Climate Change and Nature, Opportunities and Risks

Since 2007, Accenture has implemented a comprehensive energy efficiency strategy across its offices in more than 200 cities worldwide. This approach focuses on four key areas: selecting energy-efficient office spaces, making office improvements, utilising smart metering, and adopting green IT practices. Over 15 years, these initiatives have led to savings of over 2.43 million megawatt-hours of electricity and 1.22 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions, resulting in more than $326 million in energy cost savings.

The Chilean winery Viña Concha y Toro focused on gaining independence from fossil fuels by increasing its use of renewable energy. This shift has not only enhanced environmental sustainability, powering the entirety of its operations (100%) using renewable energy sources, but also maintained operational efficiency and financial performance. By using a CO2 marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve, the company ensures that investments in emission reductions are financially balanced, optimising efficiency and maximising the benefits related to emission reductions, making the economic case for their transition to renewables.

The coffee giant Nespresso has planted over nine million trees between 2014 and 2023 in coffee farms within its supply chain . These native trees were introduced through an agroforestry approach and are complementary to the coffee plants. The trees act as natural carbon sinks and compensate Nespresso’s residual GHG emissions. They also improve the quality of coffee, provide habitat for local species, improve soil health and water quality, and support farmers to diversify their income streams.

There has been a sharp increase in private investment towards alternative plant-based proteins, with annual funding nearly doubling on average. This type of investment reached over $16 billion in 2024, driven by North America but increasingly global with rapid rises in Asia and the Middle East.

Take the proactive corporate governance approach of Natura in managing climate change while generating co-benefits for society. Natura adopts an "Integrated Profit and Loss methodology", an innovative financial tool that guides board decision-making. By utilising this tool, Natura assesses the value it returns to society, which is a remarkable 8.6 times the initial investment. This impressive outcome is achieved through the company’s actions to support the local development of extractive communities in the Amazon, ensuring the resilience of Natura’s supply chain in the face of climate change.

Société Générale Bank Group applies an internal carbon tax of €25 (as of 2023) for every tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) the company emits. Each part of the bank (e.g. a core business or corporate division) calculates its emissions and pays the tax based on how much CO2 it produces. The revenue collected from the tax is then reinvested into the bank’s environmental goals: through its Carbon Reduction Program (CRP), the bank uses these funds to support projects that improve energy efficiency or cut emissions that not only reduce the Group’s environmental impact but also generate financial savings. The CRP includes a competition called Environmental Efficiency Awards, where divisions can propose green projects, and if selected, receive funding to cover up to 100% of the costs (maximum €200,000 per project). The ICT thus motivates business units to reduce their emissions to lower the tax they pay, but also funds efficiency upgrades that further reduce emissions.

In 2024, BBVA Colombia and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) issued a $15 million first tranche of the world's first biodiversity bond that will amount to $70 million, aiming to finance projects that address drivers of biodiversity loss, particularly reforestation activities, regeneration of natural forests on degraded lands, climate-smart and regenerative agriculture, and restoration of wildlife habitats.

Airbus has partnered with carbon removal company 1PointFive in a multi-year initiative to remove GHG from the atmosphere using direct air capture technology. This approach addresses Airbus’s residual emissions that remain after implementing the latest emissions-reduction measures, such as more sustainable fuels, aircraft innovation, and operational efficiencies. Like many hard-to-abate sectors, aviation requires solutions like direct air capture to achieve net zero. Airbus has already committed to purchasing 400,000 tonnes of GHG removals from 1PointFive over four years, with several airlines joining its carbon-removal initiative. Other examples of GGR include biochar, afforestation, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.