One among WHC’s genuine strengths as a corporation is our skill to deploy nearly 4 a long time of expertise working on the intersection of enterprise and nature to grasp the real-world challenges and choices for supporting firms on their nature-positive journeys. We’ve at all times had a bias for motion, and we’ve at all times been pragmatic, targeted on what’s doable over what’s supreme.
Up to now yr, WHC has deployed this pragmatism to assist quite a lot of firms minimize by the noise of the company nature panorama the place recommendation is considerable, however readability — and typically honesty — is briefly provide. Suggestions from WHC’s membership has proven that confusion reigns relating to firms figuring out the info from the gross sales fiction.
Over the previous yr of working with our members and others, 4 attention-grabbing themes have emerged that proceed to tell WHC’s efforts in 2024 and past:
Benchmarking Is a Clarifying Agent
In 2023, WHC carried out biodiversity benchmarking workout routines for a number of firms within the extractive, manufacturing and vitality sectors. The consulting group assessed firms’ revealed actions, commitments, disclosures and reporting in opposition to a gaggle of peer firms and positioned the outcomes on a spectrum from laggard to chief.
We discovered that:
- There’s a clear distinction between the businesses that do and the businesses that inform, and that distinction can go away an organization targeted on motion over reporting at a drawback in opposition to its friends.
- The present panorama of experiences, assessments and indices doesn’t present good areas to seize the fact on the bottom — and if it does, these expectations don’t take context into consideration. For example: An organization will get dinged for not having a deforestation coverage even when geospatial evaluation of its operations exhibits no proximity to core forests. The same firm in the identical sector will price greater for having the coverage, even whether it is moot.
Firm tradition dictates whether or not ‘doing’ or ‘telling’ dominates sustainability work, and whether or not sustainability workplaces draw workers from communications or engineering disciplines likewise drives both a story or motion bias.
Framework Readiness Is Important
The writer Ann Lamott defined the title of her e book Hen by Hen with an anecdote about her brother who, when he was 10 years previous, had left to the final minute a faculty report he wanted to jot down on birds. As he sat tearfully on the desk together with his reference books, notebooks and pencils unfold out in entrance of him, panicked by the mammoth activity forward, his father sat beside him and stated, “Hen by hen, buddy. Simply take it hen by hen.”
Many sustainability professionals will empathize with the scenario of a clean sheet of paper and a mammoth activity forward.
We discovered that:
- A “bird-by-bird” method works simply as properly for participating in new frameworks, just like the Taskforce on Nature-related Monetary Disclosures (TNFD) and Science Primarily based Tagrets Community (SBTN), because it does for varsity experiences. Whereas this discovering seems like an apparent one, we realized that firms battle with the place and methods to begin. The exhortation “simply begin someplace” does not likely assist.
- Readiness assessments are key to supporting progress, as they permit firms to grasp particular necessities and notice that a lot of the data is offered internally by already collected knowledge and externally by current instruments and guidances.
The consulting group at WHC developed a TNFD readiness evaluation device that we deployed with a number of firms at totally different factors of their nature-positive journeys. In every case, the evaluation helped the corporate arrive at a place to begin that made sense for its operations.
Saying No Can Be a Superpower
We heard from many firms throughout the yr in regards to the firehose of content material from consultants urging them to undertake a set of frameworks or align with sure initiatives. This sends complicated and overwhelming messages to nascent nature workplaces and, in some instances, offers inaccurate and deceptive messages that reek of bandwagon-jumping.
We discovered that:
- Corporations should not but resourced adequately to answer the move of data or to kind reality from fiction, which may result in a stasis if the time wanted to evaluate the veracity of messages just isn’t freely out there.
- Consideration to company tradition and operational context are sometimes lacking from the “one-size-fits-all” displays, which renders these approaches particularly ineffective and wasteful of sustainability officers’ time.
When WHC supplied a service to firms to assist them say no, it was met with a lot enthusiasm. Saying no just isn’t about refusing to behave for nature — it’s about directing the out there vitality to behave in the precise route. Saying no is about understanding the distinction between what have to be achieved, what needs to be achieved and what may very well be achieved, in addition to understanding what’s pointless, ineffective or diversionary.
The Lack of Knowledge Is Not the Downside
Let’s first agree that knowledge just isn’t wanted to behave for nature. Metrics should not a prerequisite to restoring and recovering ecosystems and the planet’s wealthy biodiversity. Indicators received’t make us nature constructive by 2030. However firms want knowledge to grasp influence, guarantee commitments are credible and report progress.
We discovered that:
- A dialog must happen between environmental, social and governance (ESG) and environmental well being and security (EHS) workplaces. EHS professionals have been capturing and accumulating knowledge on nature-related subjects for so long as such rules have been in place, however they’re leery about sharing this knowledge for causes exterior of compliance. Working with an vitality firm final yr, WHC consultants discovered a whole lack of belief between sustainability and compliance workplaces, which created difficulties in accumulating knowledge for ESG functions.
EHS professionals fear about misuse of information that might result in criticisms and accusations of greenwashing. Sustainability workplaces can allay these fears by opening conversations with their colleagues, together with them in discussions about knowledge deployment.
By the top of the previous yr, we at WHC perceive greater than ever what we don’t want from initiatives or frameworks. We don’t want extra infographics about interoperability. We don’t want any extra passengers on the bandwagon.
Right here’s what we do want:
- Acknowledgement that the system prefers the talkers to the doers
- Embarking upon the nature-positive journey in small steps
- The power to say “no”
- Higher resourced nature groups in firms
- Inner bridge-building to permit for higher flows of information.
As 2024 progresses, we look ahead to persevering with to implement these classes as we assist our company members in attaining wins for nature.
