Daily Archives: December 3, 2019

The World Economic Forum on Corporate Citizenship Topics – With Focus on the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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Another in the series – The Corporate Citizen and Society – the Dynamics of the Relationship

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

“Davos” – the annual gathering of the elite in business, politics, popular culture and journalism (and other corners of society) in the Swiss winter is familiar to most of us.

This event attended by more than 2,000 global thought leaders is staged by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Each January the meeting is convened and a steady stream of proclamations comes forth with positions discussed and often adopted by participants.

The steady stream of news from Davos, Switzerland not only in winter but throughout the year frequently touches on matters to be categorized in the wheelhouses of managers in corporate governance, corporate sustainability, corporate responsibility, investor relations, and corporate citizenship (and other functions).

The WEF stages conferences during the year in East Asia, Africa and South America; also, in the Middle East, China and India. But “Davos” is the well-known appellation for the winter meeting in the city of that name.

Because so many corporate leaders make commitments and “promises” for future action at Davos and other WEF regional meetings, it’s important for those reporting to the C-suite as well as in the suite and in board rooms to be aware of the promises of strategy to be adopted or adjusted, and expected actions to follow.

Here is a brief look at some of these recent proclamations to illustrate this.

The 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (in January 2018) closed with a Call to Action to Globalize Compassion and Leave No One Behind.

This was an important gathering of 2,000+ leaders as the world’s attention continued to shift to “sustainability “ and related topics (such as global warming and transition to a low-carbon economy among the issues).

The meeting “celebrated” the spirit of inclusion, diversity and respect for human rights, putting people at the center of the story with a call to action, said one of the seven female co-chairs at the meeting, Sharon Burrow. “Let’s ensure that Davos 2018 is just the beginning of a movement where we globalize compassion and ensure a world in which no one is left behind.”

There were 400 separate sessions at the meeting, and one theme kept threading throughout: the need to embrace our common humanity in the face of the rapid technological changes ushered in by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution” (FIR) was earlier framed and addressed in spring 2017 by the WEF Center for the FIR with new network centers opening in India, Japan and the UAE; partners for the initiative include the governments of Bahrain, the UK and Denmark, the Inter-American Development Bank, Deutsche Bank, and others.

The year before the January 2018 gathering in Davos, WEF had assembled 700 leaders in September 2017 (during the UN General Assembly and Climate Week meetings in New York City) to announce public-private initiatives:

  • One was the “Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth” – a private-public sector initiative to identify and fund new ventures (and scale them!) to “harness technologies” to benefit the global environment.
  • The Global Battery Alliance to “clean up” battery industry supply chains.
  • A “National Task Force” in South Africa to close skills gap.
  • A Disaster Risk Innovation Fund to test and scale innovations using mobile technologies to help in humanitarian emergencies and disasters. This was organized with the help of the United Kingdom for International Development (UK DFID) and the GSM Association (GSMA), the trade group representing almost 1,000 mobile communications operators and 300 industry companies.

The 2017 meeting was the WEF’s inaugural “Sustainable Development Impact Summit” — intended to broaden public-private sector cooperation to meet the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and work to achieve the goals agreed to at the 2015 Paris climate summit.

What steps can public and private and social sector leadership take to put the “common humanity” theme into action? Here are some things agreed to at Davos:

  • The WEF published a report – “Towards a Reskilling Revolution” — providing guidance need to help millions of people find jobs lost due to technological change.
  • The WEF-led “IT Industry Skills Initiative” whose “SkillSET” portal aims to reach a million IT workers by 2021.
  • A new multi-stakeholder initiative is “Friends of the Ocean Action” — launching an “Ocean Action Track” to protect oceans, seas and marine resources vital to so many coastal and non-coastal nations.
  • Marc Benioff – founder, Chair / Co-CEO of Salesforce.com, pledged US$4.5 million funding through the Benioff Ocean Initiative.

Salesforce Chair/Co-CEO Benioff heads the 30,000 employee company, and was named by Fortune as one of the world’s greatest leaders, and by Harvard Business Review as one of the 10 Best-Performing CEOs. He was the co-chair of the summit.

He explained: “There is incredible tension between the dramatic innovation that is occurring and the issue of equality. The technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution offer the opportunity to drive progress to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

(CEO Benioff has a new book out now – “Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change”.)

The summit was designed to accelerate the “successful achievement” of the UN SDGs.

  • The WEF’s “Closing the Gender Gap” is attracting state support in Latin America (Peru, Chile, Panama and Argentina were on board at the time of the meeting).
  • Corporate leaders from Alphabet, Coca-Cola Company, Royal Philips and Unilever teamed with governments of Indonesia, Nigeria, China and Rwanda to create the “Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy” (PACE) to address the mounting problems posed by discarded electronics and the plastic waste stream through recycling these manufactured items back into economy for future use.

As developing economies bring more people into the middle class, the consumption of meat products rises (more animal protein is consumed).

While this is good for ranchers and meat packers it is seen as not so good for the global environment by climate activists and sustainable food activists.

And so out of Davos comes the “Meat: the Future” initiative, to help identify ways that animal meat and protein production can be made more safe (for all involved, including the animals), affordable and sustainable as the industry players work to meet growing consumer demand.

Thomson Reuters, Europol and WEF announced a partnership to raise greater awareness worldwide to help governments and industry fight financial crime and modern slavers. Key: Promoting more effective information-sharing and step up best practices in compliance.

And that leads to a currently-debated hot issue: the growing prevalence of “fake news”, especially in political circles and affecting local elections in developed democracies.

  • The Craig Newmark Foundation is collaborating with WEF; the aim is to bring tech /social media industry leaders together with stakeholders to address fake news issues. (Craig Newmark was the founder of Craig’s List and his philanthropy includes funding for journalism institutions such as the Poynter Institute and graduate schools for journalists.)

The WEF, through its Davos and regional gatherings, and an array of public-private sector initiatives, provides ample opportunities for corporate citizens – and their CEOs and boards – to identify and leverage opportunities to bolster existing core businesses and develop new and innovative ventures with and without partners.

In 2015, WEF was recognized as The International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

We’ll continue to share news of interest related to the corporate sector from the World Economic Forum in this series of commentaries.

Note: In the public dialogue now about “purpose”, WEF developed its “Our Mission” statement years ago. “The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have th4e drive and influence to make positive change.”

Full statement here: https://www.weforum.org/about/world-economic-forum

The Climate Change Crisis – “Covering Climate Now” Can Shape The Public Dialogue – And Influence Outcomes

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November 7 2019

Another in the About the Climate Change Crisis series

By Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist, G&A Institute

The increasing tempo of the public dialogue on “climate change” issues in the United States reflects in some ways the divide in public opinion on critical issues facing the American public, government, business, the financial sector.

Is the Climate changing? Yes and No. Are humans causing the changes? Yes and No. Do we need to take action now? Yes, No, Maybe.

Should we all be very worried about the survival of humanity? The planet?

Yes and No. As novelist Kurt Vonnegut would say — And so it goes.

The United States of America participated in the historic 2015 Paris (“COP 21”) meetings and signed on to the Paris Agreement (or Accord) along with almost 200 other nations, with President Barack Obama becoming a signatory in 2016.

The Paris Agreement was “official” for the U.S. (and the world) in November 2016 (as the family of nations formalized their commitment and involvement).

In September 2016 by presidential action President Obama had presented the necessary documents to the U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon for U.S. participation.

The People’s Republic of China also presented the documents, a collaboration negotiated by President Obama.

These steps by Barack Obama avoided presenting what amounted to an international treaty agreement to the U.S. Senate for ratification, as required by the U.S. Constitution – Article II-Section 2 – the advice and consent of the Senate is necessary for the President to make treaties.

Such approval for an international treaty assuredly would not happen in today’s contentious political environment. Even if not joining the other nations and tackling climate issues as an organized effort (the Federal Government might mean prevention of catastrophic damage to our nation.

Such is the yes/no politics today, even considering the massive threats posed by the changing climate.

The U.S. also contributed US$3 billion to the Green Climate Fund by President Obama’s orders.

And so by similar executive actions, his successor in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump in March 2017 with swipe of his pen (actually a Sharpie®) informally signaled the start of the complex and lengthy process of removing the U.S. from the historic Paris Agreement to limit the damage of global warming.

By his side: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (since gone from the environmental agency).

The backdrop: reliable scientific reports that 2016 was the warmest year on record to date!

And credible scientists telling us that we have a decade at most to get control of climate change issues!

So What Did New the U.S.A. Leader Do?

President Trump on November 4, 2019 officially notified the international community – and specifically the United Nations – that the process of withdrawal was beginning next fall and would be complete one year from now — the day before Election Day 2020.

Donald Trump before being elected declared among other things that climate change was a Chinese hoax. (One of his positioning comments on the subject: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive” – November 6, 2012 tweet.)

But climate change is real – and we face a climate crisis in 2019!

Note that in November 2018 the government of the United States of America published the fourth climate change assessment by key U.S. government agencies: the “Climate Science Special Report” was prepared by the U.S. Global Change Research Program of the Federal government. (We’re including an overview in this series of commentaries.)

The contents are of significance if you are an investor, a company executive or board member, an issue advocate, public sector officer holder or civic leader, consumer — or other type of stakeholder. There are volumes of data and descriptions in the report presenting a range of “high probability” climate change outcomes in this the 21st Century.

Good news, at last from the important purveyors of news: the publishers of Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation created the “Covering Climate Now”  intended to strengthen the media’s focus on the climate emergency. (The initiative was launched in April 2019.)

The founders are joined by cooperating media that today reaches more than one billion people worldwide.

Representatives of 350 newsrooms in 32 countries have joined to ramp up coverage of the climate crisis and possible solutions. The campaign is designed to strengthen the media’s focus on the climate emergency.
Combined, the cooperating media reach more than one billion people worldwide.

Participants in the campaign include Bloomberg, Agence France-Press, The Guardian, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The New Jersey Star Ledger, The Oklahoman, Corporate Knights, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Seattle Times, La Republica (Italy), The Hindustan Times (India), Asahi Shimbun (Japan), La Razon (Spain), Greenbiz.com, Huffpost, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair, and many many other communications platforms.
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Partner organizations in the campaign include wire services, news agencies, newspapers, magazines, digital news sites, journals, radio, podcasters, and institutions like Princeton University and Yale Climate Change & Health Initiative.

Could it be that the press, especially the U.S. press, is finally waking up to the climate story?

That question was posed in September 2019 by Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope in response to the initiative. Their comments are here for you:
https://www.cjr.org/covering_climate_now/climate-crisis-new-beginning.php

Is where you get your news a participant? Check the list here: https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/partners

Participating publisher Corporate Knights points out to us that “climate change” was suggested as a term to use by pollster Frank Luntz to President George W. Bush instead of the more frightening term, “global warming”. Let’s not scare the people. Gently move them forward.

We do need to return to the more accurate and realistic reference of global warming. The threats posed by warming of land and sea are visible to us – every day now!

But, OK, if climate change is the popular branding, then let’s talk about the climate change crisis or emergency (so says the media collaboration).
We’ve introduced a series of climate change crisis commentaries in this blog.

And the title for the running series of commentaries is: About the Climate Crisis series, following the lead of the collaborating journalists.

Let us know how we are doing. And suggest to us issues and topics and developments that might be of interest to other readers of the G&A Institute’s Sustainability Update blog.

Please do Stay Tuned to this series — “About the Climate Crisis”.

Tune In To This Important Report – Today And In Time to Come: The Fourth Official “Climate Science Special Report” Issued by the U.S. Government’s “Global Change Research Program” – Projected the Critical Impacts of Climate Change on the American Society in the 21st Century

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by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist, G&A Institute

Another in the About the Climate Crisis series

November 7, 2019


In November 2018 the government of the United States of America published the fourth climate change assessment by key U.S. government agencies — this is the “Climate Science Special Report” as prepared by the U.S. Global Change Research Program of the Federal government.

The contents are of significance if you are an investor, a company executive or board member, an issue advocate, officer holder or civic leader, consumer — or other type of stakeholder.

There are volumes of data and descriptions for a range of “high probability” outcomes in this the 21st Century.

The foundation of the report: Literally hundreds of studies conducted by researchers around the world that clearly document increases in temperatures at Earth’s surface as well as in the atmosphere and oceans — and projections of what that means to the planet and its occupants.

What is clear: Human activities are the primary driver of climate changes observed in the three-plus centuries of the modern industrial era (i.e., GHG emissions, deforestation, land-use changes).

Think about the impacts of these events and developments on your business and personal life:

  • we can expect many more superstorms;
  • and more drought in more areas of the U.S., Africa, other parts of the globe;
  • greatly increased risk of forest fires;
  • more floods;
  • melting glaciers melting resulting in steadily rising sea levels;
  • the news of still more melting glaciers; ocean acidification; 
  • death of species;
  • increasing atmospheric water vapor (thus, more powerful rainstorms, especially accompanying superstorms)…and more.

And — what about a potential drop of 10% in the U.S.A. Gross Domestic Product by end of this century? What impact will that have on you? On your children and their children?

The impacts of climate change will be felt in such activities as human health, agriculture and food security, water supply, transportation, energy, trade, migration, and ecosystems…becoming increasingly disruptive in coming years.

These are some of the subjects explored in depth in the “Climate Science Special Report” released the day after Thanksgiving 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

(The Trump Administration released that day to hide the report, critics immediately charged; the report directly and emphatically challenges the “climate change is a hoax” claim of the administration. Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday is usually a very slow news day.  However, the release of the report resulted in broad media coverage on “a slow day”.)

Influential Authors: The Global Change Program

The program is a mandated collaborative effort of more than a dozen Federal departments of the United States of America government — such as NOAA, NASA, US EPA, and executive branch cabinet offices of Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, State, Transportation, and Defense; plus the Office of Management & Budget (OMB – this is part of the Office of the President).

The many experts gathered from these departments of the U.S. government, plus a universe of university-based experts, reported (in more than 1600 pages of related content) on the “state of science relating to climate change and its physical impacts.”

The CSSR (“Climate Science Special Report”) serves as a foundation for efforts to assess climate-related risks and inform decision-makers…it does not include policy recommendations.

The results are not encouraging – at least not in November 2018 and here in October 2019 as we look out to the rest of the 21st Century, given the s-l-o-w pace of actions taken to date to address climate change challenges.

Highlights of The Report:

NOAA — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — is the lead agency working with NASA and other Federal governmental bodies to develop the report.

The collaborative effort analyzes a wide body of scientific research and observations of current trends in climate change — and projects a number of major trends out to the end of this 21st Century.

The focus of the work is on impacts to human welfare, societal, economic, and environmental elements of climate change.

Each of the 15 chapters of the report focuses on key findings; authors have assigned a “confidence statement” for scientific uncertainties. (There are numerous statements of “Confidence Levels” and “Likelihoods” for various trends and events.)

There are 10 regional analyses of climate change — such as the Northeastern region of the U.S., and sprawling Southern Great Plains. The report was 18 months in preparation and the final report is the sixth draft developed over that time.

Chapters include such themes as: Physical Drivers of Change; Climate Models, Scenarios and Projections; Droughts, Floods and Wildfires; Extreme Storms; Changes in Land Cover; Sea Level Rise.

Some takeaways to consider:

1. This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. Since the publication of the last Assessment, 2014 became the warmest year on record globally; 2015 was even warmer and 2016 surpassed that; 16 of the warmest years on record occurred during the last 17 years.

2. Thousands of scientific and technical studies have documented changes in surface, atmospheric and oceanic temperatures.

3. Land and sea ice glaciers are continuing to melt; there is acceleration in ice sheet loss with up to 8.5 feet of global sea rise possible by 2100. (Think about that impact on major population areas on the edge of the seas, such as New York, Boston, Miami, Liverpool, Hamburg, Naples and Bari, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and more.)

4. Ice melts and then Sea levels continues rising; global average sea level has risen 7-to-8 inches since 1900, half of that since 1993.

5. Related: the incidence of daily tidal flooding is accelerating in more than 25 Atlantic and Gulf coast cities – watch out New Orleans and Houston.

6. Heat waves are more frequent and cold waves are less frequent.

7. Forest fires have steadily increased since the early 1980s (look at the disaster in California in recent years – and in 2018 and 2019!).

8. Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has passed 400 PPM — a level that last existed some 3 million years ago, when both global average temperatures and sea level were higher than today.

9. Since 1980, extreme weather events for the U.S. has exceeded costs of US$1.1 trillion.

There are hundreds of references to scientific studies throughout the report.

The various findings, the authors point out, are based on a large body of scientific, peer-reviewed research, evaluated observations and modeling data sets.

In this report, we should note, experts and not politicians and speak to us in clear terms that we can all understand.

Important Key Findings:

  • Global climate is projected to change over this century (and beyond) – the report is complete with “likelihoods”) and with major effort, temps could be limited to 3.6°F / 2°C or less – or else.
  • Without action, average global temperatures could reach to 9°F / 5°C relative to pre-industrial times – disaster at the end of the 2100s.
  • Human activity continues to significantly affect the Earth’s climate and is the dominant cause of climate warming. Aerosols are a key activity with profound and complex roles.

There are 12 Reporting Findings with important results here: https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights#section-5683

Related to this:  The TCFD Scenario Testing Recommendations

Formed after the 2008 financial crisis, The Financial Stability Board (organized by the central banks and treasury ministries of the G20 nations) appointed a Task Force on Climate-related Financial Risk Disclosure (the “TCFD”), which in Fall 2017 strongly recommended that the financial sector companies and (initially) identified four business sectors begin to examine the effects of climate change on their businesses, and as part of the analysis test scenarios against (to begin with) 2-degrees Centigrade (3.5°F) temp rise — and increase scenario testing from there over time.

This important assessment (the Federal government’s 2018 report described here) should be a valuable resource for investors, bankers, insurance carriers and public and private company boards and managements in their analysis and scenario planning (alternative scenarios are suggested in the TCFD report).

And these assessment can be especially useful for publicly-traded company managements who are being urged by investors and stakeholders to begin scenario testing and disclose the results.

This will be an important issue in the engagements of investors/companies and in the 2020 corporate proxy season – and beyond.

There are various scenarios in the Assessment that can be referenced by companies in their own scenario testing.

Report Authors:

A wide range of experts helped to prepare the report; these included: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the U.S. national laboratories; scientists at such universities as Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Maryland, Texas Tech, Pennsylvania State, North Carolina State, Iowa State; Rutgers-NJ, California-Davis, and, Alaska. In all, more than 300 experts contributed to the report.

The full report is available at:

https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR2017_FullReport.pdf

The Exec Summary at: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR2017_PRINT_Executive_Summary.pdf

Important Notes:

The U.S. Global Change Research Program, based in Washington, D.C., is a Federal program mandated by the U.S. Congress – the first branch of government identified in the U.S. Constitution, Article One — to coordinate Federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment both human and natural, and their impacts on society.

The USGCRP was established in 1989 and mandated by the U.S. Congress in 1990…to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.

There are 13 Federal agencies involved that conduct or use research on global change. Among these there are Interagency Working Groups to implement and coordinate research activities (within and across the agencies).

The critical guidance: Thirteen Agencies, One Vision: Empower the Nation with Global Change Science.

The Governance Aspects:

The USGCRP is steered by the Subcommittee on Global Change Research of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on the Environment, overseen by the White House Office of Science and Technology.

Executive Cabinet offices involved: U.S. Departments of State; Health and Human Services; Defense; Commerce; Agriculture; Energy; Transportation; Interior.

Federal Agencies: NASA; US EPA; National Science Foundation; Smithsonian Institution; U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); the White House (OMB and NSTC).

Interesting:
Positioning statement (on the web site): Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities. Global climate change has already resulted in a wide range of impacts across every region of the country and many sectors of the economy that are expected to grow in the coming decades.

This Fourth assessment (known as “NCA4” to insiders) developed by USGCP is a state-of-the-science synthesis of climate knowledge, impacts and trends across U.S. regions to inform decision-making and resilience-building.

It is the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment to date on the state of knowledge of current and future impacts of climate change on society in the U.S.

You can access the full report at: https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/

Reporting requirements for the Assessment comply with Section 106 of the U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990 and other federal requirements.

There is regional information from Global Change at: https://www.globalchange.gov/explore

The current report takes into consideration the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – of which the United States is a participating country.

IPCC issued its Fifth Assessment Report (“AR5”) in 2014 and issued a Special Report (“SR15”) – Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5-degrees C – in October 2018.

The latest IPCC report and related information is at: http://www.ipcc.ch/

There are scholarly assessments of the Fourth Climate Change Assessment at: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=fourth+climate+change+assessment&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

We will be sharing more thoughts on IPCC in separate commentaries.

Note:  This originally was drafted for G&A Institute’s “To the Point!” management briefs (now archived) in November 2018 and updated here in November 2019.