Without nature, there’s no business. ‘Economically, we need to view natural capital and natural assets at the same level of importance as financial capital,’ says Pavs Pillay, head of business development and marketing at WWF South Africa. ‘Nature forms the basis of our human well-being as well as our economic well-being and resilience.’ In monetary terms, this means that 55% of global GDP is dependent on nature and equates to an estimated $58 trillion per year, according to the 2024 WWF Living Planet Report.

Therefore, regardless of your sector or industry, your business depends on healthy, vibrant, regenerative and equitable natural and social systems, says the Embedding Project, a global public-benefit research initiative that helps companies integrate sustainability into their core operations and decision-making processes. ‘A fair amount of our time at the moment is being spent supporting boards of companies to both understand and deliver on their fiduciary duty to duly consider and integrate material risks and impacts into their core strategy,’ says Jess Schulschenk, the Embedding Project’s partnerships director for Africa and the Middle East. ‘This includes climate risks and impacts as well as a range of other key ESG considerations such as worker rights and well-being, community resilience, nature and the circular economy.’

SA’s private sector plays an extremely important role in mitigating and adapting to climate change as it’s a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and resource use, says Pillay. ‘The private sector has the opportunity to prioritise decarbonisation within their operations and value chains – through cutting emissions, moving to renewables, implementing systems that are energy efficient and influencing their suppliers to do the same,’ she says. ‘Businesses are poised to further influence the broader economy through advocacy and policy building for the Just Energy Transition, as well as through working with NGOs and government to create jobs and further develop the green economy.’

Ndivhuho Raphulu, director of the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC), says the Just Energy Transition presents ‘an opportunity to develop medium- and long-term skills and capacity development support for the transition, the rehabilitation of the mining sites [and the] creation of new economic activities’ outside the mining and fossil fuel industries. ‘These activities require strategic policy development to facilitate and foster changes which influence and manage financial investment that creates new economic activities with more opportunities to make existing employees agile to the new working environment and develop new skills required for the new economy,’ he says.

The excuse that it’s hard to know where to begin no longer holds. Credible guidance is widely available from consultancies, industry associations and non-profits, such as the Embedding Project, whose website offers free resources to guide companies in getting started on their climate resilience strategies. The urgency for climate action is clear, as even companies that haven’t acted on their moral imperative to take responsibility for their environmental impacts – let’s call them the late adopters or reactive players – are now experiencing the very real pressures of investors, customers, the growing carbon tax and communities at large.

‘Businesses that fail to integrate climate measures into their operations will inevitably face significant bottom-line impacts,’ says Lullu Krugel, PwC South Africa chief economist and Africa sustainability leader. ‘It’s imperative that companies build climate considerations into their ongoing analysis of business strategy, assets, workforce and products and services to understand how these areas might be affected if they do not make these critical investments.’

Raphulu agrees. ‘An interesting fact is that prioritising environmental, economic and social issues or simply just identifying and investing in the SHEQ [safety, health, environment, and quality] aspects of industry is no longer a cost since it directly impacts on bottom line issues and profitability of the company due to medical (employees’ health concerns) and legal (cost of environmental rehabilitation) liabilities,’ he says.

On a positive note, PwC’s 28th Annual Global CEO Survey for Sub-Saharan Africa found that investing in climate-friendly initiatives may not only mitigate risks but also drive innovation and unlock new revenue streams.

‘Companies that integrate their transition targets into business strategy and budgeting process lower the risk of being overwhelmed by events around transition, and by being focused on strategic goals, they can manage the liabilities and cost of the transition,’ says Raphulu. ‘These companies are often found to be more engaged in an open and transparent manner with their employees and communities around them,’ he says.

Schulschenk warns that the climate impacts being felt today ‘are just the start of what is anticipated to come. Many companies are currently in the commitment space, but fewer are investing the necessary financial and human capitals required in order to deliver on their transition plans’.

She explains that credible climate action asks for firms to have understood their material climate risks and impacts in their direct and value chain operations, setting appropriate goals and targets to address, and transparently disclosing performance against these. ‘This will require companies to undertake baseline assessments of both their climate impacts (scope 1, 2 and 3 assessments of their GHG emissions) and ideally also climate scenario analysis to determine the anticipated climate impacts on their operations and value chain,’ says Schulschenk. ‘From these baselining activities, companies will be better positioned to be able to set credible commitments (ideally a position statement adopted by the board) and credible goals (taking guidance from appropriate frameworks like the Science Based Target Initiative).’

Science-based targets (SBTs) are measurable climate goals that align with what the latest climate science says is necessary to limit global warming, typically to 1.5°C as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) is a corporate climate action organisation that enables companies and financial institutions worldwide to play their part in combating the climate crisis.

‘Nearly 11 000 companies have either already set GHG reduction targets with the SBTi or have committed to set them, and the number of companies, cumulatively, with validated net zero targets had trebled by the end of Q2 2025 compared to the end of 2023,’ says the SBTi. ‘Science-based targets now cover over 40% of global market capitalisation and a quarter of global revenue. This critical mass underscores how climate goals are rapidly becoming embedded in core business strategies worldwide.’

There’s a growing number of SA businesses on the SBTi list of companies that have set these targets or committed to developing them, including Balwin Properties, BDO, Belgotex, Impala Platinum, Pick n Pay, Netcare, Sappi, Telkom, MTN and Vodacom.

‘We’re certainly seeing a lot more awareness of the impacts of climate change on companies in real time – both acute and chronic – and pressure from investors, regulators and customers to address these impacts,’ says Schulschenk.

‘Most companies have undertaken baseline assessments of their scope 1 and 2 (direct operations) and are moving towards credible long-term goals. We still have a lot more progress to be made on translating these goals into clear decarbonisation and adaptation pathways, the resourcing required in order to enact the transition and clarity on progress.’

It’s tricky to quantify which business sectors show the most momentum in corporate climate action, because this depends wholly on the nature of the business, says Pillay.

For example, a food retailer versus a telecommunications company would have very different GHG footprints, depending on how they do business. Businesses often can’t see their own blind spots, and this is where WWF tries to help them identify these.

‘We’ve worked with a range of companies and sectors over the years and found that while South African companies show a propensity to commit to SBTi, it’s in setting the milestones for the achievement of these targets that poses the real difficulties,’ says Pillay. ‘In South Africa, we have a lack of historical, baseline data as well as the mechanisms to collect such data; we’re missing the assessment stage.’

This lack of data makes it very challenging for many companies to set the right targets and therefore achieve the right goals. WWF helps businesses build these systems through tools such as the Water Risk Filter, where Pillay says ‘we work with businesses to assess and highlight their water risk and dependencies, and this helps them gain a set of baseline data from which to set the right targets’.

Innovative companies are figuring out systemic responses to advance social justice and ecological resilience, looking to decarbonise and adapt to changing climate conditions, says Schulschenk.

She cites the work of Santam’s Partnership for Risk and Resilience as ‘an excellent example’ of a public-private sector collaboration to address systemic climate related disasters such as intensifying fires and flood. ‘The work of the Nedbank Green Trust in partnership with WWF is advancing both large-scale ecosystem restoration and livelihoods,’ she says. Another example is Woolworths’ Water Stewardship Programme, which has supported farmers and the broader communities in critical water catchments to establish water governance and stewardship approaches that are demonstrating significant savings year on year.

 ‘Many of our corporate partners, from retailers like Woolworths and Shoprite, forestry companies like Sappi and Mondi, to a number of others in various sectors, are all on their own journeys to address climate and nature loss through nature positive solutions,’ says Pillay, ‘They do this through various interventions from biodiversity and restoration to water stewardship, alien clearing and projects that positively impact community livelihoods, to name a few.’

 One of WWF South Africa’s longest-running partnerships is with Mondi and has evolved significantly from its initial focus on wetland conservation and water stewardship more than 30 years ago. The forestry company outlined its key sustainability commitments in the Mondi Action Plan 2030 (MAP2030), which includes the objective to ‘maintain zero deforestation in our wood supply, sourcing from resilient forests’.

‘We achieve this through a multifaceted approach that includes upholding a strict zero deforestation policy, implementing comprehensive sustainable forest management, proactive fire management strategies, prudent water stewardship, strategic species selection and genetic improvement programmes,’ says Sandile Ngcobo, public affairs and transformation director at Mondi.

‘Our adherence to international certification standards like FSC provides independent verification that our wood and fibre products originate from responsibly managed forests,’ says Ngcobo.

He underlines that this integrated strategy ensures that Mondi’s forests actively contribute to climate change mitigation by enhancing carbon sequestration, while simultaneously building robust, resilient ecosystems capable of adapting to the escalating challenges of a changing climate.

Without nature, there’s no business, and without integrating climate and nature into strategy, there’s no resilience. Visionary SA companies have acted on this imperative and there’s urgency for everybody else to join them.

By Silke Colquhoun
Image: Gallo/Getty Images