When I started talking to people about ESG in 2014 the conversations went much differently than today. Five years ago the responses included “tree hugging”, “feel good” and “underperformance”. Today, it’s “exponential capital inflow”, “alpha generation” and “missing the boat”. Since then a very strong growth of ESG has been driven by investor demand. What began as a way for someone to align their money with personal social and environmental values is becoming an economy-wide comprehensive standard that a company needs to integrate throughout the organization in order to be competitive. …

2021–2030 is the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. This restoration can help to end poverty, mitigate climate change, forward social equality, prevent extinctions and promote peace. These global challenges are met by action in the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Carbon offsets are a well established market mechanism that allows an organization to address their greenhouse gas accounting and emissions footprint by supporting projects that reduce or remove atmospheric carbon. A supersize example of corporate carbon offsetting is with the airlines. The vast majority of their carbon emissions comes from the burning of jet fuel, so unless they aren’t conducting business, airlines are emitting a lot of carbon. In order to address their GHG footprint the only current feasible option is investing in carbon offset projects. A lot of companies are now starting to invest in offset projects for their use in GHG accounting, but most miss how supporting the right project can align with SDGs that match with CSR priorities. …

For 320 years my family has lived in the southeastern U.S., which has provided a quality of life good enough to have them want to stay that long. The next several years are critical for determining the quality of life for our future generations in the southeast, as well as everywhere else on the planet. 2021–2030 has been declared by the UN, the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. To secure a habitable place for our grandchildren and their children, everyone has a responsibility, actions to take and the opportunity to contribute. Over the next decade we collectively and individually need to decarbonize economies, create sustainable food systems, protect and restore enough natural land, water and biodiversity, while providing jobs in the process. …

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

Just 5 years ago, being “carbon neutral” was not a front burner mandate for most corporations. The past couple years has seen a flood of commitments for companies to be carbon neutral by a target date, usually between 2025 and 2040. There is no precise standard for being carbon neutral and there could be days in the future when a company is called to defend these claims.

The path by which a company reaches carbon neutrality can take different routes, but it usually starts with efficiency; using less energy and streamlining operations. Where an organization goes from here, depends on their emissions and energy profile. Most of an airline’s carbon release comes from the burning of jet fuel, so installing rooftop solar at the HQ won’t get them far. A fast food chain with thousands of locations, would have an extremely difficult challenge trying to procure renewable energy from dozens of utilities across 50 states. Thankfully, the trend is very strong for corporate carbon neutrality commitments of all kinds. …

America’s Best Idea was the title of Ken Burns’ Emmy winning documentary on national parks. Ever since congress established the world’s first national park in 1872 at Yellowstone, public land has been one of America’s best ideas. The thinking around conserving a national park for public benefit could have come from more urban parks like Central Park in NYC, opened in 1858. Having lived next to both of these places, I know their value to the quality of life for citizens.

Parks, conservancies, refuges, wildernesses and land trusts are a reflection of American democracy. Public land prevents a ruling aristocracy from subjecting less powerful citizens to the rule of their estates, as was the case in Europe for centuries. Public lands provide space to benefit recreation, biodiversity, clean water & air, mental health, education and climate mitigation. Proximity to “green space” contributes to one’s overall quality of life. In the past several years public lands have been under attack at the federal level, driven greatly by short term financial interests of fossil fuel and mineral extraction lobbies. …

“It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.” is a paraphrase of a Chinese proverb.

Most professionals at nonprofits and NGOs are a lot of a gardener and a little bit of a warrior. The gardener — cultivating collaborations, tending to stakeholders, sowing to reap. The warrior — training, assessing, protecting and attacking to achieve an end.

Traditional philanthropic models are fading as the scale and urgency of our social and environmental issues require more aggressive and market based solutions. …

Companies supporting nonprofits is a well-established staple in philanthropy. Maybe a particular relationship began because of an affinity for the cause by the business’ founder. Maybe a cause had alignment with a company’s business. Maybe it’s little more than corporate optics and PR. Maybe it’s something deeper.

Just as the old CSR model is transforming into ESG, the old philanthropic funding model is transforming into integrated relationships between companies and nonprofits. This relationship is built on metrics, employee engagement and shared values.

At the next level, there is the transformative partnership, a collaboration in which two organizations, both leaders in their specific field, work closely together. They marry skills, capacity and vision to propel a mission and transforms both company and nonprofit. This partnership challenges the staffs at both entities to put their core competencies to the test. In this process, a nonprofit creates scale and impact, unachievable on its own. A company makes itself better at its actual business. …

Most of the conversation and problem solving related to climate action is focused on mitigation. Everyone knows that one way or another global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions need to be in line with the generally accepted Paris Agreement if we are going to avoid the worst case scenarios from climate change. Energy efficiency, renewable energy, carbon sequestration, electrification, and grid transformation are different mitigation arrows in the climate action quiver.

If climate action were to be granted one wish and chose to magically bring new carbon emissions to zero, our environmental problems still wouldn’t be solved. The damage has already been done. Consider the vast
amount of carbon that has already been added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. There is enough energy in the system already to cause decades of additional warming, increased storm & precipitation intensity, flooding, sea level rise, drought and wildfire risk. …