Joel and Pete

While some companies are still at the other end of the spectrum, which provide limited public quantitative data or none at all, overall companies should be commended for the progress they are making on public disclosure of their diversity data. The number of male students granted a STEM degree or certificate increased by 38 percent between the 2008-2009 and the 2015-2016 school year, while the number of female students who achieved the same degree or certificate increased by 48 percent. Talent that otherwise may not check all boxes and requirements for a traditional corporate technical job could start in an Apple retail store and make their way into a corporate job at Apple or another tech company. While many companies have prioritized hiring diverse talent, it's equally important for companies to retain and engage that talent.

The Forest Sector Roadmap, launched in mid-July during a gathering in New York, is the latest in a series of publications coordinated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and intended to help companies map their sustainability agendas to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Francisco Ruiz-Tagle, CEO of multinational forestry company CMPC, and one of the 11 paper and forestry companies that make up the WBCSD’s Forest Solutions Group, believes that companies like his, especially within the forest sector, can be powerful allies to policymakers in meeting the SDGs — when they choose to take action. The Forest Solutions Group includes Aditya Birla Group, CampbellGlobal, CMPC, Hancock Natural Resource Group, International Paper, Mondi, NewForests, The Navigator Company, Smurfit Kapp, Stora Enso and Sumitomo Forestry. "Some of the negative impacts of forestry, they don’t represent the actions of our member companies, so we had the option of trying to portray the industry as a whole and the reality of the entire forest sector … not just this small group of companies," said Louis Rochartre, director of the Forest Solutions Group for WBCSD.

Yet studies show that we cannot avert climate chaos if we don’t support a rapid transition from large-scale, chemical-intensive food production toward healthier, less meat-centric, diversified, organic and ecologically regenerative agriculture. * We must rapidly transition away from energy-intensive industrial agriculture, especially massive-scale industrial meat and dairy production that is devastating our planet and fueling the climate crisis. Instead, it should expand support for resilient, local and regional agriculture and organic and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers as well as those transitioning to organic and regenerative farming systems. The Green New Deal must help conventional farm and ranch operators make the transition to organic and ecologically regenerative agriculture through expanded research, conservation, technical assistance and extension programs.

As climate risk is systemic and applies across all sectors, the TCFD recommends that companies with annual revenues over $1 billion report climate risks in non-financial reports in preparation for the day when these systemic risks become material. Engaging with the TCFD recommendations today serves two purposes: first, reporting to external stakeholders; and second, creating resilient business strategies through scenario analysis. The primary objectives of climate scenario analysis should be to grapple with the uncertainty of climate impacts, challenge a company’s own potential blind spots about the future, and modify business strategies to make them more robust and resilient. While much of the initial conversation around the TCFD recommendations has emphasized transition risk faced by companies in high-emitting sectors should emissions be reduced along a 2 degrees-Celsius scenario, equal consideration must be given to the physical risks of climate change, which will be highly disruptive even if warming is held to this level.