Azra Nurkic is the CEO and cofounder of the Institute for Development Impact.
Corporate leaders are increasingly acknowledging the urgency of the climate crisis, but that knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate into comprehensive strategic action.
A 2024 global Deloitte survey found that climate change is one of the top three priorities for C-suite executives; 70% expect that it will have a significant impact on their business strategies and operations in the next three years. While 27% of organizations have pursued minimal or no “needle-moving actions,” most fall into the “moderate middle,” with 56% advancing two or three key actions.
Many current corporate strategies focus on supply chain sustainability, implementing targeted measures such as reducing emissions or improving fair labor practices. A report from the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and Accenture revealed that supply chains generate 60% of total global emissions, and nearly half of CEOs are pursuing supply chain measures as part of their sustainability strategies.
While these efforts are both essential and commendable, they represent only part of the solution. To effect widespread, lasting change, we need a true paradigm shift—where companies expand their focus from the confines of their own supply chains to the wider environmental and social landscapes in which they operate. This approach is crucial for fostering long-term resilience and greater collective impact.
Merging Supply Chain Efforts With Landscape Solutions
When companies prioritize supply chain sustainability, they aim to make changes in their own practices or those within their direct network of suppliers. These actions can produce tangible results in their value chains but often fall short of broader, interconnected challenges such as deforestation, water scarcity and biodiversity loss. Climate issues aren’t limited to a single company’s supply chain. They encompass numerous ecosystems, communities and regions around the world that, in turn, affect varied stakeholders and supply chains.
Landscape-level solutions recognize the complexity of the climate crisis. A landscape approach considers the multifaceted environmental, economic and social factors that influence businesses and their suppliers. It requires corporate leaders to collaborate with government agencies, NGOs, local communities and other businesses to implement holistic strategies that will benefit their entire region. By integrating supply chain and landscape solutions—rather than supply chain efforts alone—corporations can begin to address the root causes of large-scale problems.
The Challenges And Opportunities Of Collective Action
A landscape-level approach is far more complex for corporations to manage, track and analyze than targeted supply chain actions. Leaders must partner with multiple stakeholders with diverse, and sometimes conflicting, priorities. They have to build trust and consensus across teams, organizations and communities—no small feat when all players have limited time and resources. But the potential returns of this investment are immense.
For example, the ACTIVE project in Indonesia, a partnership between Institute for Development Impact (I4DI), USAID, Mars Inc. and local government and community stakeholders, shows how collective initiatives can drive meaningful change. Agriculture is a strong contributor to Indonesia’s economic growth, but the effects of climate change are threatening businesses’ and individuals’ livelihoods. The ACTIVE project uses sustainable agroforestry practices—incorporating trees and shrubs into cocoa farming systems—to reduce carbon emissions, increase crop yield and improve farmers’ overall climate change resilience.
Mars is one of the largest cocoa buyers in the world. The company’s leaders could have focused their sustainability efforts just on optimizations within their own supply chain. But by working with system-wide partners, local leaders and external experts, they dramatically expanded their impact. A collaborative landscape approach allowed all players to share knowledge and resources, develop coordinated strategies and obtain community buy-in. The goal of the ACTIVE project is to support 9,000 farmers in better land and water management and greater productivity, reducing 650,000 tons of carbon dioxide and boosting crop yields by 30% and farmers’ incomes by 15%.
Local communities are central to landscape-level initiatives. Businesses and agricultural ecosystems are interdependent, and leaders can’t effectively solve problems by concentrating on components in isolation. They need to adopt a systems thinking approach, examining how parts of an entire system can influence one another for maximum benefit.
For instance, a corporation could launch a reforestation project within its supply chain and reduce its local carbon emissions. But if it failed to address overarching land degradation issues, it would miss an opportunity to strengthen the region’s climate resilience on a larger scale. Overlooking this step would also threaten the long-term sustainability of the company’s supply chain investments.
The ACTIVE project illustrated how corporate dollars can be merged with public funding to expand stakeholders’ collective impact. By dedicating some of the investment toward making policy and regulation changes, project leaders established an environment where others could more easily advance their own initiatives.
The climate crisis is escalating, and it will continue to affect economic, environmental and community health around the world. Corporate leaders have a responsibility to look beyond narrow, short-term strategies and explore more holistic, sustainable solutions. Embracing a landscape approach is more challenging, but it is ultimately more rewarding. Companies that lead landscape-level initiatives have the opportunity to improve their climate resilience and their bottom line while advancing positive change within the ecosystems and communities that support them.
Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Read the full article here
