Decalogue of Reflections for a Planet in Balance

A corporate perspective

1. Recognize your role

Companies, whether small businesses or large corporations, have an essential responsibility to act for the planet. As we have seen, the combined actions of individual people generate important changes, but the environmental footprint of companies is usually considerably larger than that generated by individuals, so the measures they take to mitigate that footprint and reduce its negative impact in turn make positive progress possible on much larger scales. That is why companies must recognize their undisputed role as an actor in the global climate change scenario and do everything possible to be part of the solution instead of remaining under the status Quo, which usually means being part of the problem. Recognizing yourself in this way is the first step and involves a review of the business model in some cases, and/or of the institutional values in others, to start from there to new ways of producing, operating, distributing, selling and discarding.

2. Measure your impact

In order to achieve a positive impact with certainty, it is necessary to know a baseline against which it can be compared in the future to measure progress. That baseline, when it comes to a company's carbon footprint, is known through an inventory of greenhouse emissions. This consists of collecting all the information related to a company's carbon footprint. In other words, the inventory breaks down in a clear and orderly manner the different greenhouse gases generated by the company's activities and categorizes the sources of emissions and their scope using an internationally recognized methodology. This information is analyzed to produce a detailed emissions report that serves as a tool for decision-making, because once you know both the source and the magnitude of the emissions, you can take the next step and start looking for alternatives and tools to reduce and compensate them. In addition, if medium and long-term goals are established, the company will be able to measure its progress over time, from inventory to inventory.

3. Identify your maximum reach opportunity

All companies are different, but whatever their product or service, whether physical or digital, each company achieves its objectives through a supply chain. Speaking of the socio-environmental footprint of the resources used in any chain, in the minimum of cases energy is used for the operation of servers and computers, and in most cases, raw materials such as water, minerals and metals, crops and livestock are used. In all situations there are opportunities to reduce the socio-environmental footprint, however, some have more potential for impact than others due to the size of the company in question.

In the case of companies that sell consumable products -such as in the beverage and food industry, or fragrance industries, whose value chains depend more directly on natural resources because they require quality water and crops-, although offsetting their emissions is definitely desirable and probably necessary, there could be more direct and immediate impact if the company also invests in the same natural resources that provide its supply chain. In other words, investing in restoring the ecosystems and landscapes that supply water or where cotton, sugar, coffee and a myriad of raw materials are grown, to ensure a sustainable supply chain in the long term and, therefore, a sustainable business that is committed to its future together with that of the planet.

4. Accept your limits without resorting to Greenwashing

As a company, it's difficult for you to be able to do everything. While this should not demotivate your climate action, having clear limits works to name goals with certainty and not to fall into false climate achievements, or worse yet, Greenwashing. If we start from the idea that big changes are built in small -but continuous- steps, the first link is to accept that as a company you don't have to do everything at once. It's much better, especially for the planet, to make a profound transition that really helps to decarbonize your products or services, than to make a lot of half-hearted adjustments.

Reducing your company's greenhouse gas emissions is a good practice, especially if you do it before compensating. Advocating for nature conservation -rather than for its restoration- is also something that as a company dependent on natural resources we must keep in mind. How do we move towards a quality climate strategy? Go step by step. Set dates for your short, medium and long-term objectives; designate which are priorities and which depend on a previous transition; but above all, transform yourself within your limits and let your community know what actions yes, what no and why.

5. Invest in nature

Finally, if your company should be clear about something, it's that nature is our best ally, and to reach this point, we must first recognize ourselves as organizations dependent, in one way or another, on natural resources. Whether your supply chain is 100% dependent on the goods or services provided by ecosystems, or just a small fraction of it has to do with nature, the natural environment is involved absolutely everywhere. From the batteries that power your equipment, the coffee you serve in the office in the morning, the atmosphere through which your internet network runs, to the territories through which your supply chain passes, everything involves ecosystems, biodiversity, resources and life.

Under this idea, investing in nature becomes not only a way to ensure the latency of your company, your workers, your family and friends, but it also becomes a way of ensuring the existence of everything you know. It is important to mention that beyond the altruism that the above may entail, investing in nature corporately speaking reduces environmental impact. Regenerating the natural sources from which resources are obtained prolongs their future availability; financing a high-quality carbon sequestration project helps companies to achieve their climate objectives while supporting decent and just ways of life; sensitizing the rest of the company to the importance of caring for nature adds to the construction of collective consciousness. Investing in nature goes beyond financing the restoration of an ecosystem; it's investing in your organization and its future.

Perspectives from individuality

1. Recognize your role

Individual change will not have the same scope as the systemic change that corresponds to large corporations and governments, it is true. However, this is no reason to delegate responsibility: if we already identify a problem of this magnitude, we must do something about it. Every effort brings.

The best way to add to a change in narrative is to inform yourself, strengthen your judgment, know your impact (and try to reduce it), surround yourself with people who motivate you to continue on this path, and you, from your abilities and scope, promote with your community to take responsibility for its environmental impact. Remember that your contribution accumulates with that of other people who are making decisions like yours, and that pushes for change to be increasingly transformative, inclusive and far-reaching.

2. Transcend your limitations: act as a citizen and a consumer

Although difficult to accept, we know that stopping consuming a certain product or service will not make a global change in the well-being of the planet and natural resources, however, recognizing that the change is in you, even if you are not the change itself, is the strength. One way to understand this is to identify the impact that citizenship has on decisions that affect us all, because being a citizen implies adding to the shared well-being of your community and your location; therefore, we are talking about those responsibilities that we have as individuals that transcend our individuality.

Knowing the current reforms to the laws and the impact they entail implies an act that goes beyond us and ours, because by organizing ourselves and becoming citizens, we can stop what we consider to be inappropriate. In the same way, it happens with tourism projects or developments that are harmful, with products that violate the health of the community, with supply chains that threaten the resilience of the ecosystems on which we depend, or with any situation, product or service that takes us away from our human right to a healthy environment.

Trust the power of citizens to amplify your voice; transcend your individuality by creating community.

3. Question paradigms

Everything we know is constantly changing, just as it happens with what we think and with what at certain moments in history we have called 'absolute truths'. The reality is that the world is more subjective than it seems, so questioning paradigms is a good practice that adds up to the formation of one's own criteria and deep understanding of a topic. Of course with this We don't mean that we question the existence or not of climate change, rather, that we delve into the reasons behind it and its arguments. Let's give a few examples:

Food is a topic to be debated because the conventional agricultural industry is very polluting. The simple answer to this problem would be to stop eating meat products because cattle are a major contributor of atmospheric methane, however, Is that really the only solution? Something similar happens with questions about overpopulation, Are there really many of us and the planet can't support us, or are our consumption habits that are unsustainable? So also with some contrasting ways of understanding ecosystem conservation, or even with the idea of consumption and the mantra that we constantly repeat of 'Quality over quantity'.

It's not that all these situations aren't problematic and we should stop worrying about them, however, reflecting in depth helps us understand the root problem and not fall into our mouths about what the majority may be thinking or believing. Actively informing ourselves and questioning what we have accepted as absolute truth is a great practice in order to make wise decisions for the well-being of our planet.

4. Accept your incoherence: no one is perfect, everything and we all have an environmental footprint

Our individual effort makes a valuable difference, but from time to time we encounter the harsh reality already mentioned; no matter how much effort a human being makes to reduce their environmental footprint, we will always continue to have some kind of impact, because we breathe, eat, exchange matter with the environment, and even when we are no longer here, we degrade ourselves. Life itself has an intrinsic environmental footprint.

Don't be so hard on yourself! You are doing what you can, you are not (nor is anyone) perfect, and you should not feel guilty for the times when you are 'incoherent' with your position, absolute coherence is an imaginary impossible to achieve in a world as complex, variable and unpredictable as ours; just focus on the things you are doing to contribute to change, recognize those that you cannot or want to change, make peace with your decisions and do not sentence what someone else is not doing, because each path is your own and often we cannot be sure that the other person is contributing in different ways that perhaps you didn't imagine were possible.

5. Recognize yourself as part of nature

As human beings, we are completely dependent on nature, and due to an incorrect way of relating, we have rapidly transformed it at our convenience, to the extent of leading the planet to the degradation and destruction of ecosystems, to the exponential extinction of some species, to the excessive exploitation of resources and services, among many other situations that violate the very existence of our species.

Beyond the food we consume, the climate that we perceive and keeps us at an optimal temperature, or the water that gives us life, we psychologically and emotionally need nature because we are nature. If we don't let go of the irrational superiority that has characterized our relationship with other living things, we cannot understand that any form of life is worth more than another, nor can we move towards a world in which our codependence with nature is respectful, balanced and just. If nature has a low chance of thriving in the current world in which we live, ours are tiny. Part of understanding nature is recognizing the functioning of the network that sustains life, the multiple interactions that take place, the cyclical essence of matter, the role that each living being plays in our environment; the role that we play in ours. This reflection allows us to change the narrative: that we are no longer characterized by the environmental degradation that we have caused, let us be that piece in the gigantic network that encompasses life, which manages to rebalance the balance to inhabit that space of nature that we are, in respect and harmony with what we are not.