While congratulating this year’s 100 most sustainable firms in the “noble pursuit of the idea that business can be a force for good,” Prince Charles urgently called for the sort of leadership represented by the Global 100. He warned that the sum of all countries’ carbon reduction commitments won’t come close to limiting rising global temperatures to an average of 2°C – let alone the essential target of 1.5°. “Rather – and this is the problem – they deliver a 3.2°C increase, which means mass extinction and large parts of the planet being uninhabitable by the end of this century.

“As I’ve been trying to say, for more years than I can remember, what on earth is the point of testing this world, and nature, to destruction?”

The prince noted that with “more businesses, investors, shareholders and consumers recognizing the opportunity that a sustainable future affords,” we can shift the momentum of the private sector and capital markets in line with net-zero.

Echoing his message was Sanda Ojiambo, CEO of the United Nations Global Compact, which leads and supports international businesses on their path to sustainability. She noted that 2020 was one of the warmest years on record, with droughts, floods and rising sea levels having catastrophic effects. One bright spot: “Net-zero commitments by the business sector have doubled in the past 12 months.”

Roundtable moderator Diana Fox Carney led the four CEOs in discussing key steps being taken by the leading firms to align with 1.5°C. Asked whether he believed companies would achieve net-zero by 2050, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, CEO of this year’s top firm, France’s Schneider Electric, noted that, globally, “we are not at the right speed at all … The technologies are here, but what we need is to accelerate the way we design things – the way we design factories,buildings, cities – incorporating those existing technologies, because every decision we make counts.”

Tricoire added, “The buildings we build today … will be burning carbon for the next 50 years. Everything we build/do clean today will have implications for the next 50 years.”

Founded in 1836, during the First Industrial Revolution, Schneider develops electrical distribution products (including off-grid solar storage) and smart automation solutions to make the world more energy-efficient and renewable. Tricoire pointed out that when Schneider began to embrace sustainability 15 years ago, “it was a very lone crusade.” But in those 15 years, the company has tripled in size. Action is its own reward, he said: “We reset the bar every three years to a higher level.”

Like Schneider, Danish wind energy giant Ørsted (number two on this year’s Global 100) has also thrived by enabling the world’s broader journey to net-zero. CEO Mads Nipper noted that his firm is proof that change can happen in a blink, even in the dirtiest sectors. “Just 10 years back, we were one of the most coal- and oil-intensive utilities in Europe. We alone accounted for more than one-third of total emissions in Denmark. Since then, we’ve actually reduced our own emissions by 86%, by making a fundamental green transition.”

Founded in 1972 to develop oil and gas deposits in the North Sea, Ørsted is now the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power, producing 88% of its energy from renewable sources. By 2025, says Nipper, the company intends to be the world’s first carbon-neutral utility: “Our vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy.”

Lawrence Kurzius, CEO of McCormick & Co., a global leader in spices, seasoning and “flavour solutions,” agreed that companies can use existing technologies to future-proof their businesses for carbon. As a first step, he said that every new facility McCormick builds is either silver or gold LEED-certified, pointing out that McCormick co-invested in building a solar farm to power its new headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. “Even though we’re not an energy company, we can certainly source from renewable sources.” Tackling plastic packaging is another key initiative, Kurzius said, adding that McCormick has made a commitment to go 100% circular. Today, 84% of McCormick’s plastic can be recycled, reused or repurposed.

As the top-ranked food company on the Global 100, McCormick has put sustainable farming at the heart of its net-zero plans. The company is leveraging new technology to work with hundreds of thousands of small farmers in 80 countries to help them develop sustainable farming practices – in some cases organizing the farmers into agricultural co-ops and committing to take the co-ops’ full outputs. “I think that that really multiplies the efforts that we undertake ourselves,” Kurzius said.

Roberto Marques, CEO of Brazil-headquartered conglomerate Natura & Co., spoke of sourcing ingredients while preserving the Amazon rainforest by working with the local communities as “guardians of the forest.” Last year, the personal-care company, whose brands include Avon and The Body Shop, committed to being net-zero by 2030 throughout its supply chain, including Scope 3 emissions (those created through use of its products) – “a daunting ambition for us,” Marques said. Natura is also targeting “full circularity” for its packaging by 2030 and intends that by then 95% of its products will be natural, renewable and biodegradable. “We don’t have all the answers today,” he said. “It’s a call to action – for society, for our partners, for the entire community.”

Challenging targets produce results, Marques said: they capture people’s imaginations and spur innovation and collaboration. “We truly believe that by setting the bar high you end up driving innovation. At the end of the day, I don’t think there is room for even competition or political agenda when humanity is at risk.”

Collaboration was at the heart of Prince Charles’s message as well. “For the sake of a safer and more sustainable future, let us join forces and waste no more time. As each of you continues your heroic efforts as members of the Corporate Knights Global 100, I can only offer you my sincere congratulations and ask that you keep going, demonstrating the leadership the world so desperately needs.”

In the spirit of enshrining the rights and value of nature in capitalism, Corporate Knights is inviting the leaders of Global 100 companies to support the Terra Carta, a bold new climate action charter from the Prince’s Sustainable Markets Initiative.

“We are moving more quickly than we were before, but we really need to speed up,” Corporate Knights publisher Toby Heaps said in conclusion. “The good news is the solutions are on the shelf; they’re waiting for all of us to make the bold, smart choices to invest in them.”

Rick Spence is a business writer, speaker and consultant in Toronto specializing in entrepreneurship, innovation and growth. He is also a senior editor at Corporate Knights.

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Natura certification marks big milestone for B Corp program

Natura, the Brazilian cosmetics company with nearly $3 billion in sales and 7,000 employees, has become the first publicly traded and billion-dollar company to become a certified B Corp. The news marks a major milestone for the B Labs-run program, which has certified nearly 2,000 companies worldwide – including Corporate Knights. Most of those companies are small, privately owned ventures. Natura ranked 23^rd on CK’s 2014 Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies ranking and was the top-ranked Household and Personal Products company. The fact it has now joined the B Corp pack represents a massive breakthrough that could lure other big-name, publicly traded companies to the standard. Members of the B Corp community commit to high standards of environmental and social stewardship and transparency, and are subjected to random, periodic audits. Prior to Natura, companies such as Kickstarter and Ben and Jerry’s were among some of the better-known B Corp members.

Paulson Institute dissects China’s energy policies, future

Henry Paulson could be described as a mainstream Republican, so when the former U.S. treasury secretary and Goldman Sachs chief executive argued in a commentary last summer in favour of a U.S. carbon tax, it created a stir in conservative circles. Now the Paulson Institute, an independent think tank he founded at the University of Chicago in 2011, has released a new paper that focuses attention on China’s own carbon dilemma. Institute fellow Damien Ma argues that Chinese policy in recent years has directly responded to the urgency of the country’s energy and environment woes. The challenge, he writes, is the reality that economic growth – and therefore growth in energy demand – will continue for decades to come. How China expects to solve that conundrum makes this paper an interesting read. Meanwhile, China’s highest court this week announced it would lower how much it costs environmental groups to sue Chinese companies caught polluting air, land and water.

Sustainable jobs to get boost in 2015, says recruiter

Executive recruiter Ellen Weinreb has a commentary in the Guardian that predicts significant shifts in the sustainable job market as more companies wake up to the importance of corporate social responsibility. “Demonstrating earnestness in sustainability will be essential in 2015,” Weinreb writes. “It has already been established that consumers prefer to do business with responsible organizations. A new driver – the need to attract competitive employees – has also added pressure for companies to broadly integrate sustainability into their operations.” Weinreb adds that more chief sustainability officers are expected to report directly to the C-suite while companies are likely to embrace the use of more contract or part-time sustainability professionals.

Deutsche Bank bullish on solar stocks, despite low oil prices

There’s a strange psychology in the marketplace when it comes to energy stocks. When oil prices are low, shares of renewable energy companies tend to suffer – despite the fact that solar and wind farms are a direct replacement for coal and natural gas, not oil. But Deutsche Bank, while it recognizes this impact of low oil prices, is quite optimistic about how solar stocks will perform in 2015. Particularly, it’s bullish on SunEdison, Solar City, SunPower and Vivant Solar, with expectations that within the next 12 months shares in these companies will jump by 80 to 100 per cent. Indeed, Bloomberg New Energy Finance is reporting that clean energy investment rose for the first time in three years in 2014. “The impact of cheaper crude will be felt much more in road transport than in electricity generation,” said BNEF advisory board chair Michael Liebreich.

Oil’s slippery slope: Is the petro armour weakening?

Corporate Knights editor-in-chief Tyler Hamilton writes about the latest events that have destabilized the fossil-fuel sector, and more importantly, the once untouchable oil industry. Citing McKinsey sustainability guru Jeremy Oppenheim, Hamilton argues that the future of the fossil fuel industry will be marked by increased infighting as oil, natural gas and coal companies jockey to be the least impacted by increasingly strict carbon policies and regulations. “A sure sign of disruption in a sector is when its key players begin to turn on each other, like the survivors of a remote mountain plane crash trying to figure out who gets eaten first,” Hamilton writes. “Coal, as the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, is that flabby dude who ends up roasting in the campfire.” But all that will do is delay the inevitable, he adds, pointing out that the oil industry’s belief that humanity will dither on serious climate action is a big gamble that could sting investors.

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