Are Three Enoughs Enough? Part 2: Enough sustainability

How much sustainability is enough? That question niggled at me for years. When have companies contributed enough to the wellbeing of the environment and society? There are four ways that companies express their answer to that question. Using a company’s reduction of its carbon footprint as an example of a sustainability goal, let’s explore them.

1. Is continuous improvement enough?

When a company reports on its progress in reducing its carbon footprint / greenhouse gases (GHGs) pollution, usually it uses a downward sloping graph that shows annual emissions since a chosen high-emissions baseline year. The metrics might be expressed in absolute tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e), or as carbon intensity per product, per dollar of revenue, or per employee. Continuous improvement is a good thing, but it’s not enough without a declared science-based endpoint and timeframe.

2. Is meeting the company goal enough?

Many companies have goals related to their environmental and social performance. Goals for 4,000 large, publicly-traded companies are helpfully captured in the Pivot Goals database, including 735 GHG reduction goals. However, many company goals are expressed in a way that makes comparison with other companies’ goals difficult, as shown in the diverse GHG / carbon goals in this figure.

Plus, executives are not inclined to set themselves up for failure. They usually set goals that they are fairly confident that they can meet, so the majority of sustainability goals set by companies are challenging but doable within the time frame specified. When the company attains its self-defined goal, is that enough? Are they finished, or do they then set a new goal and continue to further reduce their GHGs? And then what? Usually, reaching company self-defined goals is not enough to meet goals that best available science says are necessary.

3. Is being ranked #1 enough?

Every year, Corporate Knights ranks the largest publicly traded companies in its Global 100 report. It identifies the top 100 most sustainable large companies in the world. It ranks them on 15 key performance indicators (KPIs). One of the KPIs is carbon / GHG intensity. CDP also produces an annual climate change A-list of companies who lead their sectors in reducing their contribution to climate change.

Companies ranked highest on these ratings should feel proud. They should also realize that they are not done yet. They could just be the best of a bad lot. The danger is that they relax and think that doing enough to be ranked #1 is doing enough. It’s not.

4. Are science-based targets (SBTs) enough?

“Science-based targets (SBT)” take a different approach to setting GHG reduction targets. Using various methodologies, SBTs define a company’s fair share of its sector’s required GHG reductions, based on a reduction rate that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says would give us a 50% chance of keeping average global temperature rise from pre-industrial levels below 2°C. This sounds more reassuring than the previous approaches, until we look at SBT methodologies more closely.

First, a 50-50 probability for avoiding an existential threat to humankind feels like we are flipping a coin on my grandchildren’s future. Having them play Russian roulette with a pistol that has a two-chamber cylinder seems a tad irresponsible. Second, there is clear evidence that IPCC reports grossly underestimate the urgency and actions required to avoid catastrophic climate disruption. As revealed in What Lies Beneath, IPCC reports “tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of ‘least drama.’” Pressured by political and vested interests, they downplay more extreme and more damaging outcomes. However, “what were lower-probability, higher-impact events are now becoming more likely. This is a particular concern with potential climatic ‘tipping points’ — passing critical thresholds which result in step changes in the system — such as melting polar ice sheets (and hence rising sea levels), and melting permafrost and other carbon stores, where the impacts of global warming are non-linear and difficult to model at present.” It looks like SBTs may be based on compromised climate science.

So, here’s the acid test for all the above attempts at enough GHG reduction: If every company on the planet reduced its GHG emissions that much, would we avoid climate destabilization? That is, would we be okay if all companies continued to reduce their GHGs at their current rate, if they met their self-defined GHG reduction goals, if their carbon reduction efforts caught up with leading companies, or if they met their SBTs? Unfortunately, it is becoming clearer that the answer is “no.”

Leading climate scientists, unfettered by IPCC constraints, warn that human-induced climate change represents an immediate and existential threat to humanity and that a fast, emergency-scale transition to a post-fossil fuel world is essential if that threat is to be properly addressed.” The  Lancet Countdown on health and climate change reports on 40 indicators across five key areas in health and climate change. It concludes that “the human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible—affecting the health of populations around the world today.” Climate change is already affecting us. We need to act now.

Question: So, how much would be enough GHG reduction?
Answer: Complete. Emit no GHGs. Zero emissions would be enough.

The stark reality is that the environment is overflowing with manmade GHG pollution. It can’t absorb more. We have to stop before we creep further toward the precipitous feedback tipping-points of no return. Objectors who say a goal of zero GHGs is not practical need to ask themselves whether the alternative is “practical.”

So far, we’ve just been considering how much reduction of GHG emissions is enough. That’s just one sustainability issue. Wouldn’t it be helpful if we had a complete suite of “enough” context-based sustainability performance goals that take social and environmental limits and thresholds explicitly into account to ensure we don’t irreparably harm the environment and society in other ways? Happily, we do. The Future-Fit Business Benchmark (FFBB) goals were developed from the ground up, based on best-available environmental and social science principles, unencumbered by political or vested interests. As an example, one FFBB goal is: Operations emit no GHGs. A complementary FFBB goal is: All energy is from renewable sources. The FFBB has similar goals for water, waste, materials and other sustainability topics. Collectively, its 23 cause-no-harm / break-even goals define what “enough sustainability” looks like. Finally, we know how much sustainability is enough. Now we need to decide what innovations we will undertake to meet the “enough” FFBB sustainability goals sooner rather than later.

My previous blog answered how much wealth is enough. This blog answers how much sustainability is enough. My next blog will explore how much making-a-difference is enough. Stay tuned …

Bob

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