Climate change leadership takes bravery, courage and action — Lionesses of Africa

by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department

 “If we’re lucky, we may become refugees.” 

— Philip Davis, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas

At the time of writing, COP26 is into its last days and sadly it is not looking good for any meaningful results. The current feeling is that (non-binding) commitments so far given are driving us to an increase of 2.6 degrees, significantly higher than the 1.5 required to keep the globe relatively stable. The above quote tragically says it all. It is from Philip Davis, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, one of the many countries on the battle front of Climate Change, as he arrived home disappointed but sadly not surprised by the lack of courage in his fellow leaders. “I invited them to be brave, to be courageous and act…” But as he added: “They don’t seem to have any teeth to them.” (here)

Echoing our comments made in our recent articles about agreements being meaningless if they are non-binding, the Prime Minister explained that among his fears is the non-binding nature of the pledges made at COP26, but with more lobbyists from the Fossil Fuel industry at COP26 than delegates from even the largest country (here), what should we have expected?

We highlighted (here) two weeks ago, Christopher Napoli saying of such COP meetings that “structural imperfections are symptoms of a deeper problem of collective action.” It seems that he is being proved right – where “…states will only choose to abate pollution if the short-term net benefit of abatement is positive from a national perspective.” Short term pain for long term gain is always tough but almost impossible for many of our ‘leaders’ it seems.

In 1992, nations agreed at the Rio Earth Summit to tackle Climate Change. Yet here we are in 2021 and it appears that there will be no mention of Fossil Fuels (the biggest problem) in the final COP26 ‘agreement’ when we all (well most of us anyway!) admit we are staring down the barrel of extinction.…and in case you wondered – that’s why they pay lobbyists the big bucks!

So when there is such an issue and politicians can’t seem to agree even what time of the day it is, who are we going to call? Sadly it is not that easy, there is no Ghost Busting Team ready and standing by – we have to do this ourselves. Last weekend in our article (here) we quoted Melanie saying: “…the ability to make the transition to greener business and lives lies with us” – but how to do this and where to start? 

In July, the EU flexed its huge muscles (here), bringing in: “…a new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism which will put a carbon price on imports…so that ambitious climate action in Europe does not lead to ‘carbon leakage’.” Such ‘leakage’ is when costs rising in the west through employment, regulation or taxes result in companies simply moving their production abroad to a cheaper or less regulated country. That destroys the whole point of Carbon controlling efforts obviously! So this import tax  (er, sorry – ‘Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism’) stops all cement manufacturers moving overnight to China or all Steel manufacturing to Australia where Coal is plentiful and still welcomed. But this also means that if you are serious about your own carbon footprint, it may well encourage customers from the EU to now turn to your business, rather than some supplier who take this less seriously. Even although this won’t come in for a few years, this is an opportunity for such Lionesses if we prepare!

Other opportunities are coming too following the Shell court case we reported on two weeks ago (here) that took the COP21 responsibility signed by governments and placed it firmly into the laps of large multi national corporates such as Shell and most importantly also their suppliers and customers. On the back of this we have already noticed an increase in interest from major corporates in the Carbon Footprint and also in the ESG efforts of those in their supply chains.

Many suppliers are now receiving questionnaires relating to their ESG work from these major global names. Armed with the replies the multi-nationals can not only control their future liabilities, but also nail their flags firmly to the ESG pole ahead of any move to separate the good from the bad in any investment league tables. This is great news for the environment, for working conditions and all the other parts that make up ESG.

So how does that impact us? If you supply any big western name you may have already had such a questionnaire, but fear not, what the big companies do, so it waters down. Their suppliers will now start to consider their own supply chain, their’s, and so on. We have to be prepared, this is coming and coming fast. This preparedness will involve routine data collection and so the sooner you start and gain history, the better.

So what are the main ESG priorities that many of these companies look at? We would strongly suggest you look first at your customers’ websites – ESG is becoming so central that your large customers will have all their information there. ESG as we know, stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance, but in reality companies who take this seriously (and all will or will be forced to do so soon) will generally cover 5 broad categories being Economic, Governance, Social, Environmental and Supply chain (yes, we agree ‘EGSES’ doesn’t sound quite so snappy as ESG!).

One major western company (turnover in the US$ Billions) we looked at has the following as their main priorities:

Human capital management: Diversity within the Board, Executive and Employees / Employee Engagement / Compensation and benefits / Health and wellness / Talent attraction and development /Succession planning.

Supply chain management: Vendor code of conduct / Supplier diversity  /Supplier ESG issues. 

Data privacy and security: Customer, employee and business partner data protection and privacy / Security of information systems.

Product quality and safety: Quality assurance systems / Compliance with / Regulatory requirements / Product recalls / Integrity of distribution system 

Environmental emissions and impact: Climate change and energy use / Efficient transport and logistics / Operations facilities management

Ethics and compliance: Compliance with local and international law, including anti-bribery; anti-corruption laws; anti-child labor and anti-forced labour / Whistleblower mechanisms.