Amir Hegazi’s How Business Can Fight Climate Change: Building Companies that Combine Profit and Sustainability compiles insight and ideas from 35 thought and action leaders on how to mobilize the private sector to address climate change and reduce carbon emissions.

The conversations captured in this book provide a guide to business leaders on how to do their part to mitigate climate change, a threat to the system that business depends on. The private sector can, and has the responsibility to, contribute to climate solutions both from the perspective of sustainability and from the perspective of self-preservation.

How Business can Fight Climate Change is a call to action for companies looking to make a positive impact in the world and increase company value. Entrepreneurs, executives, and innovators show that harnessing the power of the private sector to win against climate change is a real possibility through examples of companies and individuals doing what they can to slow climate change.

Roger Ballentine is grateful and excited to be included with this group of climate visionaries. In his interview with Amir Hegazi, Roger discusses the “tremendous opportunity for dual value” within the climate transition. Companies can be both more competitive and more resilient by pursuing sustainable business strategy to create value for the planet and for the company.

Roger believes that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for businesses to reach these goals. In the interview, Roger discusses his process when working with companies: align with company leadership, work through benefits of sustainability, and design a plan to incorporate sustainability throughout the DNA of the company.

Roger also provides his answer to why this shift towards sustainability is happening. Companies are starting to realize climate strategy is a smart business decision. There are now more visionary, forward-thinking CEOs making this happen. We are also seeing a paradigm shift taking place with customers, investors, and stakeholders. Being a leader in sustainability can now improve customer and employee loyalty. This is climate capitalism at work.

The caveat to all this is that we will not solve every aspect of the climate problem with just capitalism. We also need direct government intervention in the form of incentives, such as for renewable energy and carbon capture, as well as to step in to ensure capitalism is operating equally and mitigating climate damage in poorest parts of the world. But we cannot wait for government alone to instigate these crucial changes.

Amir Hegazi has compiled a selection of inspiring words from climate thought leaders ranging from entrepreneurs to global NGO leaders, including Robin Rix at Verra, Dominic Waughray of the World Economic Forum, and Kevin Moss of the World Resources Institute.

Thank you again to Amir for his crucial and inspiring questions, and for providing this link to the free eBook version of How Business Can Fight Climate Change: Building Companies that Combine Profit and Sustainability.

The following op-ed by Roger Ballentine appeared in the Colorado Sun on May 3, 2022.

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Among my great joys is an annual pilgrimage to the trout streams of Colorado. Last summer, the rivers were low, and fishing restrictions were in place to not further stress the fish. While walking the banks of the Roaring Fork, worrying about what climate change will mean for my favorite pastime, I found another unpleasant surprise: plastic bottles strewn along the bank.

That was a double-whammy. Those bottles were despoiling Colorado’s natural beauty, and they will be replaced by new plastic bottles.

With proper recycling, these bottles would not be along the riverbank, and new bottles made from recycled ones would result in roughly a third of the greenhouse gas emissions of a virgin bottle. But recycling rates are stubbornly low and plastics are one of the fastest growing segments of our waste stream, currently making up more than 18%.

Nationally, we recycle almost a third of our waste, but the 2020 rate in Colorado was only about 10%. Before it banned the practice in 2018, China purchased one in three plastic bottles in our waste stream to feed its own recycling industry. That demand made post-consumer plastic more valuable and created incentives for it to be collected and sold. Without that demand, those incentives are lost and more plastic ends up in our environment.

The good news is that Colorado is considering legislation meant to boost the state’s recycling performance. The bad news is the bill pursues a sub-optimal solution to the problem.

HB 22-1355 would create a “Producer Responsibility Program for Statewide Recycling.” Such “extended producer responsibility,” or EPR, policies rest on the idea that the companies that put plastic in the marketplace should be responsible for it through end of life. HB 22-1355 would place a fee on producers and use the money to cover the costs of implementing an EPR program, which would result in new funding to boost recycling programs.

The issue is not whether EPR is “fair” — it is — but whether it is the best way to solve the problem. It is not.

The record of EPR laws is mixed, at best. In Canada, for example, EPR policies have increased recycling program costs by roughly 26% while performance, measured by percentage of tons diverted from landfills, has increased only 1%.

Such a shortcoming reflects the fundamental flaw of EPR approaches: they do not directly address the single greatest problem facing the recycling industry: a lack of demand for waste to be recycled.

That’s where Minimum Recycled Content Standards, or MCS, come in. Under MCS policies, producers are required to increase the recyclable content of their packaging products and therefore must source and purchase recycled materials. As the percentages of required recycled content increases, these investments grow. As a result, suddenly-valuable post-consumer plastics find their way into recycling supply chains, greenhouse gases are reduced, new recycling jobs are created, and key steps toward a circular economy are made.

California, New Jersey, and Washington each have recently adopted MCS laws with various phase-in timelines. MCS approaches have garnered a range of support from local environmental groups to industry, including the American Chemistry Council. Ocean Conservancy, a prominent organization at the forefront of plastics pollution, recently released a report calling for MCS as a key component of keeping plastic waste out of the environment.

We need to focus our energy and political will on policy solutions that are achievable and effective. HB 22-1355, unfortunately, is not nearly as direct and effective a solution as simply increasing demand through a mandatory recycled content standard.

With mandated demand, today’s waste is tomorrow’s valuable product. The fishermen that proceeded me along the Roaring Fork most certainly would not have tossed dollar bills onto the bank of the river.

What role can the built environment play in the energy transition? How can businesses innovate to pursue financial opportunities AND protect the climate? And how can we transform capitalism to reward business for benefiting people and the planet? Roger Ballentine will discuss how players in the built environment space can harness climate capitalism and why this transformation is, in fact, necessary, at Green Builder‘s Sustainability Symposium on April 21st.

Attendees will also hear presentations on building electrification, the ESG imperative, and how manufacturers and building professionals can innovate to advance decarbonization.

Register here for Green Builder Media’s Sustainability Symposium 2022 on April 21st at 12pm ET.

The recent IPCC report is unequivocal in saying that it will be nearly impossible to keep climate warming under 1.5°C without substantial carbon removal efforts, and even difficult to stay under 2°C without it as well. Nature-based solutions, such as forest carbon offsets, are the most readily available removal technology and can offer a scalable solution to companies looking to mitigate their climate impact. Yet, not all carbon offset credits are created equal. As companies set and pursue ambitious emissions reductions goals, how can they impactfully integrate high-quality carbon offsets into a corporate net-zero strategy?

Roger Ballentine, Green Strategies, and Jennifer Jenkins, NCX, will explore this question of natural capital and how to ensure measurable impact from forest carbon projects during this webcast hosted by GreenBiz on April 21st at 3pm EST.

For more details and to register, please head to GreenBiz.