Climate shadow for businesses: adding common sense to sustainability work

In the evolving dialogue surrounding sustainability, the term “carbon footprint” feels omnipresent. However, the new concept of a “climate shadow” is gaining traction, poignantly pressing for a broader and more holistic perspective on climate impact. But what exactly does a climate shadow for businesses mean, and why is it important?

What is a climate shadow?

In one sentence, a climate shadow describes the genuine climate and environmental impacts that an individual or organisation casts around them.

The term was introduced by journalist Emma Pattee in 2021 in an article that remains highly relevant today:

“By encouraging eco-minded people to use their carbon footprints as a ‘guide’ to fight climate change, we risk them spending all of their energy on low-impact individual actions that are easy to quantify, like recycling or turning off lights, instead of putting that energy toward broader, more meaningful work, like lobbying local politicians or speaking up at work about wasteful practices.”

We highly recommend looking into Pattee’s work. It emphasises the importance of addressing challenges on a systemic level and, because emotions matter too, inspiring meaningful change. By popularising the climate shadow concept, Pattee has opened the door to a richer, more nuanced conversation about sustainability – one that has the potential to drive transformative action.

Climate shadow for businesses – how to get started?

Pattee’s initial article focused on consumers, but we’d like to talk about how climate shadow could also be used for businesses and organisations.

We believe that the carbon footprint has been a highly useful tool, enabling countless individuals and organisations to take meaningful climate actions. We, too, have been calculating our carbon footprint since 2019. However, the carbon footprint is inherently quantitative and measurable, which is both its strength and its limitation. Measuring emissions is vital – but on its own, it is not enough.

As climate shadow is still relatively new and unofficial term, there is no standardised way to evaluate one. However, in her article, Emma Pattee divided it into three key themes: consumption, choices, and attention. Applying these themes to organisations provides a curious opportunity for deeper reflection and innovation that could prove very useful for developing climate shadow for businesses.

1. Consumption

Organisations should assess not only their own carbon footprint and other consumption, but also importantly really, genuinely looking into what are left out (e.g. Scope 3) that the organisation still, in reality, does have an impact on.

Besides own consumption, companies should also build an honest view of what kind of consumer behaviour and lifestyles they promote through communications, explicitly and implicitly.

All in all, the core idea would be to apply that famous common sense and examine the types of climate and environmental impacts it causes beyond the scope of current reporting. Often, the impacts left out of reporting are either difficult to measure, too large to offset, fall into a “grey area” between two different actors or are otherwise uncomfortable to face.

However, a truly responsible organisation would at the very least report on these transparently. Sustainability is a journey, after all, and often progress happens with baby steps. Equally, climate shadow for businesses should be seen as a start for building a more expansive view. Not a project with an end and a shelf or folder to stick it in.

For example, at Hawkhill, we continually assess the environmental impact of the food we serve. As our latest Climate Action Plan details, we managed to reduce dinner food waste by as much as 30% in 2023. Even though at present emission reduction from minimising waste cannot be proven with calculations, with simple logic it is safe to say a positive environmental impact took place.

2. Choices

An organisation’s values guide its strategy and actions, so a great starting point would be to examine them in depth. At the core of climate shadow for businesses, lies honesty about how the company values resonate within top leadership and how they translate into action.

On decision-making level, examples falling into this “Choices” category could include the extensiveness of vetting suppliers, subcontractors, and partners for their own climate  impacts as well as ensuring any investments and donations align with sustainability principles both in terms of what is being funded and how the partners fare on these fronts. In an ideal world, organisations should be able to examine the climate shadow of all of their stakeholders as they would all have done the same work themselves.

3. Attention

As per our understanding, this could mean how much time and effort a business or  organisation dedicates to genuine climate action, including:

• How much resource the organisation has allocated to climate and environmental work – is it sitting on someone’s table or is it happening on every level of the organisation including strategic and operational decision making, employee education and company culture etc.
• How agile is the shift from reporting and planning to action: Achieving tangible results, large and small alike, including developing practical sustainable solutions that should often be shared and promoted for others to take inspiration from.
• Fostering genuine engagement in public discussions about sustainability and biodiversity loss, with an aim and vision for systemic level change.
• Ensuring that sustainability communications reflect real commitment rather than using the topic for superficial brand lift or marketing.

At Hawkhill, our best recent example of this them is Annu Huotari’s long-standing participation in sustainability discussions. In late 2023, she was honoured to be selected as Visit Finland’s first Sustainability Ambassador – see the video below.

Why climate shadow for businesses is crucial to consider?

The world needs more progressive climate action now and flexible and smart thinking in approaching it. We believe that the concept of a climate shadow could help businesses and organisations to become more sustainable more comprehensively and faster.

For instance, a company selling low-carbon products might inadvertently promote unsustainable consumption patterns. Conversely, a traditional business that invests in employee education around sustainability could create positive effects far beyond its immediate operations.

Here at Hawkhill, we feel sustainable ways have been ingrained in the company culture beyond the values we share. To put it simply, sustainability guides our thinking for absolutely everything we do. Strategic-level objectives are outlined in our sustainability report, but it’s the little things every day that we feel make the difference. They often also save costs, however sometimes sustainability requires value-based choices over taking e.g. the cheapest or easiest route. Check out this Instagram highlight reel for some very concrete examples from us.

Finally, we would like to highlight that besides the global issue of climate change, biodiversity loss – always taking place within local environments – is an equally urgent problem with complex links to climate change. Both have very deep links to local and global cultures, as Pattee explicitly outlines, so we are all challenged to think more expansively and flexibly.

Join the discussion and building new plans

The comprehensive thinking required by climate shadow is undeniably more demanding in many ways than simply assessing one’s own limited domain through calculations and measurements. This article is by no means a ready-made guide for evaluating a climate shadow, but rather, hopefully, a starting point for more discussions.

How could businesses and organisations utilise the climate shadow in a smart way, building on current practices? The annual work of assessments and reporting is already  burdensome to put it mildly, and it shouldn’t be made unnecessarily heavier.

Instead, we’d advocate for a spirit of positive action and collaboration!

Concrete plans should perhaps be co-created on an industry-specific basis. For example, the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, which we have also signed, already incorporates thinking aligned with the concept of a climate shadow.