We launched the SotG Climate&Sustainability division on May 19th, 2021 as part of our Global Community Dialogue Day.
In June we had our first conversation with the founder of SwissCleanTech who leads the CEO4Climate.ch initiative.

In short, they have collected the signatures of over 500 Swiss CEOs and Country Managers of international companies on a “petition” to the Swiss government to enact

An effective climate policy which encompasses the entire economy (SwissCleanTech). We need:

• A 2030 reduction target for domestic emissions that allows a binding reduction path to net zero CO2 emissions by 2050
• Effective domestic measures in buildings, traffic, industry, energy and agriculture
• Mechanisms that ensure a CO2 price that is in line with the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Transparency with regard to the climatic effects, risks and opportunities of financial products and investments.

While in general SotG tends to focus more on individual action than government intervention, we see this iniative as a collection of individuals who are essentially saying to the government, “We would like to practice more sustainable business practices, but under current(outdated?) laws, we face a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace for doing things the right way. Please “flip the script”, i.e. change the law so that unethical companies are the outliers, not us.”

So we would like to try to replicate this same success in other countries where we can utilize our network and our 4 Pillars approach. 

Here is the prelimary game plan we have come up with for any of our national chapters that want to work on this:

Phase 1)  Research

          – Has anything similar to this been tried or implemented in that country previously. If the answer is yes, then we will first simply see if we are uniquely positioned to help the existing efforts.

Phase 2) Assess SotG Capacities

          – Do we really have a big enough network in that country or through SotG Global to actively pursue something like this

Phase 3) Networking

          – Who are some local NGOs and business groups which are likely to help support a new initiative like this

Phase 4) Science and Politics

         – Which of the demands from Switzerland are applicable in this country and which need to be tweaked. 

Phase 5) Initial draft of petition

          – Finding experts who can write a petition which is explicit enough to be meaningful and also broad enough to encompass large scale support from the business community.

(It may be possible in some cases to skip phases 6 and 7)

Phase 6) Initial provisional signatories

          – After a significant number of CEOs/Country Managers have agreed in principle to the concept, it may be neccessary to make some tweaks. Also in some cases we may need to get X number of local signatories before some of our international partners will promote this through their networks

Phase 7) Tweaks

          – This may be able to be done by a committee or there may need to be some sort of convention where all potentially signatories can make their suggestions

Phase 8) Submit the petition to the appropriate goverment agency or legislature 

(Asking the media to cover this process may occur at any phase. The same goes for finding funding. In some countries we might need to have funding very early on, in others we might be able to “bootstrap” this, and in others we might need to work through a coalition)

Phase 9) Continue to gather signatures, and support similar initiatives

Please email SotGFoundation@gmail.com or our Managing Director directly: Trent.Simmons@SpiritoftheGame.org