 What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot. For our generation and for specifically my group of people, which is refugees, the circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have. You're trying to rebuild, you're trying to make a future for yourself, and then the climate-related disaster comes and you start again. It's not about how it's affecting you now, it's about how it's affecting you your entire life. The first step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis. We're at a stage where if we don't act now, really there won't be very much left. There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life. We have to start treating this like the emergency it is. To achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, we have to go from an intention to a serious commitment. Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate-friendly. The action I would like to see is accountability. Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they make. There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drive change forward. The world I would want to live in is a world where imagining the future is not a privilege. I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope. Hope that a positive change is possible. The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change. Welcome to our guests right around the world. Thank you for joining us. Over a fifth of the world's 2,000 largest public companies have committed to meet net zero targets, fight climate change and tackle the biodiversity crisis. There is agreement that to avert catastrophic impact of climate change, the world's greenhouse emissions will need to be halved by 2030, reach net zero by 2050 and be net negative thereafter. So how are we doing against that benchmark? Well, forget about halving by 2030. At current trajectory, we'll be lucky to reduce emissions by half a percent compared to 2010 levels. We know that, you know that, I know that, but we seem to be acting as if we don't know that. Today's session is about bridging a gap. It's the gap between intentions and actions. A gap between what needs to be done to keep us within 1.5C versus what actions are being taken by players in both the public and private sectors. So the guiding question for this meeting today is, what does it take to establish credible climate plans and what would it take to deliver immediate action on those plans? The session is structured into two parts, a public on the record panel and a workshop section afterwards on the Chatham House rules. In that second section, there will be three breakout work rooms happening at the same time, but more on that a little bit later. First, let's get warmed up with a question and a poll on Slido. We could have the link to the Slido poll, please. The link is on chat and it should take you to the Slido website, which will allow you to answer the question. And the question is this, what is the single biggest action your organization can take this year to begin reducing emissions by 2030? Your organization, this year, action. The word cloud is beginning to appear by renewables, renewables advocate support national laws, ESU tracking. Okay, I think we have a pretty good idea. Let's bring it to a close now. By renewables is the most immediate action that most people here seem to be saying there are others procurement and supply chain requirements, internal carbon pricing, research travel, deliver competition data, solar panels, etc. etc. So let's come back to our session today. And before I bring in my distinguished panel, I'd like to welcome Jesper Brode, CEO of Inca Group of IKEA, and the chair of the Alliance of CEO of Climate Leaders. Jesper will say a few words of welcome and behalf of the Alliance and share the experience of IKEA when it comes to climate actions. Jesper, thank you. Welcome. Thank you for being with us. Thank you so much. Thank you. Can you hear me? We can hear you. We can hear you. And in the spirit of companies learning from one another, what would be your words of advice for other captains of industry? Thank you so much. Thank you. And thanks for calling us together on this important topic. I believe we and many of us on this call would agree that this is probably the most important decade in the history of humankind, and that the climate crisis is probably the biggest challenge we ever faced together. So we aim to be a leader in the new climate smart economy. And the reason is because our customers and our coworkers expect us to lead, but it's also because climate smart is the new cost smart, which is something we need to take to our heart and believe in. On top of that, listening to the film here in the introduction also I think it reinforces the sense that this is our moral responsibility to act. We simply cannot allow ourselves to pass this on to the next generation. Now, as much as I deeply am concerned about the future, I have to also share a bit of optimism. And if I if I take the aspect of Ikea, which is only one of many companies who are on the progression now to find the path here. We have a climate positive goal by 2030 scope three. There's a lot of a lot of challenges that happens as we go by the first years now we actually managed to decouple growth from carbon. In a way that we are up 14% 13.7 in business growth, but we are down by 14% in carbon in absolute, which tells me this is not an illusion it's actually possible. And it's a good business idea. Secondly, I get a lot of hope from the FCO climate alliance, which I have the pleasure to kosher with Christian moment Anna from Swiss three, and a lot of brilliant leaders so I hope several are on this call as well. We are 120 plus companies that together represent actually a big part of the global emissions. And these companies, they are at different stages in the planning and in the execution, but all have committed and the intentions are really to be a leader in resolving climate crisis, not only words but in actions. So now the thing today which I love is how do we demystify net zero and how do we get to move assets from the why to the how, and I would like to bring two things to the conversation. And to start with, I think we should be not only demystifying but demystifying if that is a word. For instance, that sustainability should come at the higher cost. When actually it's the opposite. We see, obviously if your sustainability should be a luxury for the few we will probably never get there. And it's our job as leaders to make it at the cost level that we can invite the many people to be part of this journey. As a second myth, I think, is the classic discussion around the purpose and profit not going hand in hand when it becomes, I think, day by day more obvious that the opposite would be very dangerous from leading a company. So finally, let me share and let's get a bit practical the things that we have picked up in IKEA from other brilliant organizations over the last years. And if I put it there for the IKEA lovers out there as the assembly guide for IKEA here, how do we build ourselves to net zero. And yes, you just like IKEA you need to do it yourself. It will involve some challenges but in the end it's going to be fantastic. So six steps done in that assembly guide. Number one is that we need to take the leap of faith and commit to Paris. That's the absolute starting point and that includes full balance sheet and disclosure. Secondly, we need to get our CO2 footprint right in order to have the right type of actions down the road. So scope 123 CO2 footprint is the second action. Third, and here's where it gets a bit technical. We need to get our goals right to use organizations like SPTI to help us, both with the credibility, but also the professionalism as we set those targets. There is seldom a silver bullet when we put our actions in place but more of a jigsaw puzzle. We need to, I believe, priorities the actions that we can do before 2013. So it's great to have the net zero back at 2050 but what can we do to reach half by 2030 needs to continue to be the target that we strive for. On the fifth place I would put collaborate and communicate with CEO climate alliance is one. And we invite anybody who has an interest to join us in that we need simply to hook arms better than ever in order to resolve this crisis. And finally, let's get ready to celebrate because we will find solutions we will resolve. And it's our duty also to share and bring hope to people by loudly communicated and celebrating the steps we take. Yes, I would like to hand back to you and thank you for the opportunity. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jesper for the words and for the, the assembly guide and some of us find them easier than others, but it's certainly quite quickly. We now go to our panel, and I'd like to start with Cynthia comes Cynthia's director of private sector climate mitigation at the World Resources Institute, Cynthia welcome. My leading question for you is businesses and governments, as you know are increasingly taking action in line with, I think, science based targets that are were basically initiative that you profound. So what's your take, how can we get more credible plans and more accelerated action from here. It's great to be here. So I'll just, I want to focus on just what are the most important elements of a credible action plan and of course that needs to start with the targets that accompanies sets because that sets the right level of ambition and which clarifies the scope of action and near term action obviously is the most important element to get companies immediately on the path to net zero so setting a science based target which is a five to year five to 10 year target into the future that is aligned with the ambition of the Paris agreement. One point of 1.5 degrees is is the most important step for a company to get to have a credible action plan. The next thing is that company should also be setting these longer term net zero targets but I think the way that net zero targets should be defined is these are near zero targets. The way the science based targets initiative defines net zero is that companies should decarbonize in line with 1.5 and as they're getting and and when they reach this level of residual emissions where there's no more of mission reductions that can be achieved by 2050 or sooner then they can balance those residual emissions with carbon removals but all companies should be need to abate emissions by 90% or more depending on what sector you're in for the power sector for example needs to fully decarbonize by 2040. So the the abatement portion of net zero is the most critical piece and and just and there's very limited room for removals and then the third element is investment to go for companies to go beyond their value chain and invest in the transition through financing nature based solutions or financing the technologies that we need to get the whole economy at net zero and the best practice in these investment targets is not yet defined but I hope that will become a growing expectation that beyond companies decarbonizing their whole value chains and achieving that zero that they will also find make further investments outside their value chain to support the transition to net zero. Okay, thank you Cynthia I'll come back to you with a follow on question. Let me move on now to Jennifer Morgan Jennifer is executive director of Greenpeace International Jennifer welcome and my question to you is which major levers do you see that need to be pulled to accelerate this transition in with the pace that is required. And maybe just to start for good good to be here with the panel and with you, I think I just want to step back and say I think on the whole, you know goals and pledges and objectives are not them themselves bad. I think, you know, in the case of the Paris 1.5 goal it sets the scale and the rate, which emissions need to kind of go down to avoid the worst impacts, and we can also then hold players accountable to that don't meet that goal. And I think the, the challenge that we have and then you get to the levers is when the goals get abused. And I think that is a key issue when they're announced but little to nothing is actually being done to meet them or to monitor progress. And that happens often when there's no accountability mechanism so that would be one key thing that needs to come into the room. The only thing that is there is kind of the political cost to resulting in shaming an actor for not meeting a goal. And I think we're in a situation now where that has allowed numerous actors to pledge a net zero target without doing much of it at all to to reduce their emissions while getting kind of the public recognition for their green pledge or the green washing. So, you know, the voluntary initiatives one lever I think is to move away from voluntary initiatives more into mandatory and I think when it comes to net zero overall simple and transparent plans should be the order of the day with separate targets for dramatic reductions in emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial activities, land use impact, mainly from deforestation and via reduction of meat and dairy production. And then increase commitments and contributions to right space nature production and restoration. It's not about a mechanism that allows countries and companies to offset their emissions, like the schemes that are being introduced on voluntary carbon market initiatives from Mark Kearney and others or an article six mechanism under the Paris agreement, but rather it's around regulations with sanctions that lead to the decarbonization and re naturalization of our energy sector or land use sector in our financial sector so it's really about government setting binding laws that hold companies accountable for their carbon emitting activities and companies actually calling for those laws to get those long legal laws in place and the accountability mechanisms and then you know penalty systems for those that don't maybe based on prohibition of the payment of external dividends wouldn't be included. So I think that those are some of the levers that are there I think it's really important that voluntary commitments aren't seen as you know the answer because we've seen for decades that they haven't worked. So we need different levers right now. Thank you Jennifer so voluntary versus mandatory and pledges versus accountability. Come back to you in a moment. Let me move on now to Robert Cameron Robert is global head public affairs at Nestle. Robert welcome and what is your experience in defining climate plans and what sort of actions have you guys taken when it comes to the food value chain for example. Thank you and thanks again for the invitation it's good to join this panel and just to start by saying I would really like to echo what's been said so far. Particularly in terms of the scale of the threat the climate change poses it's I think it's it's existential and it's urgent and the time for action is now. I joined Nestle actually at a really interesting moment in time it was February last year. And at that stage the company had signed the UN climate pledge that CEO had made that commitment in September 2019 and having made that pledge to be net zero by 2050. We had two years up to two years to publish a detailed roadmap. And in fact actually Mark Schneider the chief executive his point which I heard very loudly as I came into the company was look climate won't wait. So why do we wait for the full two years to publish a detailed roadmap and given the scale of the challenge there was a full on effort to publish a detailed time bound fully costed net zero by 2050 roadmap. And we published that roadmap in December of last year. It's crucial to say that in publishing that roadmap and laying out the pathway to 2050 that we take action now and in order to be science based targets approved hitting that 50% by 2030 is crucial. And in order to achieve if we don't do that we won't get to net zero by 2050 just leave yourself too much runway. And if we want to get to 50% by 2030 then reducing by 20% by 2025 is crucial. This is like a marathon where we all know once you start if you don't keep up with the pacemakers you're never going to make it up at the back end. So we're going to be really clear about that. And to Jennifer's point about unaccountable commitments that are made. One of my frustrations that has been this sort of gaming that some corporates have have been engaged in where you know it's well we won't do 2050 we'll do 2045 or we'll do 2040 we'll do 2039. And then you look and discover that this is actually scopes one and two ignoring emissions in scope three. And this for Nestle scope three which is actually is all of the emissions that lie in our supply chain and in the use of the product so to speak. That's where the bulk of our emissions lie a huge percentage of our emissions lie in the agricultural supply chain. So that was a key focus but thinking about it from the point of view of any of your listeners that are looking for guidance on establishing the plan. And that's one of the three key things that I observed as we built that plan out first leadership. The chief executive was all in right from the start as he's because he said many times before if climate change won't wait we won't wait we act now. The other thing that he's also been quite vocal about. And it touches on this point that was mentioned earlier on around is this a cost and how do you carry it. One of the ways we look at this is that if you think of it in terms of an R&D investment you know you have to manage that out of the view of your P&L. And it's an investment in the future that sees very little return today. That's one of the ways in which we think about our climate roadmap it's it's commensurate with an R&D spend that has returns down the line. If you don't do R&D you don't you don't get you lose consumers. So that's the first thing leadership. The second thing you need we've we've found extremely value to have trusted external support. So for example the technical footprinting we worked with an organization called South Pole on technical footprinting that gave us a really crisp and clear insight into all of the areas where our emissions lay. So we knew we were focused on the things that mattered most in terms of state taking steps right now we work with universities including Cambridge. One of the other key things was we have an advisory council an external advisory council and when we took the putative plan to them their view was well hang on a minute it's just not ambitious enough. We think you need to stretch yourselves go back stretch yourself still further and that was actually very very timely and very valuable as well in getting a kind of a trusted view of how the outside world might see that roadmap if we put it out there. The third thing is what is the external support we listened we listened to key stakeholders and it's really also important to have a conversation with investors. Once we found once you start talking to investors about it the appetite from the investment community is enormous and we're under a lot of pressure not just support but also pressure from investors as they look to the future. We look to our employees and the hunger amongst our 290,000 employees to get across this and act on it is is immense big big big point there but other aspects that I think I should also mention our customers. Look at what some of the big retailers are doing look at Walmart for instance the project gigaton which takes climate change head on. We're a key supplier to Walmart we're we're working with key customers then you look at consumers. And if there's one thing you need to do in a company like ours it stay in tune with young consumers and again the hunger the appetite for change if we don't we don't go across this we are going to be behind. And yet as we sit here today the World Benchmarking Alliance for all the things we've done the World Benchmarking Alliance published its assessment yesterday of the food companies 250 top food companies. If I remember correctly it's only 25 or 26 I think it's 26 of the top 250 food companies actually have a Paris alike roadmap and given the scale of the impact of the food system on climate change the impact of agriculture. Both on climate change and the extent to which it will be impacted by climate change I find that astonishing I really do so it's time for the system for the industry to step up and we'll do all we can to raise our voice in helping anybody and everybody that wants support on creating such a roadmap or any advice or guidance we're happy to have that conversation there's so much more I could say but I'll leave it there for now luckily and hand it back to you. Thank you Rob and thank you to the rest of the panel. The one thing that seems to be coming out. You mentioned the word Rob gaming. Jennifer mentioned greenwashing. There was some undertone in what Cynthia said also to the extent that there is a wriggle room in the way things are done right now. I've seen this in other meetings of this kind a company comes up and says we're doing very well but the others are not. Where do you stand on this mandatory versus voluntary approach should it still be voluntary given that there is gaming going on there is tokenism going on and greenwashing going on or does it really need to be. You know if it's voluntary will your three point assembly guide or just six point assembly guide others enough or does it need to be tougher that is really a question that I would actually let me take that same question to everyone. What's your view on this. Voluntary programs can only get us part of the way. Regulations and other types of climate policies are essential. We need all approaches to solving the climate problem. I do think voluntary not a global like a voluntary targets at a corporate level are very valuable for multinationals in particular is regulations generally happen at a national or regional level and having a transparent global or a global target is still useful so you can get the big picture of how a company is performing on climate. So I still think that those types of targets have value but also climate policy is going to be essential to get companies to support companies to achieve their target and companies have a really important role to play and advocating for the policies. There's policies that they're going to need to get to achieve net zero. Yeah I mean I think I think certainly the voluntary schemes we've seen haven't really I mean maybe they haven't really worked as I said and I you just need to look at deforestation rates and know that there was a pledge to get to zero deforestation by 2020 that that hasn't been in and I think the key piece here is the urgency and the scale and pace of change that needs to occur. And I think that means that when you you have some companies that are that are doing good work but you when you have the you know that the JBS meet company that saying we'll do 30% reductions by 2030 of just scope one and two or when you have you know a shell that wants to become net zero but expanding gas by 20% and doing it all by offsetting and you have a big focus on these voluntary carbon market offsetting schemes. I think there's a need also from a consumer perspective to have clarity about what is real and what is not real because I think people who are trying to do something good and go and enter in and are looking at companies. But there's no no oversight of that from a consumer fraud perspective are very concerned. So that means to me both not a set of national laws that put those types of pathways in place and it also means you know an independent kind of accountability mechanism if for if that is there. And I don't think that any of the initiatives that are out there right now can do the verification because they're all either funded by companies or corporate associations many of them, or they work very closely with them so the independence of the verification system is is And I just finally I think, you know, just to bring people into the room a little bit I think that people around the world are calling on governments to be setting these types of radical policies that get us to zero in and the next 10 years obviously is absolutely essential. So there's not a lot of patience for the greenwashing anymore so I think the pressure will just build and so there's a risk piece there for companies as well. You certainly make a good point about bad apples contaminating the barrel for the good guys and so why would they not want clear accountability mechanisms. I guess my following question is, are there unintended consequences do you think by trying to get the relatively harmonized regulations across borders and something like this. Is that really practical in this timeframe. Well I think that there's sorry was that a follow up to know you go ahead Jennifer sorry, sorry, sorry. So I think. So I think that, you know, there are short term debates there are debates happening right now on policies around the world. Let's look at the United States for example where you know let's see the companies out there, supporting moving down, you know, the bills that are on the floor, even though they're they need that type of corporate support. Let's look at what's happening across Europe let's look at what's happening in every major economy so it's a mixture I think of those long loud legal policy mechanisms that can then drive those signals. And then I think that within that you have how corporates engage in that those can happen right away while we're looking maybe more at the accountability mechanisms. Yeah, I think I agree with what's said about regulation we would welcome it, I mean we would welcome it and I think that Member States, you know, have a duty to step up when it comes to COP 26. But you know, all of the evidence that we have seen in the past has been that Member States are not stepping up and they're not coming up with national determined contributions that are commenced through it with the scale of the problem that we face. So in the meantime, we could admire the problem or we can get on with it and indeed invent our own accountability mechanisms. So what we did, alongside one or two other corporates, we've put our climate roadmap to our shareholders, the board has accepted and voted on it the shareholders have voted on it. And that's an accountability mechanism that we've created for ourselves and we've built accountability mechanisms inside the company in terms of executives and what they're targeted on. So we've linked it internally, as well as creating mechanisms externally, we're fully supportive of mechanisms such as TCFD for instance, as a reporting mechanism. So we're very, very happy with the idea that tows should be held to the fire on climate performance and we would welcome strengthening of regulation and we would welcome high bar NDCs from Member States come Glasgow in about six weeks time. Thank you very much. And with that, we've come to nearly the end of this public part of the session. And just for I wasn't expecting to you to stick around, but you are here. Is there anything that you'd like to add to the discussion so far? I think it's a very good discussion. I think it gives me also we are talking about the same things here. Maybe what I would add I think as much as we need to drive policies in and ask for that from fellow friends politicians. I believe the aspect of incentivising change will be even faster and more important. So first mover topics, but also creating incitements for companies to do investments earlier in any way we can. I think we'll also be part of the battery of actions that we would welcome. Thank you. Sounds good. Thank you very much. And with that, we'll bring the public part of this panel to a close. And we will go into the breakout sessions shortly. But to those of you joining us from various parts of the world, thank you for joining us and see you next time.