggested that such radicals acts are needed. Others argue that attacking fossil fuel infrastructure could be justified for the greater good.

Naidoo says he understands the “deep frustration, anger, and disappointment” but that “violence only serves those in power’s interests,” as it gives leaders an excuse to crack down on legitimate protest.  

“I got involved in a context of where there was a lot of struggles, a lot of death, a lot of sadness. But we came out of it with love, with the reconciliation, with a sense of justice, and that’s what I’ve tried to carry in all my activism,” Naidoo says, speaking of his anti-apartheid activism.  

Still, both Neubauer and Naidoo see peaceful, civil disobedience as “justified.”  

Oppression and repression: A shrinking space for climate activism?

Both activists say they have noticed a backlash against civil disobedience and even climate protests, ranging from mild to severe repression.  

In this context, Neubauer mentions German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent comments about black-clad climate activists who repeatedly interrupted him during a talk.  

“I have to say honestly, these antics, staged at various events but always by the same black-clad people, remind me of an era that is, thank God, long past,” said Scholz.  

Some thought the center-left SPD leader was comparing the activists to Nazis, with the chancellery calling that “absurd,” although there was no clarification of what Scholz meant.  

At the same time countries such as Australia, France and the UK have cracked down on civil disobedience like blockades of roads or ports. And in Iran and Kenya, environmental defenders have been subjected to arbitrary arrests.  

“Activism can operate even under the most vicious, repressive conditions,” says Naidoo, who saw “terrible repression” in apartheid South Africa in the 70s and 80s, and whose best friend was murdered by the regime. “It just means we have to be braver; we have to be smarter; we have to be more strategic.”  

But, he adds, that it is becoming increasingly risky for climate activists, who are sometimes paying with their lives.  

UK-based NGO Global Witness reported that in 2020, 227 land and environmental activists were murdered — the worst figure on record.  

Where to next with climate activism?  

Given the dangers climate activists face coupled with the speed at which the world needs to cut itself off from fossil fuels, both Naidoo and Neubauer see a need for creativity and inclusion.  

But what does that look like?  

One tactic is to follow the money and put pressure on banks and insurance companies to stop backing oil and gas majors. That could take the form of lobbying, boycott, and protests.

International environmental group 350.org‘s divestment campaign with which Naidoo is involved, has already seen success when it comes to institutions and funds moving their money out of fossil fuel and into green energy. But that needs to be ramped up, say the activists.  

The movement needs to expand to include people from different backgrounds, who can contribute according to their resources and abilities. That includes intergenerational activism.  

Neubauer explains that she became interested in environmental issues in the first place because of childhood conversations with her grandmother with whom she is now writing a book.

Climate change is not an environmental issue, it is about much more, including livelihoods, human rights, poverty and justice, says Naidoo. This needs to be communicated in imaginative ways on a larger scale, through dance, song and even gaming.  

But to make change, people must also remain hopeful, he added.  

“We’ve got to get people to imagine that it is within our grasp to turn this thing around,” says Naidoo. “This moment of history that we find ourselves in, is one where we have to say that pessimism is a luxury we simply cannot afford.”  

Neil King from Deutsche Welle and Bill McKibben from The Nation conducted this interview on the future of climate activism to mark DW’s teaming up with Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration of more than 500 news outlets, committed to more urgent and informed coverage of climate change. If you’d like to hear more of what Kumi Naidoo and Luisa Neubauer have to say, check out the ‘On the Green Fence’ Podcast.  

Jennifer Collins is multimedia environment reporter and editor for Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster. An award-winning journalist, she’s reported on everything from water scarcity to the damage caused by war to Afghanistan’s environment — a reporting trip that was funded by the European Journalism Centre. 

This story from Deutsche Welle is published here as part of the global media collaboration Covering Climate Now.