The outdoor climate innovation guide
Delivering sustainable flourishing lives for
11 billion people with a full impact approach
Mission Innovation NCI/RISE together with leading garments, wardrobes, and flourishing lives experts are co-developing a tool to support companies, policy, and other stakeholders explore an expanded climate and innovation agenda for flourishing lives with the help of a four step full climate impact approach.
Product substitution – better garments and equipment
The product substitution focusses on comparing two products and their impact in society. If the product that a company provides has lower impact than the product it substitutes the product substitution results in a lower negative impact. If a provider of garments, like fast-fashion companies have done, adds to additional garments in peoples’ wardrobes that are not needed it does not matter how sustainable and recycled the garment is, it is still resulting in an increased negative impact in society. This is why garments almost always needs to be assessed on the system, wardrobe, level.
Step 1:
Product substitution
Examples
Measures
- Use climate friendly materials
- Ensure sustainable renewable energy used at production facilities
- Shift to electric vehicles charged with sustainable renewable energy throughout the value chain
- Support low-carbon care, such as less washing and the use of lower temperatures.
Goal
Reduction/zero-emission targets for scope 1-3 emissions.
Data
GHG/Land-use impact
per garment.
System substitution – wardrobes and tools
The system substitution assessment focusses on how the company is contributing to services that are relevant to human needs. E.g. instead of only asking a producer of what they substitute this assessment level requires us to assess what vehicle that the tire will enable and the full impact of that. In the case of a provider of garment this system level can be seen as the wardrobe. Instead of only a focus on individual garments the system substitution assesses what kind of wardrobe the company is substituting. While the impact of the individual garment is part of the assessment, the lifetime of the garment and the size of the wardrobe is also part of the assessment as these two make up the total volume of garments needed (the size of the wardrobe / lifetime of the garments) Hence, a specific garment can have a higher impact than other garments and still be part of a system solution with lower impact if that garment helps reduce the size of the wardrobe and supports a long lifetime of the garment.
Step 2:
System delivering
on human needs
Examples
Measures
- Extend the lifetime of garments/tools with sustainable materials, high quality manufacturing and design/marketing supporting multi-decade use where possible
- Support repair/upgrading
- Design for multi-functionality that allows for reduced overall consumption
- Provide web-tools that allow people to assess their current wardrobe and develop a strategy through buying/renting garments that result in a smart sustainable wardrobe without excess consumption
- Provide demonstration wardrobes based on different lifestyles.
Goal
Affordable and inclusive wardrobes with <10 kg CO2eq/year that are extremely resource and land-use efficient. Ensuring that the wardrobes support sustainable lifestyles that are compatible with 11 billion living flourishing lives on a regenerative planet.
Data
GHG/land-use impact per wardrobe.
Delivering on Human Needs – enabling flourishing lives
A wardrobe cannot be seen in isolation as different wardrobes encourage and enable different lifestyles. This is why a human-needs assessment is also needed. The human-needs assessment focusses on what kind of human-needs that are met with the solutions a company provide and what lifestyles that are encouraged by the company through marketing and other initiatives. Here the garments, and also the wardrobe, are tools to enable people to reconnect to nature and live flourishing lives. As the American Psychological Association have noted: “exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders and even upticks in empathy and cooperation”. From a human needs and lifestyle perspective it is also clear that companies in the outdoor sector are one part of a wider ecosystem that are needed to deliver such lifestyles.
Step 3:
11 billion people
living flourishing lives
Examples
Measures
- Provide guidance and support for experiences in nature and explain how these support wellbeing in contrast to most material consumption
- Support sustainable green spaces in cities where people can connect to nature and enjoy cultural events
- Collaborate with different groups that work with inclusive outdoor activities
- Showcase different people living lives without compromise while keeping their negative impact extremely low
- Moving from selling garments to subscription to sustainable lifestyle support.
Goal
Support sustainable flourishing lives <1000 kg CO2eq/year for different lifestyles and interests.
Data
GHG/land-use impact per person and number of sustainable flourishing life-years.
Marketing – advocacy for sustainable rules, values, and structures of tomorrow
The necessary exponential uptake of sustainable 1.5 °C innovations requires innovation on an unprecedented scale. Rapid emission reductions are needed on a global scale and innovations are required to ensure avoided emissions for future development to allow poor people to move out of poverty. Assessments indicate that the carbon emissions of the richest one percent are more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity.
As the data clearly indicates the global climate work must work on two parallel fronts.
First, large parts of the global population need transformative system innovations in order to urgently move out of poverty and towards flourishing lifestyles while avoiding emission increases.
Second, the affluent population currently contributing the bulk of emissions also need transformative system innovations to deliver the emission reductions needed. Only with feedback loops that help accelerate an exponential uptake of 1.5 °C compatible system solutions is it possible to deliver the extremely resource efficient solutions needed for a future capable of delivering flourishing lifestyles for an equitable future for 11 billion people.
Today, a product or service cannot be assumed to be an isolated phenomenon, as it will affect the surroundings when being used. Deploying innovations will affect different parts of society with some products, infrastructures and institutions being strengthened, while others weakened. Exactly how society will be affected by new solutions is determined by many factors.
Carbon feedback can be categorised into three interlinked strategic parts:
Product feedback
Assessing the products that will be promoted or discouraged by the company.
Infrastructure feedback
Assessing changes in infrastructure that promote or discourage 1.5 °C compatibility due to the company. This includes both the physical and digital infrastructure.
Institutional feedback
Assessing values and regulations and how changes in these will affect 1.5 °C compatibility due to the action by the company.
Step 4:
Shaping the society of tomorrow
Examples
Measures
- Support for concepts like Half-Earth, Ecocide, flourishing lives for 11 billion people and all living beings
- Marketing that supports sustainable lives where the focus is on creativity and care for all living beings, not material consumption
- Invest in work that increases the understanding of flourishing lives where creativity is supported
- Collaborate in clusters to enable new structures that support global sustainability.
Goal
Rules, values and structures in support of 11 billion people living flourishing lives on a regenerative planet.
Data
Human need based data related to new rules, values and structures structures in support of 11 billion living flourishing lives on a regenerative planet.
Download full size version of the diagram
Full climate impact assessment with avoided emissions
City/Region strategy development and benchmarking
Business model development and benchmarking
Full Climate Impact Assessment
Beyond Corporate Carbon Footprints
