Planet Footprint
Aligning your business development strategy with planetary boundaries and life conditions is the new license to operate. Thus, taking into account what science says is necessary enables your company to boost innovation with its ecosystem, anticipate regulatory shifts, and secure a sustainable environment to operate in.
Being aware your global environmental footprint
is key to align your growth strategy.
#1 Environmental resilience strategy
Whether in agriculture, in health or in the energy sector, every company relies on natural resources and is dependent on natural ecosystems. These dependencies may be very local (safe neighborhood) or fully global (e.g. CO2 emissions).
Creating a business model that preserves these resources and optimizes their use (e.g. upcycling or recycling materials, sharing services or products) and nurtures these ecosystems (e.g. minimize one’s land footprint) is key to the company’s robustness, both from a mission and a business point of view.
Aligning business goals with what science says is necessary enables companies to anticipate costly environmental regulations (e.g. price per ton of carbon) and natural resources depletion.
Assessing such impact requires adopting a holistic point of view (any climate policy should lower CO2 emissions and protect biodiversity) and possibly actively taking into account the interests of other social groups when the company’s impacts are too distant and not tangible enough.
Key questions you should ask yourself
– Is the company’s business model aligned with what science says is necessary to preserve the planet and maintain good living conditions for humans?
– How does the company’s business impact planetary resources and non-human ecosystems?
– Does it favor depletion, alteration, weakening, strengthening,… and how will this evolve in the long-term?
– How is the company’s ecosystem affected by its alterations of planetary resources and non-human ecosystems? (employees, suppliers, neighborhoods, local and foreign communities…)
– How does the company qualitatively and quantitatively assess and monitor environmental impacts along its value chain?
#2 Carbon footprint management
To secure a future for next generations, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to net zero by 2050 : fighting against climate change is a challenge for all companies.
Carbon is growing and carbon metrics could rapidly be part of accountability frameworks. Managing the carbon footprint of companies is thus becoming more than a compliance requirement : doing it well, through science-based metrics, is a strong competitive advantage.
Companies need to find their path toward autonomy from carbon emissions sources : it’s the new license to operate.
Key questions you should ask yourself
– Is the company aware of its carbon footprint?
– Is the carbon assessment process relevant to the company’s business/sector?
– Does the company focus on the relevant scope(s)?
– Are carbon metrics the best to assess the environmental impact of the company?
– Does the company implement a carbon reduction/compensation strategy? What are its goals and KPIs?
#3 Holistic environmental mindset
Every business relies on ecosystem services (e.g. pollinisation) and natural capital assets (e.g. water). Identifying and monitoring environmental dependencies beyond carbon is necessary to ensure a stable environment for companies to operate in.
Companies should be able to see beyond carbon footprint and take into account their environmental impacts with a holistic mindset. Indeed, climate change definitely leads to biodiversity’s issues (e.g. on the one hand, climate change will inevitably reduce freshwater resources ; on the other hand, biodiversity increases soils’ absorption capacities).
Being aware of your global environmental footprint is key to align the company’s growth strategy with the most relevant challenges of its business (e.g. plastic bottles have the best carbon footprint but lead to big waste issues).
Key questions you should ask yourself
– To what extent does the company’s activity have an impact on biodiversity?
– To what extent does the company’s activity rely on water resources?
– Does the company experience waste issues?
– To what extent does the company’s activity rely on the use of toxic chemicals along its supply chain?
– What is the company’s resilience strategy regarding non-renewable raw materials?
– Is there any GreenIT strategy to reduce the environmental footprint of the company’s tech uses?
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