• Don’t Pay Lip Service: In 2020, intense storms, high temperatures and flooding triggered three times more displacements of people than violent conflicts did (The Guardian, 2021) – highlighting how large swathes of the global population are increasingly being disastrously impacted by severe weather events.
  
  Despite this, a 2021 report from independent scientific analysis group Climate Action Tracker found that 73% of existing net-zero brand pledges are weak and inadequate, merely paying “lip service to climate action”. Slowly adapting to the changing climate is no longer an option, because these changes are too extreme and happening too quickly for humans to adapt to them. It’s paramount that every business treats this as an emergency, and acts accordingly.

November 2021’s Cop26 Climate Summit clearly laid out the seven fundamental things we need to do to curb climate change. Presented as a list of non-negotiables, we contextualise those seven priorities and highlight some positive case studies that show how smart brands are already making a difference.

• 1. Phase Out Fossil Fuels: Fossil fuel combustion (burning coal, natural gas and petroleum) accounts for an astonishing three-quarters of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the US (EIA, 2021) and EU (European Commission, 2020). And in 2018, a massive 89% of global CO2 emissions came from fossil fuels and linked industries (Client Earth, 2022).
  
  To put that into context, fossil fuel pollution is already having a notable human impact, causing 8.7 million deaths worldwide in 2018. It’s also well reported that a very high percentage of GHG emissions are emitted by just 20 fossil fuel companies (Climate Accountability, 2020).
  
  In addition, with the current energy crisis on our hands driven by rocketing wholesale gas prices and sanctions on Russian supplies, shifting quickly to sustainable alternatives could also have a positive socio-economic impact on the population. 
  
  See Adopt Renewable Energy (below) for more on the benefits of shifting to sustainable green power supplies, and see Address Sustainable Socio-Economic Imbalance (further down) for more on financial inclusivity.

• 5. Plant More Trees: As explored in Looking to the Past for Solutions, the regreening of our planet – and the planting of trees, specifically – provides so many answers to current problems. For instance, it can support healthier agriculture, better flood and drought management, richer biodiversity, and greater sequestering of harmful CO2. In the US alone, trees capture and store almost 15% of our CO2 emissions every year – equivalent to the annual emissions from 163 million cars (EPA, 2021).
  
  According to the Global Wellness Institute, “natural capital will become a prominent investment theme” as we look to nature for the support we need to regain environmental equilibrium. Estimates show sustainable forest management alone could generate 30 million new jobs and create $2.3tn of potential business by 2030 (GWI, 2021); clearly, it’s an area ripe for smart investment.
  
  In another inspiring example from Paris, which highlights just how transformed our urban landscapes need to become, plans are afoot to plant four new ‘urban forests’ next to major landmarks. These include the Hôtel de Ville, the Gare de Lyon, and the Opéra Garnier. The city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has pledged to plant more than 170,000 trees across the capital by 2026, with an impressive 50% of the city set to be covered by planted areas by 2030.
  
  To help make that happen, building codes have been loosened, making it much easier for Parisians to plant trees in their neighbourhoods.

• 6. Sequester GHGs: Beyond the major role that trees and biophilia play in sequestering CO2, we urgently need to find other smart ways of capturing harmful GHGs generally.
  
  Excitingly, in September 2021, Orca was launched in Iceland. The world’s first climate-positive direct air capture and storage plant makes the large-scale removal of carbon dioxide a reality. The facility consists of eight collector containers, with an annual capture capacity of 500 tons each, and the heat and electricity required for the direct air capture process is supplied by the Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant.
  
  Such innovation, given the right attention and investment, will be game-changing, as will aforementioned research that shows we can convert waste CO2 into fuel using solar power.
  
  In addition, we must also think about the GHGs created by landfill, with waste facilities accounting for 17.3% of human-caused methane emissions in the US in 2019 (Waste Dive, 2021). Whatever the industry, it’s imperative that landfill is a last resort for your business, and that we put the waste we create to good use. This includes everything from utilising by-products from food and beauty manufacturing, to repurposing discarded materials in fashion and product design.