In parallel with COP 26 in Glasgow this week, Confluence announces a call to action to our Members planning to achieve Net Zero. We are here to support you during the coming year as you shape your commitments, in all shapes and sizes, no matter how modest or ambitious, to reach Net Zero.
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If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that the age-old environmental mantra, ‘Think Globally, Act Locally,’ has enormous impact. Individual actions, no matter how seemingly small, such as wearing a mask, eventually add up to help avert massive loss. Whether or not we realize it, everything that we do is movement building because we are all inter-related. Our lives, by definition, are either intentional or unintentional acts in the collective.
With this fresh experiential understanding that we learned from the Covid pandemic, we call upon values-aligned investors to commit publicly to achieve Net Zero within your organization, and through your investment process, in keeping with global target of 2050 to stay well below a 1.5-degree Celsius temperature rise. Appropriate response to the climate crisis requires an estimated $4 trillion annually in public and private capital. Because your organization is a Confluence member, we know that you stand at the vanguard of this investment revolution, and so we encourage your institution to lead the way by reaching bold, inspiring milestones by 2030. Our goal is to show the private investment industry that it will be done.
To achieve Net Zero, investors must rapidly divest from fossil fuels and redeploy investments in prescient, sustainable, just climate solutions by strong, science-based targets from now through 2050.
1. Act Locally: Build Team Resiliency and Lower Your Carbon Footprint to Net Zero. A commitment to Net Zero is not wholly external. Humanity must get off a consumption pathway that puts 160 million tons of emissions in the air each day. Push the low carbon accelerator right at your place of work. It starts with your organization: what you can change right now? Here are some questions and ideas to discuss with your management and operations teams:
Consider creating an internal Net Zero Goals team. Will staff have a carbon travel budget? What are your office’s supply procurement practices, and are they local and sustainable? Is there space and time within your organization to support team members as they navigate an emergent Net Zero lifestyle? Is there space to talk about climate anxiety? What policies are in place to support staff in responding to climate weather events and evacuations? (In 2020 Confluence instated ‘Climate induced personal days’ after team members evacuated the west coast fires). Over a billion climate refugees are projected to be displaced over the next 80 years; every company must have an employee displacement plan. If possible, is there a revolving fund to support team members that are out of their homes unexpectedly and struggling with finances?
There are many creative things that your organization can do to build resiliency in the face of climate change. Make the internal change part of your larger Net Zero plan. In the years to come a great place to work will not only be one that invests in sustainability, but one that supports employees at new levels of uncertainty. If you need resources to support your team, reach out to us, we are crafting referral lists.
2. Be the Change and Inspire other Investors. What is your Net Zero policy? How will managers and companies be selected and evaluated in terms of joining, and indeed leading, the Net Zero transition? What sort of space is there for investment committee members and decision makers to express doubt about the validity of climate investments and to craft decisions in a way that centers science and real ecological and human impacts? How are women and BIPOC voices leading these discussions?
3. Use the Science. We implore all Members to use science-based targets in manager and product selection. The science is incredibly important because we have neither time nor money to waste. The time is now to halt the worst effects of climate change. Choose investment priorities that reduce emissions at a rapid pace and strongly interrogate quick fix technology solutions (i.e., “False Solutions,” geoengineering and other untested, unregulated innovations). We can’t risk creating even larger problems for quick financial gain and sexy solutions. If you are already a member, please join us on December 1, 2021 for a two-hour interactive seminar with the Science-Based Targets Initiative.
4. Set Targets. Achieving Net Zero is the cha-cha-cha to divestment and investment. The Wallace Global Fund calls for immediate divestment from fossil fuels and reinvestment of at least 5% of the portfolio in climate solutions, increasing to 10% by 2030. There is consensus all across the values-aligned investment industry for targeted investments that foster transparency and accountability among companies and fund managers. A critical topic of discussion at this year’s Practitioners Gathering, and beyond, will be the use of offsets and credits to achieve Net Zero. The Confluence community will play an important role in advocating for clean, measurable offsets. Join us to add your voice to these pivotal discussions.
5. Own What You Own: Practice Active Ownership and Corporate Engagement. Ultimately, achieving Net Zero is about strong governance and accountability: from local municipal policies all the way to the board rooms at the largest companies in the world. Investors have an influential role as policy advocates and as shareowners. The time is now for values-aligned investors to build on the momentum created by victorious shareholder campaigns and to step into a fresh, exciting era in corporate engagement. Confluence can connect you to peers, consultants, and investor coalitions that can guide your institution.
6. Build Adaptation and Support Climate Justice. No matter our best efforts, we cannot stop climate change. It takes our planetary ecosystem 30 years to process emissions out of the atmosphere. As you are reading this, Earth is metabolizing emissions from 1991. This is why it is so important that we reach Net Zero as fast as we can. We must halt emissions and slow climate change so that we avert run-away climate chaos. We must plan to adapt.
To avert unethical social and political chaos, adaptation solutions must be grounded in climate justice. This means tough, futuristic thinking about human displacement, migration, and safety. It means giving the most affected Peoples the resources required to plan for change in the face of possible devastating loss to ancestral homelands. Climate justice means supporting communities and bioregions in times of unprecedented traumatic disruption with all the resources we can muster to save lives, livelihoods, cultures, and plant and animal species.
Each of these actions to achieve Net Zero is strongly within the realms of what values-driven investors and philanthropists care deeply about: achievable solutions to the climate crisis that are grounded in logic, reason, ethics, compassion, and justice.
We must lead the way — we can if we commit. Please share your Net Zero commitment with the Confluence community when you are ready. We are here to support you.
Confluence Members Already Committed to Net Zero…and more to come!
Investor Members
Confluence Advisor Members
- Cambridge Associates
- Terra Alpha Advisors
- Dana Lanza, President & CEO, Confluence Philanthropy
