The speaker, then a young Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, predicted that the enormous costs of fighting pollution would test politicians’ will and the public purse. “Are we all prepared to accept these price increases for the sometimes dubious advantage of seeing our environment improved? Are we prepared to discipline ourselves to restrictions and regulations that we feel we ought to impose for our own good?” 

Sadly, Charles proved uncommonly prescient. As heir apparent, he fought climate complacency for 50 years, proving himself to be one of the world’s most consistent – if unlikeliest – eco-activists. The road, however, has been bumpy. At the start, Charles recently recalled, he was considered “dotty” for harping on such uncomfortable truths. Later, he enraged Cabinet members for exposing Britain’s odious habit of dumping sewage in the North Sea. 

Charles has harangued and fatigued his subjects over topics as varied as conservation of wetlands and wildlife, urban design and architecture, organic farming, sheep-shearing, green buildings, socially responsible business, personalized healthcare and electric vehicles (his own Aston Martin runs on surplus wine and whey from cheese-making).  

As he explained in the introduction to his 2009 book, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World, “What I have actually been trying to demonstrate is that all of these subjects are completely inter-related and that we have to look at the whole picture to understand the problems we face. For not only does it concern the way we treat the world around us, it is also to do with how we view ourselves.” 

His solutions have also been remarkably consistent in encouraging creative leaders. In that 1970 speech, he launched a new “Countryside Award” for organizations that enhanced the environment of Wales. Half a century later, he launched the Sustainable Markets Initiative to rally global companies to accelerate the energy transition; at COP26, the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow, Charles handed out the Terra Carta Seal to 45 global companies leading the way (a project on which Corporate Knights offers advising services).  

But while Charles has been heralded for his climate advocacy, some climate activists from countries colonized by England are hoping the new king will do more to acknowledge the links between colonialism and the climate crisis. In a report released in April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change named colonialism as a driver of the “vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change.” 

But as king, Charles will likely have to curtail his activist instincts. Centuries of convention forbid the British monarch to interfere in political decision-making (Charles I lost his head in 1649 for insisting on the divine right of kings). “It will no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energies to the charities and issues for which I care so deeply,” said Charles in a televised address in September.  

Jonathon Porritt, former head of the U.K. Green party and Charles’s sometime advisor, notes that his reticence may not carry over into private conversations – and that the monarch meets with the prime minister every week. As Porritt told The Guardian, “Whoever is prime minister should probably anticipate a pretty lively set of conversations.”  

In any event, William, the new Prince of Wales, seems set to carry on his father’s work. In 2020, he cofounded, with biologist and broadcaster David Attenborough, the Earthshot Prize, a 50-million-pound organization to recognize individuals or organizations that create impactful solutions to big environmental problems. In announcing the first winners last year, William courted controversy by criticizing billionaire entrepreneurs for funding space travel over climate solutions: “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.” Sounds like a chip off the old block. 

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The list of companies that qualified for this royal “seal of approval” includes Amazon, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, HP, IBM, PepsiCo and Unilever. All of the recipient companies hold leadership positions within their industries and have credible transition roadmaps underpinned by globally recognized, scientific metrics for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 or earlier.

The Terra Carta Seal, launching in Glasgow November 3, comes out of the Prince of Wales’s recent Terra Carta initiative, a recovery plan for the private sector that prioritizes nature. 

The name Terra Carta (“Earth Charter”) derives from the Magna Carta, a charter of rights developed by King John and his barons 800 years ago that marked the first step in limiting monarchical power in England. The Prince of Wales believes we’ve reached a similar turning point in the battle against climate catastrophe, praising these organizations “who have made a serious and action-orientated commitment to prioritise the transition to a sustainable future while putting Nature, People and Planet at the heart of the way they operate.”

The Canadian firms on the list are Cogeco, Stantec and Telus. Adding to that Canadian content, Corporate Knights played a role in vetting and offering counsel on the companies under consideration. SMI used the Corporate Knights Global 100 ranking as the starting point for its list in combination with SMI’s active task force members. Corporate Knights researchers helped evaluate individual companies’ qualifications.

Prince Charles, a long-time environmental crusader, provided opening remarks at the Global 100’s virtual launch last January. “We talked in the back room on Zoom,” says Corporate Knights co-founder and chief executive Toby Heaps. That’s where His Royal Highness asked Heaps if Corporate Knights could use its experience in ranking – and reading between the lines on companies’ sustainability commitments – to help establish an authoritative list of companies to receive the Terra Carta Seal. “There are no perfect companies” when it comes to sustainability, says Heaps. “But we have a pretty good red-flag detector.” 

Heaps hopes the program will help other business leaders push harder for more sustainable futures. “We need to see businesses flow money into climate solutions,” he says. “The solutions are ready. This is the kind of thing that can get a CEO’s attention.”

The Terra Carta Seal is awarded to companies that have documented plans to halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 or achieve net-zero by 2050. They have also committed to adopting standardized reporting metrics.

“The real opportunity is to see what this group of companies can do together.”

–Steve Fleck, executive vice-president, Stantec

Stantec, an Edmonton-based engineering and construction firm, was the highest-ranked North American company on this year’s Global 100. Vancouver-based telecom Telus has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 31% since 2010 and has purchase agreements that power all its activities in Alberta with renewable electricity. Cogeco, a Montreal-based cable and internet supplier, has committed to reducing its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 65% by 2030. All three companies have had their emissions-reduction plans approved by the Science Based Targets initiative as meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Two days before the announcement of the Terra Carta Seal, the executive team at Stantec learned they had made the cut. “It’s quite an honour but not a surprise,” says executive vice-president Steve Fleck. “Sustainability is part of Stantec – it’s in the water.” 

Fleck believes the honour will be good for business. He says Stantec got into sustainability early through its clients in public–private partnerships, such as the 2007 Kelowna-Vernon hospital project in British Columbia. “There were specific energy criteria we had to meet,” he says. The company knew it would be held responsible if those standards weren’t met – but it also discovered opportunities to win when contractors exceed expectations. 

Today Stantec is regularly involved in building net-zero buildings, retrofitting older structures, enhancing coastal resilience for shoreline communities, and helping mining and oil firms shrink their carbon footprints. “It’s a big change from a few years ago,” says Fleck, “when some of these companies would have been leading the climate denial issue.”

Stantec looks forward to participating in the activist executive network Prince Charles hopes to build through the Terra Carta Seal. “The real opportunity is to see what this group of companies can do together,” Fleck says. “In many ways, private-sector entities are moving forward more efficiently and quickly than governments can do. So I have a lot of time for this institution.”

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In response, on the 25^th anniversary of the UN’s World Water Day March 22, the Prince of Wales launched a sustainable finance accelerator aimed at fast-tracking investments in climate-resilient water programs for up to 50 million people in water-stressed areas by 2030.

The kickoff of Resilient Water Accelerator follows a pledge to boost water financing made at the Prince’s Sustainable Markets Initiative [SMI] Roundtable on Water in London last year.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced the need to ensure access to clean water services around the world,” said Prince Charles in a statement. “Since the first meeting in March of last year, the [SMI] Water and Climate Finance Initiative Task Force has worked steadfastly towards achieving this, by boosting climate funding for comprehensive scalable resilient water programmes.”

A report released by WaterAid in October found that despite the climate crisis triggering a rise in natural disasters, only 5% of global climate finance is currently allocated for adapting to climate change – roughly US$30 billion per year. The main recipients of any adaptation-related finance to date have been middle-earning countries. “The result is that not only is not enough being invested, but even that investment is not going to vulnerable countries,” concluded WaterAid.

Last month, the UN warned that over a third of the world – 2.2 billion people ­– still lack access to clean drinking water. The Resilient Water Accelerator will support locations six Africa and South East Asia, where WaterAid says “a new approach can be tested, to address holistic threats on the ground, from pollution of water sources, rising levels of water-stress, exacerbated by dwindling ground-water supplies.”

The Accelerator is being led by international development organization WaterAid and will bring together key governments (including the UK, Bangladesh, Burkina-Faso and Nigeria), private sector leaders and development banks.

“As we head into the crucial climate negotiations at COP in Glasgow later this year, this work will show that practical solutions to the water and climate crisis exist,” said WaterAid’s chief executive Tim Wainwright.

The Prince isn’t the only celebrity getting in on water financing. Actor Matt Damon, who co-founded the nonprofit Water.org in 2009, has teamed up with SMI. “We are proud to be part of the Resilient Water Accelerator,” tweeted the organization Monday. Damon is calling on a wave of private sector investors to open their wallets and scale up micro-finance solutions to the water crisis. Since 2009, Water.org reports that it has doled out US$2.6 billion via 7.2 million loans, improving water access for 33 million people.

“All we’re trying to do is get the attention of the heavy hitters to come into this space,” said Damon. “There is so much low-hanging fruit here — and this model really, really works.”

Related read: The man who would be ‘climate king’

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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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