The report outlines actions that businesses can take across nine key areas, including energy, transport and mobility, and products and materials
A new report seeking to set out how businesses can play a lead role in driving the transformation of the global economy to tackle the "three pressing global challenges" of climate change, nature loss, and inequality was launched today by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
Titled Vision 2050: Time to Transform, the report lays out a roadmap for business action through the decades ahead, leading to the WBCSD's ultimate goal of "9+ billion people living well, within planetary boundaries, by mid-century".
The report establishes a framework breaking down this work into nine "transformation pathways" that cover key areas of business activity that are regarded as fundamental to the functioning of modern society: energy; transportation and mobility; living spaces; products and materials; financial products and services; connectivity; health and wellbeing; water and sanitation; and food.
The transformation of each of these sectors is then mapped out via 10 "action areas" for businesses to pursue through the decade ahead, which should together deliver "change at root cause level to deliver fundamentally new outcomes", according to the report.
The energy pathway, for example, aims to build "a sustainable energy system providing reliable and affordable net zero carbon energy for all". Key actions to accelerate progress towards this goal highlighted by the report include an end to the construction of new coal power capacity and a reduction in the share of coal in total global electricity generation to less than 10 per cent by 2030; advocating for policies such as carbon pricing "that will lead to the effective removal of fossil fuel subsidies"; sourcing net zero carbon energy for all operations while encouraging suppliers to do the same; electrifying end energy-use wherever possible, and transitioning to "circular designs and business models to reduce energy demand and resource use across the value chain".
A raft of equally ambitious actions are recommended in the context of transport and mobility, with the report urging businesses to "invest in the development of innovative electric charging and energy storage technologies", "develop, test and scale economically viable business models for mobility-as-a-service", and "scale the use of low-carbon fuels for long range and heavy-duty transportation."
Each of the nine "transformation pathways" outlined in the report - including energy and mobility - are aligned with both the Paris Agreement targets and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, WBCSD said.
The WBCSD is a CEO-led organisation that brings together more than 200 leading companies, including Unilever, Acer, BMW, Deloitte, EDF, and Nestlé. It worked with more than 40 of its members to put together the new report, which also urges corporates to collaborate with scientists, policy-makers, financiers, investors, and consumers to design solutions and practices that can build "thriving societies to trade with, and a healthy planet for us all to exist on".
"Achieving this vision requires a wholesale transformation of everything we have grown up with: energy needs to decarbonize; materials need to go circular; food needs to be produced sustainably and equitably and provide healthy diets", said WBCSD President and CEO Peter Bakker. "One of the keys to success will be a mindset shift around capitalism. Our economic systems, incentives, global accounting standards and capital market valuations can no longer just be based on the financial performance of businesses: we must integrate our impact on people and planet as part of how we define success and determine enterprise value."