What’s New: A Year in Review
In 2024, we witnessed the power of changemakers, whether it was a sustainability team driving climate action worldwide or collective efforts revitalizing carbon markets. Decarbonization proved good for business and the planet. Despite setbacks in some corporate commitments, 2024 trends are promising: renewables surpassed fossil fuels in the UK, and clean tech investment doubled that of fossil fuels. The sustainability message is clear: if you sit out, you’ll lose out. Changemakers are securing financial returns and supply chain resilience while leading the way forward.
Here are the top changes from 2024 you need to know:
The Biggest Win: Walmart’s Project Gigaton Reaches Goal Six Years Ahead of Schedule
Project Gigaton, designed in collaboration with Environmental Defense Fund, shares crucial lessons for every company:
- Engaging supply chains multiplies your impact. Tools like the EDF’s supplier engagement pathways and webinars can help you get on the path toward big wins.
- Sustainability has clear business benefits, no matter the political swings. Walmart launched the effort in 2017 and announced this milestone to investors on their earnings call in 2024.
Partnering can lead to greater impact. Making the business case for climate action has never been more important.
Go Deeper | We spoke with Chrissy Britton, Senior Manager for Sustainability at Walmart, to understand the steps and strategies to get here. Watch the interview here.
The Emerging Risk: Extreme Weather
With record-breaking heat, severe flooding and wildfires disrupting lives in the U.S. and across the world, this year has been far from “normal.” Read the three ways climate risks are increasing costs for businesses with and without direct physical assets:
The Promising Breakthrough: Voluntary Carbon Markets
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market approved new REDD+ methodologies, opening the door for more high-integrity investments in tropical forests. This move reassures companies of the value of carbon credits to advance net zero efforts.
The Memorable Moment: Climate Week NYC
At our Climate Power Moves event, Walmart, Google.org, HSBC, Bloomberg Green, OnePointFive and Speed & Scale shared strategies for tackling emissions, building the climate workforce and tracking climate KPIs. Despite challenges from all sides, there is no doubt that major companies remain committed and are seeing bottom-line benefits. Our corporate progress analysis that set the stage for our conversations:
Looking Ahead to 2025
While the immediate future has uncertainties due to U.S. political developments, we are certain of one thing: later is too late to act on climate change. Companies that take net zero action now can maximize their business benefits and help build a vital Earth for all.
What’s a first step to show your business commitment to sustainability? Trade association involvement. Associations are a key leverage point for continued climate policy advocacy in a new administration where some policies are at risk of being rolled back. However, misalignment between company and Association priorities can occur. Explore our new list of tools, case studies and strategies businesses can use to ensure trade association alignment with climate policy priorities.
That’s all for this month. See you next time!
Start Your Journey to Net Zero: Find a Pathway
How do you get buy-in to set a net zero goal? What happens after you’ve made a climate commitment? How do you start tackling emissions in your operations or supply chain? Follow our pathways to access actionable guidance on accelerating your company’s net zero journey.
