Working With Business

By 2050, there will be 9 billion human beings on the planet. In the midst of this growth, a new global middle class is emerging—bringing millions of people out of poverty and opening unprecedented economic opportunity. With development comes demand—for food, water and energy. In fact, over the next 40 years, it’s anticipated that there will not only be 3 billion more of us, but—on average— we'll each double the amount we already consume.

The problem is, we still only have one planet’s worth of water and land. The Earth isn’t going to get bigger to sustain us. We’re going to have to do more with less. We need a way to live within the planet’s means.

Why does WWF work with business?

TED Talk by Jason Clay, SVP of Market Transformation, WWF

Rising to this Challenge Means Working with Business

Corporations influence vast amounts of the world’s resources. Continent -spanning supply chains connect far-flung environments and communities. They link together and influence massive decisions about how our commodities get produced; how our world's finite "natural capital" gets used.

What's In It for Business?

Simply stated: you can’t make juice or soft-drinks without water. You can’t sell paper or tissues or tables if you don’t have trees. You can’t produce fish sticks without fish or chocolate bars without cocoa beans. In other words, businesses are beginning to realize that the long-term sustainability of their profits is inherently tied to the sustainability of our resources, which is tied—in turn—to the health of our ecosystems.

As a result, WWF is working with many of the world’s leading companies who are starting to think and act differently in regard to their impact on the environment and the communities in which they work.

What's In It for WWF and the Planet?

Undoubtedly, corporations have contributed to the major environmental challenges we are facing today. That is even more reason why business must be a part of the solution. No other sector offers the ability to drive change as quickly or as broadly as our planet needs.

At WWF, we work with businesses on different issues and on different scales.

Business Mobilization: We work with businesses with the goal of achieving transformational conservation results on our key priorities: ocean conservation, freshwater health, Arctic stewardship, climate change mitigation and renewable energy solutions. This can range from collaboration on developing and realizing specific conservation commitments to engagement throughout the supply chain to influence better rules and policies.

Marketing Alliances: We partner with specific corporations on efforts to promote a conservation culture, raise funds for critical work, and encourage a wider public to make more sustainable choices.

Philanthropic Giving: We enable corporations to direct philanthropic funds to projects that will help tackle some of our greatest challenges like conserving our oceans, protecting the health of our fresh water, stewarding a changing Arctic, and finding solutions for climate change.

Employee Engagement: Through innovative programs like Living Planet @ Work, we provide the guidance, resources, and tools to help companies channel the power of their employees to green their business operations.

Net Positive Partnerships for the Planet

Through all of these activities, WWF chooses our business partnerships carefully. We assess opportunities based on their ability to produce a net positive outcome for nature and the future of life on our planet. We may not – and do not – agree with every decision made by every corporation we work with. But we believe that—as a planet and a species—we have much more to gain by engaging each other, than by working at odds. Collusion may be our very best tool in facing the challenges ahead.