Meet the Ladies on Climate Frontline

A new community group in the Netherlands called ‘Ladies Who Do Climate’ focusses on financial accountability and ESG to curtail greenhouse emissions.

By Caroline Robinson, BA CGeog FRGS MCMI

Change is the only constant, but climate change is happening faster than we ever predicted. Thank goodness that legislation is finally catching-up to the challenge of reducing our carbon footprint, but will it be enough? To limit global warming to 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline by at least 43% before 2030. Women have been/are going to be the most affected. We have been told by the latest IPCC report that we are nowhere close to meeting this target. In fact, we may exceed the target and be hurtling towards 2-3°C increase already1

Meanwhile, organisations are only now ramping up their non-financial accounting processes to cope with identifying their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

With Environmental, Social and (corporate) Governance

(ESG) reporting, we are going to start seeing international organisations having to be more accountable to their investors, to their staff and to their regulators. Women are in the forefront of this work. Publishing the results alongside or as part of the annual financial accounts will stimulate the change required to mitigate and adapt to climate change. This is where ‘Ladies Who Do Climate’ fit in.

Currently, there is a space-race for non-financial accounting standardisation systems, such as: Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), B-Lab, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

The EU is enforcing its own rules on climate reduction for international companies and their subsidiaries through the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)2. In the CSRD, the ISSB by the IFRS Foundation is the closest fit in terms of standardisation for the EU. However, the EU has decided to develop its own through various committees and the GreenDeal.

EU nation states have already agreed to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Paris Agreement, hosted by UNFCCC3. More change is afoot with ‘Fit for 55’ when the EU commits to making EU’s climate goal of reducing EU emissions by at least 55% by 2030 - a legal obligation - on nation states. EU countries are working on new legislation to achieve this goal and make the EU climate-neutral by 20504. This will also filter out to all subsidiaries on the planet, so the impact of what the EU can achieve will be felt worldwide.

It feels as though the geospa- tial sector is moving towards developing products and services to meet this non-financial reporting requirement. However, we can’t rely on remote sensing for everything. We need to start including other sectors. Start by making friends with the statistical geographers, find out more about the voluntary reporting systems and discuss the topic of ESG reporting with other businesses. Wear your reduction targets like badges-of-honour!

The Netherlands, unfortunately like most countries in the global north, has been fudging and delaying its legal carbon reduction targets for a while. You may have heard about Urgenda taking the Dutch Government to court over failing to reach its GHG emissions reduction targets5. About the proposed expansion of airport capacity at Lelystad Airport while Schiphol Airport has been legally requested to reduce the amount of flights (Carbon Dioxide)6. Or about the Stikstof affair (Nitrogen), which has seen the rise of the Dutch farmers voting for the rightwing BBB in the recent Provincial elections7. In even worse news, carbon offsetting doesn’t work8; there is no quick fix. What we need is systematic change and fast.

I was reminded of all of this when I attended a really good session on COP27 at The Hague Humanity Hub. The news was that drastic action was required. All of society will be affected, the most vulnerable the most heavily impacted. After the presentations, I ended up talking to two other passionate women about climate change. As these things go, we were being shoo-d out of the building, but we still wanted to continue the conversation. After a quick exchange of LinkedIn QR-codes, we kept in touch and started an informal conversation session in the Den Haag Central Library.

Since then we have started a new informal, but powerful group using Lean-in Circles as a basis to grow the group. 'Ladies Who Do Climate' is for women in the Netherlands, but we are a cross-sector, high-impact group of individuals who are all working to prevent climate change.

Our aim is to provide practical support for women, explore challenges and share knowledge. At the moment, all invitees have been hand-selected and we have representatives from waste reduction to lobbying fossil fuel companies. The overall idea is to build a community of women who can and will use their influence to create systematic change in our society in the Netherlands. We can go further together!

1. https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/

2. https://finance.ec.europa.eu/capital-markets-union-and-financial-markets/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/corporate-sustainability-reporting_en

3. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement

4. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/ green-deal/fit-for-55-the-eu-plan-for-a-greentransition/

5. https://www.government.nl/topics/climatechange/climate-policy

6. https://www.businesstravelnews.com/Transportation/Air/Airlines-to-Fight-Additional-SchipholFlight-Reductions

7. https://apnews.com/article/netherlands-election-farmers-bbb-mark-rutte-cc59032d926a1585002ce9e10aee0886

8. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe

Caroline Robinson

Founder and Lead Cartographer at Clear Mapping Co. She is the founder of Ladies Who Do Climate.