The Podcast: Bill Sisson’s $8.5 trillion sustainability dream team

The Podcast

The Podcast: Bill Sisson’s $8.5 trillion sustainability dream team

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Mr. Bill Sisson is executive director, North America, for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a 25-year-old alliance of more than 200 companies with $8.5 trillion of combined revenue who are committed to sustainable business. He explains how the principle of pre-competitive collaboration is helping companies  not only protect the environment, but weather global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, host Jared Downing discusses how ESG rankings are coming into their own, and a Rhode Island-sized ice berg is running rampant in the Southern Sea.  News update at minute 0:45. Interview at 1:33. Jared’s commentary at 19:03. 

 

In this episode…

  • Host Jared Downing begins with the usual climate news update, this time about a massive iceberg that is floating towards the overseas British territory of South Georgia, threatening its delicate ecosystems.
  • Next, Mr. Bill Sisson discusses how WBCSD, one of the oldest  and largest sustainability alliances, is furthering the practice of “pre-competitive collaboration” to promote sustainable business practices across nearly all major economic sectors. This is not a merely altruistic endeavor, he says: Climate change poses serious risk in the long and short term, and preparing for it has helped WBCSD members fair better amid present crises, especially the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Finally, Jared breaks discusses this piece by Climate Finance Weekly editor John Howell about the present and future of ESG rankings. ESG rankings are many and varied, and they lack proper standardization. But many rankers are working together to make the whole industry better. At any rate, imperfect ESG is better than no ESG.

Written by

Jared Downing

Jared Downing is managing editor of Climate & Capital Media. Before Climate&Capital, he spent five years in Yangon, Myanmar, producing the human rights podcast Doh Athan and producing features, columns, and cartoons for Frontier Myanmar, that country's leading English language magazine. Prior to that, he was a freelance writer in Birmingham Alabama, focusing on city culture and social justice.