The JUST Report: Does Climate Week Matter?

If you can make it around the barricades, past the acronyms, and beyond the countless cocktails and canapes, you realize Climate Week in New York City provides an opportunity to address some serious questions.  

Are we actually on track to combat climate change? Who’s moving the needle? Who is holding everyone to account? And who, ultimately, will foot the bill for whatever future we have in store? 

There’s certainly a lot of capital flowing into the climate space. According to CREO Syndicate, a nonprofit organization on whose board I serve, “Annual global climate finance flows doubled from 2020 to 2022, reaching $1.4 trillion or 1% of global GDP, but will need to increase sixfold to average $8.6 trillion through 2030, and $10.7 trillion through 2050, to reach net zero.” Whether all of this investment will generate a market rate of return (or mitigate greenhouse gas emissions for that matter) remains to be seen, but compared to, say, a decade ago, these numbers are impressive.

There’s also a lot of business action on the issue. As our list of Top 10 Companies for the Environment shows, companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, McCormick and Co, Accenture, and Trane are supplying the world with advanced climate solutions that tie directly back to market performance and profitability. This week’s announcement by Microsoft (another JUST 100 leader) that it will use the Three Mile Island nuclear facility to supply the emissions-free power it needs to grow brings home how seriously companies are taking their climate commitments and how complex the path forward really is.

Where is the public – as consumers, as taxpayers, as voters – on all this? I’d say it’s a mixed bag. Despite what many of the international visitors I talked to this week think, Americans do care about the climate. But as our polling shows, it’s hard to prioritize it when you’re struggling to make ends meet. For millions around the world, a changing climate threatens their livelihoods, their communities, their futures. Yet many feel similarly threatened by some of the policies proposed to address the issue. Getting to grips with these realities is essential. In the meantime, it’s the private sector that will continue to lead.

Be well, 

Martin

Quote of the Week

“We only have one environment and we must protect it. The planet will adapt without us – we are not as important as we think we are.”

• Helen Clarkson, CEO of Climate Group, speaking during Climate Week. Listen to her full remarks here.

Must Reads

California kicked-off climate week by launching the first-of-its-kind lawsuit against ExxonMobil for its alleged role in the plastic pollution crisis. The Guardian has the story. 

Bloomberg takes a deep-dive into how corporations have lost or regained Americans’ trust, as part of an ongoing series on lack of faith in institutions. 

Forbes predicts that average salary increases are going to decline next year. Explore why. 

Fast Company explains why corporate America’s retreat from DEI is shortsighted, and Retail Dive highlights the leading DEI programs that serve business goals. 

Bloomberg looks at the immense pay package garnered by ousted Nike CEO John Danahoe, and whether it was a just amount for a man who presided over the company losing over $40 billion in market value. 

Chart of the Week

For climate week, we analyzed preliminary 2025 data on climate commitments, showing what level of disclosure and commitment Russell 1000 companies are providing, which will factor into our 2025 Rankings. So far, we are seeing a remarkable increase on SBTi scenario commitments compared to last year’s data.