This September marked the 14th annual Climate Week NYC 2022 hosted by Climate Group, which continues to be a valuable network of events for EcoAct’s North American team members to attend. This year’s theme was “Getting It Done” and brought together stakeholders from all fields including the global business community, climate organizations, and government officials from around the globe. Our growing New York-based team was excited to dive back into some in-person events and we would like to share a few highlights with you.
Climate Week Leaders Reception
CEO of EcoAct North America, William Theisen, kicked off Climate Week at the Leaders Reception last Monday on the 104th floor in 30 Hudson Yards. This reception focused on the climate action that has been achieved recently, and discussed how to deliver the next steps. Special guest, Matt Damon, was there to represent water.org, a global non-profit organization working to bring water and sanitation to the world. Damon joined the stage to share the new partnership with Amazon.
“It was wonderful to kick off Climate Week at this reception. You could feel the excitement for the week’s upcoming events and for the opportunity to push the climate discussion forward in all directions.” Said William.
“I was pleased also to see the growing number of companies signing up to the Amazon Climate Pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2040. Our parent company, Atos, is also a signatory. Urgency to act was definitely a key message that resonated throughout the week’s events.”
World Biodiversity Summit
EcoActors Samanvitha Danda (Business Consultant) and Aidan McGrory (Business Analyst) joined forces at the Biodiversity Summit on Wednesday the 21st. This summit focused on bringing together private and public sector stakeholders to facilitate strong cross-sectoral collaboration. “My favorite segments were the panel discussions with sustainability officers from large companies such as Netflix and Walmart” said Samanvitha. “These leaders’ perspectives on the issues of measurement and reporting biodiversity metrics, their proposed solutions of greater supply chain engagement and increased investment were particularly interesting.”
Preparing for the SEC disclosure rule
If you saw our June blog post, you know we are eagerly awaiting the results of the SEC ruling. That’s why several EcoActors were especially excited to be able to join a webinar hosted by international law firm, Eversheds Sutherland to hear additional insights on the anticipated SEC ruling. The panel featured speakers breaking down the rule and discussing how the SEC is building on other guidelines like the TCFD and GHG Protocol. The panel came to the conclusion that companies, whether required to report on climate change or not, need to rapidly adopt reporting for several motivating factors including business relations, partner buy in and of course climate mitigation. They also acknowledged that there is still a lot of preparation work to do in terms of providing quality reporting guidance and standardized frameworks to assist businesses.
