Read: A landmark year for the net zero revolution

By Seema Kennedy OBE
Seema was the parliamentary aide in No10 to the Prime Minister when the legally binding commitment to reduce emissions to Net Zero by 2050 made in 2019,

In many ways, Covid-19 and 2020 will be seen as a watershed moment, the closest thing to a world-reset we can get. Life was disrupted in a way that seemed impossible to contemplate even this time last year. 

Company after company I’ve spoken to during 2020 has commented on how they shifted working patterns in just a handful of weeks, sometimes days in response to the first pandemic lockdown. They’ve shown themselves they could achieve things they never felt possible. And they and their employees have played a key role in a wider national and local response to Covid-19. Many have emerged from that process as changed organisations, because of their changed people. Never before has it been so clear that people are part of two communities - their home community and their work community - but both can be a way we change things for the better on the ground. 

And part of that change on the ground must be how we harness the ‘new normal’ to help reach our national goal on reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and the global climate change goals set at the Paris Agreement in 2016.

The Paris Agreement’s overriding goal is to hold global average temperature increase to “well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Domestically, the UK has committed to bringing all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

Hitting these targets will require a monumental effort by everyone – individuals, entire sectors, government, educators and, crucially, businesses. We are in the hard yards of delivery, against the clock, but we can all play a role.

Many companies are now stepping up both their commitments and their action on being part of the solution on climate change. In the last six months, 35 major employers, representing hundreds of thousands of staff and students, have signed up to the One Planet Pledge (www.oneplanetpledge.org). Companies are making their commitments on when they get to net zero as part of our national effort. We expect many more to do so this year.

These businesses understand that they cannot contract out of what happens in a wider community, country or world, and even more than that, they see the chance to actively be part of the solution.

Increasingly, businesses understand that success lies not just in serving a customer base, whatever that is, but taking that wider community’s priorities and making them their own too.

And being a good business is good business. Recent years have seen a surge in public awareness of the need for change to address climate change. Polling by Ipsos MORI in summer 2019 showed that 85 per cent of Brits were concerned about climate change, versus 60 per cent in 2013. Climate change-focused customers, investors and employees increasingly want to see their values in the corporations they deal with.

And for companies, the debate on climate change increasingly reflects that Covid-19 has driven a carbon friendly shift of home working and reduced international business travel that can save emissions as well as costs.

The ‘build back better’ approach from the Government also supports the green agenda. The net zero energy transition, with our energy companies leading the charge like Drax and BP will also be key to driving levelling up. The new economy of net zero has a chance to create not only new careers, but in the communities that can benefit from fresh opportunity most. 

In November, Glasgow will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), originally planned for 2020. It will a landmark gathering of world leaders, climate experts and campaigners, aimed at accelerating action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

As it struggles with Covid-19, the world and its global community is in a very different situation to when the Paris Agreement was first struck in December 2015, just months after the UN Sustainable Development Goals were agreed. Yet the underlying issues of climate change, and inequality remain utterly vital to see addressed. In practice the new normal forced on us by Covid-19 means we have to confront a world where day to day life is different. So it’s a shape or be shaped moment. We either shape ourselves, for the benefit of our planet, and reeingineer as best we can to deliver a sustainable future for people and planet, or it’s simply a problem that shapes us. Let’s shape the moment, not be shaped by it.

The Paris Agreement inevitably had Governments at the heart of negotiations, but as we meet to focus on delivery in Glasgow later this year, it can be a moment when a wider world sees a business community and its leaders show they are at the forefront of solutions. Let’s grasp that moment. Find out more on the journey to Net Zero at www.oneplanetpledge.org