The tide has turned on climate change, with organisations around the world starting to take notice of the issue.
This is according to PwC Africa CEO Dion Shango, presenting findings from PwC’s annual CEO Survey. ““However, even with that shift in perception, it is clear that their response in investments and strategies could certainly be a lot more,” he adds.
“So, while climate change is receiving a lot of airtime, it is quite clear that CEOs are yet to respond adequately in a way that is commensurate with how high on the agenda this topic has come.”
Shirley Machaba, CEO of PwC Southern Africa, comments: “When it comes to climate change, companies have changed. Climate change is critical, and CEOs are likely to see more benefits in investments around climate change.”
Although climate change does not appear in the top 10 threats to global CEOs’ growth prospects, CEOs are expressing a growing appreciation of the upside of taking action to reduce their carbon footprint.
Compared to a decade ago, when we last asked this question CEOs are now twice as likely to ‘strongly agree’ that investing in climate change initiatives will boost reputational advantage (30% in 2020 compared with 16% in 2010) and 25% of CEOs today compared with 13% in 2010 see climate change initiatives leading to new product and service opportunities for their organisation.
In South Africa, 19% of CEOs ‘strongly agree’ (versus 10% in 2010) that climate change initiatives will lead to new product and service opportunities for their respective organisations.
While views of climate change driven product and service opportunities have remained relatively stable in the US and the UK, there has been a dramatic shift in views in China over the last 10 years. China is an interesting case study because it is both the largest market for green products and the most polluting country, from a carbon perspective.
In 2010, only 2% of China CEOs saw climate change leading to opportunities whereas in 2020 this has risen to 47%, by far the largest increase of CEOs in any country included in the survey. However, for these opportunities to turn into long-term success stories the principles of climate change need to be embedded right across a businesses’ supply chain and customer experience.