To address the increasing risk of catastrophic climate change, provide sustainable energy to the 733 million people who currently lack access to electricity, and to power sustainable development, there is an urgent need to transition to renewable energy. Business has a critical role to play in ensuring this transition is just and leaves no one behind. This business brief outlines the context of emerging national just transition policies, provides an advocacy agenda for businesses to influence policies responsibly and includes examples of company best practices and success factors. Download today to learn the 10 recommendations for businesses to advance the just transition within and beyond their companies in support of the goals of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda. The business brief is available in English and Spanish.

A just transition to a net zero future is an important undertaking, requiring bold actions from all parties — and effort from corporates is definitely an important one. The UN Global Compact helps businesses to align with its Ten Principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and has published this whitepaper to plot a roadmap for corporates to reach net zero, facilitating the private sector to play its role in the pathway.

  The SBTi’s Corporate Net-Zero Standard (also referred to as the Net-Zero Standard) provides guidance, criteria, and recommendations to support corporates in setting net-zero targets through the SBTi. The main objective of this standard is to provide a standardized and robust approach for corporates to set net-zero targets that are aligned with climate science. The intended audience for this document is corporates with more than 500 employees that wish to commit to setting net-zero targets through the SBTi.

This roadmap presents a framework for climate-smart MSP aiming to respond to the urgency of decarbonization that is needed to meet the meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Specifically, it strives to support a more rapid, socially acceptable and just implementation of offshore renewable energy as one of the key clean energy sources for getting to net zero as quickly as possible. As such, the roadmap encourages not only an increase of offshore renewable energy — with offshore wind energy being the most promising option currently — but also its co-use with other climate-smart uses of the ocean and climate solutions — such as natural carbon sinks and nature restoration, low-trophic aquaculture and other innovative forms of renewable energy.

This factsheet from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), prepared by CDP and the UN Global Compact builds on our Taking the Temperature report ahead of the G7 Summit in June 2021. It finds that across the G20, 4215 companies have disclosed climate targets to CDP but just 20% of these are science-based targets in line with Paris Agreement goals. This is made up of 2999 companies in the G7 and 1216 companies in the G13. In the G7, 25% of targets are science-based, compared to just 6% in the G13.

Making Global Goals Local Business - Georgia was a platform for business, UN and Government to foster multi-stakeholder dialogues and yield new partnerships. Following the event, Global Compact Local Networks Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia, Russia, Poland and Turkey have collected case studies featuring effort from the private sector to deliver significant cuts in carbon emissions and accelerate the transition to clean energy. This publication co-developed by the Local Networks compiles these examples demonstrating a growing momentum in the region towards net-zero emissions and a green transition in Eastern Europe.

To help SMEs gear up for their exciting journeys in sustainability, Global Compact Network Singapore is pleased to launch its inaugural SME Guide to Corporate Sustainability. The SME Guide shines a spotlight on latest sustainability trends and offers insights on how to adapt. It comes with a 6-step process to get started and useful tools and resources to support business transformation.

  The SBTi defines and promotes best practice in science-based target setting and offers resources and guidance to reduce barriers to adoption. The SBTi Corporate Manual is a combination of two previously available resources, the Call to Action Guidelines-which gives information on the four step process for joining the initiative- and the SBTi Manual-which provides stepwise guidance and recommendations for setting SBTs- now combined, streamlined, and newly-released to best support companies throughout all steps of the science-based target setting journey. 

This UN Global Compact action-oriented narrative synthesizes the key insights gathered through a series of webinars organized in 2020 on the climate-nature-health nexus, in the framework of the Business Ambition for Climate and Health Action Platform. Reminding the business case for taking integrated climate and health action, it provides guidance on how companies can deliver climate and health co-benefits by pointing towards relevant action-oriented initiatives. It focuses on the five areas that were addressed by the webinar series : air pollution, nature and biodiversity, food systems, water resilience, and the future of work and just transition.

This report shows that companies with science-based targets are delivering on large-scale emissions reductions. Five years on from the Paris Agreement, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) analysed the emissions of a group of 338 companies whose climate targets have been approved by the SBTi as aligned with climate science and the goals of the Paris Agreement. This is the first ever study to look at how setting science-based targets correlates with corporate emissions reductions and the extent to which companies are actually delivering on those targets. Target-setting companies have successfully reduced their emissions by 25% since 2015, a difference of 302 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, the same as the annual emissions from 78 coal-fired power plants.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has launched a process to develop the first science-based global standard for corporate net-zero target setting, to ensure that companies’ net-zero targets translate into action that is consistent with achieving a net-zero world by no later than 2050. The paper lays out the conceptual foundations for corporate net-zero target setting, including clarity on what it means for companies to reach net-zero emissions, analysis of existing net-zero target setting practices, assessment of strategies that are consistent with achieving a net-zero economy, and initial recommendations for science-based net-zero goals. The conceptual foundations discussed in the paper will be translated into detailed guidelines and criteria to be developed by the initiative as part of a continued multi-stakeholder process.

Financial institutions are the key to unlocking the system-wide change needed to reach net-zero emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures. The Science Based Targets initiative’s new framework allows financial institutions – including banks, investors, insurance companies, pension funds and others – to set science-based targets to align their lending and investment activities with the Paris Agreement.