By Alistair Child, Mars Chief Sustainability Officer
Then again, which corner of your business felt similar to 12 months ago? Change is the only constant.
Climate Week felt like a story of two halves: highly encouraging pragmatism and get-down-to-work spirit when at its best; and some concern and disillusionment on occasions.
What to make of this?
The Science Hasn't Changed - On the one hand, it is important to recognize other critical global priorities creeping up leadership agendas, for both governments and business and civil society. And on the other hand, the science of climate change hasn't changed and the accelerating impacts are ever more clear in our news feed.
Performance over Promises - What I took away form climate week is that the committed businesses remain serious. It’s not about why or if, it’s about how. I was inspired by several closed door sessions with impatient and dissatisfied companies opening up to share best practices in pursuit of progress.
Sustainability Means Business - Making business sense was a common theme. If we can demonstrate sustainability is good for business, and lead sustainability in a manner that is good for business, then we have the keys to scale in our hand. Our own journey has shown that business growth and emissions reduction are not mutually exclusive – since 2015, Mars has increased sales by 69% while cutting absolute emissions by more than 16%. This decoupling is at the heart of our Net Zero Roadmap, but we know that progress won’t always be easy or linear. It requires transparency, honest reflection on setbacks and a willingness to collaborate beyond individual ambition.
Eco-systems over Ego-systems - To truly deliver on our ambitions, we need a coalition of the willing – partners, suppliers, customers and governments – ready to embrace pre-competitive collaboration to achieve systemic change. We must applaud collective victories, not just individual wins, and share resources and learning to accelerate our impact.
Getting to Net Zero is not a race we want to win alone – there is no point of one company achieving Net Zero if the rest of world doesn’t follow. This is a journey we need to take together, so let’s build on the momentum from Climate Week and turn our ambition into action.
Header Image Credit: Economist Impact at NYCW: “From soil to shelf: A unified approach to building resilient food systems.” Event sponsored by Cargill.
