Are You Ready For..?

The main question Futerra clients and partners ask us is, “what's new”?

Futerra has an unusual and precious position as both corporate advisor and social activist, trusted by both the change movement and business leaders. Our unique set of relationships grants us foresight into emerging issues that others might miss. It helps that we’re obsessive about our specialist subject, about finding emergent movements and bluntly, about knowing what’s happening with an intersectional lens!

Some of these evolving issues will cause problems and others are potential solutions. None are merely fashions. And Futerrans know about these movements because, almost always, we support them and are directly involved in serving them.

Every one of our clients, friends and partners needs to know what’s coming, and get prepared (as too few were for #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter or #LandJustice)

With the briefness required by a blog – here's a taster of what we're part of:

Younger generations are increasingly resistant to colonial legacies, so they’re helping to raise indigenous voices in land rights, climate, nature-based solutions and IP rights. You’ll hear people and organizations, especially in the US, acknowledge those traditional land rights when they introduce themselves and which “US state” and also “First Nation land” they are in. Although, these aren’t always welcome, or can be seen as merely ‘performative’, especially if made without real consultation or understanding of tribal context.

In the recent IPCC reports and Glasgow Climate Pact from COP26, the necessity to listen to, respect and learn from Indigenous and traditional communities was clearly set. Over the coming months, we expect Indigenous and traditional voices to surge in recognition and impact, as a welcome and long overdue part of the sustainability agenda.

Ask yourself:

- Are you listening to Indigenous and traditional knowledge, wisdom and critiques of your carbon sequestration projects, your sourcing plans and your product development?

- Have you included Indigenous and traditional voices to your materiality processes and stakeholder tracking?

- Do you know where your operations and supply chain affect Indigenous and traditional communities’ lands, rights and customs?

Most corporations today will probably have to answer “not yet” to these questions. It’s not too late and there are real responsibilities and opportunities to engage with this surging movement.

According to a recent survey of nearly 5,700 consumers in the U.S. and Europe, those who are more likely to purchase sustainable products are also more than twice as likely to also shop in the metaverse. Crypto giving, decentralized science, social impact NFTs, regenerative cryptoeconomics, democratizing the metaverse, self-monetization – for many content creators: “Web3 is a social movement.”

Ask yourself:

- Are your sustainability team in the metaverse? Or are only your marketers there?

- When you think of Web3, does your children’s Roblox game or the “regenerative cryptoeconomics” movement come to mind?

- Are “digital carbon footprints” the only Web3 sustainability issue you work on?

Web3 is a new frontier for sustainability and activism. It’s where your future consumers, staff, investors and leaders are stretching their social transformation muscles. It’s worth joining them.

Have you noticed the increasing demands for reparations for forced adoption, horror over forced sterilization, disabled people fighting for access to fertility support, outrage at Black women's mortality in childbirth and building anger at the “population question” in low income farmer communities? The US Supreme Court overturn of Roe versus Wade has recruited legions of people into this growing Reproductive Justice movement.

Justice is a step beyond protecting rights and freedoms – it includes recognizing and recompensing past wrongs. This surging movement brings together disparate injustices into a new demand for change.

Ask yourself:

- Are you incorporating audits of sterilization of supply chain workers (which is an ongoing problem in markets with Modern Slavery concerns)?

- Are you sure your partners (from associations & politicians to suppliers and service providers) aren't preventing birth control or, conversely, taking part in attempts to curtail family size?

- Does your support of abortion rights extend beyond the USA?

This issue isn’t going away, and more concerns will be added to the reproductive justice movement. These are intensely personal and moral topics you must tread carefully and respectfully when developing your point of view and plan.

With the first images from the James Webb Telescope arriving – many of us are looking up. But that’s going to become harder with satellite-light pollution of the night sky. Rocket fuel carbon impact and space junk concerns are sparking a movement to protect our sky as we attempt to protect our planet.

This is still a nascent movement - but one incident (such as when discarded rocket debris crashed into Canada) could tip towards major demands for action.

Ask yourself:

- What's your position on space as a collective commons?

- Do you know how much of your operations rely on satellite data and associated carbon?

This is one of those issues that seem minor right up until they become major. Corporations will be asked for their position as commercialization of space continues apace.

During the pandemic, income inequity gulfed wide – with billionaires edging towards trillionaire status while the poorest fell into subsistence living. From farmer strikes in India to tractor blockades in France - the inequity response is growing fiercer and more furious every day. Inequity isn’t new, but the global networks of activists combating it is changing the game. The resurgence of unionization, demands for pay-gap transparency, government’s falling, windfall taxes, total giving and even re-nationalization of utility companies are front-page news.

Ask yourself:

- To what extent is your business model based on poverty (e.g., margins dependent upon low commodity prices)?

- Could a progressive and public tax policy be worth more reputationally than the payment cost?

- Are you monitoring all pay and benefit gaps (e.g., cost of parenting, employee insurance, non-traditional qualifications)?

Inequity rage can feel like someone else’s problem, right up to the moment it becomes yours.

From LinkedIn adding “dyslexic” as a skill to the “actually autistic” movement of neurodiverse people taking control of their public narrative – neuro-inclusivity is now firmly part of the diversity, equity, and belonging agenda. Around 10 to 20% of the global population has a neurodivergence – that is a huge movement just by the numbers.

Ask yourself:

- Have you explored the potential for neurodiversity to serve your productivity and workplace creativity?

- Do you have a policy to support and enable neurodiversity, commitment to reasonable adaptation, and support for neurodiverse staff networks?

- Does your marketing and advertising include neurodiverse talent as both subject and creator?

Are your processes and culture only designed for neurotypical ways of working?

The terminology of neurodiversity is rapidly evolving as the movement finds its voice. Neuro-inclusivity is a huge opportunity that too few businesses have yet grasped.

These are just a taster of the emergent movements of the 21st century. There already are, and will be, many more. The benefits from engaging with them are growing, and the costs of ignoring them have become all too obvious.

Even within the “sustainability bubble” things are also constantly changing:

- The ESG agenda and sustainability movement decoupling.

- Avoided Emissions from climate solutions soaring up the agenda.

- The new storytelling of climate science emerging,

- New controversies about nature-based solutions beyond offsetting.

- The ongoing Gen Z demand that environmental action includes justice.

- Increasing pressure to check your association’s/partners’/suppliers’ positions.