-
Usefulness and purpose of the company's activity
What's the issue?
In an environment constrained by the limitation of non-renewable resources, we need to save energy and maintain industrial activities at a sustainable level. The purpose of products and services is therefore a key criterion to determine their legitimacy to continue existing.
What to watch out for
- Is the usefulness of products or services being requested at a strategic level in view of the current ecological emergency?
- Has the questioning of the purpose of the company's activities led to a reassessment of its activities?
- Is the company's strategy and investments reoriented coherently with these considerations?
What to watch out for
- Does the employer seek to rethink the supply chain 💬.and the production as a whole or does the employer merely carry out margin reduction or compensation measures without fundamentally reconsidering them?
- Has the employer considered the profound transformations that it must undertake, because of its sector, to be in line with the climate and biodiversity issues raised by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) ?
- Have these reflections led to transformative measures?
What to watch out for
- Does the company implement communications campaigns that encourage overconsumption?
- Conversely, does it encourage thoughtful sobriety?
- What is the narrative presented to potential customers?
The employer's strategy is generally not public (except when the structure is public). In this case, try to find the information provided to shareholders. Sometimes information is published in specialised business journals for companies, the most effective way being to find a source of information internally.
-
Understand your employer's impacts on the climate, biodiversity and resources
A company's activities inevitably impact the environment: greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity erosion, extraction of non-renewable resources, water and soil pollution, etc. As part of a serious strategy for the ecological emergency, impact must be measured, communicated with transparence, and limited as much as possible through an impact reduction plan.
First, an assessment of the impacts of each sector on the environment is indispensable. As a first approach, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board's materiality matrix provides a good estimation. Through this matrix, it is easy to understand the main impacts sector by sector (greenhouse gas emissions, impact on biodiversity, air quality, energy consumption, etc.). This first analysis should be kept in mind and then be used to critically examine the credibility of the measures taken by an employer with regard to the major ecological issues in their sector of activity.
What's the issue?
Human activities result in greenhouse gas emissions. The increasing concentration of these gases in the atmosphere disrupts the climate, causing, among other things, an increase in the frequency of heat waves, rising waters, and a higher frequency of cyclones.
What to watch out for
- Does the company publish its greenhouse gas emissions up to scope 3 💬?
- Is the company's greenhouse gas emissions trajectory compatible with the Paris Agreement's objective 💬 of limiting global warming to 1.5° or 2°?
- Are there annual greenhouse gas emission reduction targets? Are these objectives in absolute value 💬 (and not in relative value, which necessarily induces a bias)? Is carbon neutrality 💬 a target? If so, by when?
- To what extent does the company rely on compensation mechanisms 💬 (purchase of carbon credits, tree planting, development of CO2 capture technologies)? To what extent is the company positioning asing itself on gross/actual reduction in emissions?
What's the issue?
Nature provides us with food, medicines, it filters waters, etc. it offers us irreplaceable services whose value is estimated by the OECD at 150% of the world's GDP!
What to watch out for
- Does the employer publish an analysis of the impact of its activities on biodiversity? Does this analysis appear complete and relevant in regards of the sector of activity? Is biodiversity preservation taken into account in the company's operational processes?
- Does the employer seek to limit the artificialization of soils[definition]? Is the achievement of the objective of zero net loss of biodiversity 💬 being considered?
- To reduce its impact, does the employer display an avoidance and then a reduction mechanism before compensation?
What's the issue?
Our consumerist society is based on non-renewable resources: oil, sand, metals, etc. For example, without rare-earth elements, these metals with exceptional properties, no more smartphones, computer monitors, hard disks and solar panels! As resources are depleting, their consumption continues to increase.
What to watch out for
- Are products designed to limit their environmental impact and maximize their lifespan? Are they necessary, reusable, repairable, recyclable or even compostable? Are there repair manuals on the company's website? Does the company take care of their end-of-life?
- Has a life cycle analysis 💬 of the products been carried out?
- Is the employer's business model based on sobriety? On a realistic circular economy model?
- Are the global consumption and available stocks of the materials on which the employer depends (copper, gold, silver, gas, tungsten, tin, etc.) monitored? Is a calculation of the material and water footprint performed?
What's the issue?
Human activities cause pollution of air, soil and water. These sometimes irreversible pollutions have an impact not only on the environment but also on our health: we ingest the equivalent of a plastic credit card every week!
What to watch out for
- Is an analysis of the pollution caused carrie out over the entire value chain of the structure?
- Does the strategy planned to limit this pollution seem ambitious? Are measures being implemented?
- Does the pollution reduction trajectory rely on technologies that do not yet exist and whose development is uncertain? In what proportion?
- The Science Based Targets site assesses the trajectories of greenhouse gas emission reduction of 676 companies.
- The ACT method on the ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency) website evaluates the business climate strategies of companies
- [In France] The association Halte à l'Obsolescence Programmée investigates the obsolescence and reparability of many products
- The ADEME database compiles nearly 2000 carbon assessments of companies
-
Taking into account climate and biodiversity issues in the work of employees
What's the issue?
Environmental issues are complex. Being aware is necessary but not sufficient to provide relevant answers to the encountered problems ; it is essential for you to be seriously trained! In order for ambitious strategies to be deployed, all members of a structure must be made aware and then trained on operational issues, so that everyone can act in their respective positions within the structure.
What to watch out for:
- Are there any internal training courses? Who is involved? Members of decision-making bodies (Board of Directors, Executive Committee, etc.)? The executives? All employees?
- What is the quality of this training? What is its content? How long does it last? Who are the trainers? What means are put in place to ensure that the training leads to real implementation?
What's the issue?
Within the company, each employee must be involved in the ecological transition. Despite this, many employees do not find it easy to be listened when they propose changes to limit the ecological impacts of the structure in which they work. However, they are often in the best position to identify problems, propose relevant solutions and implement them. Employers therefore have a strong interest in encouraging their employees in this direction and giving them enough flexibility to suggest and experiment their ideas.
What to watch out for:
- Do the tasks listed on job descriptions include environmental issues?
- Does the employer's dashboard contain environmental indicators?
- Is the achievement of environmental objectives a factor in the variable compensation of employees? In what proportion?
- Are there mechanisms for internal engagement (possibility of setting up working groups, free time to carry out projects, budgets, etc)?
- Have there been any whistleblowers within the structure? If so, how were they considered?
What's the issue?
Sustainable development departments (often linked to Corporate Social Responsibility departments) have historically had little power and budget in the company. Most of the time, their main mission is to meet a legal reporting requirement. With the growing awareness of ecological emergencies, these departments are now seeing their staff and budget increase, but too often remain at the margins of the company's overall strategy.
What to watch out for:
- What is its level of reporting (general management, strategic management, communications, etc.)?
- Does the director of the department sit in the decision-making bodies (Board of Directors, Executive Committee)? Does the department's activity seem to be more focused on symbolic measures, communications, or on truly transformative actions that affect the company's activity and its main environmental challenges?
What's the issue?
According to some international organizations, 10% of the world's GDP should be used to ensure an ecological transition. Going beyond this figure, it is undeniable that making a successful ecological transition requires massive investments. However, the relevance of these investments is difficult to assess, so it is essential to take a critical look at some "advertising" effects.
What to watch out for:
- Does the structure communicate on the share of its “green”, responsible investments related to the ecological transition? On the share of its "green" projects?
- Which proportion of the budget and investments is allocated to addressing environmental problems and implementing solutions, compared to other expenditure items (e.g. communications, digital)?
- This information is rarely provided in official documents. You can seek information from the HR department or from people you meet at forums.
- For the management of the company and the leeway of employees, you will probably have to look a little further. The easiest way is to talk to employees to find out their current levers within the organization.
- Concerning whistleblowers and possible scandals to which the employer has been linked to, the main way is to look for press articles on the subject.
- The level of reporting line of the CSR/Sustainability department can usally be found on the organizational chart of the structure.
- Some companies have reintegrated sustainable development functions into their various branches or departments, which may be a relevant approach to ensure that these issues are integrated into operational realities. Their dedicated department is therefore small, but works with referents at various levels of the structure.
-
Integration of environmental issues into financial strategy
What's the issue?
Climate change has a series of disastrous consequences for the environment in which structures operate. Thus, within their risk analysis, they must quantify ecological risks in the same way as financial risks which must logically affect their overall strategy. By excluding climate risks or neglecting their analysis, the structure adopts the "ostrich strategy", which is damaging in the long term for the company itself as well as for the whole society.
What to watch out for:
- Does the structure communicate its risk analysis? Are ecological issues included ? Do the risks presented seem consistent with the structure's activity?
- Is the influence of climate change taken into account in its physical dimensions (temperature rise, water rise, variability of precipitation, increased frequency of extreme phenomena, etc.)? Its economic dimensions (impact on the employer's finances)? Its socio-political dimensions (impacts on employee health, population displacements, destabilization of certain governments, etc.)?
- Are the consequences of the collapse of biodiversity also taken into account?
- Is there a longterm strategy that includes the issues of ecological emergency? In which time frame (5 years? 10 years? 20 years)? Is there a prospective approach 💬? Do high-stakes companies (energy, construction, mobility, agriculture) conduct scenario analysis?
What's the issue?
The current economic system is subjected to absurd shortterm financial profitability constraints. These constraints compete with the implementation of an ambitious ecological transition strategy and pull the company in the opposite direction. Appropriate steering instruments are therefore essential to make decisions consistent with the current ecological emergency, and not just based on short term profitability.
What to watch out for:
- Does the company have an internal regulatory systems in place? For example, does it take into account an internal carbon price 💬 in calculating the economic profitability of its projects?
- What influence does extra-financial performance 💬 have on decision-making?
- Is there a variable remuneration for employees based on non-financial and environmental performance?
- Do bonuses encourage a short term vision in the company? For example, many employees in the banking sector are only paid for their very short term performance.
-
The structure’s relations with the rest of society
What's the issue?
We are all aware of the existence of powerful lobbies seeking to influence political action and legislation. There are many examples of lobbying successfully slowing down the ecological transition: fossil fuel, automotive, agri-food industries, etc. Yet, these same companies are participating in massive communications campaigns to illustrate their commitment to this same ecological transition. This deep cognitive dissonance goes against any concrete action in the light of the climate emergency.
Companies do not only interact with public authorities, they also influence other stakeholders such as suppliers and business partners, and of course customers and consumers. Adopting a coherent discourse among all these actors makes it possible to disseminate good practices and promotes systemic change.
What to watch out for:
- Are suppliers and business partners evaluated and selected on environmental and/or social criteria?
- Concerning the influence on government and regulation: what resources are devoted to public relations? Does the employer's influencing work take the direction of an ecological and social transition or in the opposite direction?
- Concerning the influence on higher education programmes: on which boards of directors of institutions does the employer have seats? Does it have financial links with institutions (direct financing, shareholding, chairs, etc.)? Does it use its influence to promote education for all on ecological issues?
- Regarding the choice of partners, looking for a call for bids published by the employer and looking at the required criteria provides good indications.
- https://influencemap.org/ gives a good idea of the lobbying expenses of oil companies.
- This report from the Multinational Observatory gives a good idea of the lobbying expenses of CAC40 companies. Just press Ctrl+F to find the right employer! The same goes for this other Attac report, which is shorter but just as interesting.
- Finally, with regard to influence on higher education, the composition of an institution's board of directors is public.
