There are some harrowing truths that can unfortunately make our personal sacrifices feel invalid. Below are some facts and statistics that show that we will never be able to solve these issues without the backing of the corporate world. This doesn’t mean personal decisions are useless – but that they are not enough and it is important to demand the same of everybody else around us. This is why people on all levels of an organisation need to be educated on the reality of the situation and seek to be environmentally responsible with everything they do and to demand this cooperation from others. 

-        According to a report by Brenda Ekwurzel of Climate & Energy Program and her team of researchers, just 90 companies worldwide have been responsible for nearly two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions from 1880 to 2010 (Ekwurzel, et al., 2017).

-        The top 15 food and drinks companies in America contribute almost 630 million metric tons of greenhouse gases every year, meaning that between them they contribute more greenhouse gases than the entire country of Australia. (Axelrod, 2019)

-        Many large international companies are not meeting their emissions targets, according to a study of 25 corporations, including the likes of Google, Apple and IKEA. (Rannard, 2022)

This is a quick snippet of hundreds of facts about the impact that big businesses are having on the global environmental crises. Everybody in the workplace must do their part to work towards the bigger picture. When working alongside other businesses and clients, we must consider who we are doing business with and if they fit our environmental ethos. This is something that needs to be practised in every single business process we carry out. By making consumer and business decisions with this in mind, this is how we can make sure our personal sacrifices are not invalid and it will help the acknowledgement and concern of the situation spread upwards to those who are doing the most damage.

Link to report: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-017-1978-0