Listen to Maria Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition and one 2023 world’s top 100 Climate leaders.
The We Mean Business Coalition brings together a group of nonprofit organisations collaborating to accelerate an inclusive transition to a net zero economy.
With their ‘Fossil to Clean’ campaign, they called all Parties at COP28 "to transform the global energy system towards a full phase-out of unabated fossil fuels and halve emissions this decade." Although the outcome of this year’s COP was not what was hoped for, “for the first time we have a global agreement to transition away from all fossil fuels in line with science.”
In this episode, you’ll hear more about:
“We knew that what we needed was not about the thousands of companies taking voluntary commitments. It is about the millions that need to be affected by regulations. This is what we're seeing now with the CSRD and CSDDD. That's going to be fantastic because anything that is into law is then implemented because it's legal. If you are doing it well, customers and investors will want to do business with you. If you're not doing it well, you will see it too. And then you will do everything you can to do it right. Because that's what businesses do. They compete. They love to be the best. So there is a race to the top and this is what transparency creates.”
Is it really is possible for companies to "do the right thing"?
There's very little pressure being applied to companies by investors looking at how they're actually behaving and treating human rights as a core business priority. This needs to change.
Investors shouldn't just take companies' word for what they're doing; they should investigate what the companies are actually doing regarding human rights.