Month: August 2024

Backlash against Sustainability – or any “ESG” issue – is now widespread. States have restricted considerations for their pension fund investments. Companies have backtracked on public statements and commitments, reduced staff or eliminated departments altogether. Recent posts for Sustainability leaders have suggested achieving consensus, and tying Sustainability to business value.

This sounds like trying to convince someone that a man actually did walk on the moon. Gentle persuasion won’t work – it hasn’t so far, so why would it now?

Some readers will remember the kitschy advertisement for “clap on, clap off!” light fixtures. A broad array of stakeholders “clapped Sustainability on”, and the backlash drivers have “clapped it off.” It’s time to clap again. Although it may not be your nature, Douglas Hileman Consulting LLC (DHC) suggests you clap back. Challenge the drivers of backlash to explain why they aren’t using it. Some points below.  (Read More)

Sustainability professionals are struggling to hold their ground against Sustainability backlash.  Stakeholders interested in any topic are feeling besieged.  Douglas Hileman Consulting LLC (DHC) suggests this was predictable.  DHC suggests that stakeholders have been ineffective in building their own case.  It’s time to step up, one KPI and one action at a time. 

1. Nobody can be everything to everybody. Accept that Company X won’t be everything to you.     

It was 17 years from the first Earth Day to the UN Brundtland Commissions report that coined the term “Sustainability.”  President Bill Clinton had a Council on Sustainable Development in the 1990s.  Climate Change was recognized as a threat to the planet more than a century ago[1].  The first UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties was held in 1995.  Stakeholders were unable to coax regulations from governments.  The Carbon Disclosure Project (now CDP) launched in 2000 with the hope that, with a common framework and portal, companies would voluntarily disclose their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  It worked, with over 23,000 organizations disclosing in 2023.  CDP now serves as an available portal for GHG reporting, including on parameters inspired by COP 21 – the Paris Climate Accords.  It took decades years for mandatory GHG emissions reporting to kick in, and it’s still not there yet.  This is just reporting, not reduction.   (Read More)