São Paulo, June 3, 2024 – The UN Global Compact Brazil Network launches today, June 3rd, the Pact Towards COP30, an ambitious program with initiatives to move companies towards the Conference of the Parties, in Belém, in 2025. The initiative will be presented during the event ‘Environmental Corporate Responsibility: Impact and Transformation’, which takes place at the Museum of the Portuguese Language, in São Paulo, with the presence of more than 100 business leaders and public authorities, such as Ana Toni, Secretary of Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change; Veronica Sanchez, president of the National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency (ANA); and Maurício Terena, executive and legal coordinator at the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB).
The program, which has the institutional support of CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) and LACLIMA (Latin American Climate Lawyers Initiative for Mobilizing Action), starts with 250 companies involved in existing initiatives, embedded in the Climate Action Platform, which intersects the climate agenda with that of water, human rights, governance and communication. With the Pact Towards COP30 program, the Global Compact aims to increase the number of companies mobilized against climate change in the face of the Brazilian climate scenario to 600 by 2025, as well as to scale up the actions and goals with which companies are committed linked to SDG 13 (Climate Action), especially those linked to the +Water, Net Zero Ambition, Circular Connection and Amazon Impact Movements of the Global Compact.
“COP30 is an opportunity for Brazil to consolidate itself as a global leader in the fight against the climate crisis, and this necessarily involves the work that the business sector plays on this agenda. With the Pact Towards COP30, the Global Compact, as the largest Brazilian corporate sustainability initiative, wants to boost companies in this work, through a program that promotes actions, carries out projects and shows paths for mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation to climate change. These results need to be lasting and significant, with a view to a more resilient and sustainable future,” says Carlo Pereira, CEO of the UN Global Compact Brazil Network.
During the event on the 3rd, the Global Compact will also sign memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with ANA (National Water Agency), to build strategies for the business sector with a focus on water resilience, in addition to establishing a long-term strategic partnership for future demands; and with TNC (The Nature Conservancy Brazil), to build a long-term linear strategy for Biodiversity, Water Resilience, Mitigation, Energy Transition projects, among others.
The Brazil Network’s strategic approach to COP30, in Belém, falls on the search for sustainable and impactful solutions, with the intention of actively involving the business community in the implementation of collective actions in favor of the Brazilian Climate Agenda.
New Initiatives for COP30
One of the novelties brought by the Pact Towards COP30 is the division of the Amazon Impact Movement, launched in 2023, into three fronts of action, gaining governance management like that of complex projects. The first is Socio-environmental Regulatory Responsibility, which aims to engage with public sector actors in joint action with the private sector to apply socio-environmental compliances, through the dissemination of scientific knowledge in conservation and innovation in the Amazon, in working groups, research and contributions between the public sector and civil society.
Another front is Sustainable Land Use, with the aim of bringing two sectoral pacts aligned with the zero deforestation commitment in the geopolitics of the Legal Amazon to COP30; in addition to expanding the HRDD (human rights due diligence) tool, launched this year and which will be expanded to also include a self-assessment by companies on the environment, with a focus on traceability of their value chain. The other front is the Living Forest, a front that includes projects related to Bioeconomy, such as the promotion of biotechnology, sustainable use of bioresources, as well as the mapping of ancestral technologies, throughout this year and 2025, with the many indigenous ethnicities and representations of traditional communities present in the Legal Amazon.
And, within the +Water Movement, the Brazilian Coalition for Water Resilience was launched, with a greater focus on the Cerrado, with the aim of mobilizing companies to join and provide resources and support for the recovery of degraded areas that impact water production. There are already two projects from partner companies on site: Coca-Cola leads the front in the Paraná Basin with the Cerrados Institute; and Aegea leads the front in the Pantanal Headwaters with WWF.
The Brazilian Coalition for Water Resilience seeks to guarantee water availability in quantity and quality, by facilitating the entry of companies into collective water resilience projects for the recovery of hydrographic basins. The focus on the Cerrado is due to the importance of the biome in the population’s life:
- 90% of Brazilians consume energy from the Cerrado;
- Food produced in the Cerrado supplies 40% of the Brazilian population;
- 8 of the 12 hydrographic basins in Brazil are in the Cerrado;
- 53% of the Cerrado area has already been deforested.
With the launch of the program, the Global Compact aims, for COP30, sustainable and impactful solutions, by actively involving the business community in the implementation of collective actions in favor of the Brazilian Climate Agenda. For this, in addition to the existing Ocean Business Working Group: Decarbonization of the Maritime and Port Fleet, the Biofuels and Electric Hub, Net Zero Waste and the Sectoral Notebooks on Climate Justice for the Textile Fashion sector will also be launched, a preparatory course for communicators for COP30 and Pre-COP Webinars.
The COP30 Mission is a preparatory course for communicators with specific content for COP30, developed by the Communicate and Engage Action Platform in partnership with Aberje (Brazilian Association of Business Communication), which will begin in August 2024 with the participation of 40 companies. It will result in an e-book that will be made available to the more than 2,000 companies participating in the UN Global Compact Brazil Network and on the Aberje platform. Until COP30, the Pre-COP30 Webinars will also be held, with the participation of people of notorious knowledge involved in the Brazilian climate agenda, addressing the importance of the business sector in the editions of the Conference of the Parties, official information from the COP30 organization and discussion of the main technical topics planned for the next editions.
And the Biofuel and Electric HUB, coordinated by the Climate Platform and the Sustainable Agriculture Action Platform, is the continuation of the Transportes Net Zero project (carried out in 2021-2022) and has as its central objective to be a center for discussions focused on the decarbonization of the commercial road transport sector. By bringing together experts, researchers, business leaders and decision-makers and government, the hub seeks to promote an environment conducive to the generation of projects and initiatives that accelerate the sector’s transition to a low-carbon economy.
Furthermore, the results of each of these projects and initiatives will be disclosed in the national and international event track that the Global Compact already holds, such as the Ambition 2030 Forum, Bioeconomy Amazon Summit, SDGs in Brazil, Climate Week New York, COP16, COP29, World Economic Forum and COP30 itself.
The Pact Towards COP30 program in projects / numbers of engaged companies:
In 2024:
- Net Zero Ambition Movement – 105 companies
- Brazilian Coalition for Water Resilience of the +Water Movement – 2 companies
- Amazon Impact Movement – 6 companies
- Biofuels and Electric Hub – 71 companies
- Ocean Business WG (Working Group): Decarbonization of the Maritime and Port Fleet – 65 companies
- Net Zero Waste – Program not yet started
- Sectoral Climate Justice Notebooks – 10 companies (only for the Fashion and Textile sector, for now)
Total: 259 companies
By 2025:
- Net Zero Ambition Movement – 300 companies
- Brazilian Coalition for Water Resilience of the +Water Movement – 15 companies
- Amazon Impact Movement – 60 companies
- Biofuels and Electric Hub – 100 companies
- Ocean Business WG: Decarbonization of the Maritime and Port Fleet – 65 companies
- Net Zero Waste – 30 companies
- Sectoral Climate Justice Notebooks – 30 companies
Total: 600 companies impacted