Wai-Chan Chan, managing director of The Consumer Goods Forum, writes about three vital aspects that consumer goods leaders must focus on to address the climate crisis facing the planet.
With last year the hottest ever on record, and recent wildfires in Los Angeles destroying lives, livelihoods and thousands of homes, the climate crisis is worsening before our eyes. There’s no surprise that the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) new Global Risks Report paints a sobering picture.
The four main risks identified by WEF members on a 10-year horizon are environmental: extreme weather, critical changes to Earth’s systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and natural resource shortage.
C-suite executives understand the urgent need to respond to climate change and associated environmental threats; these are not distant possibilities but immediate dangers impacting us – and our bottom line – right now.
If there is a silver lining amid all these challenges, it is that the intertwined relationship between business, society and the environment is clearer than ever.
Companies cannot thrive unless the people and places around them are thriving. Every business leader must step up: we have the resources and the responsibility to ensure a fairer and more prosperous planet.
The Three Vital Cs
In this context, I encourage the consumer goods leaders in Davos this week for the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting to ramp up three vital Cs: Collaboration, Conversation and Commitment.
Only by joining together to drive widespread change - and deepening their commitments to action - can companies accelerate the impact needed. The theme for Davos this year is ‘Collaboration for the Intelligent Age’ – which has never been more important.
As business leaders look to the year ahead, we must work together to create a better future for everyone. As politicians move away from international agreements, including Donald Trump potentially taking the United States out of the Paris Agreement, the private sector has to do their share.
We recognise that the challenges ahead require action, and as a collective of consumer goods companies, we must do our part.
This means focusing on practical, collective actions that balance environmental stewardship with long-term growth and innovation. But we need to act as a collective. No company can sit this one out – nor can any single company do it alone.
Considering their significant power and influence, consumer goods companies are uniquely placed to lead the shift to a greener and better world.
At The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), experience has shown us the power of collaboration to source shared solutions that achieve important outcomes.
The three Cs are fundamental to our ethos, with industry-wide commitment to actions shaped by collaboration and open conversation. I see them driving real-world impact all the time.
One of our 2024 successes was the significant progress our members made in transparently reporting on their efforts to remove deforestation and conversion from key commodity supply chains.
Our Forest Positive Coalition – co-chaired by PepsiCo and Walmart and co-sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive and Carrefour – reported that 74% of our member companies are now publicly reporting their impacts on deforestation and the conversion of natural ecosystems for agricultural use against a set of proposed key performance indicators – such as policies and time-bound action plans.
This is up from 68% the previous year.
In addition, and in collaboration with WWF, the CGF launched the Global Farm Loss Tool last year for growers of all sizes to more easily measure and report on-farm food loss.
The tool provides a user-friendly and simplified approach to help farmers and their buyers identify and address the cause of their on-farm food loss and its associated impacts, such as scope 3 emissions.
It is essential for accelerating our transition to a more efficient and circular food system.
Sustainable Retail Summit
Bringing senior decision makers together for conversation in person is a vital way to drive the collaboration and ultimately the commitments that create impact – and CGF is getting ready to unite hundreds of industry leaders for vital discussions about how to tackle sustainability and health issues at our Sustainable Retail Summit.
Taking place from 28 to 30 January in London, the event will see the world’s most influential retailers and manufacturers sharing insights, best practices and ideas to ensure faster progress. Our members know the power in learning from each other.
While the scale of the challenges we face are important, they are also shared, so our approaches to tackling them must also be shared. As our world changes and the legislative context evolves, companies must share best practices to drive solutions to issues affecting their workers, customers, partners and the environment.
Although every business has its own pressures and priorities, companies are stronger together.
Now is the time for businesses to strengthen their commitment to act, to ensure profits are achieved while protecting the people and the planet that businesses depend on, directing us towards a better tomorrow. I firmly believe they have the ingenuity, capacity and dedication to pull it off.
Article by Wai-Chan Chan, managing director of The Consumer Goods Forum.