Welcome to “Are You Climate Ready?”

Origins

“Are You Climate Ready?” (AYCR) was originally developed for a niche cross-sector group of companies (known as The Collaboration) interested in enhancing the value proposition derived from their investment in a robust, credible, and reliable environmental management system (EMS/ISO 14001). AYCR was inspired by the need for better disclosure and to enhance the quality of reporting based on the recommended disclosures set by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and related initiatives fostered by the accounting and legal community.

Members of The Collaboration recognized that without the benefit of an EMS, the ongoing weaknesses identified by the TCFD would undermine success. AYCR recognizes the importance of objective evidence to support the quality of reporting so that the financial community can direct investments and offer financing to support those organizations and viable innovations that can make a real difference.

Key Elements of AYCR

AYCR is a systems approach that is comprised of four key elements that are founded on Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge. As such they are designed to be interdependent, and cannot be separated, nor used in isolation.

This synergistic approach addresses the personal climate readiness of employees (AYCR 1) to affect positive spillover into their company’s EMS. Armed with this insight, employees can enhance environmental performance, which in turn can improve financial disclosure to the TCFD and related initiatives from the accounting and legal professions (AYCR 2).

With the objective evidence from their EMS, companies can align their strategy with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the target level and make decisions to leverage proven climate solutions identified by Project Drawdown (AYCR 3). Subscribers share specific data from the three elements that is anonymized and aggregated to provide insight on current strengths and weaknesses, as well as risks and opportunities gleaned from this collaborative effort. This information is shared with Subscribers in a report format. AYCR hopes to provide a dashboard so that as data is uploaded, Subscribers can see the patterns and trends as they are posted.

Value Proposition

The value proposition of AYCR is a product, not a sum, derived from the synergy of the elements of the systems approach we designed. AYCR also reduces time to get results through collaboration, which we view as essential. Pods comprised of 8 to 12 organizations, working together, are encouraged. It is important to emphasize that AYCR is focused on accelerating action to address the environmental impacts and related consequences related to climate change.

We look for patterns and trends. These focus on the habits of people as individuals and what they are doing within their organizations to take action on climate change. We recognize that in order to meet commitments to Net Zero, Carbon Neutrality and other policy milestones, data must be evolved into information, supported by knowledge to enable better understanding, and used wisely to address the challenges we have created for ourselves.

Next Steps and Our Gratitude

Developing AYCR has been a marathon at a sprint speed to get here. We have so many people to thank for their ideas, encouragement, and feedback that brought us to this moment. Many of them are identified in our AYCR Ecosystem, so we invite you to visit.

It’s important to note that our success to help Subscribers and their stakeholders on as we evolve will depend on the collaborative energies and resources of everyone currently involved, and those who subscribe as they understand the value what AYCR has to offer.

We are already working on other tools and relationships with new stakeholders. This for us is a daily task as we understand the critical element of time, and the challenge of delay. Our AYCR Ecosystem is growing daily.

We especially welcome those of you who wish to accelerate the introduction of other time saving tools as a sponsor.

Those organizations that understand how important it is to leverage the power of a systems approach as a Subscriber, welcome!

We extend a special note of gratitude and appreciation to the members of The Collaboration for their support of innovation and the team that invested many hours in helping to develop AYCR.