In a few days, global leaders will convene in Dubai for COP28. Alongside other businesses and non-profits, the Climate Collaborative has made an appeal to these decision-makers to halt the unchecked burning of fossil fuels. The moment has come for us to shift from pledges to palpable progress, from stated intentions to tangible outcomes. As the adage goes, actions speak louder than words, and the toll of the slow progress on climate action is a cost that we are all collectively bearing. 

The Climate Collaborative staff and Board hold ourselves to the same standard, constantly asking: Are we making a measurable impact on our mission to accelerate climate action within the grocery sector? This year, we've made a strategic shift, embracing more fully our belief that pre-competitive collaboration stands as one of the most effective ways to assist businesses in their climate journey—especially when resources are tight. Coinciding with the initiation of COP28, we are launching our Organic and Regenerative Transition Community of Practice. Looking ahead to 2024, we are excited to announce the launch of an additional community of practice along with several more accelerators, each designed to catalyze and amplify our collective climate endeavors.

The foundational theory of change driving these pre-competitive collaborations rests on the understanding that by working together, companies can increase their capacity for action, going further faster together. It's the belief that collective endeavor, not solitary effort, will lead to significant strides in navigating the intricate and often unclear path of climate action.

Here are ways you can support this work:

• Please consider including the Climate Collaborative in your year-end giving
• Reach out if you would like to help underwrite our upcoming Climate Communications or Retailer Action Accelerators
• Join your peers in an upcoming pre-competitive collaboration 
• Update your climate commitments and prioritize climate action in 2024

We look forward to working with you in the coming year! If you need support as you plan your climate action, please don't hesitate to reach out. 

Our deepest thanks,

Courtney

I wanted to share a quick policy update with you. As the year draws to a close, the likelihood of a one-year extension to the Farm Bill is increasing. In the House, the release of the Farm Bill draft is pending the Speaker's scheduling of legislative discussions, which was delayed during the process of selecting the new Speaker, Mike Johnson (R-LA). Speaker Johnson hopes to allocate floor time for the Farm Bill in December, contingent on Congress's ability to pass a stop-gap measure for FY24 spending bills. Meanwhile, in the Senate, partisan divisions on key issues persist, delaying the release of the Farm Bill draft.

One of the most significant points of contention between Democrats and Republicans is the allocation of funds designated for climate-smart agriculture and climate change mitigation from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Democrats advocate for keeping these funds within the Conservation title, earmarked for climate mitigation, while others propose using a portion of funds more broadly within the conservation title or for other priorities, such as commodity support, research, or risk management. 

In state news, California's Governor Newsom recently signed an important climate disclosure bill into law! The Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) requires the state board to develop and adopt regulations requiring specified partnerships, corporations, limited liability companies, and other business entities with total annual revenues in excess of $1 billion and that do business in California to publicly disclose to their scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions to the newly created emissions reporting organization. Learn more about the bill, including the timing for implementation, here. Our partners at Ceres are hosting a webinar on October 31st to help companies better understand the implications. You can find more information below. 

Lastly, our friends at the Organic Farming Research Foundation are asking companies to contact their congressional representatives to express their support for the Strengthening Organic Agricultural Research (SOAR) Act in the House and the Organic Science and Research Investment (OSRI) Act in the Senate. We've included two toolkits below with a template email you can use to contact your congressional representatives. 

We thank you for your ongoing involvement and advocacy in this important piece of legislation and will continue to share timely calls to action as they arise in the coming months.

In collaboration,

Courtney

We are just days away from September and it feels like fall is already in full swing. Just in time for back-to-school season, we have some new tools and offerings to share with you.

First, in the next few weeks we are releasing our long-awaited Climate Action Catalyzer Tool. This tool will help connect you to potential collaboration partners and service providers and will also provide you a customized report detailing resources specific to your climate needs. For the reminder of 2023, the tool will be free to our community as we continue to refine the content, connections, and resources. We can't wait for you to give it a try! 

We are also planning to release our Service Provider Membership Program in late September. We know there are so many of you in this community that are eager to connect your offerings with brands and retailers looking for solutions. Keep an eye on our website and newsletter for more details on how to sign up for this program.

In October, we are launching our Regenerative and Organic Transition Community of Practice. This year-long program brings together a skilled facilitator, experts in regenerative and organic agriculture, and a committed community of companies to work together to activate solutions in support of an organic and regenerative transition. Please see details below. Our deep thanks to the UNFI Foundation and Good Earth Natural Foods for supporting this critical work. 

I look forward to seeing many of you at Expo East! The Climate Collaborative has robust programming at the event, you can see the full description of our five sessions below.

In collaboration,

Courtney

Last week, an airport in coastal Iran recorded a heat index of 152 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly intolerable for human or animal life. They are not alone. Countries around the world are experiencing record-setting temperatures challenging the capacity of infrastructure and the limits of livable conditions. A crisis at this level of magnitude feels insurmountable, even to those of us that do this work every day, and yet we DO have the capacity to shift the direction of the crisis. So we take a collective deep breath, we fortify ourselves, and we keep going...

Several months ago, our team went through strategic planning with our Board, and there was deep alignment that one of the keys to unlocking climate action is through pre-competitive collaboration. In September, we will be unveiling the Climate Action Catalyzer, a new tool to help facilitate connections between companies. Then in October, we are launching a Community of Practice to support CPGs working on organic and regenerative transition.

In case you missed it, earlier this month, we sent out our sixth annual Tracking Progress Survey for companies that have made Climate Commitments through the Collaborative. Your completion of the survey provides accountability in our program, tracks your climate action, and assesses the climate progress of the grocery industry. New this year, companies that complete their Tracking Progress Survey are also eligible for UNFI's Climate Action Partnership. This provides you with more tools and visibility for your climate work. The deadline to submit your organization's update is August 18th. Please reach out if you have any questions about the Commitments your company has made.

Thank you for being an integral part of our vibrant community. We deeply appreciate your engagement in this work. 

In collaboration, 

Caitlin

There is a language to business. A lingo that most of us use. We can talk about our "value proposition" or our "ROI" and most of us have some sense of what someone means. Obviously, there are nuances in definitions from organization to organization, but these terms play a role in framing how we think and how we approach our work.

Abigail Prout, a leadership coach in my region, recently shared a social post asking, "What if ROI stood for ripples of impact?" This creative reframing of ROI made me think about how our business structures (vocabulary, frameworks, certifications, etc.) create boundaries to our thinking that we are often not even aware of. 

"Stakeholders" is another term we frequently use that informs how we think about who is invested in the outcomes of our business. We tend to think about our team, our board, our customers, but who else has a stake in the outcomes of our work? How about the communities surrounding our facilities, or the people impacted by our waste stream? Can we go so far as to think about nature being a stakeholder?

If we considered nature as a stakeholder, it would impact everything from our operations to our product design. At the Climate Collaborative, we see this start to come alive in our forest commitment. Keeping forests intact and thriving is a critical climate solution. Whether you source directly from the forest or utilize row crops, you need to be considering how the land and forests are being managed. Forests are a critical stakeholder and are integral to our planet's wellbeing. 

If you want to learn more about the why and how of a forest commitment, I encourage you to listen to the webinar we hosted earlier this month with Quantis and Tony's Chocolonely. It did a fantastic job framing a path for companies to take meaningful action on their forest commitment. 

Keep an eye out for an invitation to our Forest Summit at Expo East in September!

In collaboration, 

Courtney

April is a big month for companies in the natural products industry. There are no shortage of Earth Month activations for companies to engage staff, customers, or the wider community. I hope you'll consider one more SIMPLE yet powerful action to help close out Earth Month. You can ensure that the Farm Bill has strong climate provisions by signing your company on in support of the COVER Act—a bill that rewards farmers for growing cover crops and building soil health. Sign here to let Representative Casten, the COVER Act sponsor, know that your business supports the bill. Rep. Casten, and those working to incorporate the Act into the Farm Bill, will use this list to demonstrate to other lawmakers the support from the business community for the COVER Act. It takes one minute to sign! 

Last week, our Board of Directors gathered in Boulder for a three-day strategic planning retreat. It was the first time our new Board was together in person, and it was incredible to experience their depth of expertise, insights, collective vision for the future of the Climate Collaborative. We left our time together more energized than ever before about the work ahead and how we can deepen industry wide collaboration. To help close our retreat, we each wrote down an offering to the group. I'd like to leave you with one offering for our wider community of collaborators, partners, and supporters. 

May we continue to see the power and potential of transformation in ourselves, our industry, our economic system, our society and in each other.

In community,

Caitlin

In less than a month from now, the Climate Collaborative staff and our Board will be coming together to engage in strategic planning. So much has changed in the climate landscape since the Climate Collaborative was first founded in 2017 and we are energized to explore how we can be of the most service to this community now and in the years to come. We would love to hear your thoughts!

• Drop me a note and help us answer the question: How can the Climate Collaborative best support the climate action of this community into the future?

I also wanted to flag our upcoming course. Over the past year, we have heard from many of you that there is a need for beginner- to intermediate-level climate education to support your staff in deepening their understanding of the landscape of organizations in the climate space and company climate action. In May, we will be offering a two-half-day course in partnership with CU Leeds School of Business that will provide a deep dive into the essentials of climate action. The course is informed by Project Drawdown’s framework for climate action and does an awesome job of exploring everything from commitments, actions, reporting, and disclosure. It is fast-moving, engaging, and actionable.

It was wonderful to see so many of you at Climate Day and at Expo West. This community is thriving and doing incredible work. I was struck by the overarching theme of collaboration that came through in so many sessions and the bold steps companies are taking in their climate work. In closing, here is a wonderful quote from Leah Thomas that sums it up perfectly:

"If we can collectively, radically imagine new futures we have a better shot at protecting both our planet and our people at the same time".

In community,

Courtney

Expo West is next week, and we can't wait to see many of you at Climate Day. Check out the full program here and below. We have an incredible day of programming planned! Don't forget to join us for a hearty breakfast and hot beverages starting at 7:30 am. While you are getting ready for the day, our first session will be a coffee and climate fireside chat. From there, we have four morning sessions covering the Farm Bill, investing in climate, The Almond Project (a very innovative cross-brand collaboration), and eliminating deforestation in your supply chain.

The afternoon kicks off with a keynote from author Kim Stanley Robinson. If you are not familiar with his work, he is considered to be one of the top science fiction authors of our time. We are also thrilled to welcome Leah Thomas and Bill McKibben as keynote presenters. Our closing session includes Jason Buechel (CEO, Whole Foods), Jordan Rubin (CEO, Ancient Nutrition), Brian Rudolph (CEO, Banza), and Kristy Lewis (Founder & Chief Visionary Officer, QUINN). Each session is actionable, inspiring, and oriented towards bringing you the information you need to make strategic decisions to accelerate your climate action. 

We look forward to seeing you there!

• View the full Climate Day agenda on the Climate Collaborative website
• Go to the Natural Products Expo West website

All the best,
Courtney