2020 can’t get behind us fast enough. But the shocking realization we’ve all faced about how vulnerable our society and global economy is also one of the reasons we’ve seen the remarkable embrace of ‘net zero’ by the business community this year.
This year, the number of the world’s largest companies committing to net-zero emissions targets, meaning they will eliminate as much of the greenhouse gases as they produce, tripled to 1,500 from the start of the year.
When the pandemic hit in the spring, those of us leading the fight against the climate crisis thought that business momentum towards net zero would slow down. But, the opposite happened. The lessons of the pandemic—which scientists had been warning about for years—made major institutional investors and corporations realize they had to increase their own climate ambitions.
