Creating a climate-smart workforce beyond the boardroom

A September 2023 Deloitte report examines the role of leaders in addressing climate change. In it, Delia Ndlovu from Chapter Zero Southern Africa, highlights Africa's frequent extreme weather, including droughts in the Western and Eastern Cape, floods and recent snow in KwaZulu-Natal, and severe storms in Mozambique and Malawi and the recent floods in Valencia. Millions of people will be displaced globally due to desertification, rising sea levels, and contaminated land.

Investors are now assessing an organisation's Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) characteristics in conjunction with its financial outcomes. From a sustainability viewpoint, they examine an organisation's influence on people and the planet, among other criteria. Environmental supporters also encourage businesses to minimise harm and positively contribute to society.

The net-zero initiative is bolstered by regulations and reporting requirements. Recently, South Africa enacted the Climate Act to combat and adjust to climate change, steering the nation towards a low-carbon, resilient economy. Regarding reporting, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) encourages companies to embrace new sustainability accounting standards, emphasising the effects of ESG factors on material risks and opportunities, strategic goals, culture, and organisational processes.

Mark Kaplan, CEO of Chapter Zero Southern Africa, remarked: “Chapter Zero Southern Africa is a chapter of the global Climate Governance Initiative (CGI) established by the World Economic Forum to engage businesses in climate change action. The CGI immersive learning programme, through its Chapters, is currently engaged with more than 100,000 global business leaders across 71 major economic jurisdictions.”

It's not only the responsibility of the sustainability officer to develop sustainability policies for board approval but the human resources department should also actively be involved in establishing policies relevant to their industry. This is not only for legal requirements but also to ensure sustainability for future growth in relation to protecting the workforce and the communities in which they live.

What should the Human Resources Department be doing to create a climate-smart workforce?

One of the most critical areas where HR can make a significant impact is in hard-core skills development by identifying the skills and competencies needed to address climate-related change. For instance, organisations should upskill employees to obtain expertise in climate modelling, renewable energy, water conservation, and disaster management, or they may need to recruit these externally to boost progress.
Training programmes must be developed to include programmes on climate-related risk, sustainability practices, and emergency responses to equip employees to handle challenges and opportunities as climate changes occur. These practices must also be transitioned into the broader community.

The focus should not be solely internally but also on establishing collaboration between companies and industries in the same sector. This will not only enhance progress but also speed up implementation.

There is clear evidence that company strategies are not progressing fast enough to meet the Paris Agreement to limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius because humans have become a geological force capable of altering the climate, ecosystems and biodiversity on a global scale through our collective actions and technological capabilities.

Radical collaboration between the public and private sectors must be expedited and should become ingrained in every person’s life.

Through prevention and adaptation, we can better manage the physical impacts both personally and environmentally.

We will only win this battle if all of us, whether workers, executives, or boards, also carry out sustainable work practices in our personal life environments. It is no good not to litter at work, but to litter where you live.

For instance, climate change's impact on occupational health and safety at work highlights the need for proactive measures to protect workers from climate-related hazards.

It is imperative that an organisation creates workforce buy-in to new approaches, as people within organisations must adapt to affect sustainability.

Furthermore, the executive team should set examples to reduce travelling, thereby reducing aircraft carbon footprint. For some company executives, it is a status symbol to travel in private planes to exotic destination business meetings. The question should be whether business travel could be reduced by improving virtual board and management meetings.

HR teams should optimise internal communications, emphasising that employees should prioritise the environment to contribute to sustainable business growth.

Digital training programmes could also be replaced with face-to-face training courses. Staff should be encouraged to connect remotely to learning and development programmes, which would result in significantly less climate impact.

Advantages

• Skilled people are more willing to consider job offers from organisations that they consider environmentally sustainable. You would, therefore, become an employer of choice.

• Business financial statements have indicated that profitability has improved due to their sustainability programmes. The reasons behind this are increased efficiencies and fewer resources that drive down costs.

• Businesses will also select a supplier doing more to reduce their carbon footprint, even paying a premium for that supplier’s products.

In conclusion, employers, all employees, and all living homo sapiens need to up sustainability practices to save Planet Earth.