SR Inc Quarterly Newsletter

April 19, 2023

Sustainability Transformed

In Q1 2023, the world of Corporate Sustainability stepped into an inflecting trend where what had for decades been a field of volunteered leadership became mandated for firms traded on public markets. The Wall Street Journal reports that some 3,000 US firms are required by the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) to track and report 82 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) items even before The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issues a final rule on ESG reporting in the US this spring.

Less than 500 firms volunteer in an impressively diligent manner to track and report non cash ESG items in a credible manner (including the dozens Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. assists). One year forward, the number may well mushroom to over 10,000 firms working to create financial reporting level quality assured reports on their ESG performance. Consequently, BCG, Deloitte, PWC, and EY are among the global service firms growing their ESG practices exponentially and seeming to overrun formerly relatively quiet Sustainability conferences.

Which is to say, Sustainability is booming. But consistent with the old adage about promoting change – “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win”, there is now a political backlash against ESG. It is well funded and promoted by conservative cultural warriors advancing an anti-managerial, anti-global, nativist agenda that is uninterested in facts. There will, however, be thousands of new enterprise Sustainability professionals around the globe as ESG reporting becomes mandatory and universal.

I wonder what percent of the legion of new Sustainability professionals globally will recognize these five key realities: (1) At this juncture, commitment to incremental improvement is no longer aligned with the best of relevant science regarding human caused climate breakdown. (2) That The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has specifically made it clear that for it to be “more likely than not” we will avoid the most catastrophic effects of human-caused climate breakdown including being exposed to “tipping points” to self-accelerating ecological collapse, global emissions must be halved within the 80 months to 2030. (3) Global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) have continued their unabated 30+ year rise. (4) Lazard’s 16th annual Levelized Cost of Energy report finds building new utility scale solar is increasingly cost superior to buying electricity from an existing fossil fuel plant. And (5) that The Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB) participating companies are helping to democratize the environmental benefits of utility scale renewables through making the NZCB the leading platform for corporate aggregated procurement of large scale renewables in the U.S and Europe.

Executive Symposium Takeaways

SBER Q1 Symposium: Sustainability Strategy Leadership & Corporate Global Decarbonization

March 20, 2023. SR Inc held our first quarterly 2023 Executive Symposium on March 16th at simultaneous live events at the Art Hotel in Denver, CO and at the new Pegasystems campus in Waltham, MA, as well as virtually. Member-Clients in attendance were engaged on two major topics, “Sustainability Strategy Leadership” and “Corporate Global Decarbonization.”

This session included presentations from three Member Executives: our Waltham host and Vice President of Real Estate & Facilities Dan Ryan of Pegasystems, Sr. Manager of Global Energy Management and Sustainability at Cisco Andy Smith, and Nell Triplett, Director of Sustainability at Juniper Networks.

New SR Inc Team Members

SR Inc Welcomes Marisa Hart as Program Associate

As a Program Associate, Marisa supports the optimization and project tracking of SR Inc’s membership services. Marisa is also responsible for supporting operations, communications and the planning and execution of SR Inc’s quarterly member symposia nationwide.

SR Inc Welcomes Sebastian Weir as Manager, Membership Development

As Manager of Membership Development, Sebastian is responsible for expanding SR Inc’s client base, toward its mission of becoming the premier membership-based roundtable for the Fortune 1000 and growth companies. Sebastian seeks to introduce the firm’s Strategic Advisory and Support Services (SBER) to executives aiming to accelerate the development and adoption of sustainability best practices throughout their business.

Best Practice Executive Guidance

SBTi Submittal Process Overview: A Preview of SR Inc.’s Full Member Advisory

With this new influx of companies seeking approved long-term targets, in addition to those still working to set near-term ones, SBTi has revamped their submission process, launching a new portal in February 2022. However, the process is far from running smoothly, with extensive timing delays and lacking communication channels. In order to facilitate a smoother validation process, SR Inc outlined step wise guidance for submitting both near- and long-term SBTs.

The Member-Client Guide to the EU Taxonomy: A Preview of SR Inc.’s Full Member Advisory

New for 2023, all 18,000+ companies responding to the CDP Climate questionnaire, which includes the vast majority of SR Inc Member-Clients, will have to respond to four new questions on their alignment with sustainable finance taxonomy. This emphasis on taxonomy is designed to align with requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the EU’s newest mandatory reporting framework adopted in November 2022, which incorporates the EU Taxonomy into its standards. So what is the EU taxonomy?

Sustainable Leadership Blog

A Dignity First Corporate Demand for Climate Action

March 1, 2023. We are in the winter of 2023, and it is exceptionally mild in much of North America and Europe. Despite the agreeableness to the skin, those paying attention to climate science do not find comfort in these conditions.

SR Inc’s Community Service: Food For Free
February 9, 2023. The SR Inc Team volunteered with Food For Free in SR Inc Member-Client Biogen’s Kendall Square headquarters kitchen space built exclusively for Food For Free’s use, a donation well aligned with their own ESG goals.