CAB Highlights: Unlock the true potential of your influence

When you start your climate journey, the first thing to tackle is the sphere of control: own emission reduction, scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Once this is done, however, the time comes to ask yourself a question: is this the action that will bring us to global net-zero? 

The truth is that, as important as it is to start by working on your own emissions, global net-zero is not a sum of CO2 neutral companies, but a rippling effect that can happen only when a company goes from tackling its sphere of control to what at LFCA we call “sphere of influence”. Your sphere of influence consists of all your stakeholders: as a company, you don’t have direct control over their environmental footprint, but you are in a unique position to involve them in your climate journey, inspiring them to take action in turn. 

As at LFCA we always aim to connect action to practical solutions, on the 16th of December we gathered with our community to show, thanks to two amazing speakers, how companies can practically reach their sphere of influence and inspire a sustainability domino effect.

Then, we launched the initiative that will scale up our community’s influence in the coming Earth Day: the 2022 Time For Climate Action campaign. A campaign that reached 24 million people last year, triggering real and concrete climate action only through the power of our community. To know about the even more ambitious goals of this year, read the article. You can already sign up by clicking below:

When it comes to climate action, the biggest challenges, but also the biggest reduction potential, lies in addressing business-specific measures. The more specific a measure, the less material is available and the harder it is to implement. However, the scale of our community allows us to address this challenge by using collective intelligence, as we can create cohorts of companies working together on the same measures and facing the same challenges.

We tested this approach in the last month with one of our biggest clusters composed of E-Commerce companies. We have put together material on 13 potential actions that they could implement in our E-Commerce Guide. Then, we have collected commitments among companies that wanted to implement those actions, and we organized monthly mastermind groups where they collaborate with companies working on similar projects.  Additionally, to make sure that knowledge keeps being shared with our community, our online app for members has been updated with new action material and new interactive features, that give the possibility to every Climate Officer to comment and add their own doubts or solutions. 

Charlotte Sewell, Strategic Advisor to the B Corp Global Climate taskforce, started her speech from the B Corp declaration of interdependence to share how companies can take an approach of responsibility, acknowledging that we are all dependent upon each other and responsible, not only for each other but also for the planet and future generations. Cooperating rather than competing means then, in the business bubble, to “Compete to be the best for the world and not in the world” and this approach is the only one that can drive real systemic change. 

 Charlotte also shared with us her insights on COP26, as she was one of the participants: despite many commitments could have sounded not bold enough, a more general ecosystem approach was in full force. Businesses, activist groups, NGOs and organizations are teaming up around the globe to join forces for the planet, and such thriving ecosystems are exactly what we need to push the needle forward. 

Climate justice was present as well, in many forms, which also gives hope as the talk on climate is proving to move away from only emission reduction to systemic change. On this topic, Charlotte shared an important resource for anyone working in the Climate sphere, the Climate Justice Playbook. The main objective of this tool is to bring companies to adopting a Climate Justice perspective, in order to really transition from an extractive and exploitative approach to an equitable and regenerative one. This can only be done by tackling one’s sphere of influence: you can find here below 6 possible approaches a company can adopt. 

Jared Ingersoll, sustainability lead of Canva, shared with us their inspiring sustainability journey, by starting to acknowledge the specific characteristics of their territory, Australia, and how this can impact the direction a company gives to climate action. 

Canva’s sustainability mission is to empower people to do their best for the planet: “We know we are not going to be the ones that fix the problem, but we want to involve others and double-down the results” said Jared. 

To involve people in its mission, Canva’s 2000 employees are engaged and informed through more than 400 clubs, many of which are not only sustainability-focused but also region-specific, which enabled very effective climate action on the territory. 

Canva’s main goal now revolves around de-carbonization, and in particular, given their fast growth, to decarbonize faster than they scale, in order to reach the so-called “True Zero”: a status of zero carbon emissions where they don’t depend on offsets any more.

While trying to reach this goal, Canva has put together a series of climate initiatives such as One Print One Tree, which this year only brought to the commitment of more than 3.4 million trees. These projects (you can find more here) are not part of any offsetting or carbon accounting calculation, but contribute to a regenerative approach to the climate crisis: regeneration of biodiversity is the second pillar that, together with de-carbonization, builds the direction of Canva’s sustainability efforts. 

The last Time for Climate Action campaign was a great success, but the Climate Crisis is not slowing down, therefore neither will we. Our objective for this year’s campaign is to grow our reach by 400% and this can’t literally be achieved without the contribution of our community.

This is a great occasion to step up your climate game, open your doors and show the outside world what you are doing and how seriously you are taking climate action!

Here is what you can expect from this year’s campaign:

• Much higher use of viral mechanics: it will be easier to share actions and to engage people 

• Possibility of embedding the TFCA tool in your website: users will be able to take action while staying comfortably on your page

• All-the-way support: guidance, social media material, workshops, will all be provided by us.

• Easy choosing mechanism for your actions: in our app, you can simply scroll through a list of more than 100 ideas you can implement for the campaign, and select what you are going to do. You will be provided material specifically fitting your chosen action. 

• Specific action packages for B2B, B2C, Cleantech, VCs

• Collaboration and networking tools: dedicated Slack channel, catch-ups and open meetings.

This will be our biggest collective action as a community, and we need you to make it a success! To sign up, click on the link on top of this page.Also, if you or someone you know wants to support the campaign as a volunteer, please reach out to the LFCA team to let them know!