Earth Day 2022: How We "Invest In Our Planet" Toward an Equitable Net-Zero Future

   By Ryan McQueeney
   Analyst, Sustainable Investment Stewardship
 
   April 19, 2022

Earth Day is one of my favorite “unofficial” holidays. I am in constant awe of our home planet’s natural beauty, and glad there’s at least one day dedicated to celebrating that beauty across countries, cultures and communities. I also happen to be a fan of a nice origin story, and the roots of Earth Day are certainly worth acknowledging.

According to EarthDay.org, the first Earth Day started in 1970 as an idea proposed by Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin, who teamed up with Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey of California and student activists to organize campus teach-ins related to air and water pollution. Before long, the “Earth Day” moniker grabbed major media attention and the “teach-in” concept evolved into a national day of celebration and advocacy.

Over 20 million Americans participated in that first Earth Day—and just like that, an idea had turned into a movement. Today, more than one billion people around the globe recognize Earth Day.

This year’s Earth Day theme is “Invest In Our Planet” which is rather fitting for us here at Wespath. These words likely resonate with frequent readers of this blog, who are accustomed to learning about our approach to integrating environmental health factors, climate change-related considerations and other topics relevant to the “E” in “ESG” in our investment activities.

But this year’s Earth Day is not just special because of its Wespath-appropriate branding—we’re also very pleased to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our United Methodist (UM) interagency climate commitment, through which Wespath has joined 11 other UM agencies in pledging to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across “ministries, facilities, operations and investments” by 2050.

With all this in mind, let’s participate in this extra-special Earth Day by taking a look at the latest news from the interagency commitment, as well as some other new environment- and climate-related ideas from the Wespath investment team.

UM Interagency Commitment – Progress Report

The agencies that have committed to net-zero—now called the “United Methodist Interagency Just and Equitable Net-Zero Coalition”—this week released a progress report highlighting all the work accomplished over the past year in support of the group’s long-term goal.

I recommend checking out the full report, available on the Coalition’s new website, but for the purposes of this conversation, I want to draw your attention to a couple of key themes. The first is measuring progress toward our long-term goal, which I find to be one of the most challenging logistical factors with a collaborative project like this.

As the progress report details, the Coalition has committed to using the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol to measure and track its emissions. The GHG Protocol provides a standard for GHG accounting and reporting widely used by businesses and governments around the world. It identifies “three scopes” of emissions often referenced in climate conversations:

The Coalition has largely focused on identifying and tracking Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in the first year, though it plans to learn more about Scope 3 tracking this year. The progress report also notes that the Coalition has partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Program to measure emissions generated at each organization’s building(s).

Another interesting theme from the progress report that I wanted to highlight is that of climate justice. I found this statement particularly meaningful from the perspective of a collaboration grounded in faith:

And the report later proposes several important questions that the Coalition is using to guide its work, including, “how do our sources of energy impact our neighbors both near and far?” and “how are our decisions responsive to the leadership of impacted communities?”

The report is a great resource to learn more about how questions of equity and justice should influence our approach to the overall decarbonization goal.

The Latest on “Investing In Our Planet” from Wespath

In addition to the interagency collaboration, Wespath has other exciting ongoing climate and environmental work, especially in the realm of investor engagement and strategic collaboration with like-minded investor partners.

We are pleased to share a new discussion paper published through our partners at the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (Alliance). The paper was co-authored by Wespath’s own Jake Barnett, Director of Sustainable Investment Stewardship and co-lead of the Alliance’s engagement track.

The paper focuses on investor engagement on climate change and net-zero transition issues. It describes how corporate engagement remains the primary tool with which investors seek to influence change related to climate. It then acknowledges that corporate engagement alone has its limits—and looks beyond that tool to new, more systemic, forms of engagement at the sector, policy and asset manager levels.

Over 30 engagement experts from around the world collaborated to write the paper, and I’m optimistic it will positively influence how our industry approaches climate-related stewardship. It’s awesome to see Jake and Wespath taking a leading role in this type of globally relevant work!

Looking ahead, we’ll continue to search for new and emerging tools that will help us reach our long-term goal of achieving net-zero emissions in our investment portfolios. We want to accomplish this not by selling investments in large swathes of companies that currently produce emissions (divesting)—but by influencing how corporations and the broader economy move toward a net-zero future. We believe truly supporting the transition to a sustainable economy requires that we work alongside companies, policymakers, like-minded investors and other economic stakeholders to ensure we keep the transition moving.

So, all in all, lots of food for thought for your Earth Day—I’m looking forward to sharing future updates on all this work, and more!