Just maybe, however, 2020 will go down as the year we started getting things right. Science broke all speed records for developing effective vaccines. The United States elected a president with the greenest agenda ever. Solar emerged as the least expensive energy source in history. And more political and business leaders are recognizing that society’s vulnerability to COVID-19 is rooted in longstanding inequities and harmful behaviours that are finally being addressed.

All these trends, unexpectedly, helped make 2020 a banner year for Corporate Knights – and for anyone who cares about sustainability and social justice. As we continued our reporting and advocacy, we’ve seen several major advances this year:

• Our Building Back Better roundtable series last spring – masterfully moderated by the unflappable Diana Fox Carney – brought together a host of leaders in business, labour, science and government to explore innovative ways to spark a “green recovery.” The ideas put forth by our numerous experts – in energy, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, transportation and so much more – coalesced into an ambitious summary report whose proposals were endorsed by business leaders across all major sectors and are now seeping into policy agendas on both sides of the Atlantic. A short video of the Canada we could have by 2030 if we act boldly in the coming months and years can be viewed here.
• This fall we launched a follow-up roundtable series, Building Back Better Together, in partnership with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Canada. This alliance demonstrates the growing international interest in collaborating on climate issues, and we can’t wait to see how this trend grows as the United States rejoins the Paris Climate Agreement. 
• To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, we worked with Earth Day Canada and the Earth Day Initiative in the U.S. to produce the first-ever Green 50: Top business moves that helped the planet. Our list celebrated such game-changing events as Toyota’s launch of the first mass-produced hybrid car and Ontario’s decision to ban coal-fired power plants (still the world’s single largest GHG-reduction measure). Our goal parallelled that of Earth Day itself, as described to us by the movement’s founder, Denis Hayes: “To try to create enough pressure on governments and companies around the world to be aggressive in their [climate action] leadership.”
• The lockdown also opened a door for us to launch virtual Corporate Knights roundtables, building up a community of more than 5,000 engaged citizens, business leaders and public policy leaders who invested thousands of hours to explore and define the “angel in the details” of what it will take to build back better as we emerge from the pandemic pause. This year’s roundtables culminated in a fireside chat featuring Margaret Atwood, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, and David Suzuki, who offered a rousing call to action to take a moonshot at being the first to land a net-zero-emissions economy. 

Enough about us. I’d like to thank you for your support of Corporate Knights. Your engagement with our magazine, our events, our website and YouTube channel, and with our partners and advertisers is what enables us to go out every day and fight for sustainability and prosperity for Canada, the world and our children’s children. As the race to a zero-emissions economy speeds up and the climate threat grows, the perspective that government and science and business are all in this together is more timely and relevant than ever. We thank you for your support in 2020 and look forward to a more prosperous 2021 – the year we all begin to Build Back Better.

Happy New Year,

Toby Heaps

Founder and Publisher, Corporate Knights

The post My favourite year appeared first on Corporate Knights.

I see the parallels between the safeguarding of the Arctic and the survival of Inuit culture in the face of past, present and future environmental degradation. Attempting to awaken the world to this common understanding has guided my work. I have spent the last 15 years speaking to many audiences, offering a human story from the unique vantage point from which I come, my Inuit culture serving as the very anchor of my spirit. Travelling from city to city, province to province, across our large country of Canada, I was busier than I have ever been, as Canadians finally started to understand the Arctic connection – until COVID-19 hit. Now, many months later, I have learned to carry on with these “teaching” moments via Zoom and recorded messages.

When you share the human side of climate change, people relate to it better. The issues become clearer for them, no matter where they come from, when they can see themselves in human stories. In other words, if we can shift climate change out of the language of science, politics and economics and bring it home to the issues of health, food security, culture, families, communities and human rights – not just for Inuit, but for us all – it is more relatable. It helps to mobilize people to take action to address climate change in a tangible way.

After my book The Right to Be Cold came out, I was invited to New Zealand and Australia for book festivals. I was on a panel with Tim Flannery, a well-known Australian climatologist and author. At the end of the panel discussion, an audience member asked Tim a question: “What is lacking in our world, when we now know the science so clearly, that is not allowing us to take urgent action on climate change?” Tim’s answer struck a chord with me: “Imagination.”

Imagine we can do things differently. Imagine we can address climate change differently. Imagine we can innovate sustainable economies differently.

I believe we need to not only imagine a new way of doing things, but we must, as Canadians, re-imagine our unsustainable economic values and realign them with Indigenous values. Inuit and other Indigenous Peoples are not just victims of globalization wreaking havoc on our communities. With our understanding of nature, which we depend on as our food source and as a powerful character-builder for our children, Indigenous Peoples have much to offer in helping to galvanize a largely disconnected urban world. The pandemic has shown us just how interconnected we all are. The knowledge, values and wisdom of Indigenous Peoples hold the answers to the many challenges our world faces today. I strongly believe Indigenous wisdom is the medicine we seek in healing our planet and creating a sustainable world.

Transformation must happen from a very personal place; our attitudes, outdated policies based on colonialism, and unsustainable businesses must be shed and changed to meet a new world order, one that embraces the real meaning of our common humanity.

As author and spiritual leader Marianne Williamson says, “Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.”

Sheila Watt-Cloutier is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and author of The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet.

This article is part of a series of stories from our Winter Issue cover package: What it will take for us to get the climate message before it’s too late.

On Wednesday, December 9, Watt-Cloutier joined Corporate Knights, with Margaret Atwood and David Suzuki for a fireside chat about climate action.

Watch the full event below.

For more information on the event, visit corporateknights.com/paristoglasgow.

The post Through the lens of an Inuk woman appeared first on Corporate Knights.