Article originally published in the newspaper Victory Leaf
It's been about 10 years since the joke about "eco-bores" lost its charm. The concept of sustainability has gained strength and today it is no longer seen only as a concern for organic food and the appropriate use of water.
The figure of the “eco-annoyant”, who patrolled other people’s lives in search of environmental infractions to be reprimanded, has definitely been replaced by the avant-garde executive who considers in his business strategy how climate change affects access to capital and how this increases his exposure to risk.
The financial sector, for example, can be affected by climate change directly and indirectly. Impacts related to failures and interruptions in the operations of financial companies caused by extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, cyclones, storms, heat waves and severe droughts, and gradual changes, such as rising sea levels, force banks and insurance companies to reformulate their businesses and incorporate the variable of climate change definitively into their operations.
After all, inefficient pricing of climate risks in business can generate substantial losses for banks, insurers, and asset owners and managers. It can threaten the survival of productive companies and erode the profitability of investments by individuals in the most extreme situations.
Today, a company with its feet firmly in the future is guided by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 as a global action plan. The challenge we face, for our own survival, is to listen to what science says and what was established in the SDGs and the Paris Agreement, in which 195 countries signed a commitment to reduce their emissions. The guidelines of the Agreement are clear: by the middle of this century we must achieve zero net CO2 emissions, which means drastically reducing the use of fossil fuels in our way of producing and consuming.
That is why the days when a company’s sustainability specialist was restricted to his or her department are long gone. It is becoming increasingly clear to companies that sustainability is related to the company’s performance in the present and its survival in the future.
It is a company that, even before making a decision about investment, considers the risks of water scarcity and how it can make more efficient use of water in its production process, which reduces its costs. It is a company that already foresees the inexorable transition to a low-carbon economy, and incorporates the possible pricing of carbon into its business. With this new logic of incorporating this externality, it is moving towards becoming an increasingly cleaner company, already thinking about investing in renewable energy and reducing its costs. It is a company that creates opportunities for diversity to prevail among its staff, knowing that a company that reflects different generations, different genders, different races and religions in its staff not only combats inequality, but also makes the company more competitive.
Sustainability today is no longer confused with green. It is seen in a systemic way. It is colorful. And it has all the colors represented in each SDG. It takes on different shades to increase its effectiveness.
Representing 60 of the largest companies operating in a wide range of sectors in Brazil, the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS) is aware of its mission to promote the exchange of experiences among these companies and to ensure that the success stories of each of them serve as examples and can be replicated by more and more companies and industry chains. We are aware of our role as a bridge to transmit these concepts and practices to society, and also to take these experiences to government officials, in order to enable the establishment of public policies that eliminate bottlenecks and effectively promote a leap forward towards a sustainable future.
We speak of the term sustainable in the broadest sense. Past, present and future, the concept that was once considered green is now colorful, and is increasingly incorporated as a collective habit, in companies, in society, in individuals, involving all links and all chains.
Marina Grossi is president of the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS).
