As we continue our year-long celebration of 25 years in business, the second blog in our series, 25 Years of Impact, focuses on climate action and the environment.

From Pure Strategies’ earliest days, we have partnered with our clients to assess, commit, and act on their environmental impacts. For example, one of our first projects in corporate sustainability consulting was calculating Stonyfield’s value chain carbon footprint. This project helped Stonyfield take its pioneering steps in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reaching upstream to its supply chain to address essential hotspots and make improvements.

Reaching Beyond Our Size

Decades later, this year, the United Nations stated that the “world is in a state of climate emergency, and we need to shift into emergency gear.” So, we encourage, and help, businesses of all sizes to take needed steps to understand their carbon hotspots, establish meaningful targets and plans, and then work to make the appropriate GHG emissions reductions.

For example, we helped Everlane, the clothing and footwear brand, with the early steps of assessing their carbon footprint and to set ambitious science-based targets for climate, with an aim for net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. Everlane is reducing emissions from its operations and supply chains and increasing the use of preferred materials with recycled or organic content. Our team supported the global ice cream company, Ben & Jerry's to establish its Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) validated target and GHG emissions reduction strategy, including farm-level investments.

Our work also supports some of the largest companies and industry-level changes. Notably, Walmart is engaging its value chain and suppliers though Project Gigaton, aimed at reducing emissions from Scope 3 sources by one billion tons by 2030. The National Retail Federation (NRF) released its industry-level guide on how retailers can take action on climate and a report that identifies opportunities for consumers to reduce the carbon emissions associated with their purchases.

Pure Strategies is proud to facilitate transformative corporate action to attenuate the climate emergency. For example, TAZO is transitioning its tea portfolio to a regenerative organic approach that includes net-zero emissions, carbon neutrality, and climate justice aims that our team supports. TAZO was recently recognized for this work as one of Fast Company’s 2023 Most Innovative Companies. We worked with Seventh Generation to unveil a new approach to evaluate, disclose, and act on the climate performance of key business relationships of banking, insurance, marketing, creative services, philanthropy, advocacy and other corporate activities. We expect that more companies will be taking the lesson from these leading steps in the coming years.

Walking the Talk

Closer to our own impacts, we strive to also walk the talk. Even though Pure Strategies has a small carbon footprint (at about 50 tons per year), our company tracks our emissions and works to reduce and neutralize remaining emissions. A few examples of our efforts include environmentally preferable purchasing such as selecting lower-impact food for meetings and energy-efficient office equipment. Our travel planning considers ways to reduce emissions, such as minimizing total travel and using lower-impact options such as public transportation and bikes. We then work with Native to compensate for the remaining emissions.

In addition to our efforts in company operations, we engage externally with leading climate non-profits, including the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), Climate Collaborative and the American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN). We work to advocate for transformative climate programs and environmental justice in our collaborative efforts to bring sustainability into national policy.

We are proud to have been a pioneer of corporate climate action in our early days. But there is much work to be done to tackle the climate emergency. Yet, we remain optimistic that, by working together, we can resolve the complex sustainability challenges we face and make meaningful progress toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and transformative progress toward a more sustainable way of life.

Image courtesy of Unsplash.