Beyond Net Zero: How can firms deliver rapid climate action in the 2020s?

The global economy is at a defining moment in its efforts to tackle the climate crisis. Ensuring that the world reduces the worst impacts of climate change and does not go beyond 1.5C of warming will require far reaching and unprecedented changes across society. The science is clear that the next few years are crucial as the risks of climate change and nature loss continue to escalate and the window for meeting global climate goals closes.

The corporate sector has a central role to play in rapidly reducing total emissions from their business in line with validated science-based targets. Companies are facing increased stakeholder pressure from shareholders, customers, investors, policymakers, and civil society organisations, to develop and deliver credible net zero strategies.

These pressures will only continue to intensify in the coming years, but many businesses and investors remain understandably uncertain as to how to engineer such a fundamental, rapid, and unprecedented transformation, while also delivering on their wider commercial goals.

In an effort to increase ambition and support companies in their net zero transition plans, WWF has unveiled its vision of what true corporate leadership looks in a report - Beyond Net-Zero: A business pathway to spur urgent climate action towards 2030 published last week. This guidance aims to highlight best practice in corporate climate leadership, by going beyond standard leadership declarations and showcasing the actions we need if we want to keep on track for 1.5-degrees. It was developed to aid companies in their sustainability journey and provide guidance that can help firms deliver on ambitious and credible net zero goals.

To discuss the report and provide further unique insight into WWF and its partners' work to establish a template for businesses to follow through to 2030, as well as real-world examples of what net zero best practices look like, BusinessGreen co-hosted a webinar last week bringing together leading corporate sustainability executives from H&M and IKEA alongside WWF's chief economic Karen Ellis.

Chaired by BusinessGreen's editor in chief James Murray, the hour-long webinar discussion - which featured H&M Group's green investment project manager Kim Hellstrom and Inter IKEA Group's head of climate Andreas Ahrens - can be watched back again in full above.

This webinar was supported by WWF.

The report - 'Beyond Net-Zero: A business pathway to spur urgent climate action towards 2030' - can be accessed here.