2024 Climate Week NYC

Becky: From Given, this is Purposing, the podcast that lifts the lid on how to run a truly purpose driven business. I’m Becky Willan, and with the help of leaders from some of the world’s most recognized brands, I’ll be demystifying this often misunderstood topic. into clear, actionable advice you can use in your own business.

September 2024: Climate Week. Business leaders, political change makers, and decision takers flocked to New York for the largest global gathering of its kind. 600 events across the city. Its purpose? To drive the climate transition, speed up progress, and champion change that’s already happening.

Annabelle: It’s all generations now, showing that they’re willing to spend more money on sustainable products and products that are tied to their values.

Becky: On the ground, Annabelle and Stuart, my colleagues at Anthesis. Annabelle’s been in the U. S. for a decade, but her passion for sustainability was clear from a very young age.

Annabelle: One of my early memories is creating a cartoon and I felt so passionate about this cartoon. And it was an apple that represented the earth that was being destroyed by this worm of pollution and all that was left was this rotten core. So, I thought it was really interesting that I then kind of like dedicated my career into sustainability and ended up living in the Big Apple. I’ve always felt really passionately about the fact that sustainability makes good business sense and societal and environmental value can equate to business value too.

Becky: Stuart’s career was kick started nearly 40 years ago in 1985 at a University lecture.

Stuart: I remember thinking, in my likely lifetime, we are going to see enormous transformation, probably the biggest transformation humanity’s ever had to deal with. If you think about the impact, the climate change, everything I’m learning about, sort of, you know, the world needed to decarbonise or wean itself off of fossil fuels.

You think about the impact that that’s gonna have on the world’s economy and on business. So that’s when it really sort of came together. And then obviously the, the lid blew off it

Becky: together. They’re representing Anthesis, a business that exists to guide clients into a new era of sustainable performance.

They’re here to bring clients and other organisations together. to help solve the challenges ahead and shape the journey to make change and impact happen faster.

Stuart: Bring into life the kind of challenges ahead but also in a very kind of practical way and importantly I would say forming the link between climate risk and sustainability in general and performance.

We talk a lot about sustainable performance because that’s the destination.

Annabelle: I think one of the things that is interesting is some of the regulations that are coming out that are really kind of stamping down around greenwashing. It’s really imperative that brands and retailers are aligning with these consumers before it’s too late.

I’ve always said in this space that there will be winners and losers.

Becky: This episode is a Climate Week special in which we’ll be getting an insider’s view of New York Climate Week, the people there, the key events, trends and conversations. This year’s theme is ‘It’s Time’. emphasizing the urgency of climate action and spotlighting businesses, organisations, and governments already driving momentum and breaking down barriers to progress.

So Annabelle, can you give us an overview of what New York Climate Week is all about? And why is it so significant in the global climate dialogue?

Annabelle: Yeah, well, Climate Week, it’s so important. So it’s this yearly event that’s really brings together leaders from all around the world who are focused on driving climate action.

So it features like 600 different events all around the city. And what’s exciting about it is it’s an opportunity for people to come together and like collaborate, but you also hear of these, um, you know, exciting commitments and things that organisations take the opportunity to put out there. Someone this week described it to me as a Burning Man for climate geeks.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I think about that comparison, although they also pointed out that, um, Burning Man numbers are going down and Climate Week numbers are going up. So I’m going to, I’m going to take that as a win for the planet.

Becky: Brilliant. So, um, Stuart, can you tell us a bit about what role Anthesis plays during Climate Week?

You know, what are the key events or panels that you’ve attended or have been hosting.

Stuart: So for me, I went to the opening ceremony, and I would say that there was a lot of reinforcement of what we already know.

You know, the scientists confirmed that 2024 looks like it’s going to be the hottest year on record that we’re going to break all records around ocean acidification, sea level temperature, surface temperature, and so on. There’s a reminder in these kind of sessions is the seriousness as to, uh, to the primary subject that we’re all here to discuss.

You know, it’s quite interesting that the, the tagline for the opening ceremony was ‘it’s time’. I’ve been to a few of these kinds of things over the, over the last 30 years. And, uh, I’ve noticed that the tagline has quite often been ‘it’s time’. And I also have heard quite a lot of people saying we’re the last generation to be able to do anything about it.

In fact, I think it was David Attenborough said, um, many years ago, uh, that we’re the first generation to have all the information and the data at our fingertips. And we’re the last generation to be able to do anything about it. And so it did make me sort of wonder, you know, at what point do I go to one of these events and, uh, somebody says we were the last generation.

I think that when you’ve been to a lot of these kind of things, you put it in the sort of context of history and, uh, for me, I’m, you know, I’m old enough to remember when Margaret Thatcher was here in New York presenting at the United Nations the day before the Berlin Wall came down in 1988, saying, This climate science is real, the world needs to decarbonise, we need a level playing field.

You know, an incredibly progressive speech. We are hearing a lot of the same messages, you know, 30 something years on. So, uh, happy to talk about some of the things I think might have changed. So, uh, move from that sort of position into one that, a position that is perhaps more hopeful.

Becky: Does it feel like anything is fundamentally different this time around?

And if not, what gives you optimism?

Stuart: My source of hope, uh, is that everybody’s now talking about the transition and the journey. For many years it felt that organisations, sectors, governments, uh, were looking at opportunities to double down in the status quo – business as usual scenario. Every time I go to one of these things now, you know, it’s a case of how do we navigate the journey?

How do we navigate successfully transformational change with all the danger and peril? And we will certainly argue opportunity that comes with that kind of adventure. Whether it’s the energy transition, the, the, you know, the road to net zero, or whether it’s moving to agenda of agriculture, whether it’s linear to circle, whether it’s from social inequality to just transition, you know, these, these are all journeys.

And they all journeys that represent transformational change, and they are all interdependent. I mean, you try to get to net zero without being nature positive, try to get net zero without a just transition or without a circle of common, you can’t do it. So everybody talks about interoperability. That is the, that is the buzz phrase that every talk everybody talks about now.

And, and really what it is, it’s another word for collaboration. There is recognition that we need to join the dots.

Becky: Brilliant. And top celebrity spots so far this week?

Stuart: Oh, uh, Annabelle, Annabelle, um, singing, uh, wannabe, uh, by Spice Girls, uh, at a karaoke event.

Becky: I’ll be, uh, I’ll be signing autographs later.

Thank you, Stuart.

Becky: What are the sort of key themes that you’ve. taken from Climate Week so far.

Annabelle: Building off the last question really as well, like I fully agree with what Stuart shared that, you know, the thing that I’m finding kind of like inspiring and exciting is the conversation has really moved more towards action and also just the, the number of stakeholders that have been brought into the conversation has really increased dramatically.

I think I’d be coming to Climate Week for 10 years now, and the change that there’s been in that time has just been drastic. You know, it used to just be a few little events. Here and there and, and obviously the, the conversation was so stagnant, and it was kind of the same people, the same conversation each time and not really seeing much happening.

I feel like there’s a bit, a bit more excitement in the air now as yeah, it really has moved on to this transition piece of like taking action and seeing change. So that makes me feel optimistic and I think it’s really given a much needed boost and energy to, to the industry. And like I said, really seen by the different stakeholders that, that are brought in.

On the celebrity, I didn’t get to see him, but I feel like every year it’s always Matt Damon. Like everyone loves seeing Matt Damon. Not seen him yet. There’s still time. He’s here somewhere. I miss him every year. Um, I think the only, the only celebrity I got to see this year was Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State.

So not, not quite Matt Damon, but, you know, Matt Damon in his own way.

Becky: Stuart, this is actually your first time at Climate Week.

What has surprised you about the experience?

Stuart: For me, it’s just how many influential people are here. It just brings such a focal point, uh, and I have to say it is gridlocked. So trying to get around Manhattan is almost impossible. As Annabelle said, you know, there’s 600 events, so there’s a lot of things going on, but it’s reasonably compact.

Um, so you’re able to get to, you know, eight, nine events on a daily basis. Uh, and obviously Anthesis has, has organised quite a lot of events as well. We, um, we signed this week, the, uh, UN. Water Resources Coalition. Dean Saunders was, uh, that, uh, as our representative. And You know, there’s just an opportunity for people to come together and say, okay, there’s a signing event for the coalition.

We’re going to do that. WBCSD, uh, who we are members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development – they had a, a big, uh, dinner on Sunday night for their chief exec communities. Uh, so there were about 200. chief execs from all over the world, uh, coming to that one event, uh, and then some incredibly impressive speakers the next day.

For me, that’s encouraging, and because you’ve got so many of the right people in the room and of course, finance. Finance is playing such a huge role. Lots of, and we, we’ve organised a couple of events ourselves on, on this with, uh, impact capital division, really looking at the role of finance and blended capital models and how you inject the right kind of finance into the value chains and into pre competitive space and all that kind of thing to be able to look at how that can unlock more action.

And of course, being in New York, you know, arguably the financial center of the world, people in London might have something to say about that, but nevertheless, a lot of the main players are here. So from a location perspective, it’s made a lot of sense.

Annabelle: I think it is so interesting, you know, the number of CEOs that around the table right now, it’s not so much a surprise, but again, it just gives me optimism around something like Climate Week, how much it is like permeated the conversation outside of the industry, the number of people I know who are based in the city that are really aware that Climate Week is going on and have opinions on it.

And I think this comes back to You know, the importance of purpose based products and organisations, you know, people are really aware of this topic now and kind of want to, to see solutions in, in this space. Seeing the transition and the conversation here has, has been really, really fascinating.

Coming through on the way here there are like billboards and advertising everywhere talking about Climate Week and companies promoting the stuff that people are doing in the space. So yeah, I’ve definitely seen a big shift there in the past decade.

Becky: You’ve both talked about this year, that feeling like a shift towards action. And that obviously doesn’t come without both challenges and opportunities.

So what are some of the things that you’re hearing on the ground in terms of like where those opportunities are really, um, sort of emerging, but also what some of the biggest challenges are.

Stuart: I think from my perspective, this is, this is just one, one example, but I think it’s symptomatic of a much wider thing.

And that is the, you know, 2024 has been the year where we have seen a lot of new regulations coming in. A lot of that regulation is not going to bite until 2025. But the world is starting to wake up to the, the significance and quite frankly, just the amount of work that needs to be done to be able to comply with that regulation.

And there’s quite a lot of people here saying, well, that’s, you know, it’s a double edged sword, uh, because budget is being diverted into compliance. So into the analytics, the benchmarking, and that kind of thing. An the question marker to whether That is now slowing down the progress that we want to see in some of the more sort of strategic kind of things, you know, the sort of moving to circular business models and, a lot of work around revisiting strategy.

And I think that when you really unpack that and think where that might go, then I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing because, because actually what we’re doing is we’re creating a level playing field with the regulations. Um, and we are forcing organisations to have to declare in a very accurate and transparent way.

Are we a business that’s making money at the same time as destroying the planet? Or are we a business that’s making money, but doing something that’s good? And once we’re in a position where we can see, those companies in that kind of transparent way, then I think that then puts the whole sort of, um, the whole agenda back on the boardroom table, and there will be a much stronger focus in terms of how do we design the right transition pathways?

You know, how do we make sure that we are a business that makes money without destroying the planet? What does that mean for our strategy and our purpose and our business model?

Annabelle: I think that’s a really interesting point. And, um, I think that’s something that we’ve had a lot of, you know, with this move into compliance and regulation and kind of how it’s shifting in some ways the role of sustainability within an organisation.

Um, but one of the things that I think has been fascinating, really beneficial about it is some of the reflection that it is pushing companies to do that might not have otherwise done it. Um, so, you know, we’ve supported a number of companies and helping to assess climate risk. And sometimes this is the first time that you’re bringing together multiple stakeholders in an organisation and actually thinking through, like, how, how is climate change going to affect our business?

What does this transition look like for us? And sometimes there are these things that like don’t necessarily haven’t been linked together, but it’s so deeply linked and, uh, really heavy felt rest from the organisation. So there was one construction organisation that I was talking with. And for them, you know, any increase in temperature significantly decreases their productivity and their ability to work on a, on a construction site.

And then it also causes these other delays because it means that equipment is stuck on the site and it can’t go to the next project. There are then contractual risks associated with this. So these are things that the company is, you know, is aware of. They know that, you know, increased heat days impact productivity, but actually having them sit and kind of think about what this is going to mean to their business and how they have to think differently from like a legal perspective. And you know, the number of employees they have and equipment and stuff like that. It’s creating these links where people can really understand how climate risk is business risk and how to be managing that.

Becky: Yeah.

That’s so interesting that you’ve, I guess you’ve got at least two forces at work here. One is that joining the dots between new and emerging types of types of risk and helping senior decision makers understand those connections. I guess while at the same time, great to focus on disclosure, which means that there is transparency across sectors, which should also help to sort of raise the bar in the ambition level.

And those two things working simultaneously, I think can be quite powerful. And so Stuart, maybe you could help us understand the bigger sort of global picture here. Cause Anthesis operates in more than 20 markets around the world. Climate Week is obviously, you know, it’s in New York, but it’s very much a global event.

So, what are some of the things that we should expect to see at a global level, emerging in the sustainability space over the year ahead?

Stuart: So, one of the things I wanted to do, while I was out here was to, to test the political temperature a little bit, uh, especially with the upcoming election here in the US.

And all the talk about the history, backlash and what capitalism and all of that kind of thing and trying to connect the climate agenda to that agenda. And, that’s been that’s been interesting and there’s been a lot of talk about that.

And my, my takeaway from that is that there’s not a huge amount of rowing back on commitments. Perhaps we can come back to that in a moment. Uh, but It’s taught me about the power of words, uh, and how words land in different ways in different communities and different cultures. And just, you know, one example of that is, you know, we do a lot of work in regenerative agriculture for the food sector.

And I met the chief executive of a, um, an agricultural business here in the U. S. He told me what they’re doing, and incredibly progressive. I mean, it was extraordinary how they were disrupting their business model to be able to embrace what I would describe as regenerative agriculture. But he said, when they’re out there on the ground talking about this kind of stuff, they can’t use the words regenerative agriculture.

Because it’s linked to the ESG agenda. So it’s, it’s, it’s just politically unacceptable. And they wouldn’t make any progress. Uh, so I said, what do you say then? He said, well we start with a question which is, what are your greatest concerns? And also what do you dream about? And the answer is typically, our greatest concern is we can see that the soil is dying.

And what we dream about is being able to hand this farm over to the next generation and the generation after that. You know, and so if you ask a different, if you frame a question in a different way or the topic in a different way, you can actually make incredible amount of progress and people tend to be on the same page.

So a lot of the noise around the narrative, I think is reasonably superficial. What I’ve concluded is that the sort of base commitments and the sort of momentum that is generated by those commitments is unchanged.

Becky: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting because I think I would say that effective, you know, communication, storytelling and engagement isn’t about putting a label on something.

It’s about getting to the core sort of human truth at the heart of a particular challenge or opportunity and framing it in a way that connects with people. And so that’s what you’ve described as a perfect illustration of that. It’s also really interesting because I think one of our sister agencies, Anthesis Revolt, has just launched, um, a piece of research, I think, on this very topic called ‘The Cost of Silence’.

Stuart: This is a good example of what happens when we collaborate and we find connections between our expertise and digital solutions and data sets and that kind of thing. So, uh, we’ve collaborated with, uh, with an organisation that’s got a lot of data around the, the action that companies are taking versus the perceived action that their customers believe that those companies are taking.

And what that does is it allows us to say, so for example, if the perception is much higher than the actuality, then it is probable that that organisation is indulging in greenwashing. If the action that an organisation is taking is in reality higher than the perception, then it indicates that that organisation may be impacted by green hushing.

Um, and then if you then look at the optimal relationship between the perception and the truth around action, you can then start to link that back to financial performance to identify what is the optimal balance. Uh, and so The Cost of Silence report surfaces all of that kind of, uh, research and presents all of this kind of data, I think, in an extremely compelling and powerful way.

Becky: I know we’ve touched on, I guess some of that sentiment around, um, some woke capitalism, ESG backlash. You’ve been working in North America for over a decade. How would you describe the state of purpose driven business from where you see it?

Annabelle: Despite some of this topic around like green hushing and anti-woke, I think what we’re actually seeing out there is quite the opposite.

I think demand for products that are linked to purpose is really increasing especially as we’re seeing, you know, the increase in the Gen z consumer, um, you know, there are multiple reports out there kind of talking about how people want to you know purchase things that link with their values and one that I can mention is the first insight report that that came out last year, and it’s really now seeing that consumers across all generations, because it used to always used to be like talking about the millennials coming up and all this stuff, but really it’s all generations now showing that they’re willing to spend more money on sustainable products and products that are tied to their values.

And this is something that’s particularly important for Gen Z. And I saw a stat recently that in the next few years, Gen Z is going to make up 20%, of consumer spending. So it’s really imperative that brands and retailers, um, are aligning with these consumers, before it’s too late, you know. I’ve always said in this space that there will be winners and losers around this and I think one of the things that is interesting is some of the regulations that are coming out that are really kind of stamping down around greenwashing So things, you know regulating green claims and what you can and can’t say and I think ultimately again that comes down to the fact that companies see the business opportunity around this.

This is why they’re putting some unsubstantiated claims out there is because they see it, they see a marketing benefit. So I’m excited to see that, that kind of mature and that credibility go into the space. So truly purpose linked brands, um, yeah, can, can capture some of the opportunities.

Becky: And I think that’s such an important point that we’re beginning to see That engagement, um, evident across generations in the research that we’ve done which looks at people’s experience from an employment perspective, more than from a consumer perspective nearly 50 percent of people, which in the UK,  who work for big companies would actively consider leaving their employer if they didn’t deliver on their purpose commitments.

And what we found people, everyone assumed that that was purely for Gen Z and millennials. And we found that actually across every segment. So, I think we’re beginning to sort of challenge some of those myths that have, um, sort of pervaded lots of assumptions around this stuff.

Stuart, so I’m assuming you’re going to be at COP this year. How has Climate Week, do you think, set us up for COP? And is there anything that you’d particularly like to see carried through from Climate Week into this year’s COP next month?

Stuart: Uh, I think that COP 29 is going to have a quite a major focus on the finance sector, which, uh, which kind of looks quite important to me.

And  the finance sector, uh, uh, certainly turning up in a pretty strong way here at the Climate Week, partly because it’s in New York, you know, but also because of the impact of all the regulations and, you know, the, um, the consolidation of some of the standards. I think that probably Baku is going to be focused on how can you unlock more impact from the finance systems that we’ve got.

And I wonder whether that will be as sort of all embracing, uh, some of the other cops that we’ve had or whether it will be more focused and more specific. But I mean, if it is able to bring together finance community, they’ve got such a strong part to play that, uh, I think we should continue to be hopeful for the outcome.

Becky: So I know you’ve been sort of running around literally, um, to lots of events, but and these is also hosted a number of events and panels. So, Stuart, can you talk a little bit about some of those?

Stuart: So on Monday night, we cohosted a dinner. With WBCSD, and the subject of that was related to a piece of work we’re doing with WBCSD to really sort of unpack the sort of kind of complexity that exists at the moment between the offsetting and insetting and Scope 3 debate.

So we had some, uh, very interesting people in the room who obviously attended because that’s something that is particularly important to them, which I think is, you know, it’s quite, it’s quite interesting to see how much capital is now being diverted from offsetting to effectively an investment in companies value chains. Now, whether that then looks like insetting or whether it’s just part of their scope through commitments, you know, that’s that introduces a few questions.

And then obviously, um, that also introduces the need for a pretty competitive collaboration space because a lot of the suppliers are supplying lots of different organisations. Many of those organisations are competitors. Uh, and then that leads on then to, uh, the need for blended capital solutions. We have an impact capital, uh, group and they hosted a client event on Tuesday morning.

Uh, and that was to demonstrate what we’re doing with, for example, cosmetics fund that we set up for effectively a cross sectoral fund to come together in this precompetitive space to be able to look at all the kind of things that they all need to look at, such as packaging and compliance with regs and all this, and to see if there was a, is a more sort of consolidated level playing field way of doing things.

So, it’s been a, it’s been a great opportunity for that. We have our primary investment partner, Carlyle, who are based here in New York. And so, uh, we co-sponsored an event with Carlisle, uh, at the Harvard club. And that was just a great opportunity really just to sort of bounce around in a panel session between, you know, the kind of work that Carlyle are doing and how this is starting to influence their investment strategy, and also what they’re requiring with their portfolio companies and the work and support Anthesis can provide in that area – which is not just providing support to finance companies, but actually within their portfolio companies. So we can make sure that they’re not just complying with the necessary regulation, but they’re actually on the right journey so they can demonstrate that they are making progress against the inevitable transitions that we know are going to take place.

Annabelle: One other session, I’d like to mention is around the topic of AI. Um, AI has been a really hot topic, this Climate Week. And it’s one that we’re really actively supporting a number of clients with. We work quite heavily within the software sector. So there are a number of conversations going on there and there’s kind of like both there’s both sides of this that’s going on, you know on one hand there are reports going out that the potential of AI could help mitigate carbon emissions by like five to ten percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But on the other side you’re seeing like this huge uptick in energy consumption that’s associated with the use of the data centers.

So one of the things that we released this week is the four M framework, which is essentially a framework for software developers to think thoughtfully, about how they are utilising AI. Um, so that they can build in good practices from the start rather than jumping in utilising it in a more excessive way than they might need to and then realising that it’s going to take them off from their climate goals and the challenges there. So how can you build it in rather than being retroactive after the fact?

Becky: Which I think describes so much of what is needed when it comes to sustainable performance is designing that in from the outset, rather than trying to introduce that retrospectively into a strategy business model, operating model.

Annabelle: Exactly. Yeah.

Becky: Thanks again to Stuart and Annabel. Lots of brilliant insights there. So here are a few things that I’ve taken from the conversation. Interoperability is the new buzzword. We need to see better alignment between different standards if disclosures around a company’s impacts, risks and opportunities will drive the level of transparency that can raise the bar for everyone.

And that requires a huge amount of collaboration. Look beyond the labels to cut through the ESG backlash. Powerful purpose driven communications and storytelling isn’t about slapping on a label like ESG, green, or sustainable. It’s about finding the core human truth at the heart of an issue.

AI presents huge opportunities, but also some pretty big challenges in the climate transition. Everyone working in purpose and sustainability should be upskilling themselves on this essential topic.

The role of finance is more important than ever. But this can’t be finance as usual. We need innovative new financing solutions to drive the change needed, and this is likely to be a key focus for COP29.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. To stay up to date with the latest news, inspiration, and ideas about sustainable performance, follow Anthesis on LinkedIn.