Future 500’s Impact Summit 2023: 5 Key Questions and Lasting Insights
Brittany Mazal, Strategic Engagement Manager at Future 500. Published May 23, 2023
When we invite guests to our annual convening, we invite them to “come for something different.” Keep reading for key takeaways from this year’s insightful Corporate Impact Summit in Dallas, TX in April.
Future 500’s Corporate Impact Summit is our annual gathering dedicated to effective stakeholder engagement for corporate responsibility. This spring, we convened leading executives, advocates, investors, and funders to share candid insights and fresh ideas on a diverse range of sustainability topics. Over two days, we engaged thoughtfully to unpack the issues of biodiversity, climate justice, circular business models, regenerative economies, and ESG politicization.
Under Chatham House Rule, participants were invited to hear “real talk,” while speaking from the heart to move from conflict to collaboration. During fireside chats, ice breaker activities, panel discussions, networking opportunities, and breakouts, we created plenty of space for our participants to problem solve, gain insights and forge relationships in support of people and planet. No matter the topic of discussion, conversations throughout the week inevitably led to the importance of thoughtful engagement. With one advocate sharing: “when I think about the companies I worry about, I think about the ones who aren’t here, the ones that don’t want to engage and do better.”
The Future 500 team outlined 5 key questions and insights from Dallas that we will take forward into our work in the year ahead:
1. Biodiversity: How might we address the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss in a way that navigates what, at times, might be hard-tradeoffs between them?
Companies must step up to protect ecological health while recognizing the danger of viewing biodiversity issues too narrowly through solely a climate lens.
Decision science is needed to help companies, governments, and organizations navigate hard trade-offs related to climate and biodiversity. We can no longer approach each issue through a siloed lens, as we have seen climate solutions inadvertently harming biodiversity and vice-versa.
There is currently a $700-800 billion gap in funding for what is needed in the way of nature-positive solutions by 2030; this is an opportunity for the private sector to step up and fill the gap with innovation and funding.
2. Climate Justice: How might we address the growing inequalities surrounding the ravages of climate change through long-term mitigation and adaptation strategies?
Climate justice acknowledges that climate change has had differing social, economic, public health, and other adverse impacts on historically marginalized communities.
Companies and organizations must lean into stakeholder engagement by incorporating all voices in a system, especially communities whose quality of life is adversely affected by corporate decisions.
In moving towards environmental and distributional justice, companies have an opportunity to invite stakeholders who have suffered or will suffer the worst impacts of climate change on co-creating solutions.
3. Circular Business Models: How might we progress systemic business models across the entire value chain—upstream and downstream—to advance circular economics recognizing that higher upfront costs create a barrier for action?
Foundations, advocates, scientists, and regulators are mobilizing to incentivize the transition from linear to circular business models to help dematerialize and decarbonize the global economy to function within planetary regenerative boundaries.
The circular economy is all about the critical importance of redesigning and reenvisioning our current systems’ methods of production.
It’s faulty to expect a circular system to scale positive impacts while being more cost effective from the outset; we will need to spend more upfront to design the system first. Over time, as with all innovation cost curves, as the system scales, efficiencies will increase and costs will decline as will the system’s environmental footprint - a win-win!
4. Regenerative Economy: How might we adapt our current economic systems to build-in resiliency, and regenerate ecological systems that benefit people and the planet?
Regeneration is the next frontier for corporate sustainability. We have been hyper-focused on mitigating the harmful effects of our current system instead of reenvisioning a system built on resiliency and regeneration that perpetually benefits people and the environment.
A systems thinking approach to regeneration is the only way we will work toward ending human suffering and ecological degradation. Regeneration allows us to live within safe planetary boundaries with continual renewal and resilience, key factors in achieving true sustainability.
Companies and organizations must begin thinking about developing a strategy to help them regenerate living systems.
5. ESG Politicization: How might we navigate the current political backlash against ESG while making sound business decisions that reduce risk and create opportunities for people, planet, and profit?
The “mainstreaming” of ESG is inviting political backlash and attacks as “woke capitalism.” From a corporate perspective, ESG can be contextualized as sound risk management, implemented in response to stakeholder and shareholder pressure while also being beneficial to business.
Companies must learn to navigate the newest political wedge issue to manage material risks and opportunities to create durable returns.
We don’t have to face these challenges alone and surely can’t solve these problems in silos. Everything comes back to collaboration – and the underlying question of “how might we work in partnership across industries, civil society, and government, to incorporate all voices in a way that is equitable and just to advance solutions that benefit all stakeholders and the planet at large?” The Future 500 Corporate Impact Summit throughout its history has aimed to facilitate dialogue around these big questions in hopes of creating pathways for collaboration that will lead to a better future for all.
We will leave you with a quote from one of our participants as we look forward to seeing you in 2024 at our next summit, “What I find remarkable about this event is the mix of people and industries that you brought together in a safe space, with rules of the road outlined, and opportunity for open and respectful dialogue. There was an openness to all sides of every issue area… and lots of brilliance in the room.”
Many thanks to our participants - our stakeholders - who lend their time, passions, unique perspectives, talents, and intellect to make this event one of our annual highlights.
Future 500 is a non-profit consultancy that builds trust between companies, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good. We specialize in stakeholder engagement, sustainability strategy, and responsible communication. From stakeholder mapping to materiality assessments, partnership development to activist engagement, target setting to CSR reporting strategy, we empower our partners with the skills and relationships needed to systemically tackle today's most pressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges.
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