Pope Francis’s bold climate leadership should inspire business leaders

Today, Pope Francis publishes a new papal document, Laudato Deum, calling all to take urgent action on climate change. It is aligned with the latest science, which show that we are in the midst of the climate crisis that only is getting worse. Of the 16 large climate tipping point systems on Earth, four are likely to cross their tipping points at 1.5°C of global warming, pushing societies beyond the limits of adaptation. Corporate leaders should take the pope's message seriously, and be inspired by his vision.

Laudato Deum is a consistent and evidence-based call for collective human respect and responsibility for all life on planet Earth, and caps off more than 30 years of Catholic teaching on climate change and ecology. It is significant that popes including St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, have spoken about the climate, joining leaders from across faith traditions.

Faith leaders are aligning with science, calling for urgent, ambitious action on the climate crisis because this is the decisive decade for our planet. To protect all humanity, we must limit warming to no more than 1.5°C above the average at the start of the industrial revolution, and ideally to no more than 1°C.

We have reached 1.2°C already, the warmest temperature on Earth since we startedevolving as human societies after leaving the last Ice Age some 12,000 years ago. We will crash through 1.5°C in the next 10 to 15 years if we continue emitting greenhouse gases s as today, and are following a disastrous path to 2.7°C by the end of this century.

These are not arbitrary numbers. They are physical boundaries that define the safe and just space for humanity to operate. To have any chance of holding the agreed-upon limit of 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced globally by at least 50% this decade.

Awareness of the climate crisis is high, with Americans increasingly alarmed about climate change and nearly 80% of Europeans rating it a very serious problem. For many who wonder how they can be part of the solution, choices on spending and the sustainability profile of their workplace are top of mind.

The long-running Global Trends Survey, which explores people’s behavior and attitudes, reveals that when it comes to climate change, “people look to brands and business–more trusted than government in most markets–to act.” From a business perspective, this trust is extremely valuable. A promise to protect the climate can translate into real gains on the balance sheet.

It’s no surprise, then, that pledges to operate with net-zero emissions now cover 92% of GDP and 88% of emissions worldwide. Corporate action is important, and it should be celebrated. The challenge is that these pledges have in many cases led to confusion and skepticism.

There is little consistency in what the pledges actually mean. For instance, some companies count emissions only from their own factories’ smokestacks, while others include emissions from the factories that supply key components. Reductions can be paced at very different speeds, from a few years to a few decades. Even more concerningly, some companies may make public commitments with little intention of taking real action to back them up, which adds to the perception that they are greenwashing their practices.

To make things worse, the market is today flooded with a myriad of different Environmental, Social and Governance-related reporting schemes, leading to compliance overload and in some cases even critique of greenbashing, when companies that are trying to do good are critiqued for not being good enough.

A transparent, objective benchmark is needed to give these net-zero commitments clarity and rigor. This is where the science-based targets initiative comes in, providing companies with a clearly-defined, independent assessment on how to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals. The framework for a common understanding of net-zero is the corporate net-zero standard, based on latest science.

The standard provides clarity through a hierarchy of mitigation. First, companies must prioritize the deep reductions in both direct and indirect emissions that are needed by 2030. Second, companies must set long-term targets to achieve by 2050. Finally, once a company has reduced its emissions by at least 90%, it must use carbon removal and storage to balance the residual emissions that cannot be eliminated.

In addition to providing clarity and rigor, the standard provides transparency. A publicly available dashboard tracks the 6,241 companies that have pledged to meet the corporate net-zero standard, showing their level of ambition and whether their commitment is still valid or has been removed.

Two things are critical now.

First, more companies should sign and most importantly act on the corporate net-zero standard. This is a way for corporate leaders to demonstrate the values that customers want to see in producers, and a way to follow the climate science that Pope Francis and other leaders have clearly embraced.

Second, customers and investors should research whether companies’ net-zero claims are backed up by credible science. Through the net-zero dashboard, stakeholders can easily see whether the claims that are made in promotional materials meet a clear, rigorous standard. This is aligned with the transparency and urgency that Pope Francis and others are calling for.

The road ahead will challenge us all to develop new ways of working together. But the pope’s remarkable leadership shows us that there is hope, and that collective action on faith and reason is possible. By taking real and ambitious action now, we can protect humanity for generations to come.