BACA Key Messages
How to pitch the Belgian Alliance for Climate Action to your internal and external stakeholders?
In this article we share the key messages to articulate why organizations should take action based on the latest climate science – this to provide you with the correct answers on questions you might get from employees, partners, suppliers, clients, press, investors… when engaging with the Alliance.
The rationale for taking science-based climate action and joining BACA is based on three fundamental messages:
- Organizations need to take more ambitious climate action now
- Only by working together can we drive the transition to a net-zero economy
- Climate action based on science is the most effective way to guarantee the required effect
We will shortly argue these main messages below. If you need more information or want to review our sources, please reach out to baca@theshift.be.
Message 1: Organizations need to take more ambitious climate action now
The Paris Climate Agreement was signed by governments. As it stands, the nationally determined contributions from all signatory countries are insufficient and will lead to a temperature increase of more than 3°C compared to pre-industrial levels. This gap highlights the complementary responsibility of private sector organizations as key players in the fight against climate change. Greater action is needed.
- We have reached the end of the warmest decade ever recorded. The planet is currently 1.1°C warmer than during the pre-industrial era. The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were 18% higher in the 2015-2019 period than in the five years before.
- The world is far from being on track to meeting the commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement to keep global average temperatures well below 2°C, let alone the much safer 1.5°C.
- The urgency is only increasing as the impacts of climate change are already felt today and the cost of mitigation and adaptation measures continues to rise with every year of climate inaction.
- Organizations are increasingly held accountable for their sustainability agenda: consumers want organizations to take action and prefer those that care about environmental issues.
- Consumers are demanding greater visibility into the full greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of individual products so that they can take this into account in their decision making.
- A growing chorus of climate-conscious investors are factoring in ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) analytics as part of their investment decisions.
Message 2: Only by working together, we can drive the transition to a net-zero economy
Organizations of all sizes should share best practices to prevent having to reinvent the wheel. By pooling knowledge, companies, non-profit/-governmental organizations and academic/research institutions can save time and resources, inspire each other and ensure a real sense of co-operation in this crucial domain. By coming together, we start a movement that enables organizations of all sizes to contribute to reducing emissions worldwide.
- For many multinationals, the total GHG footprint is largely made up of emissions originating within the value chain: both from suppliers of raw materials or semi-finished products and from their own customers. According to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), companies’ supply chains emissions are on average 5.5 times greater than the emissions from their operation.
- SMEs are key to drive a systemic change from a linear to a more circular model, which will be one of the major contributions to reducing emissions. It is only when all players in a value chain cooperate that material loops can be closed.
- In Belgium, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in the economy, generating more than 60% of total value added. Together with efforts from large corporations, the combined climate action of many SMEs ensures a huge contribution to climate action. Getting SMEs on board is therefore vitally important for spreading sustainable business practices.
- Addressing supply chain emissions can create numerous co-benefits, beyond collectively reducing emissions, such as strengthening supply chain resilience. But examining operations through a carbon impact lens can also help identify new operational efficiencies, cost saving opportunities, and innovation. Finally, aligning operational thinking with supply chain partners in line with a societal cause such as climate action also creates more robust and long-lasting relationships.
Message 3: Climate action based on science is the most effective way to guarantee the required effect
GHG emissions reduction targets must be in line with the Paris Climate Agreement commitments. Climate science tells us that global temperature increase must stay well below 2°C towards 1.5°C. It critical and even vital to keep global temperature increase below 1.5°C as compared to higher levels, to prevent irreversible damage.
Only through accurate carbon accounting and basing climate action on science, we can measure progress towards our individual and collective emissions reduction targets and unlock support from internal and external stakeholders.
- The global carbon budget (the GHG emissions that humanity has emitted since the start of the industrial revolution) is the scientifically agreed instrument that enables humanity to engage in effective climate action. On that basis, scientists can estimate the remaining budget left to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5° / 2°C.
- By looking at climate science, we can measure the gap between what is needed and what we are doing, to mobilize efforts that add up to limit global warming with the least negative impact.
- By basing a GHG emissions reduction target on the carbon budget, an organization can contribute consistently according to the necessary decarbonization trajectory within its sector and plan transparent and meaningful reduction pathways.
- Following widely used global GHG accounting standards (such as the GHG Protocol) allows an organization to achieve progress that is both verifiable and comparable. This is important to ensure buy-in from an organization’s stakeholders, partners, investors… in sustainability actions.